NOT THE END OF THE WORLD YET FOR ANDY: LENHERT, DWORKIN & GIARUSSO TALK FILM COMIC

[MattBrady]

by Benjamin Ong Pang Kean

From the first day of kindergarten, Andy knew he was going to take Bethany Hopkins to the senior prom. The only problem is: he never bothered to tell Bethany. In fact, Andy’s never even spoken to her. But with the prom only twenty-four hours away, he’s not going to let a little thing like that get him down. He’s got bigger problems. Mainly the fact that America is on the brink of a nuclear war that not only threatens to destroy the free world… but his prom night as well.

Following in the footsteps of guys like Kevin Smith (Clerks, etc), Bob Lipski (Uptown Girl) and others, Bohemia Films’ Eugene Lenhert and Marc Dworkin have brought their creation, Andy, to life in a full-length feature film, Armageddon for Andy.

And the duo managed to rope in comic’s very own Chris Giarrusso, creator of Mini Marvels, Bullpen Bits and other loveable characters, for the production of the film and the comic book prequel, Andy.

Newsarama.com sat down with the trio for a chat.

Newsarama: Armageddon for Andy will screen November 10th at the United Fan Con in Springfield Massachusetts at 6pm, right?

Eugene Lenhert: Yes, there will be talk before the film and some Q&A as well.

The movie will then run the next day various times.

Marc Dworkin: Oh yeah. Same day Davey Jones and Peter Tork of the Monkeys will be at the con signing autograpahs. It's going to be awesome.

NRAMA: Marc, Eugene, what's your background as a movie producer? How did you end up making this movie?

EL: We made our own films all through out college. Senior year we finished a 1 hour long movie called The Professor and screened it at school. We got a really good response from it
and it inspired us to make another film. Dworkin had the Andy idea he was batting around so we decided to start to develop it. It began as a short 20-minute musical then one fateful day on train ride to our auditions it turned into a feature. For better or worse it went from a 20 page script to a 120 page script. The musical part was cast aside. The task soon proved to be very daunting. A two-week shoot turned into something that took us 5 years to finish. Basically anything that can go wrong on a film set can. In those kinds of situations you find out how much you don't really know. But in the end with a lot of hard work some re-shoots and good advice it became something whole and complete.

MD: Like Eugene mentioned, after the success of our college films, we felt like we were ready to take on the world. It's true that the original Armageddon for Andy script was a 20 page musical featuring such show-stopping numbers as Goodbye Civillization, Hello Love. (I'm not kidding). But then on the train ride to our New York City acting auditions, some of our friends who were working on the movie were like "This is too good to be a short. You gotta make it a feature. This is the next Clerks." I'm not sure why we listened, but who were we to argue with praise. So the movie turned into a feature and the musical numbers went away. At the time of the jump from short to feature, I was working as a production assistant on Men in Black II. We were set to start filming Andy in two months, so I had to pound out a script quick. Men in Black was all night shoots, so I would write the Andy script all day, then go work 14 hours over night, go home and repeat the process. At the same time, I was basically using the Men in Black production office for the Andy production office. Eugene and I would sneak in on the weekends, copy scripts, fax things, steal craft service, hang out in Barry Sonenfeld's office. It was great. Then it came time to shoot and, well we had our problems. A two week shoot turned into five years. And during those five years, there were plenty of times where Eugene and I would stare at each other and think "well, we tried. Maybe we should have gone to Law School after all." But we never gave up, especially Eugene, and now we have a finished feature length movie that is actually being well received. Although part of me still longs for the musical numbers.

NRAMA: Was the idea for Armageddon for Andy based on a childhood creation or something? How did you come up with Andy and the world that he's living in?

EL: This is all Dworkin's.

