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Graphic novel captures ‘Heroes’

The hit NBC series “Heroes” is full of characters that could be torn from the pages of a graphic novel. The odd thing is, except for artwork on the show and a series of online adaptations, there has never been a “Heroes” graphic novel.

That changes this fall, when DC Comics offers a hardcover collection based on a series of 43 comic-book vignettes that appeared on the “Heroes” Web site last season.

The book, which will mark the first time the stories have been available in printed form, will be announced today by Universal Studios and DC Comics at the Comic-Con International convention in San Diego.

In addition to the online strip by artists including Michael Turner, Marcus To, Mitch Gunnell and Phil Jimenez, the book will feature new covers by comic-book superstars Alex Ross and Jim Lee.

For true comics fans, there’s also art by “Batman and Superman” artist Tim Sale, whose prophetic and apocalyptic paintings are used as story devices for many of the show’s cliffhangers.

“It works best when the painting on the show looks creepily like the scene you’ve just seen,” says Sale, who has provided more than 50 paintings for the series.

Sale says he provided illustrations early on to help the series’ creator sell the show to NBC. “Tim Kring is not a comic-book guy,” Sale says. “For all I know, he has never read one. But he has surrounded himself with a number of people who are immersed in it.”

Kring, in a statement, called the DC book “a dream come true.”