As I was between assignments in 2007, my old DC Comics colleague Jordan B. Gorfinkel reached out to me about working with his start-up, Avalanche Comics Entertainment. His goal was to produce custom comics for clients or work with them in handling transmedia exploitation of their Intellectual Property.
For the next seven years or so, I worked with ACE on and off, project managing more than anything else. By the time I got looped in, ACE had been percolating for several years with Gorf doing his homework and consulting with Lou Bank, formerly of Marvel, along with his DC alumni Scott Peterson and Darren Vincenzo.
Over these years, I enjoyed the brianfstorming and the possibilites of using graphic storytelling in different ways, It was also fun to work wirth people whose ocmpany I enjoyed at DC. ACE is still around and I look forward to whatever they have coming next.
Michael Midas Champion
As I arrived, he had already written a YA graphic novel, Michael Midas Champion, which Scott Benefiel was drawing. He tasked me to work with Scott, trying to get him to pick up the speed since he wanted a finished book to take to publishers. This was Gorf’s passion project.
The story had a strong anti-bullying theme, something the Gorfinkels hold dearly. Years later, I helped Mrs. G. with an anti-bullying website. After much delay, the book arrived in 2015 and is sadly out of print.
Battle of Destiny
He had also been hired by Crystal City Entertainment to produce a graphic novel about King David, which would be used to shop around for film financing. As I joined, we were hunting for an artist until we settled on Aaron Minier, whom I thought would become a big talent. Chuck Dixon, Gorf’s go-to author, had already written a strong script.
Despite our best efforts, the project unfortunately did not come to fruition. The story, beautifully brought to life by Aaron, was printed by Ape Entertainment as a white label project. Even now, in 2011, the book remains a testament to our hard work and dedication. It’s a regret that this compelling story of Saul and David never made it to the big screen, despite the continued interest in it.
Heroes Happen {here}
By 2012, Gorf had enough irons in the fire that he brought on Sara Jane Askildsen to manage the business and creatively contribute to the projects. At another point, former DC editor Keri Kowalski joine din on the fun.
Around this time, Gorf was also contracted by Microsoft for an ambitious project that would involve us creating a weekly comic strip for six months. But the catch was it needed to be a globetrotting tale that went to specific countries, with an artist from each country producing the work for visual authenticity.
By this point, Gorf had brought on Daniel Gwartz to help grow the business, who was a business development guru working with the business side of Microsoft.
Chuck Dixon did the bulk of the scripting but as Microsoft issues needed addressing Gorf wrote some as did Chris Burnham and Aaron Williams.
Various interns came and went during this period, but the core team continued to locate artists, build a bible, and get started. Finding artists in most places proved straightforward, with Russia being the toughest, although this happened during Glasnost, which helped.
We opened in America with work from Rick Burchett, while Joe Ng took us to Canada; Albert Carreras Guardia and Mateus Santolouco took us south of the border. We had Craig Taillefer and Christopher Gugliotti provide some fillers and brought on Dick Giordano and Adrienne Roy for a one-off dream sequence. Then it was off to merry old England with Adrian Bamforth and on to France with Johann “Ullcer” Leroux. Jeremie Lederman did another interstitial before we went to Bangalore with art from German Torres. Our trip to Russia was handled by Mikhail Ivanov before finishing in Japan with work from Yishan Li, early in her illustrious career.
We hired Chris Studabaker to handle production and marketing materials. He and Rob Leigh, our other DC buddy, did the lettering. I tapped UDON Studios in Canada, who saved my Marvel butt on the Burger King custom work, came in to handle the colors. We got additional help from Brian & Kristy Miller of Hi-Fi.
The Heroes Happen {here} campaign ran on the MS website and was used in their marketing materials. The entire campaign won at least one industry award and it was somewhat nerve-wracking but also tremendously satisfying to see it so well received.
Transformers
Paramount Home Entertainment hired ACE to produce a mini-comic available exclusively at Toys”R”Us, bundled with Blu-ray/DVD combo packs of Transformers: The Last Knight.. Here, I was the project editor, and the finished work looked good (although I had to buy the DVD actually to get a copy of the finished book).
The credits, which were not published, were Jordan B. Gorfinkel, writer; Beni Lobel (who drew my After Earth prequel comic book), artist; Rob Leigh (letterer); and JL Rio (colorist); edited by me and Allyson Gronowitz.
Passover Haggadah
One of Gorf’s creams was a graphic novel version of the Haggadah, the guidebook leading Jewish people through the Passover seder. I was brought in occasionally to help schedule work, oversee some of the production, and keep everyone on track. I was delighted to see the final version see print, an evergreen project that looks and reads great.
And then there was…
There are countless other projects that we pitched and even started working on before circumstances changed. Glancing through the email files, I am reminded of the wide range of work we did for American companies and international clients. The last work I did in development land was probably a silent comic campaign for China’s Alibaba.
Gorf and I did also provide consulting services for comic publishers, but that’s a tale for another day.
#Tags: Aaron Minier, Aaron Willaims, Adrian Bamforth, Adrienne Roy, After Earth, Albert Carreras Guardia, Alibaba, Allyson Gronowitz, Avalanche Comics Entertainment, Battle of Destiny, Beni Lobel, Brian Miller, Chris Burnham, Chris Gugliotti, Chris Studabaker, Chuck Dixon, Craig Taillefer, Crystal City Entertainment, Daniel Gwartz, Darren Vincenzo, Dick Giordano, Hi-Fi Design, Jeremie Lederman, JL Rio, Johann "Ullcer" Lerouz, Jordan B. Gorfinkel, Keri Kowalski, Kristy Miller, Mateus Santolouco, Michael Midas Champion, Microsoft, Mikhail Ivanov, Paramount Home Entertainment, Passocver Haggadah Graphic Novel, Rob Leigh, Scott Benefiel, Scott Peterson, Transformers, UDON, Yishan Li