‘Emerald City’ And ‘Siberia’ Creator Matthew Arnold To Make Graphic Novel Debut With ‘Eden’

EXCLUSIVE: Matthew Arnold, the creator and executive producer of NBC’s Emerald City and Siberia, will soon unveil his first graphic novel Eden, a sci-fi story exploring a new and controversial approach to incarceration. The graphic novel illustrated by Riccardo Burchielli (DMZ, Highway to Hell) will become available in digital form via Amazon’s cloud-based service ComiXology Originals on March 29. It’s set for publication in print by Dark Horse, the legendary company behind titles including Black Hammer, Hellboy, Sin City and The Umbrella Academy, on July 12.

Eden is billed as a story told in five chapters about starting over. When a new law declares that convicted criminals should be cryogenically frozen instead of jailed, society thinks it has found a more humane way to deal with inmates. But when Anna Craft, a senator accused of a horrible crime, is imprisoned under this new system, alongside her sheriff husband Ben, she will have to face a bizarre and frightening reality unlike anything she’d previously imagined. Upon its ComiXology release, the graphic novel will be available at no cost to members of Amazon Prime, Kindle Unlimited, and DomiXology Unlimited, and for purchase on the Amazon Kindle Store and ComiXology.

“At the heart of this story is an exploration of forgiveness and redemption. In our social media / insta-news world, we can often make snap judgements in the court of public opinion about a person, often times on the worst day of their lives,” observed Arnold. “The question the novel asks is whether true forgiveness can ever be achieved. And do we judge people on their pasts or their presents?”

Arnold is best known for his fantastical NBC drama series Emerald City, which he created and exec produced as a dark reimagining of The Wizard of Oz. He is also known for creating and showrunning the NBC mystery-adventure series Siberia, on which he was also an executive producer and director. Arnold made his feature directorial debut with the 2013 true-life horror story Shadow People and is currently the creator, executive producer, and showrunner for Revenge Inc., an original series in development at Netflix with Dark Horse Entertainment.

Burchielli began his career in 1997, and in 2005 co-created the comic book series DMZ, which was recently turned into a TV series for HBO. In 2010, he co-founded Italian Job Studio, a creative collective active in the television and cross-media production field, that same year seeing his works exhibited at the Cité dell’Architecture in Paris alongside those of Moebius, Bilal, Lorenzo Mattotti, Winsor McCay and Frank Miller. Burchielli has also lent his talents to comic series including Highway to Hell and Dylan Dog, and collaborated with such brands as Ferrari and BMW Motorrad.

Arnold is represented by APA, Good Fear Content and Behr Abramson Levy Johnson.