MOTIONARY COMICS, Page 1

I've been meaning to post the finished results of Motionary Comics 2.0 for some time, but a series of deadlines and technical issues has kept me from it.

But at long last here are the six pages created for the event. All photographs were taken by Kelly Crandall, and if you click on the thumbnail, larger versions will pop up.

You can read more behind the scenes stuff in a series of entries from the first week of this month- Motionary Comics Week, in which the artists, RLSHs, villains and various other angles are discussed.

MOTIONARY COMICS, Page 2

The two panels of Page 2 were split here into two separate pics.

MOTIONARY COMICS, Page 3

MOTIONARY COMICS, Page 4

MOTIONARY COMICS, Page 5

MOTIONARY COMICS, Page 6

People were given the option to vote on the ending by placing money in one of two jars, as seen here. Jar B, the "smiley face emoticon" ending won.



Funds raised for the vote and through other avenues were donated to United Way(www.liveunited.org)and break down as follows-

Silent Auction: $240
Bins placed for simple donations: $17.30
Competitive comic ending: $60.23 ($21.23 for the "Oops, the apocalypse" ending, $39 for "smiley face emoticon" ending)

TOTAL: $317.53

In addition, sponsors Chang Beer donated part of their beer sales to United Way. I have not yet gotten through to a representative to see how much they were able to raise. Hopefully a fair amount- I saw a lot of people toasting each other with Chang bottles!

Sorry, folks...

...due to scheduling conflicts and technical difficulties, the final report and pictures of Motionary Comics will have to wait until Monday. I know, the suspense is killing me too.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

-Tea

HERO PROFILE #70: Crimson Crusader

MOTIONARY COMICS WEEK!

Photo by Kelly Crandall

Operates out of: Milwaukee, WI

Activities: Night patrols, charity events

Equipment: Medical kit, cellphone, "whatever sort of gadgets Blackbird might hand me, working on some myself as well (possibly archery related)"

Quote: "I'm pretty new to the whole mask wearing crowd, but it's been an amazing experience so far. I had ideas of donning a mask and patroling the streets for around seven years now, but it didn't seem like a realistic idea until I heard about RLSH (or X-Alts, for those of you who prefer the newer term)...I have a huge drive to help people in need. Even before the mask, I was often told that I have a 'hero complex.' I've always admired guys like Robin Hood, Zorro, Batman, Green Arrow, etc. The guys without any superpowers that still try to make the world around them a better place. And that's exactly what I'm hoping to do."

Author's notes: Another new hero I met at Motionary Comics and one from my home base, the Milwaukee area!

HERO PROFILE #69: Electron

MOTIONARY COMICS WEEK!
Photo by Kelly Crandall

Operates out of: Madison, WI

Activities: Night patrols, charity events

Equipment: Working on "Hands of Fate"- electrical stun gloves

Quote: "My name is Electron. For three and a half years I've spent my time watching the RLSH movement from afar. The more I watched others living the life I had so longed to be apart of, the more I started to see the state of the world around me. I had always known of the treachery and malevolence that seemed to be seething from everywhere I turned, but until then I had not really seen it."

Author's notes: Electron was one of the new RLSH I met last week at Motionary Comics. Madison isn't very far from Milwaukee so I predict crossing paths with the electricity inspired hero again.

Meanwhile, High Atop Mount Lupus...

MOTIONARY COMICS WEEK!

Superhero comics are not only known for their memorable heroes, but also for their memorable villains. And that was a challenge for Motionary Comics 2.0- we knew who the heroes would be- Milwaukee's Real Life Superheroes, The Watchman and Blackbird. But who would be the villain?

Originally we were going to try to feature actual Real Life Supervillains, like the members of ROACH, making appearances via video and/ or Skype. This idea was fun, but as we ran out of planning time we realized the best option was to create our own fiction villain with the help of an actor.

At a meeting, one of the crew suggested actor Paul Weir to take on the role. After e-mailing back and forth with him, we came up with the mad scientist archetype Dr.Lupus, who had created a gang of werewolves named Team Werewolf in his lair on Mount Lupus.

The next step was to quickly create some short videos that we could project onto the wall throughout the evening that would feature Dr. Lupus threatening the artists, the audience, and of course the superheroes.


