The recent news of Guy Ritchie working on a new film wasn't welcomed with such excitement as one might, or might not, expect. There's a new story out about Ritchie though, and how he is going to bring new projects to film, through comic book stories that he will be producing.

Guy Ritchie is putting his name to a comic series from Virgin Comics called Guy Ritchie's Gamekeeper. The story is already close to being signed up for a film deal he says, and this isn't going to be the last.

In an interesting story over at LA Times he says that originally this story was to be only five issues, but that is set to go on after his knowledge of the story has evolved.

It tells the story of a Chechen hunter named Brock who comes across Russian agents torturing a foreigner. He steps in and saves the stranger, but this leads to the death of his own son and his own seclusion. He heads to Scotland and becomes a Gamekeeper on an estate, culling deer, warding off poachers and protecting his employer with a secret tied to those terrible events.

The first episode of the comic is available to read online, digitally, and it looks gorgeous. You can see it over at Virgin Comics by selecting Digital Comics from the menu.

Ritchie goes onto say that this comic acts as the storyboard for the film and the story says he believes...

...this is the first step in his plan to use comics to shape and launch his films.

Perhaps his best quote though is the following...

"The irony is there has been more interest in this from movie studios than anything I ever did before"

Yes, well that's because comics are hot property just now. However judging by the look of Gamekeeper I might actually feel quite positive about this from Ritchie, moreso than the previous film project he's touting.