Naughty Dog and Dark Horse partner up for The Last of Us prequel graphic novels

Dark Horse Comics and Naughty Dog have partnered up to create a graphic novel series based on The Last of Us, the publisher announced today at New York Comic Con.

The series will focus on protagonist Ellie and her life prior to the game's events. Artwork shown at a panel during Comic Con showed Ellie as a child with a new character, another little girl named Riley, in a crumbling city landscape.

The comics will be written by Naughty Dog designer Neil Druckman and Rachel Edidin, contributing author for Valve Presents: The Sacrifice and Other Steam-Powered Stories. The two hope to explore how Ellie grows into the young women we see in The Last of Us.

"In Ellie's world, when you enter into its version of middle school, you can either choose to become a soldier and go out and fight, or you can say no and go out to fend for yourself with the other survivors," Druckman explained, referencing the post-apocalyptic setting for The Last of Us. "Those are the two ways a teenager can live in this world. Ellie believes there is a third way.

"Ellie is living in a world when she wants to be innocent, but can't be," Druckman added. "She'll find things like a CD player and other pieces of civilization before the game's event. She'll get glimpses of the life she can't have."

Dark Horse will also be publishing the official artbook for The Last of Us.

Additionally, Dark Horse will publish a new set of hardcover Mass Effect comics featuring annotations and commentary by franchise writer Mac Walters. The series will be available for purchase on November 7th.

The company will also publish a third Dragon Age comic series, as well as the North American localization of The Legend of Zelda compilation book Hyrule Historia. On the latter, a representative for Dark hinted that bringing the book to America is "the beginning of a long relationship between Dark Horse and Nintendo."