Chapter 1: An Adventure in Every Bite

In which Ollie goes to a casino and straightens his necktie… click on the image below to download the .PDF file!  And don’t forget to read the prologue, “A Linen Forcefield!”

Whiz!Bam!Why?

The one area (among many) where I failed miserably during the IndieGoGo campaign was identifying a central problem that Whiz!Bam!Pow! solved. All great products or services solve a problem, and I believe that all stories or projects should as well. They shouldn’t add to the static – they should be a clarifying voice in a world filled with shouting.

I’ve had a long time since to ponder the “what problem does WBP solve” question. Throughout all of its metamorphoses as we work with one-fifth of the intended budget, the central problem has shown itself:

Whiz!Bam!Pow! aims to create an accessible line of stories by bringing comics back to escapist entertainment and creating an ever-evolving universe around that. The Golden and Silver ages of comics were brilliant in their “done-in-one” popcorn approach, and I want to recreate that with WBP. I want to recapture that feeling of going into a grocery store, grabbing a random numbered comic book, and being sucked in for 32 pages of bliss before moving on to the next one. And then re-reading that comic – not because I couldn’t make heads or tails of what was going on, but because I just had such a good time with it!

And then I want to take that feeling to all the other forms of media that make up Whiz!Bam!Pow! – radio, film, web serials, anything. It’s all pieces of a spinner rack.

Today, comics are overrun with continuity, big stories, and inaccessibility. The Big Two (Marvel and DC) constantly promote “nothing will ever be the same” events which aim to create a world where their stories will be accessible – only to get muddled again by even bigger stories where you have to read every issue or you’re LOST*.

For an industry trying to bring in new readers, it’s failing miserably, canceling under-performing yet accessible and wonderful series (Thor: The Mighty Avenger, anyone?) while pushing onward with continuity-laden events that leave outsiders scratching their heads and die-hard fans up in arms.

Granted, WBP isn’t just comics. It’s a transmedia project with a comic book at its core. That comic book will spur stories both in the universe of the Sentinel and in the universe of those who read his adventures. But each and every piece of Whiz!Bam!Pow! will be accessible to anyone who hasn’t read or seen or heard all of the other pieces. Where the Big Two have focused on continuity as a plot thing – WBP will focus on accessibility through character.

Over the past several years, my preferred manner of entertainment has shifted from film to television. In (good) television, character is everything. The chief job of a television writer is to create characters that an audience wants to welcome into their homes every week. It’s the same deal with the transmedia approach of Whiz!Bam!Pow!. Using Whiz!Bam!Pow! Comics #7 as the focal point, we’ll spin tales featuring characters both within the Sentinel’s world, and without.  Characters will cross over into other pieces, some will have their own adventures, some will live, some will die.

But each and every story will always be accessible to first-timers – and simultaneously rewarding for those who consume every bit of the project.

And that’s the answer to Whiz!Bam!Why? – to create accessible stories with a sense of fun, heart, adventure, and a healthy dose of character.

And to get Blair to draw robots.

*In spite of the dig, I love LOST. And I love LOST because it featured exciting stories with characters I cared deeply about (except Nikki and Paulo – screw them).

Long Time, No Pow

Tyler here with a quick update on where things stand with Whiz!Bam!Pow! – it doesn’t stand. Things are jumping up and down like… umm… things that jump up and down a lot.

The Feature

Right now, Paul’s doing revisions to the feature film. We’ve worked out a great system for revising (as we get used to no longer living next door). Throughout January, I revised the first half of the script, then handed it off to Paul for revisions of the second half of the script. In the next couple weeks,  we’ll start going through both of our halves and revising piece by piece until we get a version that is a combination of both versions (do the setups pay off, and vice versa?), then rinse, wash, repeat until we get what will stand as the “final draft” (which of course, will change throughout production and post).  This way, we don’t necessarily have “draft one, draft two,” but rather a live document that is constantly being revised as we get both of our voices in there.

The Comic

Art dude Blair Campbell is drawing the shit out of the comic as we speak. We’ve managed to revise and cut from 32 pages down to 24. While some pages went, they’re not gone. They will instead be used as online-exclusives. Want to know the origin of the Sentinel? You won’t find it in the comic. You’ll have to find it somewhere else after the comic’s released.

Oh, until we find a better, more immersive way to do digital comics that fits within the story of Whiz!Bam!Pow!, Whiz!Bam!Pow! Comics #7 will be PRINT-ONLY.  Besides, I don’t think they had iPods or iPads in 1938.

IndieGoGo supporters, by now you should’ve received an email from me talking about changes to incentives and other cool things. Those cool things are being conceived and figured out.

I wish I could give a steadfast release date on the comic book, but I can’t. Our best guess? Early summer. This process takes time, and I’m not going to rush out a subpar product just to hit a deadline. We’re committed to delivering the absolute best entertainment we can give you. You’ve been with us since the early days (can’t believe it’ll be a year in July since I revealed the title of the project!), and we’re going to deliver quality.

Oh – and we’ve seen the layouts of the comic. They’re awesome.

The Trailer

While we will deliver quality, we also recognize the need to deliver content, and at the same time peel back the layers of the WBP Onion of Awesome. I’m throwing most of my effort into a trailer that will cement the tone of the feature film, the project as a whole, and introduce you to two of the “real life” characters who will be populating the WBP world. And like any worthwhile project, I’m picking up some new skills along the way.

