13.12.07

Welcome New Visitors!

Hello, my name is Ben Ferrari and this is Earthbound Productions! Whether you heard about this site from Doc’s Heros of Science Fiction and Fantasy Podcast (listen to it at www.heroesofsciencefictionandfantasy.com or search for the Podcast on iTunes) or just wandered in by accident, it’s good to have you. Take a gander at the Comics and Sketch section and then head to the Earthbound Forum and drop us a line! You can chit chat about Shots Fired with the writer, Buck Weiss or Cacta’s creator Matthue Roth! Let us know what you think of the latest Sleepbringer Stories pages! We also have some preview art from Future Projects like Owen the Oak Tree and Brotherhood Six! Questions about Xeric Grant and our publishing plans? The Forum is the place to ask those questions! Thanks again,
Ben

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21.09.07

My Extreme Times

I’d been hanging around Rob Liefeld’s proboards site, (robliefeld.net) and decided to stat talking about my time working for Rob. There was some good responses to my stories, and I was having a good time. Then on an unrelated thread, Rob reminded me what a complete chickenshit coward he is, always having to have the last word, always having to be right. I had made a political comment about Greenspan admitting Iraq was about oil, Rob had his say, and wham, a lock went onto the thread, no more comments allowed.

So anyway, I havn’t been back, except to say i wasn’t coming back, and to copy down the stories i had written on his site. I am glad i got alot of this written down, and of course it’s pretty censcored for Rob’s audience, but I’m glad i have it written anyway, Here it is. Hopefully I’ll continue writing about my time with Extreme in the mid ninties, the good times and the bad, really soon.

Some of you may have see my posts around here, usually on the Member’s art thread or the seemingly defunct Jam thread and others, but I’d like to introduce myself again. My name is Ben Ferrari and about 10-11 years ago, I had the unique experiance of working for Rob, specifically at Extreme Studios and at the Image Central office, which was right next door to Extreme. It may be a bit of a suprise to hear that, considering i’ve been posting here for a while, but it’s true. I spent about a year and a half as Matt Hawkins assistant (Matt was Rob’s main marketer and assistant for quite a few years), doing an assistant editor’s job and quite a bit more. Taking FedEx every day, picking Rob’s relatives from LAX one morning (the call from Rob asking the favor early in the morning was quite a suprise), helping Kurt Hathaway finish pages at crunch time, getting to know Cedric Nocon, Shannon Denton, Stephen Platt and so many more, was without a doubt the greatest time of my whole life.
When I discovered these boards, I announced myself to Rob with a hello, but he missed the post. So, I just sort of got comfortable, thinking it didn’t really matter or not if he knew who I was. I was a fan before I worked for him, and although my time with Extreme was too short, I am still a fan.
I have had a good time being a face in the crowd here, but there have been too many times that I really wanted to correct people’s impressions of those Extreme days, or add to them.
So I wrote to Rob to get an “okay” to share my stories, and he said “let it all hang out” or something close to that.
I’d like to use this thread as a place to share with you all, his biggest fans in the world, my experiances as a minor cog in the machine that was Extreme a decade ago. Occasionally I’d like to update this thread with a new story about the people and events that I never stop thinking about and will not forget, and if you have any questions for me, that’ll make it all the more enjoyable for me.

These have been sitting in a photo album for 12 years waiting for you to ask…
On top is Matt Hawkins and Kitae Kim (another assistant), myself and Ferdinand Salas, who ran Direct Sales i think, at the San diego con one year, the next one is at a signing with Badrock, and then at a show with Matt in the Kodiak suit behind me, and the YB ship behind us, and Jeff Voeltner, another kid Rob grabbed from church (another long story) to work in the studio.
Can anyone tell me how to QUOTE from multiple people, the questions will be answered faster…

I started going to this church called EV Free Fullerton around when i started high school, which i believe was the time Rob came out with New Mutants #87. A freind of mine who also collected comics, somehow found out that Rob actually went to this same church we were going to. It also turned out that our Core Group Leader, (in charge of a group of kids) Carlso, was actually pretty good freinds with Rob. Over the next few years I would hound Carlos to call up Rob so that we all could “hang out”, you know it was just to get to know Rob of course. Those were fun days.

Sometimes I’d see Rob, who I believe was also a core group leader, doodling as the meeting dragged on. I remember hoping he’d leave the doodle on the seat when it was time to leave. You have to remember that this was at the height of Rob’s popularity, around NM #100. I mean this guy was a god, and there he was in the same room, creating the next “big thing” for all i knew.

