AudioComics: Only the Beginning

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Children of all ages: at long last, welcome to AudioComics!

As there are audio books, now there is AudioComics, and suffice to say this has been a few years in coming, with false starts and stops over the last few years. But now we’re ready to proceed with our first series of projects. But before we get into any details, you should know a little about us:

"AudioComics provides superior audio entertainment with its professional full-cast audio theatre adaptations of licensed and original properties from the world of comic books, graphic novels, and more. AudioComics’ productions of classic, contemporary and world premiere properties will reach new audiences far beyond readers and comic book fans through the universally popular entertainment medium of multi-track recorded sound and music on CD and in downloadable form, accessible in today’s market with today’s sound.

"Based in Maine (with a California connection), AudioComics productions feature celebrity and professional actors and multi-dimensional sound designs that keep the listeners on the edge of their seats and coming back for more. The AudioComics team is working to establish relationships with top name comic book companies, sci-fi writers, sponsors and the entertainment industry in Hollywood and New York, and to give these audio theatre pieces worldwide exposure."

Lance Roger Axt is the Producing Director of the not-for-profit audio theatre company Play it by Ear Productions, for which he produced three world-premiere radio one-acts for the award-winning Play it by Ear anthology series We Have Ignition, which have aired on stations across the country, and are available for pay-per-download from the Spoken Network. Lance is a graduate of the first MFA class from the Trinity Rep Conservatory in Providence, RI; he received his BA from San Francisco State University and studied at the American Conservatory Theatre Summer Training Congress, the British American Drama Academy Midsummer at Oxford Program, the Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York, and at the National Audio Theatre Festivals, on which he serves on the Board of Directors.

William Dufris is the original voice of BOB (and Farmer Pickles/Mr. Beasley/Mr. Sabatini) in the popular children's show BOB The Builder for the US and Canada (Series 1-9). William began his audio career in London (radio plays, audiobooks, film/animation dubbing, language tapes, etc), where he resided for thirteen years. While there, he had the privilege of sharing the microphone in a number of BBC Radio plays with Kathleen Turner, Sharon Gless, Stockard Channing and Helena Bonham-Carter. These experiences led him to co-found two audio production companies: The Story Circle, Ltd in the UK, and Mind's Eye Productions in the US, for which he produces, directs, acts and engineers. He has also acted on stage and television in the US, the UK and Europe. He has been nominated six times as an audiobook finalist for the APA's prestigious Audie Award, and has garnered 16 Golden Earphones Awards through AudioFile Magazine as well as having been named “One Of The Best Voices At The End Of The Century” (AudioFile Magazine). Bill also has more than a little experience in this area: he has portrayed none other than Peter Parker, a.k.a. the Amazing Spider-Man, in Dirk Maggs' Spider-Man radio serial, as well as Judge Caligula in his Judge Dredd (pre-Big Finish Audio).

Dan Bernard is a playwright, director, actor and producer who works in various media, including narrator for The New Yorker. While specializing in audio, some of his award-winning audio theatre work has been adapted for stage and video as well. He draws on a stable of collaborators for various projects: actors, musicians, artists, and sound designers, depending on the project. He has worked intensively with Bill Dufris on audio (Just in Time Productions) and animation projects as well. His projects have been seen and heard extensively in the Portland, Maine region where he makes his home, as well as in Boston, and most recently at Deep Wireless Festival in Toronto utilizing multi-track surround-sound music and effects.

How’s that?

So, comic books, comic strips, graphic novels, sci-fi, horror…as audio theatre? You mean like radio drama? Like "Burns and Allen," "The Shadow?" Didn’t that die out in the fifties? Kinda retro, yeah?

Well, first of all, we call like to call it “audio theatre.” Radio drama did die in the fifties. The term “radio drama” means you are hearing a play over the radio. This is a reality that has no place in today's world, for now we are an on-demand society: "I want it when I want it, and I want it now and not later," or "I want it later and not now," or...yeah, you get the idea. How did we get this way? TiVo. Downloads. MP3's on compact disc. Podcasts. The iPhone. Blackberrys. I seriously believe that compact discs will one say go the way of the buffalo, or worse, the LP, just as today's technology will be rendered obsolete ten years from now. Any way you look at it, it’s a reality that does not bode well for our music collections.

Radio drama represents a simpler time, a time when technology was limited to "Flash Gordon" comic strips. Now almost a decade into the new millenium we have the technology to make this crazy, wonderful art form available to the public in ways we couldn't have dreamt of years ago. And the best part is, you hear it on your time, and not as part of a rigid programming schedule.

With that in mind its audio theatre. You can call it whatever you want. But also know (for the uninitiated), that producers have kept the flame burning for over thirty years in America. Yuri Rasovsky. Tom Lopez with the “Jack Flanders” and “Ruby” series. Charles Potter. SueMedia. The Firesign Theatre. FinalRune. The National Audio Theatre Festivals, Inc., which brings many of these fine people together once a year. Add AudioComics to the mix.

Now to say that there is a market for this type of product would be an understatement. The great British writer/director/producer Dirk Maggs has produced some amazing comic-related works for the audio medium: his Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man serials were among the most-listened to serials on BBC radio during the 1990's. The late, lamented Seeing Ear Theatre had great success with its adaptations of the EC Comics' series Tales from the Crypt, as has Big Finish Audio with its adaptations of Doctor Who and Judge Dredd. We think that there is truly unlimited potential for audio adventures of these pop culture mainstays.

