Marvel Comics has announced a 'fully painted illustrated prose project' that teams writer Greg Rucka with artist Yoshitaka Amano.  Amano will provide the fully painted illustrations for a story by Rucka that will bring together two elemental forces in the Marvel Universe, Elektra and Wolverine. Elektra/Wolverine: The Redeemer is the title of this project, which is just the latest in a growing list of manga and anime-influenced comics (see 'Is Manga's Influence On American Comics Growing?').

 

Marvel Editor Jenny Lee convinced Amano to do the project by showing him Frank Miller's original images of Elektra and stressing the character's martial arts training and background.  Amano provided the illustrations for a similar illustrated prose volume for DC, Sandman: The Dream Hunters, which was written by Neil Gaiman. 

 

Elektra/Wolverine: The Redeemer will originally appear as a three-issue bookshelf series, but it is a project that is clearly intended for trade paperback publication and sales in mainstream bookstores as well as comic and pop culture shops.  Marvel is clearly going to leaven its trade paperback output of collected comic issues with an occasional illustrated prose project like Elektra/Wolverine: The Redeemer.