MD: Armageddon for Andy was an idea based on my experience in Junior High. When I was in seventh grade, the first Gulf War had just broken out. Now, this was mine, and my classmates, first time dealing with America being at war. It was such a surreal time. I remember every tree in town having a yellow ribbon, banners hanging off overpasses saying "bring our troops home.". But the thing that stuck with me though was an English teacher I had who spent an entire class period telling us about the war and how there were soldiers dying over there. The woman was in tears, just sobbing hysterically. And I sat in my chair thinking "Will you shut up? I could be home playing Genesis right now." When I look back at that time, it just amazes me that I cared more about beating Sonic the Hedgehog than America being at war. But I was a kid and I thought I had more important things to deal with. And that was basis for the movie. The idea that the world could blow up tomorrow and a high school kid would be more concerned about who he's going to take to the prom. The character of Andy came about because, to me, there's no problem, besides drugs and gun violence, affecting today's teenagers greater than being in love with the most popular girl in school. It's just a recipe for disaster. You're never going to get her, and you waste your precious high school years pining away for her. It consumes you. People love what they can't have. So I wanted to have a character who was consumed by this love, and thus, a little thing like nuclear war, would be just a nuisance.


NRAMA: There's a comic by Marc Dworkin and Chris Giarrusso that serves as a prequel to the movie. Now, Chris is loved for his work on Bullpen Bits, Mini Marvels and Comic Bits. How did he come into the creative picture then?

MD: It was all Eugene. When we realized we couldn't film our flashback, Eugene brought up Chris's name and said maybe he would do a cartoon for us. Him and his brother did a fantastic job on the flashback cartoon and some people say it's their favorite part of the movie. The best part for me has been working with Chris on the comic book. He just nailed all the characters and his style just lends itself so perfectly to the script. Chris is also a great writer and just knew how to draw the panels to support the jokes.

EL: I met Chris when I interned at Marvel. I was putting comic art in Fed Ex boxes for freelancers when he came up to me and asked me if I went to Binghamton University in upstate New York. I did and so did he. Then we found out we knew some people in common. I remembered seeing his stuff in the college newspaper and I when I first started at Marvel I was seeing his strips pasted to desks in the office. Then after that I started noticing that Chris was doing the Bullpen Bits in Marvel Comics. Then I saw the first Mini-Marvels, then I saw the flash animations he did. I was like wow. This is cool. Why hadn't anyone thought of making the Marvel characters as kids? It seems so damn simple. It's perfect. By that time we were pretty far into a rough cut of the movie. We had a scene in the script that was a flashback of the characters in kindergarten and we weren't going to be able to film it so I thought it might be cool as an animation and the Marvel animations Chris and Dave did came to mind. So I emailed Chris and he was really into it and was all about it. He didn't even expect to be paid, he just thought it would be cool. It took some time though. We were working through email and I have never actually met Dave to this day but we ended up with a pretty cool flash animation a la Better Off Dead.

As for the comic book, Dworkin and I talked about turning Andy into a cartoon series even though the movie wasn't done yet. I thought that would be great but tough to get done. I thought a comic would definitely be feasible on our own though so again I turned to Chris. He was working on his first issue of G-Man at the time and couldn't do it. Later on he agreed to illustrate the first issue of Andy so I took Dworkin's script and adapted it for a comic. And that is where we are today.

NRAMA: Anything that you’d like to add, Chris?

Chris Giarrusso: I met Eugene when I was working in the Marvel Bullpen and Eugene was a Marvel intern. It turned out we went to the same college and he remembered some of the comic
strips I did at the school paper. A couple of years later, he contacted me to see if I'd be interested in animating a short sequence for a movie he and Marc Dworkin were working on, and so my brother Dave and I ended up doing that. It wasn't until after that when Marc and Eugene asked me to do the comic.

NRAMA: Marc, Eugene, for someone from outside the world of comics looking in, what do you think of the industry as it is?

EL: Yeah, we haven't done anything like this before. It's definitely a first.

I think right now the industry has been putting out some good material in recent years. I used to collect when I was a kid. I grew up on Marvel, then Image and Valiant and then the floor fell out from beneath everyone and I stopped buying. There was a lot of bad stuff coming out. A few years ago I started going back into comic stores and started picking up books and I found that there was a lot of good stuff out. I also caught up on a lot of good graphic novels like Sandman and Preacher. I find it interesting to see businessmen and adults buying comics in Midtown or Forbidden Planet in Manhattan a lot of the times. I feel like everyone around my age started getting back into comics too. You grow up and get older and forget comic books then you get older and you get right back into it. And now we have money.

NRAMA: Once a comic book fan, always a comics fan, right?

EL: Yeah. I still have X-Men #200-#300 and a bunch of classic X-Men. I have Spider-Man #1-#20, Spawn #1, Savage Dragon #1, Harbinger #1, Solar Man of the Atom #1.

