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.

Grafika Press

Soon after the well received Tales of The Inner Sanctum book, we were contacted by Mark Matlock and invited to join a creative collective known as Grafika. The goal was to form a new independent comics studio and publishing entity. Needless to say, we were stoked. There were quite a few established names on the roster and a whole slew of talented unknown artists and writers. We saw it as a way to continue to build credibility and get a foothold in the business. We began a project which started out as a few thoughts in my head and eventually grew to graphic novel proportions, although that book is technically "still in development", we did manage to publish a 12 page prequel to the book that received some critical acclaim. I'll go into that project in greater detail in the next post. As for Grafika, eventually lack of funding shut it down, but we made some great friends and did some great work for the duration which I promise will one day see the light. Below is a list of the original members with links to their sites:

Jason Arthur
John Belkewitch
Brian Clark
Barb Lien-Cooper
Luis Diaz
Darla Ecklund
Ty Gorton
Jason Hanley
Jessica Hickman
Dennis Kroesen
Ilkka Lesonen
Mark Matlock
Michael May
Josh Medors
Milx
Phillip S. Neundorf
Ricardo Porven
Jim Reddington
Andrew Ritchie
Josh Ross
Aadi Salman
Gavin Spence
Paul Tucker
Anthony Ventura
Aaron Weisbrod

Our First Interview

Soon after our first published work appeared in Tales From the Inner Sanctum, we responded to an online ad we saw from the Miami Herald. They were looking to do features on independent artists in the Miami scene, so we responded. We also took the opportunity to do a little PR photo shoot of which you can see the results of in the slide show on this post. The interview was quite funny and revealing. We've republished it here for your enjoyment and entertainment.

Who are you?
We go by the names of Ricardo Porven and Luis Diaz, but that doesn’t really answer the question. We have been brought together to fulfill a purpose. A purpose that doesn’t contribute to the greater good or bring about some ridiculous high-minded ideal such as world peace, justice, or freedom from sin, but is no less important. We’re the best-kept secret in the world of independent comics, but not for long.

What do you do?
We create comic books for adults. Really, really good ones.

Why do you do it?
We have no choice really. For as long as we can remember these stories and characters have lived inside us and lately they have grown restless. If we don’t get them out on paper, they may turn on us. The thought terrifies us.

Where are you from?
I’m from an extinct tribe of sadistic Judeo-Cuban Filipinos who took great pleasure in torturing lizards and other small animals to pass the time in the wilds of Hialeah.

Luis hails from the very depths of Hell, or Westchester, as some are prone to call it. I conjured him to do my bidding while I played with my Ouija board one night.

Seriously, we are Cuban Americans from different corners of the globe. Ricardo Porven was born in East Newark, NJ and moved to Miami at an early age. Luis Diaz was born in Cuba, but also grew up in Miami. Somehow, I think that’s scarier.

Where are you going?
Though after reading our stories many may think we’re headed straight to Hell, we believe we have the ingredients necessary to propel us to elite status in the comic book industry. Cocky? Perhaps, but if we didn’t feel we had the stuff, we’d just spend our days like most comic fans; playing video games, arguing about what superhero would beat what superhero in a fistfight, and spending a year planning our Halloween costumes.

Where and how did you start?
We’ve spent many years planning our hostile takeover, but just recently decided to do something about it. We had our first submission, “The Penitent and the Damned”, a ten page short horror story, accepted for publishing in “Tales from the Inner Sanctum”, a horror anthology by the message board members of steveniles.com.


Who or what inspires you?
It is the many artists before us who were driven by a passion to create and motivated by the sheer enjoyment of the process that inspire us. It’s rare to find that combination today; so much of it is all about business.

Who are your influences?
We are influenced by everything around us including the media. But mostly from our own life experiences and unresolved issues. Conflict makes for good storytelling, or so I’m told.

How can you be reached?
You can reach us through our websites, www.rabidart.com or www.hallucinonia.com or find out more about our upcoming comic book projects through our studios’ site www.grafikapress.com

Anything else you want people to know?
Keep an eye out for us in 2005! We are currently shopping a series to the 3 major independent comic book publishers and also plan to release an independent miniseries through grafikapress.com. You can also see Luis’ work in an upcoming series of Garbage Pail Kids trading cards from Topps, Inc.

The Penitent and the Damned

This was our first published work together. Like many of our stories at the time, the inspiration was drawn from one of Luis Diaz's paintings, "Basement Man". It was a powerful image but it's all I had to go on. The image and the burning question, "How did this thing get there?" The end result is the story that appeared and led off the fan published book, Tales from the Inner Sanctum. It is a tale of great pain and sadness, infidelity and religious fanaticism taken to the extreme. And lucky for you, I've made it available for download as a PDF by clicking here. All we ask is that you return and give us your comments.

JAQ

I guess Luis didn't think the stuff I came up with for Cottontail The Killer Rabbit™ was twisted enough. Apparently, murder, cannibalism, necrophilia, bestiality, rednecks and the KKK combined in one screwed up story filled with psychotic escapades and graphic descriptions of sex and violence just doesn't quite push the envelope far enough. So for our next project we created JAQ. A warped take on the traditional "hero in spandex" story. Our hero JAQ, however, happens to be a steroid pumped female-to-male transgender who plays hero by day, serial killer by night. If that isn't a twisted enough premise, we sprinkled in the fact that she commits her murders through the use of an anatomically correct penile prosthesis that also happens to be a drill. Right, we kinda overdid it on the mushroom juice for this one. As crazy as it sounds the story is filled with humor, irony, horrific moments and even manages to touch the heart at times. I know, it's a gift. Don't know if this will ever see the light, but I'm hoping it will. And once it does, the real challenge is finding somebody with the balls to publish it.

It began with a rabbit. A completely sickening and psychotic rabbit. But a rabbit nonetheless.

My artistic and completely hetero relationship with Luis Diaz began shortly after his graduating from college where as an ad agency Creative Director, I gave him a brutal and completely sadistic freelance job of turning around 9 storyboards in a weekend. The drawings sucked, LOL, but in the end, he delivered what I needed. The curious thing about this is he remained my friend afterwards, which still puzzles me to this day. At that time, he shared his portfolio with me and I was completely blown away by his art. It was dark, erotic and magnificent, and somehow crept in to my innermost thoughts and made itself at home in my mind. Time passed and Luis began to talk to me about what he wanted to achieve in comics. The conversations led to his favorite character Cottontail, The Killer Rabbit™ and how he had never been able to find a writer that could capture what was in his mind. So I convinced him to give me a shot at it. (he was just being polite, I'm sure) Amazingly, he discovered that I was as sick as he was... perhaps more. This early collaboration led to a long and storied period of creative collaboration that continues to this day. The story we developed for Cottontail has yet to see the light of day, but when you least expect it, this homicidal hare will take its place in pop culture history. I'm certain of it.

Read an early character study of CTKR here.

The beginning.

About 4 years ago a talented artist by the name of Luis Diaz and I attempted to unleash our own brand of insanity upon an unsuspecting wired world. We sought to create a place where we could feel free to experiment, explore and share our work together and individually. Life changed, the internet changed and our site vanished into the mist. But our work is not content to lie dormant; collecting dust in ancient hard drives. No, it begs – demands – to be thrust upon the world once again. And so, welcome to the rebirth of Hallucinonia.