What was your involvement with Imaginary Friends Studios and do you still keep up to date with what they’re doing? I founded Imaginary Friends Studios and built it from the ground up for 3+ years, but my partners and I decided to part ways. I still have lots of friends in the studio, after all I personally recruited most of the staff in the hopes of giving them a platform to shine, so I still keep track of them as artists that have a bright future if they manage their careers well. In fact, I’m now working on various new Storm Lion and Radical projects with many of the artists who left Imaginary Friends Studios after my departure.
growing up? , DEVROXWHO\ ORYH VFL ¿ , WKLQN LW¶V WKH KLJKHVW IRUP RI HVFDSH IRU \RXQJ boys. The original Battlestar Galactica ZDV 7+( VFL ¿ HSLF IRU PH , ¿UVW watched it in the local movie theatre that screened it in Sensurround. The theatre seats would rumble when the Vipers launched and I was totally hooked. I built paper Vipers, Cylon raiders and drew BSG fan comics. What exactly do Storm Lion, and Velvet Engine offer?
After reading Freedom Formula LW VHHPV WKDW \RX ZHDU \RXU ORYH RI VFL ¿ RQ \RXU Storm Lion is our Singapore based publishing imprint under RadiVOHHYH :HUH WKHUH DQ\ VFL ¿ ¿OPV RU VWRULHV WKDW PDGH D ELJ LPSUHVVLRQ RQ \RX
Cannes must have been a highlight for you. Do you have any memories that stand out? Meeting Jean-Claude Van Damme and Adrian Paul was pretty cool. However the real highlight was kind of a spiritual H[SHULHQFH ZKHQ D OLWWOH ELUG ÀHZ LQWR P\ URRP DQG ODQGHG on my hand. It stayed there for a good 3 minutes before it SRRSHG DQG ÀHZ RII , WRRN LW DV D VSLULWXDO VLJQ WKDW WKLQJV are going well. FDO 7KH LGHD LV WR KDYH D OLQH WKDW ZDV PRUH $VLDQ LQÀXHQFHG LQ LWV FUHDWLYH ideas and hopefully appeal to both American/International and Asian markets at the same time. Freedom Formula was a great example of how a story that drew from Chinese historical mythology and plays with Asian versus Western perspectives on themes such as freedom and duty, creates a fascinating story that can resonate with today’s internationally aware readers. Velvet Engine is just my dumping ground for projects that I think are too personal to jusWLI\ JHWWLQJ RWKHU SHRSOH LQYROYHG LQ XQWLO , FDQ ¿JXUH D ZD\ IRU WKHP WR ZRUN
ing, mass market books and other types of publishing beyond comics and graphic novels. Really it’s just an excuse to hang out and plot with my best friend, partner and mentor, Radical president/founder, Barry Levine who has been such a huge part of giving me my big break. Will you be writing any more comics in the future?
Absolutely! In addition to writing various new ideas that I have, I’m also enjoying the process of co-writing with various writers such as Andrew What does your role at Radical involve? Dabb (TV’s Supernatural), Tony Lee (IDW’s Doctor Who) and Brandon Jerwa (Dynamite’s Battlestar Galactica, Highlander). It’s been good My role at Radical is to oversee operations at a strategic level. That involves WR H[SHULHQFH ¿UVWKDQG KRZ VRPH RWKHU ZULWHUV SXW WKHLU FUDIW WR ZRUN ensuring the organizational structure and business strategies align especially as we expand into other areas of publishing including foreign licens-