Photo by Matthew Miller

There is Dr. Lupus on the "set," a corner of my bedroom/ office. Alexis Hope Ronsmans provided much of the background props and the lab coat for the Doctor and the videos were quickly shot and edited by Matthew Miller of Kopasetic Productions.

Unfortunately, there was some technical problems with the projector, so only the first two (the second without sound) were shown. But! Matt later edited the five short videos together so you can see them all here:
www.vimeo.com/23099256

I wrote the dialog. I tried to stay to standard cliche mad scientist mockery. In one message, for example, the Doctor calls The Watchman "the big red cheese." That is directly from Captain Marvel and is his nemesis Dr. Sivana's favorite insult to hurl.


Created by Leonardo Da Vinci, Lon Chaney, Jr., Dr. Lupus, and Paul Kjelland

One of the most ridiculous props ever made appeared in one of the videos. The "Mona Werelisa" was quickly photoshopped by Paul Kjelland. We actually sold the framed version in a silent auction (benefiting United Way) at the event as well as a couple print versions.


Photo by Kelly Crandall

At 10PM we had a surprise visit- one of Moct's garage doors open to reveal Dr. Lupus and five members of Team Werewolf on the other side! They howled and crept around the bar, handing out "Join Team Werewolf" propaganda flyers.


Photo by Kelly Crandall

The werewolves were played by Jack Packard, Liz Koetting, Danelle Kirschling, Jason Waszak, and David Law (pictured here)and the makeup was expertly applied by Dixie Jacobs.


Photo by Kelly Crandall

We're going to have a werewolf party tonight!


Photo by Kelly Crandall

And here we have the Doctor triumphantly posing next to his 2-D counterpart!

The appearance of the superheroes, villain, and werewolves really made the show a living, 3-D show, and I think the audience was pretty fascinated and surprised. A great performance from all the volunteers!

Art Imitating Life Imitating Art Imitating Life

MOTIONARY COMICS WEEK!

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.

The Art of Motionary Comics 2.0

MOTIONARY COMICS WEEK!

Motionary Comics is the brainchild of Kurt Hartwig and his production company, Bad Soviet Habits. The first round happened a year ago and the comic created was based on the classic tale of "Rumpelstiltskin."

This year Kurt asked me (Tea Krulos) to step into the creative director role, suggesting I do a story based on Real Life Superheroes. Kurt remained producer of the show, and Chad Edwards helped coordinate things as the art director for Moct, the bar that has hosted the event both years.

I selected a few photos here that I hope will guide you through the creative process of Motionary Comics. All of these photos were taken by Kelly Crandall, who worked hard on photos and video (including live, streaming) all evening. You can see tons more on Bad Soviet Habit's Flickr HERE.

11AM:

Here we see (L-R) myself, Kurt and Chad beginning to hang the framework for what will be pages 4, 5, and 6. Each page is approx. 8 feet tall and 10 feet wide. Plastic was hung up to protect the walls from flying paint, then white cloth was stretched and stapled to create a canvas. The next step was to create the individual panels with painter's tape.

5PM:

After a break, our crew of painters, models in full body tyvek suits and two choreographers showed up. I led the choreographers through the storyline, not being very specific, but describing what poses I was looking for on each page. The choreographers helped pose the models, including kids for small panels and adults for the larger scenes. As they held the pose, the paint crew hosed them down with different paint colors to create silhouettes of the pose.

5-7PM:

Here you can see the results of this process on Page 1 and part of Page 2. The crew of painters, models, choreographers, and people shielding with cardboard ("bafflers") slowly worked through the six pages.

7:30PM:

After giving a little time for the paint to dry, the next crew of artists was introduced- the six illustrators. For their first round, they went through and outlined the characters. Each illustrator was assigned to a color. Here we see Dan Hernandez, who got the color green, outlining the comic's villain, Dr. Lupus.

Here we see the illustrators starting to go to town! Foreground to back- Pietro Norante, Matt Chic, Topher Macdonald, and David Beyer, Jr.

8:30(?)PM:

Following the illustrators is the paint crew, who starts coloring in the illustrator's drawings. Here we see Carri Dahl (left)and Andrea Toussaint adding color to Page 1. In a second round, the illustrators add more detail to the background, and the paint crew follows through again, painting the details. And so it keeps going until the art is sharp and finished looking.

