If you follow Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik’s webcomic Penny Arcade, then you’ve likely seen the occasional one-off comic ideas they throw out. Sometimes they allow the fans to choose one to expand into a longer story, but mostly they exist as a single strip which introduces some interesting tale.

One such exploration was the story of a boy named Solomon called The New Kid. The single strip depicts a boy who is being moved to another new school by his father’s job. The final panel reveals, however, that the story takes place on an alien world. The normal ‘fitting in’ struggles of a story like this would likely be greatly amplified by such a setting, and it does seem like the kind of idea that Hollywood could run with.

The optioning doesn’t mean immediate production of course, it just give the studio the rights to think about using it for a time (usually seven years), during which time no one else can do anything with it. If it does get created, I can imagine that it would be a CG animated film in the style already established for it. If the studio is smart, they’ll work directly with Holkins and Krahulik on the film, but there is no word if that kind of condition is part of the optioning.

Either way, it’s an interesting development, and sure to strike chords with many residents of geekdom.