I remember at one point as I was driving away from a sunday meeting, there was Rob walking down the street and I pulled over and asked him if i could get a tour of the studio, which was located in the same town. Rob was nice enough, but i pretty much knew a tour wasn’t going to happen.

I kept badgering him, until the point came, I guess, where he told me I could work at the Image office if I wanted. There may have been more to it, but d**n its been 12 years. I must have done that for a few months, answering letters, putting promotional junk in the mail, generally having a swell time. Rob would walk in and out, because Extreme in those days was literally next door. He’d nod and say whats up, never letting on that he remembered even hiring me. At some point all the Image staff and Extreme folks went to a movie together, somehow I remember it being Kevin Costner’s Waterworld, although that could have been later on. Anyway, I remember Rob soon told me i was coming to work for him at Extreme, and at that point another freind of mine from church, Jeff Voultner, was hired into Extreme Color.

Don’t get me wrong, I was content with what I was doing, but Jeff went on to make serious cash doing the color thing, regularly getting his name in the books and learning a skill that was becoming immensly important in the world of comics. The kicker was, Jeff didn’t give a d**n about comics. Nah, it was just a job.

I ended up working with Matt Hawkins. While I did do plenty of Gopher stuff, driving for Rob’s lunch and fed ex, I ended up doing a whole lot of editorial stuff for Maximum Press. Keeping track of pages as the came in, making sure the pages got lettered and colored properly, talking to prepress people and printers. I’m fuzzy on who did the color edits, Matt or me. One thing to the job I never was stoked on. Tons of editorial work, and my name never once appeared in the book. I never complained, but that may have been the problem, who knows? The rusty whell gets the grease and all that. Remember a Tom Ryder? He was Kurt Hathaway’s assistant editor, pretty much doing the same thing, but admittedly on a larger scale. Ah, well.

I actually did half of the Extreme books’ letter pages as well. If you got a letter answered in that era, that was probably me answering it. Eric Stephenson did the rest of the letters pages. His were always much better, cuz he actually knew a thing or two about computers, and what was going on the in the books.

Early on at Extreme, Matt Hawkins told me to send some dude some photo copies. Matt had met him at a show and promised some photo copies so he could do some color samples. Apparently the copies I sent were terrible, (I don’t remember if I made the copies or if matt handed them to me, i swear). That guy was so bummed out at what i’d sent that he gave up on working in comics for many years. Well, after a while here at these boards, I met a Michael Babinski, Frisbee God. He inked a bunch of my stuff and after talking for a bit, I told him that i had worked for Rob before. It turns out he was the one I screwed all those years ago, boy did i feel terrible. I think he forgives me, right Mike?
Lets do a typical day at Extreme 1994-95

I’d love it if Kitae (or Matt for that matter) were to chime in for accuracy and filling in some gaps…

