Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Celebrating 6/6/06 with The Jersey Devil

Just a quickie to note that The Last Broadcast DVD mini-comic/booklet "Jersey Devil" project a team of Year One CCS students and I have labored over throughout May is indeed completed -- and delivered!

Of the 12 pages, we completed a 7-page self-standing mini-comic (color and b&w), two additional pages (a guide to the Jersey Devil sightings and filmmakers bio page, including portraits of directors Lance Weiler & Stefan Avalos), and I also wrote the two-page overview of the film's history and legacy. But it's the comic that the team labored over, and it's a beaut.

Appropriately enough, it was completed in the wee hours of 6/6/06, which is entirely coincidental, unlike today's orchestrated international release of The Omen remake.

I got home at 1:30 AM, but it all got done thanks to the two team members who were still laboring away until 3:30 AM, when they delivered the digital files to the good folks at Heretic -- so, take a bow, project designer Jacob Jarvela and cartoonist/artist extraordinaire Elizabeth Chasalow!

But I don't want to fail to mention the entire team, all of whom fulfilled their creative obligations with style: along with Jacob and Elizabeth, take a bow, Alexis Frederick-Frost, Sean Morgan, Lauren O'Connell, Caitlin Plovnik, Adam Staffaroni, Josie Whitmore -- and we did it all with great scribe work from fellow CCS instructors, novelist Sarah Stewart Taylor and poet Peter Money. Special thanks to Rich Tommaso, too, for letting us incorporate the infamous "Jersey Devil" panel from his published comics story "Satan's Slaves"! It all came together nicely in the end. Everyone's distinctive art styles are evident in the finished product, which you'll all see later this summer when Heretic releases The Last Broadcast on DVD.

BTW, Adam Staffaroni took on the task of lettering the comic, which of course led to a couple of relettering sessions in the eleventh hour (well, actually, closer to the seventh hour), so a special tip of the hat to Adam for fulfilling those duties.

More details tomorrow. BTW, I'm also working with some of the other Year One CCS students on another project, and hope to engage the others in something before summer's out. Anyhoot -- I'm fried and outta here! Toodles, poodles!