T: The Devil has a crisis of conscience and quits. He goes on the lam in the Nevada desert. Forces in hell are trying to drag him back. If he doesn’t use his powers they can’t track him. He’s trying desperately hard to not be the thing that he is. He’s a man caught between what he was and what he wants to be.
As an actor I often play villains. They often die at the end of the episode. I was looking at creating a villain that was also the protagonist. Being fascinated with anti-heroes, The Shield, Breaking Bad etc...I thought who is the ultimate “Villain”? The Devil, the original anti-hero. What would happen if he grew a conscience, chose not to be evil. It’s a big theme to me. We state it overtly in the strip “Evil is not a force, it’s a choice.” Also I love Dr. Who, the dynamic of the flawed, extraordinary being with the human sidekick on the run. I wanted to set it in the west, the dark stranger comes to town. These confluence of ideas and influences became Devil Inside. An existential, action-horror morality tale. I didn’t know if it should be a film or TV show or what. So I left it percolating in my mind. Then I met Dennis, we shared a love of anti-heroes and genre. Dennis is a tremendous artist and writer with an expertise in a world that I was only a fan of: comics. I pitched it to him. He said we should do it as a webstrip. So we joined forces. Wonderpowers activate. Together, over ten months we broke story, generated characters, concept drawings and dramatic arc. We launched the first strip for comic-con 2010.
D:Over the past two years we have taken a significant chunk out of our personal and professional lives bringing DI to life, often sharing editing, layout and correction duties. We folded in ideas we had for other stories, including a back story for Sophie that is only now coming to light. Everything gets smooshed together.
What led to the decision to do it as a webcomic rather than print? What was the experience like?
T: Doing it as a webstrip solved many problems. First, one page a week was doable. This is a labor of love and something we needed to be able to do in our downtime. Second, it’s more efficient and gave us control. We publish ourselves on my website. With twitter and facebook we are able to, very quickly, get the comic in front of a lot of people that we felt would enjoy it. Far more than if we originally printed. It’s much easier for someone to take a chance on something new if all they have to do is click a link. It’s tough motivating people to drive to a store and purchase a product they know little about.
The experience of working with Dennis is one of the finest and most unique in my creative life. Being on two coasts the work is done through skype, emails, phone calls and texts. We have the long broad strokes of the story. Then each week I’ll take a scene and script the episode. Send it to Dennis, we pow-wow, we make changes. We do a layout. He inks and colors himself. Lots of back and forth We keep refining all the way, sometimes up to the last minutes before we post it. It’s incredibly fun and satisfying.
D: Making it free, to me, was vital in making any plan work. Deciding how to "monetize" (not my favorite word) could come later. Especially in this early internet age, eyeballs equals money...at least eventually if you can ride out out the not making money part. So yes, the decision was mostly based on finding a way to do it for free that wouldn't monopolize our time making a living.
But then the limitation, as limitations often do, opened up a bunch of unthought of creative possibilities. I an enthusiastic fan of some old comic strips, my favorite being the old James Bond adventures strip which actually predated the films and ran well into the 1980s, and is reproduced even now in many markets.
I was impressed with the depth of story telling in only 2-5 panels. It forces you to be brief, give only the most necessary information and that's it. And in fact you don't even really have that many panels, because the first is ideally a recap (told in story) and the last is a cliffhanger. It's storytelling 101 and you have to keep it basic. And finding a way to subtle within that...it's a challenge but it's possible and I think we do it.
Will you stay as a webcomic or will you transition over to print?
T: For the first time we have collected the first year’s worth of strips, chapter one, into a printed book. We are selling it on the website.
D: I see them as year books, a look back and though the material is always available online, we tried to load the book with extra value: there's a foreword by the incredible smart and funny Dana Gould (a hero of mine and personally I'm aiming for Eddie for the next one!), sketches, contest winners and an in-depth. Plus, all the art is at a higher resolution that online and the convenience and collectability factor!And now DEVIL INSIDE has been optioned by UCP?
D: Yes, and we couldn't be more excited!
T: After we completed chapter one we felt we had enough meat on the bone to translate it into another medium, perhaps a live action television series. We shopped it around. Universal Cable Production really responded to it and optioned us. The next step is finding the right network. It’s exciting
What other projects are you working on?
T: Irons in the fire. Most are still brewing so we can’t say much. I have just completed acting in a horror film for Universal, I also recently did an episode of Franklin and Bash. Dennis and I have a stable of ideas that we are talking to places about. Possible comic books and other TV projects. In the meantime we are still putting out Devil Inside every week.
D: Stuff for the History Channel, the Shadow, Dark Horse...man I'm busy!
Read the weekly episodes of DEVIL INSIDE at www.toddstashwick.com.
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