A buddy of mine named Tyler Weaver is working on a big project called Whiz!Bam!Pow!, and I've been watching this thing develop on Twitter and in Tyler's own video diaries ever since he revealed that title. Tyler is a filmmaker with a great love for comics and their history. With Whiz!Bam!Pow!, he and his writing and producing partner Paul Klein intend to tell a story about the medium, specifically the superhero genre, through a series of short films, longer features, comics, and audio dramas in the style of old radio serials. It's a fascinating and ambitious project, and I'm pretty eager to bring it to your attention. Tyler knows his stuff (and shares an appreciation for some key Hitchcock flicks), and I'm very excited to see the finished product.
There's a fundraising component here, but plenty of incentives as well. And the best thing about all this? Tyler's teamed with a really great organization that benefits children in need.
I talked to Tyler about that charity as well as the development and structure of this very cool project:
Paul Montgomery: What's the elevator pitch for Whiz!Bam!Pow!? As I understand it, we're talking about a multi-media extravaganza here. Comics, audio, films…
Tyler Weaver: Whiz!Bam!Pow! is a love letter to comic books told through comics, radio shows, films, and whatever other form of media we can get our grubby hands on.
It’s divided into two worlds – the high adventure and bombastic fun of the comic books and radio shows, and the “real world” of the films, about the people who read the comics and listen to the radio shows.
All the pieces parts gel together into one story whole, but the audience is free to take part in as many or as few pieces as they want.
PM: How did this project come about? What's your role in the production?
TW: It’s my fault. I had this crazy idea for a movie about comic books that over the course of several years transformed into the transmedia extravaganza it is now. I’m functioning, along with my writing and producing partner, Paul Klein, as a showrunner (without the “show” in the typical sense). Paul and I are writing and producing all the pieces, I’m directing the short film and the project in general, making sure this whole crazy thing stays on course.
PM: Let's talk about the comic book itself. You're working with our buddy Blair Campbell, making sure he's off the streets.
TW: The hero of the comic book and the Whiz!Bam!Pow!-iverse is "The Sentinel." Blair Campbell is coming in and lending his amazing talent to crafting an era-authentic 1938 comic book, drawing both features (my writing partner, Paul is writing one of the features), and making the whole thing look awesome. His "try-out" strip absolutely blew me away, and I'm going to be sharing that soon (his art does show up in the "Sketchbook" video series, so be sure to check those out).
The comic book is the linchpin of the entire Whiz!Bam!Pow! story – it's one of the main characters of the short film, and of course, introduces the Sentinel into the Whiz!Bam!Pow!-iverse. There are going to be thematic elements and easter eggs that will be revisited not only throughout volume one, but in the subsequent volumes of Whiz!Bam!Pow!, including the feature film in Volume Two!
PM: You mention radio shows, which brings to mind the old Superman serials with Bud Collyer. Is this a period piece?
TW: The entire first volume of Whiz!Bam!Pow! is period. The comic book, Whiz!Bam!Pow! Comics #7, is being designed to look like it was made in 1938. The episodes of the radio show, The Adventures of the Sentinel, will be produced as though they were made in 1943, and the short film will take place in 1943, during the airing of one of the episodes of The Adventures of the Sentinel.
PM: Can you pinpoint any characters, artists, or stories that served as an influence?
TW: To deny the obvious first influence is an exercise in futility – Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. A wonderful book, one of my favorites. In the comics world, I'm particularly enamored of Grant Morrison's recent work, particularly his Batman saga, Final Crisis (though I still don't know what the hell it's about even after five reads), All-Star Superman and his creation of stories that only work in the comic book medium (I'm a bit nervous about the WB Premiere version of All-Star). Another huge influence is Alan Moore's series, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and of course, Watchmen – particularly his use of other media within the comic (prose, Black Freighter, etc.) to expand the story.
I'm hugely influenced by the open-world storytelling of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption. I love that feeling of "anything goes," as well as encountering characters later in the game that popped up tangentially in other areas. The newspaper stories in Red Dead, expanding the stories, all that. Love it.
And I can't forget, of course, the Golden Age of comics, and of entertainment. The Golden Age stuff excites me because I love seeing the birth of a new medium. I like seeing the growing pains, the experiments, the "anything goes" (there it is again) feel of it all. My bread and butter? The Shadow radio show (particularly the Orson Welles years), movie serials like The Adventures of Captain Marvel and The Mysterious Dr. Satan, and the single biggest influence on the comic and the feel of Whiz!Bam!Pow! Volume 1 – the Fleischer Superman cartoons from the 1940s.
Whiz!Bam!Pow! The Sketchbook #3 – Spinner Racks… from Whiz!Bam!Pow! on Vimeo.
PM: Tell us a bit about this IndieGoGo campaign. How does the program work? What are the goals and what are the pledge incentives?
TW: At its core, crowdfunding is just that – funding by crowd (I suppose audience-funding is a better, if less catchy term). Audience members can engage with a project at the earliest stage possible – from the funding stage – and be a part of the production, for any monetary amount. It’s a very cool thing, and I’ve been really fortunate to meet some amazing people and hear how excited they are about the project.
The goal is to raise $15,000 to produce all of the pieces of volume one – the comic book (which we’re already putting into production), three old-school radio show episodes, a short film (bringing Whiz!Bam!Pow! into the “real world” and setting in motion volume two), and an app/means of distribution.
The transmedia angle of this project gives us the chance to create some really cool “Perks” for donors. For donations of $10-$100, you get all of the pieces of Volume One. Once you go past the $100 level, you get to be part of the comic book, either through a vintage, 1938-authentic ad created for you or your service/company (if you don’t have one, we make it up, with the “Charles Atlas” aesthetic), at various sizes and positions in the book. Past the $1000 level, you can be drawn into the comic and receive your own custom comic book, and if you hit the $5,000 level, you’ll get (other than naming rights to our first born – pending spousal permission) to be a sponsor of the radio show (like “Blue Coal” in “The Shadow”) and an Executive Producer title on the short film.
The nature of Whiz!Bam!Pow! really gives us a chance to create unique incentives for our audience, drawing them deeper into the world, and having a hell of a lot of fun along the way.
You've also partnered with an organization called the Comic Book Connection Incentive. Tell us about this program.
I’m really excited about this. The CBCI is an Ohio-based charity that accepts donations of comic books and gives them to kids in economically depressed areas, homeless shelters, after-school programs, and hospitals, to help them learn to read, and give them 32 pages of imagination fuel.
Through this partnership, called Read!Imagine!Soar! (#ReadImagineSoar on Twitter), I’m going to donate 100 comic books from my collection for every $1,000 the Whiz!Bam!Pow! IndieGoGo campaign earns. When we hit the goal of $15,000, I’m going to donate my entire collection to the cause, as a way of giving back to kids in need, and hopefully inspiring them with comic books the way comics have inspired me for more than 20 years.
I wouldn’t be here without them.
Learn more about Whiz!Bam!Pow and how you can help Tyler out over at their IndieGoGo page.
For more about the Comic Book Connection Incentive, check out Tyler's blog post about Read!Imagine!Soar!
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interesting project, best wishes for it
Thanks so much for having a read, and for the kind words!