Animated Adaptations Of Indie Comics “Killtopia” and “Chessmasters” Currently In Development

Epic MegaGrants is at it again as the slush fund started by way of Epic Games to spotlight up-and-coming producers to potentially utilize it’s Unreal Engine not just for games, but for animated series as well, has now the second major animated project in development that has been announced this year.

According to Animation Magazine, the series is an animated series adaptation of Killtopia, the graphic novel series from Dave Cook and Craig Paton. The animated series is coming from Voltaku who was awarded the grant and features the likes of Phil Gelatt who is writing the 8 x 20 series with Ruairi Robinson directing and Dave Levy providing concept art.

Killtopia follows a bounty hunter and his robot sidekick through a futuristic megacity as they fight brutal thugs, augmented mercenaries and android assassins in a race to save the bounty hunter’s sister — and the world — from a deadly nano plague. The project will be developed virtually, and will be utilizing the strength that comes by way of the Unreal game engine.

Bleeding Cool is reporting that an animated adaptation of Chessmasters is in the works with Second Sight Publishing and Tygen Network. The comic comes from the late Gary McClendon with the series being written by Bradley Golden and Marcus Roberts in association with Tygen Network producer John Maurice. The Tygen Network is slated to come out for Amazon Fire and Roku by June with the animated series and comic coming simultaneously. A Kickstarter for the animated series was slated to launch yesterday, but that hasn’t come to fruition yet at the time of this writing. Furthermore, there is no website for Tygen Network, no app to download on the aforementioned devices, and even founder John Maurice’s website also appears to be not working.

The project itself, sounds promising. Both the animated series and the comic series is inspired by a black superhero team that moves through time to stop bad guys. The comic’s creator, Gary McClendon, passed away last year due to complications stemming from COVID-19.