MD: I'm a television writer and really had no idea what went on in the comic world. I think the biggest shocker for me was how little money there is involved in the comic world. In television, writers are paid gross amounts to produce dribble. In the comic world, some of these writers and artist are doing incredible work and barely getting by. It's insane to me.

When I was a kid, my mom used to take me the local flea market where there was a booth that sold 5 comic books for a dollar. Every time we went, I'd buy five Archie comics and just devour them. I've always loved comedy and here were great characters, really funny jokes and some pretty decent stories. Plus, the ugliest kid in school was dating two hot chicks. When does that happen?

CG: Yeah, I read a lot of Marvel and DC superhero stuff in the eighties and nineties.

NRAMA: Now, why would Andy appeal to comic book fans?

EL: Andy's just a regular guy who likes a girl. It's Archie with an edge. Andy has a lot of good friends. They really make the book. Andy is merely the center point for the rest of the characters to revolve around. These characters would not be together if not for Andy. The characters in Andy are very stereotypical but they have a lot of character in them. I think it really helped that we made the movie and then the comic book. The actors gave life to the characters on paper which gave inspiration to the characters in the comic. They became real and original and it becomes fun to watch them all interact with one another.


MD: Because for most of us kids who were buying comic books in high school, and are still buying them today, we were that kid who was in love with the most popular girl in school. Some of us still are. But beyond that, I think the world is ready for a new Archie. There aren't a heck of a lot of humor comic books out there. No matter how crazy this world gets, there will always be a need for people to laugh. And I think Andy will help satisfy that need. Also, a thing that really annoys me about comic books today is you spend four bucks on a book and you read it in five minutes. The artwork is incredible, but there's not much story going on. From a writing perspective, I thought it would be cool to structure a comic book like a sitcom. Andy has a two act story, and tons of jokes, in every issue. I wrote the script as an episode of a television series, then Eugene brilliantly adapted it into comic book form. So when you're reading the book, it has the feel of a Saturday morning cartoon. Which I think makes the book unique.

CG: I think the characters in Andy will be very familiar to comic fans. If you're a comic fan, you're probably just like one of the characters in this story or you know somebody who is.

NRAMA: Chris, you and your brother, Dave, animated a flashback sequence for Armageddon for Andy. How has the whole experience been?

CG: It wasn't so bad... except Eugene kept telling me to draw it worse. It was meant to look like Andy's drawings, which aren't supposed to be good. "This is pretty good stuff, Chris... can you make it look worse?" The drawing part was pretty easy. My brother Dave did all the hard work that went into animating it.

NRAMA: It seems that you've been keeping yourself busy with the continuing Comic Bits in Erik Larsen's Savage Dragon series as well as doing stuff for Marvel Comics (a new back-up strip in Stan Lee Meets Doctor Strange, more Mini Marvels in Spider-Man Family: Amazing Friends, Marvel Adventures, etc). What does the future look like for you?

CG: Right now I'm working on some back-up stories for Spider-Man & Power Pack with writer Marc Sumerak -- not to be confused with Chris Eliopoulos' Franklin Richards back-up stories in previous Power Pack series, of course. Chris E's Franklin Richards stories have graduated to quarterly specials, so now I'll be filling the back-up slot with Mini Marvels stuff that Sumerak has written. Mini Marvels generally feature the classic Marvel heroes as kids, but Power Pack is already a group of kids, so the Mini Marvel Power Pack is going to be a group of babies in diapers. The story I'm drawing now has Spidey babysitting the Power Pack babies.

NRAMA: With spandex and sex still ruling the comics scene nowadays, what are your views on all-ages comics? What else can be done to make comics more kid-friendly and easily accessible? Or is it already too late with all things looking too doom and gloom now?

CG: I like the idea of all-ages comics that are actually entertaining for all ages, and I prefer working on comics that anybody can read. Unfortunately, I think most readers equate "all-ages" with "just for kids" and pass them up.

MD: I think the main reason younger kids have stopped reading comic books is because they have been priced out. I remember when I was a kid, my local comic book store would set
aside a bag of comics for me every week. I'd go in and pick it up and read all week. Then somewhere in the early 90's, I couldn't afford that bag anymore. Suddenly, comics had foil covers and doubled in price. And prices have only gone up since then. How many kids can afford to blow five bucks on a comic? And how many parents want to spend that money on them? As a result, older people with money are buying comic books, so comic books are getting more mature. Kids can't relate to the books anymore. I don't know if prices will come down, but I hope a book like Andy, which can appeal to both worlds, bridges that gap and makes a kid who spends his last $3.50 on it, feel like it was worth it.

