Universal and Planetwide Media Launch Smokin’ Aces Digital Comic Book

Universal Pictures launched the Smokin’ Aces Digital Comic Book yesterday. The comic includes six stories written by Smokin’ Aces’ writer/director Joe Carnahan, with illustrations by IDW Publishing. The 30-page Digital Flip Book was created by Planetwide’s Comic Book Creator and has the realistic feel of a comic in digital format. Its pages peel over to illustrate storylines featuring characters from the film. The Smokin’ Aces comic, along with a selection of user-generated digital comics, can be viewed and shared through Planetwide’s Digital Media Reader at www.Hypercomics.com, the company’s social community for comic book creators and fans of comics.

Smokin’ Aces, with an incendiary array of stars – including Ben Affleck, Andy Garcia, Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven, Ryan Reynolds, Peter Berg, Taraji Henson, Chris Pine, Martin Henderson, Jason Bateman and, in their motion-picture debuts, Alicia Keys and Common – comes to theaters nationwide on January 26, 2007.

In these interlocking tales of high stakes and low lifes, Mob boss Primo Sparazza has taken out a hefty contract on Buddy “Aces” Israel (Piven) – a sleazy magician who has agreed to turn state’s evidence against the Vegas mob. The FBI, sensing a chance to use this small-time con to bring down big-target Sparazza, places Aces into protective custody – under the supervision of two agents (Reynolds and Liotta) dispatched to Aces’ Lake Tahoe hideout.

When word of the price on Aces’ head spreads into the community of ex-cons and cons-to-be, it entices bounty hunters, thugs-for-hire, smokin’ hot vixens and double-crossing mobsters to join in the hunt. With all eyes on Tahoe, this rogues’ gallery collides in a comic race to hit the jackpot and rub out Aces.

Available at the film’s official website, www.SmokinAces.net, the comic may now be viewed and downloaded by fans of the upcoming feature film Smokin’ Aces, in theaters January 26th.