Lapse

Lapse was an experimental horror flick I tackled back in the day. It was short (thank God), which was quite necessary, as I was taking on most of the roles of the filmmaking process. It was inspired by the creepy beauty of crime scene photos, and I wanted to try to capture that in the film. Lapse is mostly a combination of beautiful, horrific imagery, sound design, music, and editing; slung together in an attempt to elicit an emotion, versus any kind of narrative whatsoever. It was my first, and in many ways, one of my favs. ( I shed a tear for my film maverick days)

Hope you enjoy. And if anyone that helped out on the film is watching... Thank you, I could not have done it without you.

Peace.

SCREAMFEST!

Screamfest was a lot of fun and the second convention I had attended. It was dedicated to horror and I've got to say it was one of my favorite experiences. We were debuting the 3DDD prequel at the convention, sharing the table with the Students of the Unusual crew. I was also debuting a short experimental horror film called Lapse, which I had filmed and entered in the Miami Short Film Festival that same year. The other thing we were announcing there was our latest project, Chupacabra, which was debuting in Lo-fi magazine that month. Lucky for us, the G4 channel was going from booth to booth looking for someone to interview and they ended up airing our segment!

Tattoo Love Magic

Shortly after MEGACON, Luis was offered a story in an issue of Students of the Unusual. It was written by Terry Cronin, Luis did the illustrations and so I wouldn't be left out, they had me do the lettering. It was another publishing credit and it eventually led to me deciding to adapt the story as a short film for the Students of the Unusual film contest which was held at Megacon the following year. The film was quite an undertaking and an amazing production experience. We entered it too late to win the contest, but it later ended up winning a "Best Cinematography" award at the Melbourne Independent Film Festival.

MEGACON!

We decided to drive up to Orlando to sell our concepts and meet industry publishers. We were peddling Gifted and Carnies and had some 3DDD pages to show off. It was a new experience for me, although Luis had been to the SDCC a few years before. It was a success as we managed to get Arcana to pick up GIFTED. We also met some local guys who were publishing a magazine called Lo-Fi and we met Terry Cronin from Students of the Unusual. All of these people became big figures in our future endeavors as you will see in future posts.

CARNIES

It’s tough enough being a carnival worker. The pay sucks. You have no home. You travel across the country never staying anywhere for more than a week at a time. The way people look at you sometimes, it’s like you’re not even human.

Now imagine being the featured attraction at the carnival sideshow. Imagine being ridiculed and taunted on a daily basis. Imagine being looked upon with disgust, fear, even hate. It comes with the territory. It’s my job, but I don’t have to like it.

It was inevitable that someone would eventually cross the line. Somewhere, somehow it would go too far. Then they would get more than they ever bargained for. And for that one night, it would be us freaks laughing.

But that night cost us our livelihood and the only life we ever knew. Where once we lived out in the open, now we hide in shadows. They hate us because we’re different, because we’re strange. Truth is, we’re more terrible than they could ever imagine.

So begins Snakeman in the prequel issue of Carnies. Also developed as a 6 issue mini-series, we put the project on hiatus due to the release of another book titled Carny. This title will also be included in the anthology book we're developing.

GIFTED

Around the time the 3DDD prequel was out, we had begun developing a couple of other projects we were looking to shop around to different publishers. One of these projects was GIFTED, the first project that sprung out of my mind without the benefit of one of Luis' paintings to inspire me. I wrote it as a 6 issue mini-series. The story centers around a strange young girl named TK who all of a sudden reappears into her brother's life on the first day of his senior year at high school. TK's brother is a model student, captain of the football team and one of the most popular boys in school. TK is dark, eerily quiet and weird. Her arrival causes a stir and turns her brother's world inside out. But there's more to TK than just her strangeness, there's a dark secret from her past. One that her brother desperately wants to keep.

The title was eventually picked up by Arcana Studios and we proceeded to develop it. We had written and edited 3 issues, but could not secure the help with the art that we needed to complete the series.

Plans are under works to finish the first issue of GIfted and publish it as part of a collection of our complete works.

3 Days the Devil Danced

It started out as a project at Grafika Press and grew into a full fledged graphic novel which is actually still in production. [As is most of our work :( ]

Three Days the Devil Danced is an epic story based on a Catholic prophecy about the Three Days of Darkness, the great chastisement that signals the second coming of Christ. A time during which there will be no electrical power and no artificial light of any kind. It will be deathly cold and Hell will be emptied onto the earth. For three days and nights Satan will reign over all of humanity.

Grafika produced a prequel issue that was well received by the comic public and press. The cover by Luis Diaz was accepted into the Spectrum Fantastic Art Annual. We were also among the first to ever create a trailer for a comic book, which you can watch on this post. Click here to download a PDF version of the prequel.

From the provocative cover image to the grunge-realism of the interior artwork, this comic is going for the jugular.

"http://www.brokenfrontier.com"

Remember how you got a cold chill reading Garth Ennis's works with John Constantine? Remember how your skin crawled when The Preacher, Jesse, discovered what was behind the door at the meat packing plant? Well, better up your meds kids cause the Devil is coming to town and he wants to party.

"http://www.horror-web.com"

Fantastic and moody, the art is perfect for the story. The story telling grabs a hold of you and doesn't let go. Prepare yourself for the shockwave that this book will leave in its path.

"http://www.comicmonsters.com"

Download all press and reviews here.