9PM:

While this is going on, myself and two of the crew were determining what captions and word balloons were needed and started cutting them out and tacking them to the comic so the artists knew where they would be. Here is the almost complete Pages 4 and 5.

Midnight:

The final step- using two sided tape to adhere the finished word balloons, lettered by myself- to the finished art. Here crew member Derek Castor sticks up the first word balloon of Page 1. The last word balloon was hung about 1:30AM. It had been an evening of a lot of hard work by a lot of talented people.


Tomorrow: Superheroes show up at Motionary Comics!

MOTIONARY COMICS WEEK!

Real Life Superheroes and Event sponsor heroines battle the forces of evil outside of Moct at Motionary Comics 2.0! Photo by Kelly Crandall

Motionary Comics happened on Friday and was a huge success- artists, RLSHs, documentarians, villains, werewolves, and patrons alike all had a blast!

In fact, there is so many great photos and video that trying to cram it all into one post was very intimidating to me. So by the power vested in me as blog administrator, I am glad to announce that content will be added here daily, Monday- Friday.

Monday: Pictures and some talk about the artistic process of the event, and the amazing crews of people working hard throughout the evening to create the giant six page mural comic book.

Tuesday: Pictures of Real Life Superheroes with their 2-D counterparts, some talk of the other RLSHs present, including an account of their Riverwest patrol after they left the event.

Wednesday: Pictures and video of the sinister Dr. Lupus and his Team Werewolf, including a behind the scenes account.

Thursday: Hero Profile(s)

Friday: The six page finished Motionary Comic story itself!!!

Fun times!

MOTIONARY MEDIA

The nefarious Dr. Lupus, rumored to be attending the event.

I think the organizers of Motionary Comics (see previous entry), myself included, were worried that the local media wasn't picking up the story of our interesting and unique event.

"Where's the beef?" I said, using an 80's catch phrase. Well, we ended up doing pretty well. The first entry was a small blurb with a picture in the calendar section of the Riverwest Currents. The weekly Shepherd Express listed us in their two page "pick of the week" spread yesterday. Media sponsors Yelp.com included us as their featured event this week (HERE), and the heroine known as Yelp Girl will be attending the event.

Today we had a triple whammy:

Myself and Moct art director Chad Edwards appeared on WUWM's program "Lake Effect," interviewed by host Bonnie North: HERE

RLSH critics, but also stand up guys, the Milwaukee AV Club gave the event a boost in a write up by Matt Wild: HERE

And also a write up by our friends at Third Coast Digest, penned by DJ Hostettler: HERE

Tomorrow is the big day!

MOTIONARY COMICS IN MOTION!...

Illustration by David Beyer, Jr.

...AND OTHER COAST TO COAST REAL LIFE SUPERHERO UPDATES!

This Friday, April 29, will be a monumental day for local artists and real life superheroes alike. Motionary Comics 2.0 is set to roll. We have a huge crew of painters, wranglers, choreographers, actors, writers, photographers, directors, and lots of helpful people ready to roll and create a giant, wall sized comic mural.

You can get a good run down of the participating artists in a rundown HERE.

The giant six page comic is written by yours truly, Tea Krulos, and will star Milwaukee RLSHs The Watchman and Blackbird. Not only will those two be there, but so will fellow RLSHs Geist of Rochester, MN, Electron, of Madison, WI, as well. There is also speculation that Citizen and Abyss of Chicago and newbie heroes Shade and Crimson Crusader will also be there! That is up to 8 heroes- quite a line up!

Also present will be Matthew Pniewski and his crew, who are working on a documentary about Midwest RLSHs titled More Than Just a Mask.

In writing this comic, I've been using the Marvel style, which Stan Lee describes as a process in which he gave the artists the idea of the storyline, and after they drew it he rolled with the mood of the art and wrote the captions and dialog. The seed of the idea of the storyline actually comes from The Watchman and Blackbird. They were walking through the woods to drop some supplies off at a homeless camp, when they heard eerie noises in the distance. Blackbird remarked that "it sounded like a werewolf."

With the assembled heroes present, we hear that we might be hearing from the comic's supervillain as well, the evil Dr. Lupus, who created his army, Team Werewolf, in his labs high atop Mount Lupus. Hopefully there won't be too much trouble.

