Via Newsarama, Oni-Lion Forge Publishing Group are teaming up with Chooseco for a line of graphic novels based on the company’s line of Choose Your Own Adventure books, starting late next year. The first entry, due for release on August 25, 2021, will be an adaptation of C.E. Simpson’s 2014 installment Choose Your Own Adventure/Nightmare: Eighth Grade Witch.
The book will follow Rabbit, a “new kid on the block who enters a ghoulish world of nightmares, witches, and ghosts,” and the creative team will consist of E.L. Thomas (“Rolled and Told”), Andrew Gaska (Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes), Valerio Chiola (“Bulloni”), and Thiago Ribeiro (“Doctor Who: Ghost Stories”).
Choose Your Own Adventure was created by Edward Packard, and began life as the Adventures of You series at Vermont Crossroads Press in 1976. It ran for 184 entries at Bantam Books from 1979 to 1998; Chooseco, which was founded in 2003, primarily reissues and licenses out those books.
Melissa Bounty, associate publisher at Chooseco, said, “Bringing the Choose Your Own Adventure gamebook series to graphic novels has been a challenge we’ve pondered for many years — going back to before we even began publishing independently! It took the experience and muscle of Oni-Lion Forge to crack this one, and we are thrilled with the fresh spin they have brought to our classic books.”
Robert Meyers, senior editor, licensing at Oni-Lion Forge, added, “As a kid who spent hours in the backseat of a car, head buried in Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks, this project is an absolute dream. I’m thrilled to be able to bring the near-endless fun of a classic Choose Your Own Adventure book to a new audience. We’ve got some great titles lined up, and a few surprises as well.”
The next adaptation planned by Oni-Lion Forge will be based on R.A. Montgomery’s 1979 adventure Journey Under the Sea, which revolved around the search for Atlantis.
