Croix-Noire is a unique multimedia game that is a graphic novel, game, and album simultaneously. The game launches today, 1st April 2022 in seven monthly comic issues. Created by big names in the comic, game and music industries, the dangerous world of Croix-Noire will take the form of a 140-page graphic novel.
In addition to being a graphic novel, it is a game hosted on the Roblox platform and a full-length music album. Before the launch of the album on 1st August later this year, each issue of the comic will coincide with the release of one new track from the album of the first single ‘A Whole New Day’
The idea of Croix-Noire formed when a 2020 meeting between top singer-songwriter/producer Mike Batt and singer-songwriter/entrepreneur Jean-Charles Capelli led to a chain reaction in which Emmy-winning writer and novelist David Quantick, legendary Marvel/DC comic artist Mike Collins (Spiderman, Superman, Dr. Who) and executives from leading online games corporation DUBIT (Disney, Brit Awards) created a dramatically interlinked world starring hypersensitive, reluctant protagonist Ace Hansel Jr.
Mike Batt had this to say about the main protagonist,
Ace Hansel Jr is a fictitious, B list, capeless superhero. He lives in and looks after a dark and dangerous world based on a real French red light district familiar to Jean-Charles. When the two met, Batt was struck by the unusual imagery in Capelli’s notebook and the duo used these pages as direct inspiration for the project.
Singer-songwriter and the voice of Ace Hansel Jr, Jean-Charles Capelli also had his say,
Everyone has a place they return to in their dreams. It might be real or imaginary. It might be a mixture of the two. You might spend the rest of your life trying to work out why you keep going back there. For me, Croix-Noire is that place. Every song on the album is either about, or inspired by someone in my life, either just as they are, or as developed in David’s novel. At the same time, David was feeding off our album ideas to write the novel. It was a fascinating process.
Ace comes equipped with the means of manipulating emotions using new and unique technology, enabled by his senior-citizen sidekick, inventor, and strategist, Colonel Talbot.
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