Smoking Gun Interactive, formed by ex-Relic people, today launched its first installment of the graphic novel series titled “X”. Written by controversial, award-winning author and social critic Douglas Rushkoff, the series is illustrated by Smoking Gun’s lead concept artist Cheoljoo Lee and Younger Yang.

The preview will be delivered over the course of four weeks starting today, and can be experienced online and provides a first glimpse into the universe and characters of Smoking Gun’s as-of-yet undisclosed debut franchise. With a focus on real-world mystery, ancient locations, and deep conspiracy, X promises to explore the secret history of mankind in a way that has never been done before.

As a small, scattered group of people stumble onto the truth, they find that they are too late: every great power on earth has already aligned itself against humanity.  The war is all but over. Their struggle to discover the truth will lead them into a massive conspiracy that predates humanity itself - from the world's most ancient sites to the global centers of power.

For those few brave enough to resist, reckless enough to see, and foolish enough to fight history itself, the war has never been over. For those few, the struggle will not be complete until the old prophecy has been fulfilled:

“FROM OUR BONES WILL ARISE AN AVENGER

FROM OUR WAR WILL ARISE THE TRUTH”

The first novel is scheduled to be released next year and is the first in a series of stories that will continue to expand the X universe.

“One of our main goals as a studio is to constantly innovate in how we tell our stories”, said Smoking Gun CEO and Creative Director John Johnson. “Our perspective is, if you can interact with it, then it can be part of the experience we deliver. And if you cannot interact with it, then we will evolve it to the point where it can be part of our universe. There are no boundaries to where we can go or what we can accomplish.”

"It has been insanely challenging and insanely fun to dive head-first into Smoking Gun's universe," explained Douglas Rushkoff. "And while I work on threading one narrative through this material, other artists are building it out on many other levels, all at once, for different people to engage with in so many different ways.  So for the audience this multi-faceted, multi-media approach brings new dimension to the epic struggle that we're talking about here: nothing short of how humanity defines itself."