"CITIZEN 14" (for the television series "BONES" - air date FEB. 8, 2006)

Long story behind this one, but the gist of it is that a contact from my work (at David E. Kelley Productions) became a Producer on the Television Series “Bones” (Starring Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz) and upon reading their latest script, he felt that I was best-suited to tackle an element of the episode for them. The story features the two main characters solving a murder, using an independently published comic book found upon the victim. At first the comic book is deteriorated almost beyond recognition but throughout the episode, the artwork is restored which reveal key elements to the plot of the story. In other words, my artwork will be seen nationwide sometime in February of 2006, and this is not fleeting moment of glory either. My comic book pages will be quite prominently displayed throughout the duration of the show. This could, as they say, be my “big break”. The process began with a script that had a mere 6 specific elements that needed to be seen in the fictional comic book. I figured that I could draw a page around each of these elements, totaling 6 pages in all. They wanted another 6 as filler to beef out the comic book. So, figuring that I had 12 pages to do whatever the heck I wanted to, so long as I show the elements that they wanted, I tried to make a cohesive story out of the thing. Most of it was so that I could have a decent portfolio piece once finished. Part of it was because I can’t stand the idea of having random, yet ultimately meaningless story pages. And still another part of me just wanted to see if I could meet the challenge. And meet the challenge I did. I worked all through the night after my first meeting with the Producers and produced a full page, which blew them away. Over the next week and a half, I was able to crank out all 12 pages, 2 covers and several drawings of the Super Hero’s weaponry (to be rendered 3-dimensionally) within the total time-span of approximately 6 days worth of full drawing (thankfully, my workplace understood and gave me some time off). The story is clichéd and a bit lame, but it IS a full story. The colors were done primarily by a chap named Sean Tinker, who I had never met before this assignment. Like me, he had been plucked out of obscurity to join me on this. Needless to say, I was stunned by his work as I had never had my black and white’s rendered so magnificently before! As time became an issue, the Producers felt it necessary to hire on another freelance artist (Terrance Zadunich) to match Sean’s work on a few pages. I cannot express how awesome it was to work with two such talented artists to come up with the end result that we accomplished.

Citizen 14 ("BONES") | Chew before you swallow | Hummingbirdman | The Unnamed

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