Radio

Working on it. Can’t talk much more about it as there are no specifics to share with you at the moment.

The App

The App, as it was originally conceived, is dead. Prior to the campaign, we wanted to hire someone specifically to design the app for us. Out of the whole IndieGoGo experience, that we were unable to raise the funds to produce the app was the biggest disappointment. Mobile is the future (present) of storytelling, and to have to cut it out was heartbreaking.

So I’m not cutting it out. I’m building it myself. Adding to new skills learned, I’m working on figuring out just how to develop apps, learning the programming basics, all of that fun stuff.

Whatever is released out of my own learning and developing will be a very beta, 1.0 version. It’s my hope that down the road I can bring someone on to make this as awesome as Paul and I conceived it, while at the same time having a better understanding of the work that goes into their development.

The Short

Dead as a doornail. For now. Besides, it works better after the feature (or concurrent). There are a lot more shorts coming out of the feature also, so it was only one piece of the Whiz!Bam!Pow! cinematic world.

And that’s that.

Thanks so much for your patience and support. The trailer is coming soon, and we can’t wait to share it with you.

T

Whiz!Bam!2011!

A quick little post-move update. Want to share a few things about the future of this project, and what’s happening now:

• The short film and the app are – for right now – dead. They’re great pieces, and the app will be revived as part of Volume Two. The short may show up around then as well.

• The comic book scripts (yep, scripts – there’s two features in the comic) are in the hands of art dude Blair Campbell, and he’s drawing the shit out of them.

• We’re currently working on the radio scripts. It may be one of the three, two of the three, or three of the three episodes that are released. My drive from Cleveland to Boston last week gave me plenty of time to do some intensive radio show listening and really learn some cool things that will make these radio shows fun as hell.

• We’ve initiated the “Fuck It” option, which means we’re moving full steam ahead with the feature film and putting the pieces together to make it happen. The feature is the heart and soul of this project, my baby, and I can’t wait to get it made this year. No milling about.

• I’m sending out emails to each and every IndieGoGo supporter next week. It will discuss more in depth what’s happening with the project, and what your money will be used to fund.

There are plenty of surprises coming up in the next few months, so stay tuned.

Tyler

Whiz!Bam!2010!

Apologies for the lack of posting here, but since the end of our IndieGoGo campaign, Paul and I have been going great guns on the whole point of the campaign – making stuff.  There’s a lot of writing to do, a lot of “next steps” to be figured out, and of course, a healthy dose of recuperation following the insanity of a crowdfunding campaign. Read more >>

“The Whiz!Bam!Pow! Project” @ Comicbooked!

Many thanks to Andy Kirby of Comic Booked dot com for penning this wonderful article about Whiz!Bam!Pow! The article goes into a lot more detail about the future of the project (all the way up through Volume Three!).  We’re really blown away by Andy’s enthusiasm for the project!

I remember the day I came home from my first trip to the local comic shop.  I held in my hands the written story of my favorite super-hero, Spider-Man.  I had purposely waited to flip through it until I was at home.  Sitting on my bed with my door shut as to be totally immersed within Spider-Man’s world, I opened the comic book.  The pictures jumped out at me, and the words rang true to my soul with every word balloon and every thought bubble.  I felt Spidey’s guilt as he remembered Uncle Ben’s death.  I laughed at the Parker luck when it came to girls.  I winced as he lay battered and bruised by the crushing blows of that issue’s villain.  Then it was over.  To be continued.

I awoke from my trance, not knowing how long I had been a fly on the wall of Peter Parker’s world.  I sat there, on my bed—still.  I didn’t move.  I didn’t want to break the spell.  I had somehow managed to live within what would later become known to me as the Marvel 616 Universe.  And within that moment I was deeply and spiritually changed.

Read the complete article at Comic Booked!

The Whiz!Bam!Pow! Project

WBP @ The Studio Source

The first Whiz!Bam!Pow! article of the post-IndieGoGo era! Many thanks to Stacey Cornelius of The Studio Source dot com for highting WBP, and for sharing her story about how comic books effected her.   Read more >>

Tyler Returns to the Cutting Room Floor

Last Saturday, the final day of the IndieGoGo campaign, Tyler made a return appearance on Casey Ryan’s Cutting Room Floor for the last interview of the campaign. Casey and Tyler cover the CBCI Initiative, the crowdfunding campaign, and begin to answer the age-old question… What’s Next? Read more >>

WBP @ Deux Ex Machinato

Andrea Phillips, a noted transmedia designer whose work includes Routes Game, Perplex City, the 2012 Experience (for Sony Pictures) and True Blood wrote up this great blog post about WBP (and became a supporter!).  Thank you so much Andrea for this lovely surprise! Read more >>

One Week To Go…

The past two weeks have been some of the most absolutely insane of my life – in a good way (mostly, but we’ll leave the minority out). Whiz!Bam!Pow! has been featured all over the place, and the outpouring of support has been absolutely astounding.

With a week left in the campaign, I thought it would be useful for those of you still on the fence about this project to have all of the press, interviews, blog posts, and articles about Whiz!Bam!Pow! all in one place – as opposed to having to click 50,000 different links around this site to find anything.

This list starts from Friday, November 12, and goes right up until today. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comment field below, or ask me directly on my VYou page, http://vyou.com/tylerweaver. Read more >>