Pantheon has announced a graphic novel composed entirely of stills from the forthcoming animated motion picture based on A Scanner Darkly, Philip K. Dick's haunting novel of addiction and corporate corruption set in Orange County in a drug-addled near future.  Innovative filmmaker Richard Linklater (Slackers) has written and directed the film, which stars Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey, Jr., Woody Harrelson, and Winona Ryder, and which utilizes live action photography overlaid with an advanced animation process known as 'interpolated rotoscoping.' The result is a visually striking film, which Pantheon has turned into an equally striking, fumetti-like graphic novel with dialogue by the American Splendor creative team -- Harvey Pekar, and Laura and Gary Dumm.

Philip K. Dick, who died in 1982, is clearly one of the finest science fiction writers of the 20th Century.  His novels and short stories have also formed the basis for a number of extremely interesting films including the genre-defining Bladerunner (1982), Total Recall (1990), and Minority Report (2002).  Linklater's film of A Scanner Darkly is slated for release by Warner Independent Films in March of 2006.  Vintage Books is reissuing A Scanner Darkly (Dick's best-selling novel) in February simultaneously with Pantheon's publication of the full-color A Scanner Darkly graphic novel (cover price: $15.95).