Alabama-based publisher 12-Gauge Comics is adapting bestselling crime novelist Ace Atkins’ four Nick Travers prose works into graphic novels. The house will release the first of the graphic novels in Spring 2017.
12-Gauge has already adapted and released Last Fair Deal Gone Down (with artist Marco Finnegan), which is actually a short story about the mysterious death of a New Orleans saxophonist. The story was originally written about 25 years ago by Atkins and introduced the Nick Travers character, a former pro football player turned tough-guy college professor. The graphic novel version of Last Fair Deal Gone Down was published in April and sold-out the first printing, according to 12-Gauge publisher Keven Gardner.
The first of the three full-length Nick Travers novels is Crossroad Blues, Atkins’ southern homage to Dashiell Hammett; it’s followed by Leaving Trunk Blues, about a blues singer convicted of murdering her lover/producer; and Dirty South, a novel set in New Orleans that brings together shady characters from the blues and hip hop scenes. 12-Gauge will release one Travers book a year.
Gardner said the April release of Last Fair Deal Gone Down was a test that proved there was an audience for the series. “Ace has a following in [traditional] bookstores and they really supported the book,” Gardner said, noting that it was evidenced in how quickly that first print run sold out. Once the three Nick Travers graphic novels have been released, Gardner said he expects to continue to work with Atkins to publish original graphic stories based on the Nick Travers character.