In reflecting the charitable nature of the RLSH, we decided we should raise funds for a charity at the event. Producer Kurt Hartwig has a connection to United Way, so we decided to go with that. Chang Beer generously stepped in as a sponsor and will be donating a dollar from each beer sale to the cause (and we're told they are sending their own Chang Beer superheroines!) We are also doing a silent auction to raise money (got something to donate?)

Also, I'm looking forward to the last method we have to raise funds- the ending of the comic story. The audience will be able to vote on the end of the story by putting money into either Jar A or Jar B to vote on the "smiley face emoticon" ending or the "nuclear apocalypse" ending. I got this idea directly from the Batman A Death in the Family storyline, in which DC Comics had readers vote on whether the Jason Todd Robin should be killed off by calling a hotline.

Now some of you readers who aren't from Milwaukee might be like, yeah, yeah, superheroes, werewolves, raising money for United Way- that's all great but I'm (somewhere else). Well, I'm glad to say the whole thing will be streaming live on the internet all evening, so you can take a peek at what is going on and how the comic is progressing. The camera will be running about 6PM--? CST here:
www.livestream.com/motionarycomics

More media on this event should be appearing on this over the week, updates will be posted on this blog as they arrive.

MORE RLSH NEWS

NYI CONTINUES CRAIGSLIST CAMPAIGN

The New York Initiative released a press release that described their Craigslist campaign to reach potential victims of a serial killer called the Long Island Killer. Heroes in the Night first reported on this HERE and since then the story has been picked up by the Village Voice (HERE) and the Daily Mail, which is a British newspaper (HERE)as well as other websites and blogs.

The NYI has a Facebook page HERE where you can find more info and pictures of the group. Updates on the group's efforts will be posted here in the future.

RAIN CITY STINGS HEROIN DEALER

In Seattle, Rain City Superhero Movement members Phoenix Jones and Pitch Black made the news again by apparently capturing a heroin dealer, according to a report by Seattle Crime.com. The report says Pitch Black, who was undercover, was approached by the dealer. He and Phoenix Jones detained the man until police arrived and booked the man with a drug charge. Stay tuned- I'm being told there is possibly video of this. Full story HERE.

XTREME JUSTICE LEAGUE INVITED BY DEPUTY MAYOR TO SPEAK AT PUBLIC EVENT

Mr. Xtreme and Urban Avenger of the Xtreme Justice League, gathered attention in January for handing out flyers and patrolling to try to help nab the Chula Vista Groper, a molester terrorizing women of the Chula Vista area.(which I blogged about HERE) Deputy Mayor Rudy Ramirez has invited the duo to speak at a May 2 "Public Office Hours" in the Chula Vista City Hall. Joining the heroes will be the Deputy Mayor, the Chula Vista Police Department, and a martial arts instructor. Full press release HERE.

MOTIONARY COMICS 2.0 ANNOUNCED...

flyer art by David Beyer, Jr.

...WALL SIZED COMIC BOOK MURAL WILL STAR MILWAUKEE RLSHS BLACKBIRD AND THE WATCHMAN IN A FICTION STORYLINE

Motionary Comics is a collaborative art project to create a giant wall sized comic mural. The first round was held last year and riffed off of the classic fairy tale of Rumpelstiltskin. This year the comic story will be written by Tea Krulos with improvisation by the collaborating artists. The event will be held 5PM until bar close at Moct Friday, April 29.

Chang Beer is sponsoring the event and a percentage of beer sales of Chang (and additional funds raised) will be donated to United Way.

The cast:

Producer: Kurt Hartwig
Creative director/letterer: Tea Krulos
Choreographers: Dan Schuchart and Monica Rodero
Paint crew: Carri Dahl, Andrea Toussaint, and Nathan Stuber
Illustrators: Matt Chic, David Beyer Jr., Christopher Macdonald, Pietro Norante, Dan Hernandez, and Michael Cothroll
Photography: Kelly Crandall
DJ: Dori Zori
Bar coordinator: Chad Edwards

The Watchman and Blackbird both will be making an appearance at the event, and an invite has been extended to other Midwest RLSH.

In addition, there will be a few surprises throughout the evening. The event will be well documented and photos/ video will be shared here in the future, along with media we pick up along the way.