Once we had established Motionary Comics 2.0 would be about Real Life Superheroes, I had to think about what kind of story I wanted to write. I had thought about doing something non-fiction, but then decided fiction would be more fun for the artists and everyone involved.
Since the story was six pages, I decided to focus on the Real Life Superheroes most well known in Milwaukee- The Watchman and Blackbird (although I added a last minute cameo appearance by Geist of Rochester, MN in the beginning of the story)- we added an open invitation to Midwest RLSH to attend the event and meet the artists and audience. And so we had a crew of six RLSHs for the largest Wisconsin team up to date- The Watchman, Blackbird, Geist, Charade, Electron, and Crimson Crusader.
Here are some pictures by Motionary Comics photographer Kelly Crandall.
The Watchman and I checking out the scene.
The Watchman copying a pose from his comic counterpart.
Geist and Blackbird.
This was my first time meeting these two RLSH- Electron, left, of Madison, WI and Crimson Crusader of an undisclosed Milwaukee suburb.
And here's Milwaukee's newest superhero, Charade. I didn't even get a chance to meet him, or if I did it was in a blur of lots of activity!
Geist casts his vote on the ending of the comic.
We also had some non-RLSH heroes at the event- Chang Beer was a sponsor of the event, and agreed to donate a percentage of beer sales to the charity we were fund raising this evening, United Way (who also had a table set up) and sent the mighty Chang Beer Girls to represent!
Yelp.com acted as a media sponsor and tabled at the event with their representative dressed up as Yelp Girl!
The RLSHs hung around, posing for pictures and answering questions from curious audience members, and also shooting interviews with Matthew Pniewski for his RLSH documentary titled More Than Just a Mask.
After awhile though, they wanted to get out of the crowd so they could have a chance to talk and patrol the streets of Riverwest. They started by taking a trek into the woods to drop off supplies at a homeless camp, then started on a patrol of the Center Street area. It was pretty quiet, The Watchman tells me. At some point, the group encountered some gang graffiti.
Combating gang graffiti is a major mission for Geist, so he reached into his duster jacket* and grabbed a can of grey spray paint and painted over it. This attracted attention from a nearby house party (sounds like it might be the famous punk house known as The Vault) who called the heroes over. A massive crowd from the party gathered to talk with the heroes. Finally the heroes thought the volume of the crowd was becoming a nuisance, so they said good bye and continued the patrol.
Tomorrow: Villainy!
*Earlier in the evening Geist had also pulled a green smoke emitting smoke bomb from his jacket to use as an effect for our group photo shoot as seen HERE.
One is waiting for Tomorrow then!
ReplyDeleteGo Dr. Lupus and Team Werewolf!
-Lord Malignance