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Northridge, CA (PRWEB) September 21, 2010

Following the theatrical release of its film “Midnight Reckoning” in Los Angeles and 20 other cities in early October Winter Star Productions will be simultaneously bringing to market the graphic novel based on the movie along with the movie’s DVD debut on October 19, it was made known today by writer-director Derrick Warfel. For two years Warfel mulled over the possibility of turning his original screenplay/feature film into a graphic novel to reach a new audience and broaden the film’s appeal because he felt it fit into that dark, edgy genre of popular graphic novels like “Sin City”, “Walking Dead”, and “Whiteout.”

However, it was not until the imminent distribution of his movie theatrically and on DVD that he decided to bite the bullet. “People told me that creating a graphic novel can take six months, and we only had 60 days. But I felt so strongly that the movie storyline lent itself to the mood and style of a graphic novel that I had to do it.”

Finding the right illustrator was the sticking point. Warfel went through referrals from friends in the animation and comic industries, but no one with the necessary talent could work within the time frame and budget that he had. He even considered overseas outsourcing to save costs, but he couldn’t find the quality or control. Finally, an ad on Craigslist turned up an emerging comic superstar with a keen eye for conceptual graphics, Alec Joler. Joler, a director and cinematographer in his own right, was first spotted by Videomaker Magazine for its Young Filmmaker Award while he was still in high school.

Since then Joler has gone on not only to make many more award winning short films, but also to storyboard 35MM feature films, illustrate book covers, illustrate comic book covers, and even do background screen illustrations for the Hanna Montana/Jonas Bros. Music Tour. But, he has yet to pen a full length graphic novel and he has said that he wants the chance to show off “his stuff.” An early preview page of the comic under “Press” on www.MidnightReckoning.com shows the “stuff” he’s got.

Assisting in the process is Vice President of Winter Star Entertainment, Paul Moran, who acts as an art director in helping keep the project on schedule and in helping Joler translate Warfel’s novel script into the visual adaptation. “We didn’t just want a graphic novel that would merely parrot the movie, we wanted an original work that had its own voice.” Warfel also commented that he did not want the characters to look exactly like the movie but to have their own distinctives, as if the comic were a remake of the film but in a different medium.

This points to a larger movement in filmmaking known as transmedia, where stories no longer stay in one media anymore but are often remade into many others. The movie itself is just one reincarnation of the story along with novels, action figures, music CD’s, t-shirts, and now graphic novels. However converting movies into graphic novels is a very new trend. A Google search on “movies into graphic novels” turns up a blank, and instead only gives listings of graphic novels into movies.

Since 1989 starting with the “Batman” movie series over 120 comic books have been turned into feature length movies, compared with only about 30 such films from 1900-1985. Yet, this is not a surprising development since Box Office Mojo states that the average movie based on a comic/graphic novel yields 5 million in worldwide box office sales. Studios have long known that the lion’s share of their box office comes from teens and singles in their twenties who see films opening weekend, who see them multiple times, and who tend to gravitate towards films from comics and graphic novels. Now the reverse questions are: how many movies will be turned into graphic novels; and, will these become comic book hits? It gives a new meaning to the old phrase “See ya in the funny papers.”

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Book Review Of Scaring The Crows:21 Tales For Noon Or Midnight By Gregory Miller

Scaring The Crows:21 Tales For Noon or Midnight 
By Gregory Miller 
StoneGarden.Net Publishing 
.95

This small book accorded me one of the most pleasant reading experiences of the last year or so. And don’t think I’m damning it with faint praise using the word “pleasant.” I’m not; I really liked this book. All parts of it, from its delightful front cover to the blurbs on the back. I’ve enjoyed it from the moment I took it out of the shipping envelope. I own an e-reader and I’d forgotten how pleasing the sight and feel of a real book can be!

I don’t know if it is a tribute to Mr. Miller’s skills or those of his publisher, but it was doubly pleasant to come across a book with so few (I couldn’t find any) misspellings or typographical errors. Good proofreaders do still exist.

After babbling about the books foundation I want to quickly allay any angst the author may be suffering while awaiting my opinion. Although, after receiving favorable notice from so giant a figure as Ray Bradbury: “Gregory Miller is a fresh new talent with a great future.” (the quotation is found on the front cover directly above the title), I can’t imagine author  Miller is on pins and needles waiting for this pigmy’s appraisal. All I can do is agree with the great man: Gregory Miller does indeed have talent!

The title of the book leads us to believe it is all ghost and horror stories; one look at the whimsical but controlled cover illustrations, however, immediately informs us that it contains elements bound to be more complicated than that. Dark yes, but varied enough to keep us interested; some stories are indeed ghostly, others poignant; yet others almost comedic. But dark; dark is still the operative word here.

For instance, in “Scaring The Crows,” the first short story as well as the title of the book, the tortured heroine’s self perpetuated problems would be downright amusing if they weren’t so obviously painful and likely to be fatal. About half-way though the book another story, “Lorna Gould’s Roses” has some funny lines too, but the protagonist’s situation is deadly serious. My favorite story, found near the end of the book, “A Sense of Duty,” is perhaps the darkest of the lot and yet somehow manages to be life-affirming. If you’ve ever tried to write fiction you’re aware of the difficulty inherent in expressing such dichotomies in print, but Miller does a masterful job.

All Miller’s well-drawn characters are ordinary people caught in situations where the rules don’t fit the game they thought they were playing; there’s nary a Hannibal Lecter in the bunch. We can all relate. (Well, Ok, there’s at least one flesh eater and three or four zombies; but the flesh eater wasn’t looking for trouble and the zombies are ordinary guys in a zombie sort of way.) Miller has an excellent ear for dialogue; there’s just a trace of dialect here and there for the sake of back-country verisimilitude, nothing to jar us out of Coleridge’s “willing suspension of disbelief.”

Miller specializes in abrupt endings. For the most part he’s quite good at it. My one criticism (and I suspect he’s heard this before) is that occasionally the ending is all too abrupt. In “Goodbye Friend” for instance, one of the more poignant stories (Hey! We’re talking a boy and his dog here!), I don’t know how it ends. I mean, was it the lady or the tiger? Life or death?

Did I mention that I liked this book? I found it well written, well bound, well illustrated and yes, well proofread. One of the best new books for under ten bucks I’ve read in a long time. Find this book at Stonegarden.net publishers.