Starz' anticipated gladiator drama "Spartacus: Blood and Sand" is due on the smallscreen by 2010. Hailed as one of the most realistic depictions of Roman gladiator life, the series has also spawned a Graphic/Comic book series.

Devil's Due Publishing and Starz announced today their collaborative launch of the comic book mini-series this October based on the network's upcoming series "Spartacus: Blood and Sand."

Award-winning producers/filmmakers Rob Tapert, Sam Raimi and Joshua Donen will serve as executive producers on the program, along with Steven S. DeKnight, who will also be the show's head writer.

DeKnight spoke with Monsters and Critics at the winter TCA press junket in January about "Spartacus," and what to expect from the smallscreen series.

"We're not going for horror movie brutality...Much like '300', there was a certain visual beauty in the way they shot it. So, it is almost an era of violence. It is an ode to violence when the fights actually happen. We are definitely not shying away from it."

"The other part of this is the sexuality of the times, it was very different kind of sexual feeling, particularly with the slave class where it was completely acceptable to have sex with your slaves, even inside a marriage. Usually it was fine for a man to have sex with female slaves and sometimes the male slaves. It was a little bit trickier for the women, but we don;t want to shy away from either the violence or the sexuality of the period. We're trying not to put it on screen just becasue we can. We want it to come from the story that if this story leads us to an extremely violent incident, we want to be able to show it and the same thing sexually."

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