EL: I don't see why all-ages comics can't exist. I think something well written and well illustrated will always win over readers. Since there aren't a lot of all-ages comics hopefully there is room for something new. But that fact might make something like Andy stand out. We all were kids once. Andy has someone for everyone. There are so many characters in the Andiverse that someone has to see someone that they relate to. It's a good alternative to what is out there. If it's well done people will check it out. Some of the most successful films in Hollywood are what they call these "four-quadrant" films. Movies like Shrek and Finding Nemo. They are just movies with good stories and solid story telling that everyone can relate to. Young or old. They don't talk down to the audience or try to talk above anyone's heads. And these movies make millions of dollars if not billions. If movies can do it why can't comics? People just have to recognize it as being possible. I'm almost 30 and I read Runaways and I loved Shrek and Finding Nemo. But I also like movies like Aliens and the Terminator too. If people think all-ages comics are possible and they put out good quality work it will be read by everyone.

CG: I don’t think it's too late. In fact, it seems like some steps are already being successfully taken to make more kid-friendly and accessible comics. There's more comics in bookstores now than ever.

NRAMA: Anything else that you’d like to add?

EL: Giarrusso was instrumental in creating this book. Since Marc and I didn't have a lot of experience with making a comic book Chris was able to share a lot of his professional experience with us.

The Andy comic is now available for purchase at comixpress.com.

The Armageddon for Andy feature film will be screen at the upcoming United Fan Con in Springfield, Massachussetts, November 10-12. For more information, visit unitedfancon.com.

For more news on the Andy comic and movie, check out the Bohemia Films blog. You’ll get the most up-to-date info on the movie and even a preview of the comic.

[Impulse2k1]

I'm all over this preety good

[Skyldt]

huh...sounds pretty good. i'm gonna have to check it out.

[tim seeley]

I was an intern at Marvel with Eugene, and I can attest to his genius.
TIM!

[BanMan]

gotta order the book.

[grphxkindaguy]

Originally Posted by tim seeley

I was an intern at Marvel with Eugene, and I can attest to his genius.
TIM!

When were you guys interns at Marvel? I was there in the fall/winter of '94, as an editorial intern...

I'm a big fan of Chris G's work, loved his Bullpen bits and Marvel Mini's. I even got him to draw two pictures for me (Rom & Wolverine, Superman & Popeye-for a friend) at WW Chicago 2005.

I'll be sure to look out for this comic and movie!!!

[bishop-m]

sounds pretty cool. I'll have to check out comic at comixpress!

[Clockwork]

On the surface it might seem like he is just taking all the Marvel characters and turning them into kids, but there is so much more going on. I mean Professor X and J Jonah Jameson are the same age they are in the monthly comics but Spider-Man has to be about 10. He instinctively knows which characters would benefit from being kids and which ones wouldn't. That's where the brilliance comes in.

John

[johnchrist]

if done correctly this looks like a movie I'll end up quoting instead of actually thinking up original lines "F*ck it Dude, let's go bowling." "Let's get down to brass tacks, how much for the monkey?" "F*cking A, Peter-man"

[euge04]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp4gmjlaAHo

www.bohemiafilms.com

[euge04]

I was an intern in '99. Damn I'm getting old. I got to meet a lot of talented people there.

Thanks for the nice words Tim. Can't wait to see the Hack/Slash movie.

Also, if people live in Manhattan and want the comic go to Forbidden Planet and Midtown. They still have issues left!

[euge04]

Maybe he would want you to see it. Who knows. But our screening was pre-empted by the arrival of Captain Kirk. Full story on our website...

http://bohemiafilms.wordpress.com/

[euge04]

Saturday, February 24th our first feature length film "Armageddon for Andy" will be playing at the Two Boots Pioneer theater in Manhattan at 6:30pm. It's the same weekend of the big New York Comic Con. Tickets are available online at the link below.

http://pioneertheater.tix.com/Event.asp?Event=80188

http://www.twoboots.com/pioneer/