Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/990311
designer Heidi Higginbotham needed to begin her task of sourcing, budgeting and manufacturing the costumes, which would be worn by our young lead actors for about eighty-five percent of their time on screen. The next artist hired would conceive the comic book that the fourteen-year-old main characters create as a contemporary finale to the 1980s comic series. Jeremy felt that Patrick Rodriguez's style was perfect for that. I worked with these two Illustrators, Jeremy, producer Leah Keith, and prop master Vicky Chan, to shepherd the process of producing these hero visual props that drive our story. With the comic books underway, I began designing the various sets. The Set Designer, ADG member Al Hobbs, brought my concept sketches to life with his construction drawings. Al's background in big-budget films, such as How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Bumblebee and The Hunger Games, brought a necessary element of whimsy to our Comic-Con adjacent sets. These were more theme entertainment oriented, and meant to reflect a fictitious movie, Blade of Dragons. Because of Al's hobby attending and participating in Comic-Cons (something I was not aware of prior to hiring him), I asked him to take charge of laying out the placement of all the vendors for the Comic-Con plan. The set decoration department, led by Regina O'Brien, managed to procure, for no fee, quite a few professional Comic-Con vendors who were willing to participate solely for potential exposure. We shot this fictional Comic-Con in the lobby and ballroom of City of Industry's Pacific Palms Hotel. There were also two custom vehicles to design; one was a circa 1980s muscle car that had been A A. COMIC BOOK COVER, CREATED BY PATRICK RODRIGUEZ. B. COMIC-CON ENTRANCE. C. COSPLAY BOOTH ON THE COMIC-CON EXHIBIT FLOOR. A B C