Purgatory Comics

As I might've already mentioned (I forget), the name of the store in the movie is "Purgatory Comics." Here's a logo that'll pop in in the film, courtesy of Vinny Bove.

Already got the T-shirts and stickers in the works. As Mel Brooks once said in his classic movie...Merchandising! Merchandising! But seriously folks.

A little more Ace

I'm not sure if this piece of art is going to make it into the film, but I couldn't resist recreating the gayest finest World's Finest cover ever:

So now here it is with our friend Ace Amoeba. If this image goes to print, I'm going to put it on deteriorated, wrinkled paper like you see above to recreate that really old comic look. No way a copy of Ace like this would be in mint condition.

Once again, Raphael Rivera drew Ace while I did the rest. I wouldn't consider it finished at this point. Really I'm just working on art right now to procrastinate doing some paperwork that I should be taking care of right now.

Stupid paperwork.

Vinny Bove to be in film!

Vinny Bove was actually cast last week, but here at last is the official announcement. Vinny will play the role of Danny, the ex-boyfriend of Cola who is also a graphic designer. In real life, Vinny actually is a graphic designer (amongst other things)...in fact, he did the design for the comic book store "Purgatory Comics," and he's got a few other design projects on his plate for us. He's been invited to post here so I'll leave it to him to tell a little bit more about himself. This leaves one major casting announcement left to be made!

Robert Socci is . . . Peter Whales!

"Before he did Ace Amoeba, he was a major player in the bronze age of comics . . . fighting to keep the comics fresh without bowing to the censorship of the comic code authority. The man has over fifty titles under his belt for all major labels." -Evan

Robert Socci has been cast to play legendary comic book writer/artist Peter Whales. Tonight we did a mini-rehearsal with him, Angela, and Jonathan.

All three of them did great tonight, natch. Next week we practice with Robert again, and by that point, it will be FREAKIN' AUGUST. I'm starting to freak out a little on how little time we have left. I've still got so much to do. At least the rehearals have been going well and I can't wait for the first complete cast rehearsal on August 11.

Some rehearsing pics

Tonight we had a little rehearsal with Angela and Jonathan at my place. It got me really pumped to see the script come more alive, especially seeing the Berner character in action for the first time. Jonathan had me cracking up more than a few times. Angela also brought new levels to Cola, who is shaping up to be a complex yet lovable character. Here are some pics from tonight.

That first picture's just kinda like..."wow, this is the movie I agreed to act in?" Anyways, a great time was had by all. Come back tomorrow for pictures from the next rehearsal, as well as an official casting announcement for a few more roles. See you then folks!

First look at Ace Amoeba!

You're not even reading this. You're scrolling down. Anyways, here it is! In the movie, Ace Amoeba is a silver age comic book hero created by critically acclaimed writer/artist Peter Whales. Ace is one of the many "made-up" characters custom made for the film.

The original design for Ace was whipped up by me using the superhero generator and Photoshop. I sent the design to artist Rafael Rivera with instructions to have Ace mimic some popular comic book covers from the past. Here's one that I sent him:

He drew some good poses up and sent them back to me in Photoshop files. I then took his Ace poses and created the rest of the comic book covers. Here is one of Raphael's images in its individual layers:

Here is the comic cover I did in Photoshop. I'm still going to tweak it before it goes to print, but I figured I'd show it since I keep promising artwork in this blog:

Hope you like it! Of course, I wasn't trying to make it exactly like the Superman cover, but you get the point. By the way, that's a Paramecium in the upper-corner. You'll see more of him on future covers. And wait until you see what other covers we're whipping up. Very exciting stuff!

Today I got to familiarize myself with the set and explore the space (insert cowbell) followed by another read. This one was less focused on a simple read and more emphasis on delivery. Everything is really beginning to materialize now and Nicola is coming into her own.

As you can see, YES research can be fun! A little bit of goofing off and a lot of red eye.

Of all the important lessons learned today I think the pinnacle would be Ralph learning to never get into a car with me behind the wheel again. Mwahahaha!

Even MORE casting news!

Here are a few more lovely headshots for you folks. The first is Alex Adams, who will be playing Ray in the movie. Ray is a friend of Evan's and an über fantasy/sci-fi fanboy. The next picture is April Simpson, who will be playing the part of Mia. During a subplot in the film, Berner is revealed to have a crush on Mia and after years of waiting, he finally makes his move. And the third pic is Atoki Ileka, who will be playing the role of Andrew, and who is somehow connected to Mia. It'll be great to have these three on board and right now I'm more excited about this project than ever.

At this point there are still three vital roles I have yet to cast: Danny, Zomby Gal, and Peter Whales. I'm hoping to contact my actor preferences this weekend, so hopefully you'll get to see one last major casting announcement in the very near future.

More casting news!

Here's a little more casting news (with even more to follow very shortly). The two male leads have been picked! Timothy Kelly (first pic) will be joining our production and playing Evan, the owner of the comic book store where most of our story takes place. Also cast is Jonathan Zungre (second pic) as Mel Berner, a patron of the comic store who takes to Cola as somewhat of a surrogate mother. Both Timothy and Jonathan have been invited to post their own thoughts on the production in this very blog whenever they want. They also both happen to be real-life comic book fans, so the on-set conversations are going to be awesomly dorky between the three of us, I'm sure.

Right now I'm working mostly on some of the art pieces and props that will be involved with the production. You'll see some of that in the very very near future. As Angela wrote below, we've been working on bringing the character of Cola to life, and her commitment to perfecting this has been nothing short of awesome. Stay tuned!

You get the *squish* just like grape

It's been 3 days since the reading with Ralph and I've since had a thorough read myself. I laughed my ass off. Since a good portion of that took place in the gym I'm confident that I secured my place as runner up for the gym nut. Rightfully so, you should see who got first place. Let me put it to you this way if wearing a speedo over sweat pants ever hits the streets this guys gonna be the bell of the ball!

I'm so excited to be part of this project. From the moment I did the cold reading I knew it was something I had to be part of. I can't wait to torture meet the rest of the cast and I'm counting down the days until filming!

The lead is cast!

Tonight, Angela Benedict has officially signed on to play the part of Nicola ("Cola") in Bagged and Boarded. She received her copy of the script and we did a cold read-through so she could familiarize herself with it. The good news is that I caught her laughing a few times, so I think the story is on the right track. The better news is that Angela is multi-talented in the world of fashion, modeling, and of course acting and her great personality will add much to this project.

A handful of people have been notified for other roles (and they've happily accepted), but I don't want to make any announcements about those parts until they've officially signed the dotted line.

In other news, I've recently acquired BaggedandBoardedMovie.com, but nothing will be there for some time. We're building a cool-ass site that will feature all of the awesome news on this project. I've also commissioned some new graphic design artists to lend their work to the movie. I'll post some new designs in the near future.

Auditions

We held auditions over one weekend: July 7th and July 8th. Originally I had wanted to do them the 7th and 14th, but the hotel meeting room we used wasn't free on the 14th. For future reference though, I'm not going to put them all in one weekend. Some of the people I wanted couldn't make it the one weekend I had, which was rough. But the ones that I did get to schedule (and the ones that actually showed up) were awesome. Here's the first of hopefully many "video diaries," which I call "Side Panels."

As you can see, Saturday was a much more successful day than Sunday (which is odd because so many people wanted to be scheduled on Sunday instead of Saturday). I want to thank Howie, Shane, Laura, Winnie and Steve for being such a tremendous help and taking time out of their weekends to lend a hand. As for me, I have some difficult casting decisions ahead of me...