Vinnie Jones is attempting to leave behind his reputation as a thuggish footballer, best known for his unorthodox marking of Paul Gascoigne, by rebranding himself as a comic book hero.
The former Wimbledon midfielder, whose notoriety reached its peak in 1988 when he was photographed on the pitch grasping Gascoigne’s groin, has lent his likeness to a character in a graphic novel.
Jones, 45, is the model for Jake Noble, an international superspy created as part of a comic book series by Howard Chaykin, an established comic book artist who has done artwork for mainstream titles such as Wolverine and The Punisher.
Jones’s character is depicted on the front cover of the comic carrying a drink in one hand and a revolver in the other while flanked by a pair of gun-toting women in skintight clothing. The premise of the story is that Noble is a violent government agent who is forced by his boss to work with two female agents chosen because they are his illegitimate daughters.
The comic, the existence of which was first reported on bleedingcool.com, is designed as the basis for a series that would be Jones’s debut as a television actor. Jones, who is taking part in the reality television series Celebrity Big Brother, has forged a second career as a supporting actor in big-budget Hollywood films such as X-Men: The Last Stand.
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Alex Cole and Seth Howard, who are developing the story for television, said that part of the reason he has taken part in Celebrity Big Brother was to raise his profile for the Noble project. Mr Howard said that the comic was intended for release this year to create a buzz before the television series. “We want to have it out there building a fanbase, so that fans are almost drooling,” he said.
Chaykin said that Americans would not find Jones’s portrayal of a hero jarring because they are not familiar with his reputation as a villain on the football field. “I’m not aware of him as a footballer, but I was aware of him for his movies,” he said. “Men like Vinnie because they want to be him. Women like him because they want to be with him.”
The series is yet to find funding, but is envisioned as a British and Canadian co-production that would be made independently and sold to television networks in Britain and North America. It would be a 22-part series with a reported budget of about $2 million per episode.
Jones said he was attracted by the prospect of playing a hero. “I never really thought of TV before as a medium for me. However, with it becoming such a source of creativity these days, and this project with its modern Bond style and feeling to it, I couldn’t resist.”