The Bullpen, the main artist area in the studio was usually pretty empty in the mornings. I believe I started at 8 in the morning, coulda been 9. The studio actually had two different areas with seperate enterances. You’d walk down a hallway to get to the other section, with the Image office being somewhat centered between the two. Most artists tend to stay up late at night working on pages, less distraction etc.
I’d usually wander around the bullpen first, after clocking in of course. I’d check out the copy room for copies made the night before by the guys (i still have some great ones). Shannon (?) was the receptionist, she was extremely sweet and pleasant, but opposites attract i guess, so she was dating Danny Miki for ever, they may have married, i don’t know. There was Nicole, an absolute stunner, assistant to Eric Stephenson and Shannon. She was a Rams cheerleader part time, to. You may remember her pic from the New Men letter pages. Eric was a smart fellow. Along with Matt and the colorists, I believe they ran shifts at most hours, these were the people I’d see every morning.
Id first talk to Matt for a while and get an idea what was going on, the big projects for the day and stuff that needed packaged for some big shot. We’d send out “comps”, packages of books to prominent hollywood and business people. If you were on that list, free books packaged by Ben and Kitae showed up fairly regularly.
People would trickle in around 10 i guess. by 12 or 1, most people were pretty busy working. Id wander in from time to time to check on progress on pages, Matt would usually send me to ask questions of the artists, I didn’t mind. I’d open all the days mail and sort it, giving Eric letters to his books and filing the letters to the books i was doing. Matt would usually have a list of things for me to do written on a napkin or something. He is the master of jotting notes in a notebook, totoally illegible, at least to me.
As pages came in, we kept photocpoies of all the pages, in a binder, or dummy book. A new one was made with the lettered pages and so forth. Pages would go to Extreme color with the color guides provided by hand colorist, Byron, Chris Lichtner, Nathan Lumm, Laura, and some others. The computer colorist basically scanned in the finished 11×17 page and goes about coloring the page following the guide provided. There was a large wall with color proofs. I recall Eric was really good at catching errors, better than Matt in fact. Matt had so many duties and responsibilites. I remember at one point asking if I could be in charge of editing some colors. As I’d wander thru the colors room, i’d always see mistakes. I was a reader of the books, not just a hired colorist, and knew what things were supposed to look like. Most colorists would shrug when i’d point out mistakes, and there wasn’t a darn thing i could do about it.
There were mad dashes to fedex, lunches and dinners out with the whole crew of poeple. Occasionally people who were famous, like Poison, who wanted to do comics would show up at the studio.
Did I mention one of my daily duties was tour guide? People who worked at the studio and wanted to show off the place called me to do the tour, somehow if i was walking people around it would be “official”. I showed retailers around, fans who had the courage to walk in the front door, contest winners. I remember one lady and her son were incredibly rude, and I was stuck chaperoneing them all fricking day long. The son was nice enough, just alittle kid, but the mother just thought she owned the place and demanded to see everyone… suffice it to say we were all glad to see her go. I think her trip was paid for and everything.
I’m sure I am forgetting stuff, but you know what? It was the conversations i had with Rob, Bryan Denham, George Mcarthy (you’re like “who the hell is that?), Shannon Denton, Cedric and so many more, that were what i remember. The details of the day were about the technicalities of making comics. Pages in, pages out, lists and letters, colors, dummy books and correcting proofs. All fun stuff, but by the time i wasback from Fedex and 5:30 or so, i really didn’t want to do any more technical stuff, although i did sometimes. I would walk back into the bullpen and take out pages i was working on, and start drawing. Or practice my inking skills on Doom’s IV pages, ha. Those are the times i really want to talk about, though i understand the daily “boring” details are important too.
I want to talk about some of the few personal conversations i had with Rob, the late nights with Eric, Shannon, John Fang and Robert Lacko, the drive from hell to pick up Calvin Irving (who has passed away i hear, that made me very sad) in the middle of the California desert, the poker nights at George Mcarthy’s house (Who?) and the extremely good freinds Brian Denham and Cedric Nocon. Those stories come next.

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14.09.07

Earthbound Update

Well, the submissions, which looked quite good, went out a while ago and i did get answers back. Here they are:
Dear Ben,

Thanks for giving Image Comics the opportunity to review your proposal. It’s obvious that you’ve put a great deal of time and effort into this book - but I don’t feel that it’s quite strong enough to make it in this competitive market. I wish I could go on at length and give you a number of pointers to help you improve your book but I can’t. We simply get too many proposals for me to be able to critique them all. The bottom line is that, unfortunately, your book isn’t one that we’re interested in publishing.

Thanks for your interest in Image Comics.

-Erik Larsen
Publisher
Hey, Ben–

Thanks for sending me a copy of this book. It’s not really anything that fits what we do at IDW, though. The one western book we’ve done, Desperadoes, we do because it’s been around a while and has a bit of a name for itself now, but subject matter-wise, we’re not looking to do more. The fact is, with all the licensed books we do here now, we don’t have much schedule space at all for any new projects like this, and the space we do have is booked solid well into early 2008 already. But thanks for thinking of us, and best of luck with the project.

Chris

Chris Ryall
Publisher / Editor-in-Chief

Pretty cool, huh? I’ve been working on a few projects since last I updated the site, including a political book I’m calling The NeoConservatives, a Cacta short story, both of which I’m collaborating with a very talented writer on. I am continueing work on the Sleepbringer Stories OGN, with about 15 pages left in the final story. My latest deadline is December, when the Xeric Grant deadline is.

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13.02.07

Submissions Have Gone OUT!

Well, today is Tuesday, the 13th of February. Last week I sent out 6 submission packets which included a copy of the book, a cover letter and some awesome color sample pages by Nick Maradin. It’s an exciting week, where we just may find out if Image, IDW, Ait/Planet Lar, Penny-Farthing Press, Dark Horse or Platinum Studios will pick up the OGN. Wish us luck!

