Nevermore: A Graphic Novel

I am excited to announce my finished graphic novel project, Nevermore! (Yay!) As many of you may know already through my blog posts or Facebook, I was part of a team of filmmakers who put together a web series called The Sting Chronicles. Told through a vlog (video journaling) format, the story regales the escapades of a young man who gets stung by a scorpion and believes himself to be in possession of super powers from the encounter. It is a little satire, a little comedy woven through a coming-of-age story of this young man and his path to greatness as a superhero in his home town. We filmed it locally here in Phoenix, Arizona, and it was a passion project for all involved. It spans two seasons, 14 episodes each, and we finished it off properly in a grand fashion through a short film! It was one-of-a-kind experience, and I certainly loved being a part of it. Now that it has been about a year since we finished the project, we decided to bring one last exciting chapter from our mini-superhero universe to life! If you have been following the story*, then you know through Ethan Harper's adventures that he runs into his nemesis, the enigmatic, Poe-inian, and perhaps psychotic, villain, The Raven. The Raven has had a history, as all good villains do, and I'm excited to be able to share it with you now through the pages of this graphic novel! I'm certainly a huge fan of the character (being the President of The Raven Fanclub, after all), and this was definitely a labor of love. I have enjoyed the character, and I hope you do as well! So, without further ado, I give you Nevermore!

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream. . .

*If you have not watched the series, you can still enjoy this graphic novel, but watching the show will certainly fill in crucial information and have it make sense since it is based on events that occured in the show. ^_^


He makes everything beautiful in its time . . . Ecclesiastes 3:11

The Sting and The Raven

My final blog post for the month and I wanted to talk some more about the Youtube web series I am a part of, The Sting Chronicles. We finished our first season over the summer, and shall begin airing the second season here in a couple of weeks. The first season our hero, Ethan Harper, met with unexpected challenges of being given "great responsibility," but this second season might prove to be an even greater challenge for The Sting. Introducing, The Raven:

Some of our inspiration came from
Vicious, the villain of the anime
series, Cowboy Bebop and
Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes.

This mysterious nemesis has made an unexpected appearance into Ethan's life and Season 2:1 shall give us more insight on this Poe-inian villain, so I won't give too much away. However, with our nemesis having taken on the name from one of Edger Allen Poe's most famous poems, we really wanted to convey the atmosphere of those Gothic poems by making our villain out-of-world steam punk, with heavy trench coat, pocket watch, and old-styled glasses. The dark, Victorian-esque assamble of our villain creates a nice contrast with our hero's contemporary, swashbuckling look. The heavy blues and grays next to the bright yellow really conveys the comic book antagonism between these two characters, of good vs evil:

I've really enjoyed doing the concept art for this web series, but I've also been able to work on the posters, which has been awesome. I love creating movie posters. It is always a challenge to make a convincing, original composite while conveying the concepts and themes of a movie, or in this case, a series. The poster concepts for The Sting Chronicles season 1 and season 2 weren't entirely mine, though, but my partners' in crime as well. I thought I would explain a little the concepts behind each of the posters:

In Season 1 we are introduced to the somewhat self-centered and naive Ethan Harper, who tells us that he undoubtedly has super powers after being stung by a scorpion on a school field trip. Clothed with these new powers, he takes it upon himself to follow his "superhero brethren" and document his fight against crime for future generations. He is cocky, but earnest, yet is mostly oblivious to much that is around him, and so we see Ethan go from "zero to hero," hero to zero, and back around again. The first poster reflects the beginning of Ethan's journey. He is boldly clothed in his costume talking to the camera and his backpack is full of his superhero paraphernalia. The color scheme is a bright, gregarious yellow, much like the colors of comic books, over-confident and optimistic. I also made the poster look like an old comic book, with texture, issue number and price, and even a bold headline of "This mish just got real!". It expresses everything about Ethan's journey into comic book-dom.

In Season 2, things are taking a much darker, more sinister turn. Ethan's life has suddenly become like something out of The Dark Knight, as he is faced with his very own nemesis, The Raven. The poster reflects this new transition of events, with Ethan walking in a deserted and lonely landscape (of the Phoenix Valley, of course) and an "ominous bird of yore" looming in the sky behind him. It is a flock of ravens that make up this ominous symbol. I chose to hand draw the ravens as a way to incorporate a grittier, comic book feel to the piece. I didn't think making this into a comic book issue, like I did for the first one, would work for the overall composition, so instead I brought the atmosphere of comic book by the hand drawn ravens, which works quite well. Also, in this photo, Ethan is much more wary, wearing his shirt underneath his clothing, another nice contrast to the bold statement of the first poster, and the overall color scheme of the shades of blue are subdued and isolating, emphasizing Ethan's trial with his enemy, which, as the tag line insinuates, (a line from Poe's The Raven) may cost Ethan much.

