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Alyssa Milano Is So 'Obsessed' With Anonymous She Wrote A Comic Book About Them
Alyssa Milano is releasing a comic book called "Hacktivist" (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images)
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Alyssa Milano is a busy woman. Aside from shooting two TV shows, running a clothing line, being involved in humanitarian efforts and being a mother to a 2-year-old, she's releasing a comic book.
Yes, Milano has now crossed over into the graphic-novel world.
The former Charmed actress, who's been in the celebrity business since she was a child (remember Who's The Boss?), is releasing the first issue of her comic book, Hacktivist on Archaia Entertainment/Boom! Studios. She's even doing an old fashioned comic-book signing at Collector's Paradise in Pasadena on Jan. 24 for her L.A. release party.
Hacktivist follows characters Ed Hiccox and Nate Graft as the co-founders of a fictional social media networking company called YourLife, who just also happen to be the leaders of the largest hacking group in the world, sve_Urs3lf. Think Twitter-meets-Anonymous.
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Milano came up with this concept two years ago and is the driving force behind the plot. Her team includes artist Marcus To (who is the monthly Batwing artist for DC Comics) and writers Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly. They've already finished writing four issues.
"I became obsessed with the role social media was playing in social issues throughout the world and how it was being used as a tool to get people motivated and basically organize for these protests all over the world," Milano tells LAist. "I then became obsessed with Anonymous and what they were doing and how hacking seemed to be its own type of warfare—sort of the freedom movement of the computer world where they were really trying to do what they could possibly do to make the world a better place in their view."
She came up with the idea for the book by asking: what if Anonymous was really just one guy using the group as a front? He would have to be a coder, well-read on social issues, compassionate and passionate about social topics. Milano decided the leader would be based on Twitter founder Jack Dorsey; he also happens to be a real-life friend of her family.
"[Hacktivist is a] time stamp of where we are, not only the role computers and social networking play in our daily world, but also in the big global scheme of things," she says.
Milano is a fan of graphic novels and was surrounded by them growing up since her brother, who is 10 years younger than her, is such a huge fan of the medium. She felt that a comic book would be the best vehicle to tell the story for Hacktivist since she has "no boundaries" that she otherwise would face with TV and film.
You can browse the first few pages of Hackivist here:
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