A world of their own

Alumni find fulfillment through creation

by KIMBERLY WEINBERG, Portraits editor

Alton Simpson ’88, Jamie Lackey ’06 and Paul Stefko ’06 have found a healthy and sometimes even profitable way to escape the substantial stresses of today’s world.

They make their own worlds where they can vanquish mobsters, dragons or gorgons as creators of fantasy short films, comic books, short stories and roleplaying games.

“I think life is very serious right now, and people are looking for an escape where they can relax and be themselves,” said Simpson, the creator, writer, producer of films streaming on Amazon Prime and comic books. “It’s why people are interested in different types of fantasy and sci-fi.” The genres are bigger than ever. In 2018, the five top grossing films were either superhero movies or sci-fi. Simpson has been attracted to the genre since he was young.

He has always been creative, beginning with a library

book addiction during his childhood in Philadelphia and belonging to a band in high school.

At his mother’s request, he majored in social science and business management at Pitt-Bradford. “Before my Ph.D. and M.B.A., I was horrible in business,” Simpson said. “I had a class where we were supposed to be a company. It never felt connected with real life.”

It took running his own media company, 3 Heads Productions, for him to understand what his professors had been trying to teach him.

In the early 2000s, Simpson was a cubicle dweller working as a mortgage loan officer. “The guy in the next cubicle had written a script, and we both knew a friend in common who had gone to film school,” he said.

Alton Simpson ’88 shows off some of his comic titles at one of his favorite stores, the Plunder Palace in Cherry Hill, N.J.

“We decided to have the three of us shoot the script. That was a debacle, but I learned a lot from the fact that we didn’t finish the short film.”

With what he learned on that project he, his wife and a friend – the original three heads of his company – were able to start making some commercials for Philadelphia-based Comcast. He taught himself to score the music for the commercials and was never afraid to teach himself the skills needed for a new project. He’s taught himself editing, stopmotion animation and a skill that transfers really well to the business world – project management.

Next came 48-hour film festivals, which are the film equivalent of a hackathon. Participants get a theme and 48 hours to write and shoot a movie. Those judged the best are shown at a final film festival. One of his most successful entries combined his experience as a father with his experience in finance.

2006 alumni Jamie Lackey and Paul Stefko with their publications

“Mystery of the Hedge Fund Manager” was a kid-detective black-and-white noir film featuring his own children, who would be nominated as best young actors. You can see it on YouTube.

While working on films, he frequently uses a technique called storyboarding – drawing scenes in a way similar to comic books. So similar, in fact, that that became his next adventure. He hired a former Marvel artist to draw them.

Simpson has two comic book series that are selling out in local stores in Philadelphia and New Jersey – “Blackjack,” about a scientist superhero whose powers change without his control, and “Vampires of New Jersey,” in which stylish bloodsuckers battle a mobster family with a mysterious connection.

Remarkably, Simpson wrote most issues of Vampires while working on his doctoral thesis in management of information systems.

“I write scripts to let off steam,” he said. After turning in a portion of his thesis (which examined unique ways small businesses are dealing with increasing healthcare costs), he would unwind with a completely different kind of writing.

Now he’s on the comic book circuit signing books and meeting fans. “I take an interest in a lot of things, and I like to see where they go.”

Jamie Lackey and Paul Stefko both took an interest in role-playing games as part of the Secret Adventure Society at Pitt-Bradford in the 2000s, and it led them to love and marriage.

Just the act of sitting down with your friends for two or three hours and imagining together is a lot of fun.”

The couple lives in Forest Hills, Pa., and both Lackey and Stefko manage to pursue creative work outside of full-time jobs. The two even work for the same online fashion company – Lackey in customer service and Stefko in shipping.

One night a week though, Stefko makes sure she’s set aside time for her passion – writing fantasy short stories and novels.

“I don’t really understand the appeal of more realistic fiction,” she said. “The real world is out there, so if I want to do things in the real world, I can just go do them. Writing fantasy is a nice escape. It’s a clear distinction between fiction and reality.”

Joining a writing group helped her negotiate the world of physical and online publishing. She has also participated in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America’s Annual Nebula Conference, where she metthe publisher of her short story collection.

She begins her stories with just a vague idea, she says, calling herself a “discovery writer” who discovers the story as she works.

“I have some themes that I find popping up throughout my work,” she said. “I tend to write a lot about free will.”

Free will and choices have a lot to do with the kind of writing Stefko does in the unique world of tabletop role-playing games. The most famous of these is Dungeons and Dragons, but there are hundreds.

In these games, a group gets together, and each player takes on a character. One person is in charge of presenting a world and posing challenges and adjudicating what does and does not work. Players respond with what actions they want to take. There is an element of chance – like dice – and a rule book.

That’s where Stefko often comes in. Playing the games is his hobby, but so is writing new characters and rules for established games, which publishers purchase from him.

“I like working with a publisher because they handle a lot of the more tedious aspects like finding artists and getting things shipped,” he said, leaving him free to imagine.

“Games give people a creative outlet for themselves,” he said. “Just the act of sitting down with your friends for two or three hours and imagining together is a lot of fun.”