Jim Balent is an American comic book illustrator from Pennsylvania. He is perhaps best known for his long run on Catwoman between 1993 and 1999. Balent has also drawn Batman and Lobo for DC Comics, as well as some of the issues of Purgatori for the independent comic publisher Chaos! Comics.  In 1999, he left mainstream comics to form his own company, BroadSword Comics, which publishes Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose. Balent writes and draws Tarot himself. In an interview with comic book website, Project Fanboy, Balent spoke of his interest in both entertaining as well as educating his readers about the folklore and actual theology of Wicca and witchcraft with interviews with leading witch authors and spells from witches around the world. The main characters of the series are often nude.

Channing Tatum Explains Why His 'Raunchy' Gambit Film Was Never Made
Channing Tatum credits Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox as one of the main reasons his Deadpool-esque Gambit standalone film wasn't made.

Channing Tatum has revealed more details about why the "raunchy" Gambit film he and longtime producing partner Reid Carolin pitched to 21st Century Fox was never made.

"The studio really didn't want us to direct it," Tatum told Variety. "They wanted anybody but us, essentially, because we had never directed anything."

The actor added that his Gambit script featured a similar tone to the Ryan Reynolds-led Deadpool films, as well as explained he was so excited about the direction of the film that he was willing to let someone else direct it.

"They would call [the character] 'flamboyant' in his description. I wouldn't — he was just the coolest person. He could pull anything off," Tatum continued. "Most superheroes, their outfits are utilitarian. Batman's got his belt. Gambit's like, 'No, this shit's just fly, bro! This shit walked down the Paris runway last year.' He's just wearing the stuff that's so dope because he loves fashion."

Fans will recall that the mutant Gambit was first portrayed by Taylor Kitsch in 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a casting that wasn't received well by X-Men fans. While it was reported in 2014 that Tatum had signed on to take over the role in a planned standalone film, the project was delayed multiple times. Fox ultimately scheduled the film for release on March 13, 2020, but development was put on hold due to Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox. After the merger was finalized in 2019, Gambit was one of the first projects to be scrapped.

"Once Gambit went away, I was so traumatized," Tatum explained, noting that the blow caused him to avoid all superhero films. "I shut off my Marvel machine. I haven't been able to see any of the movies. I loved that character. It was just too sad. It was like losing a friend because I was so ready to play him."

Prior to the film being pulled by Disney, Dark Phoenix director Simon Kinberg expressed interest in seeing the Gambit film be made post-merger. "I love the idea of Channing [Tatum] playing Gambit," he said at the time. "I think we have a great script for it and I think it's a role he was born to play. It's a character I grew up loving and I know the fans love. So I suspect, I hope it will happen."

Director Rupert Wyatt, who was at one point attached to helm Tatum's Gambit film also revealed in 2019 that the project was postponed back in 2015 because of the poor performance of Fantastic Four. "We were close, I believe 10 weeks away. It simply came down to budget. There was not enough," Wyatt explained. "You know all too well about the politics of the business. Fantastic Four had been released by Fox a month before and had not gone well for them, so our budget was slashed quite considerably. The inevitable, from my perspective, was, 'Well then we need to rewrite the script to tailor to our budget,' but we were too close to a start date for Fox to really want to go there, so, unfortunately, it just didn't work out."