Press Release
In the 19th century Europe of ULTRASYLVANIA, the new comic co-created and written by Brian Schirmer and with art direction by Jeremy Saliba (THE WHEEL OF TIME), Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, and a certain Egyptian resident don’t lurk in the darkness – they’re world leaders, struggling to hold their nations together amid assassination plots, romantic betrayals, and political intrigues.
Produced in cooperation with the Academy of Art University’s first-of-its-kind Comic Collaborative class, wherein students met and worked in the Academy’s state-of-the-art Cintiq studio, ULTRASYLVANIA was brought to life over the course of fifteen weeks. The artists employed a variety of media – pencils, pen and ink, watercolor, all digital – to achieve the finished product, which will first see publication as a web comic, followed by a series of digital comics, and ultimately a print edition this fall. ULTRASYLVANIA features art by Jonathan Aguillon, Edward Edgerson, Jr., Valerio Fabretti, John Gomes, Matt Harding, Richard Healy, Gregory Mack, Dylan Palmer, Niko Pope, Garrett Richert, and Erik Solem.
“Knowing that Jeremy and I were going to be working with nearly a dozen students – each with a unique style – we opted to embrace their differences,” says Schirmer, “structuring the story so that each change in artist coincided with a change in location, time period, and the like.”
“No other art university has done anything like this – having students all work together on a single comic project from an outside client,” says Saliba. “The fact that it jumps around through a bunch of carefully researched historical eras and allows the artists to explore these classic creatures in a whole new way – that just makes it fun for everyone.”
ULTRASYLVANIA is currently free to read at http://ultrasylvania.com, with new pages every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
1 Comment
Man that art looks sweet, love all the different styles and the idea of getting new talent a place to shine.