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01.01.07

Earthbound News

The Sleepbringer Stories Vol. 1 submission book is comlete and heading off to the printer! Submissions to all the big comics publishers will follow, with hopefully a deal to publish Sleepbringer Stories books on a bi annual basis! Check out the newest Sleepbringer Stories goodies at www.cafepress.com/sleepbringer.

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31.05.06

Pics of Slam Bang!

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28.05.06

A New Milestone for Earthbound!

We here at Earthbound Comics, Ben Ferrari and Buck Weiss to be specific have achieved our greatest accomplishment so far in the years working together. We have written various stories, drawn and lettered a ton of pages, built a website, created a t-shirt or two, but until today have always been short of the best accomplishment we could want. Today I recieved a copy of Slam Bang Comics Vol. 3, #1. It is so awesome!! Alan Freeman at Fanatic Press (fanaticpress.com) accepted two stories from us, Sleepbringer: Angry One and Sleepbringer: Manifest Destiny and included them in his anthology alnong with tons of other great writers and artists. We are very pleased. The book is packed at 200 pages for a measly $10 and can be bought at his site. Please pick one up. Check out our T Shirts as well at www.cafepress.com/sleepbringer too!
The OGN is coming along nicely, and we hope to submit the finished product to Dark Horse and Image by the end of the summer! Stay in touch using our new email address: sleepbringerstories@hotmail.com!!

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27.02.06

Where to start?

Well, we have completed a new version of a story called Sleepbringer: Manifest Destiny, which Buck wrote for a company called Twisted Gate (www.twistedgateent.@aol.com). Its a quick two pager but a very profound, complex story, yeah, all that in only two pages. It has been sent off to Twisted Gate for as part of their Portal #3 book, due out in the coming months. Exciting, yes, but the story has also been sent off to a company called Slam Bang Comics (http://slambangcomicsnews.blogspot.com/) for their 3rd volume, 1st issue. That will be a doozy of an anthology at around 200 hundred pages! Slam Bang is considering also publishing our Sleepbringer: Angry One short story also written by Buck. with art by Ben. Buck and Ben will finally be seeing our work in print, and it also will mark the introduction of Sleepbringer to the comics world. Both comics will be available online in the beginning, with Slam Bang Comics looking to get a deal to distribute thru Diamond. Very Cool.

Sleepbringer Stories Vol. 1 is moving right along, with new pages being penciled and inked every week. There are only about 4 pages to be done on the Sleepbringer: Sacred Hoop story, and then Ben will be concentrating on touching up completed pages and lettering the book. We are still looking for an artist to draw the Sleepbringer: Mother Can You Hear Me? 14 page story written by the amazing George Meyers. Any submissions will be welcomed at sleepbringerstories@hotmail.com or sleepbringer@dhmail.com.

We do have Sleepbringer Stories shirts available at www.cafepress.com/sleepbringer as well.

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20.02.06

Buck’s Projects

We are working away here at Earthbound Comics and soon Ben will have an update on the Graphic Novel and some surprise places that Sleepbringer will appear in the coming months. I thought I would drop an update about where you can find some of my writing. I have a new short story call Maria Faust and the Cold Rock Gamble published at the great webzine Pulp and Dagger and another called Subway Man published in the magazine Almost Normal Comics. I am a page deep into a new Sleepbringer short story revolving around his days on with Jack Sinclair on the pirate ship Sin! Check out my stories and check back here for further updates.

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07.12.05

The Latest Developments

Hi everyone,

I have some cool stuff I want to tell you all about. We (my freinds and fellow writers Buck Weiss, and George Meyers) are about 3 or 4 months away from completing my Sleepbringer Stories Vol. 1 book. It is clocking in at about 77 pages, with 3 stories adding up to about 63 pages drawn by me, and a 14 pager drawn by some one we are talking to right now. I am so proud of how the book is looking so far, and after three years of talking about it, I am happy to say there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

I have a page being colored by a professional, an old freind named Jeff Voeltner, that I will be using as part of the proposal package when that time comes, in march or april at the latest. Jeff has agreed to color the book if it gets picked up by a publisher, so that is one more thing going well for our project. Thanks Jeff.

I have designed a few shirts that you can order if they look cool enough for you, at www.cafepress.com/sleeepbringer, take a look. There is a “faces” design, that comes in short or long sleeves, and a “Sleepbringer Stories: Page 1″ Gray shirt, with that text on the chest and the actual page #1 art on the back. Maybe I’ll do page 2 and so on, that would be fun.

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