One of the unique features of AudioComics is that this journey will begin with creator-owned titles, and not with characters ultimately owned by major media conglomerates. While there are characters and story lines from DC and Marvel that we would love to develop as two-to-three-hour-blow-your-mind audio plays down the road, for now we will be working with titles that are, as it states above, owned by the writers/artists who created them thereby allowing them more "hands on” involvement with these adaptations.

The one thing that we do not want to be considered is a “niche” entertainment. What separates the producers listed above from many other producers of audio theatre today is that these masters of the medium know how to craft a great story, know how to direct their actors in order to get the best performances from them, and know not to overpower the action with layers and layers of sound effects and music.

Does this mean we know everything? Of course not; the three of us have been at this for years and we’re always learning something new. But what we do know is how to be critical listeners of our own material and of the material produced by our peers, just as they are critical listeners who time after time use that skill to create great audio. We intend to raise the bar and create full-cast audio theatre that a) we are proud of, and b) you will want to hear over and over again, knowing that you got your money’s worth.

And one of our first projects (official announcement drumroll...) will be Elaine Lee and Michael Kaluta's Starstruck!

Now we’ll unveil more info as it becomes available through this blog, but what we can tell you is that we’ll be working with Elaine and the good Mr. Kaluta on several Starstruck projects written specifically for the medium of audio. We are all very excited about where this is going, and we hope you’ll all come with us. Up the Brigades!

So what other comics, comic strips, pulp magazines, graphic novels, sci-fi series would we like to turn into full-cast audio? Oh gee, we don’t know, not much, just…

Doc Savage, The Escapist, The Dresden Files, The Elementals, A Killing in Comics, Torso, Coyote, American Flagg!, The Looking Glass Wars, The Waiting Place, Watchmensch, Grimjack, No Hero, Ignition City, Jon Sable: Freelance, The Pilgrim, Hawaiian Dick, Noble Causes, Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, Buckaroo Banzai, The Metamorphosis Odyssey/Dreadstar, Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon, The Goon, Moonshadow, Spawn, Battle Hymn, Grendel, Ghost, Zenith, Madman, Athena Voltaire, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The Black Coat, Crossfire, Leave it to Chance, the complete Lensman series, Sabre, The Spider, The Yellow Kid, Rip Kirby, The Saint, Terry and the Pirates, Mandrake the Magician, The Green Hornet, Doctor Solar: Man of the Atom, Ghost Zero, True Story Swear to God, Tor, the Defiant Comics line, THUNDER Agents, The Red Circle/MLJ Heroes, Mage, Rising Stars, Mr. Monster, Nexus, The Phantom...

...and eventually Astro City, Arrowsmith, Global Frequency, Steampunk, Planetary, The Authority, Hellblazer, Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, Shazam!, The New Gods, Batman, The Flash, Blackhawk, JSA, Capt. Britain and MI13, Werewolf by Night, Cloak and Dagger, Moon Knight, Daredevil, Captain America, Doctor Strange, Squadron Supreme, Marvelman, The Fantastic Four, and of course New York City’s friendly neighborhood wall-crawler…

...not to mention several original concepts created by your humble AudioComics producers, and maybe even a few from established creators/writers, while all the time trying to avoid entering the vortex that is known in Hollywood as “development hell”...but that’s it...y’know...to start with, anyway…

Before we sign off from this veeerrrrrryyyy lonnnnggggg first entry, there are two other points to be made. First and foremost, the comic book industry is changing. The trade paperbacks vs. single issue pamphlets war rages on. You can now read comics for free on MySpace. You can download them from Marvel. You can read them on your iPhone. Film companies are scrambling to get a hold of the next big thing in comics before the other guys down the street do. Not everyone likes the changes that are taking place, while others have embraced them, because they know evolution is inevitable. Our thinking: there is room for everybody on the playground, and that includes AudioComics.

Some of you are thinking, “comics are a visual medium, radio…sorry, audio isn’t.” To that we say the following: WRONG. Wrong wrong WRONG. Audio theatre is the most visual form of entertainment that there is. We just don’t see it that way because it’s aural in origin. But think of it this way: movie producers are constrained by budgets. There’s only so much money available for that movie adaptation you’ve been waiting decades for. Corners get cut. Even moreso with television. There’s only one place where you can see a comics adaptation with a billion dollar budget: in your head. We provide you with simple stimuli: voices, sound effects, music, and silence. You do the rest. The pictures are crystal clear. The colors are amazing. The sound is crisp. The castle is either a castle or a massive military encampment. The starship is a million miles long. The disaster sequence would make Irwin Allen green with envy. You are in control of the visuals, no longer a spectator but an active participant.

Here is the other point: website and blog forums have served to replace that favorite mainstay of comics, the letter column. The forums are great in concept: it’s brought creators/companies and fans closer. However, on many of these forums, those posting sometimes devolve into name-calling, spiteful discourse, and general snarkiness. Let it be known now that we do want to hear from you. What we don’t want is unintelligent conversation. Everybody has the right to his or her opinion. Saying, “gonna suck” and that’s it is an unfounded opinion. Kind of like the 8 year old who sees broccoli on his plate for the first time and says eeeewww until he tries it and realizes it’s not half bad. Folks, this is not Greg Gutfeld and Fox News’ God-awful “Red Eye,” let’s keep the snark in the cage where it belongs.

We will have both individual and collective posts in the months to come re: Starstruck not to mention a behind-the-scenes series of podcast specials called AudioComics Confidential. Alright? Everybody good? Good. Now...you know what we're interested in. So our question of the day:

What comics. comic strips, and graphic novels, would YOU like to hear as full-cast state-of-the-art audio dramas?