So, it is going to be quite an interesting season! I hope that this post has intrigued you into either watching our show or get you excited for Season 2, not to mention build anticipation for The Sting Chronicles at the comicon! On the right side of my blog here, is the link to our Youtube channnel, please check it out, subscribe, and favorite! Thanks so much!

He makes everything beautiful in its time . . . Ecclesiastes 3:11

All material in this post is Copyrighted by Danielle Pajak Illustrations 2013.

The Sting Chronicles: Superhero of Arizona

This summer is going to be full of new projects, some old ones, and is going to be wonderfully productive. I'm pleased to announce one of the new projects I'm going to be a part of. In collaboration with my cousin Alexis Johnson (Reel Reflections), actor, film critic Radcliff Misseri (actor of Sundown, mentioned in my post here), a group we are assembling together, and I will be creating a Youtube webseries called The Sting Chronicles. It is a satirical, coming-of-age story of a young man who thinks he has superhero powers and records his adventures via video records. It seems as if webseries are going to launch creativity in media into a whole new sphere, Youtube full of webseries cropping up to popularity, and I'm happy to be a part of this new media outlet. One of the main inspirations for this webseries is the new, highly innovative adaption of Jane Austen's novel, Pride and Prejudice, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. It records the story of Lizzie Bennet, a college student studying Mass Communications, as she recalls to her audience the antics and drama of her life with her family and friends. It is a very clever, heartwarming, and downright hilarious retelling of Pride and Prejudice, there is nothing like its kind out there. Using the internet as a mode for storytelling, but have the story be told as if it is actually a real-life scenario is ingenious and we hope we can capture that same spirit and connection with the audience that the creators of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries have achieved with their webseries.

So, I begin with my work that I've done so far on this project, and it starts with The Sting logo. As I said, this young man feels he has gained super powers, and in this case the story is set in Mesa, Arizona, and he happens to get stung by a scorpion, thus The Sting is born. The Scorpion logo design concept is a collaboration with Alexis Johnson, as she wanted something that would look menacing, but unique. With my own love for Art Nouveau, studying many pictures of scorpions, and with a touch of Celtic knot influence, we both came up with this idea:

We purposefully chose the yellow and black, because we are going for this aspect of "Danger". With reptiles and insects, there are the colors red, black, and yellow to warn other creatures that they are dangerous and poisonous, and so in this way the main character, Ethan Harper, is using this idea as a way to show he is a threat to all crime; a blaring "Danger Ahead" symbol fighting for justice! Of course, as a final touch, and as is my usual staple, adding texture adds that rustic edginess, which fits to the "wild west" atmosphere of Arizona.

Continuing with these themes, I then came up with a concept piece of the character himself, also in collaboration with Alexis Johnson. She is the writer of this series, and so much of the ideas and concepts are her own, and so she and I both agreed that this character's superhero costume would have the feel and look of Indiana Jones crossed with The Punisher. There were other influences as well, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog being one of them, but Indiana and Frank Castle were what I drew from the most while creating my piece.

We have the roguish, rustic adventurer mixed with the edgy, city superhero, and the results:

One of the key aspects of our Arizonian superhero is his bullwhip, which is how we draw the idea of the "scorpion" into his superhero persona. The stinging whip is how he battles against the forces of darkness and keeps criminals at bay! The rest came easily enough, and with high contrast, lots of texture, and simplistic design, we have our superhero ladies and gentlemen.

It is certainly going to be an adventure in bringing this story to life. As my viewers, you can have a chance to be a part of bringing this project to fruition. We are currently doing two fundraisers to raise money for the project, and it starts at a $1 minimum pledge. Alexis Johnson and Radcliff Misseri have put together a video where you can learn more information on this project as well as get to know our vision and sense of humor. Click Here. You can find out more information as well as keep up with the project on our Facebook page. 

I'll keep you up-to-date on any new artwork on do on this project, but I do hope you'll join us in bringing Ethan Harper, our desert crime fighter, to life. 

He makes everything beautiful in its time . . . Ecclesiastes 3:11