Warren Ellis Writes Comic About Augmented Reality In Invisible Ink

SVK is a new one-shot from Warren Ellis and Matt “D’Israeli” Brooker (along with London design firm BERG).  Ellis describes it as “Franz Kafka’s Bourne Identity” and BoingBoing describes it as “an exploration of some of the terrifying possibilities of ubiquitous augmented reality in comic form, the story of a disgraced spy who is tasked with recovering a top-secret package lost by a military contractor”.
But beyond the story readily visible on the page is a second story revealed with an included UV light.  The UV ink shows what the characters are really thinking, and it also reveals secret messages in the ads (both the real ones and the fake joke ads).  The comic will also include essays from William Gibson, Jamais Cascio, and Paul Gravett on the subjects of comics as art (Gibson), augmented reality (Cascio), and the history of novelty comics (Gravett).
There are several pictures of the comic after the jump, and it’s for sale at BERG for £13 (US $20.83) shipped to the UK or £18 (US $28.84) if shipped elsewhere.  It’s litho printed on silk paper and comes with a UV light source.   As a bonus, you can take the UV light with you on your next hotel trip, shine it around the room, then spend the rest of the night huddled over in the corner of a running shower, trembling in horror and murmuring, “Even on the ceiling. Oh God even on the ceiling.”

[via SVK’s Flickr]

[via SVK’s Flickr]

[via SVK’s Flickr]

[via SVK’s Flickr]

[via SVK’s Flickr]

[via SVK’s Flickr]

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