Fred, PoD: Minnie and Uriel

A twofer today. Minnie is the career succubus longing for a life outside of seduction. She and Fred hit it off immediately, and puppy love ensues. Nothing more than that ever can, though, because the moment they get carnal, Fred loses his soul. The downside of dating a succubus. Uriel is Heaven's clueless ambassador to Hell. He's utterly convinced that Fred is some sort of trick and that Satan's still in charge. Thus he tirelessly pursues Satan from pointless job to pointless job, striving to uncover a conspiracy that doesn't exist.

I really dig this art. Really gets to the core of the characters. Minnie's gorgeous and alluring without being slutty. "Intimidating beauty" is how I'd put it. And I love how there's nothing behind the eyes of that lantern-jawed angel. Looking at Uriel, I'm reminded of Dark Helmet's words to Lone Star in the climactic duel of Spaceballs: "Evil will always triumph, because Good is dumb."

Fred, PoD: Satan

After he loses Hell in a poker game, Satan is fired and evicted. Now he wanders the earth drifting from one dead end job to another. A guy whose identity was completely tied up in his job, Satan now finds himself on an unintentional journey of self-discovery. .
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Note the complete lack of giving a shit. Some of the jobs Satan will suffer through over the course of the first season are telemarketer, self-help guru, and mercenary.

Fred, PoD: Fred

Here he is, the titular character from Fred, Prince of Darkness: Fred, the poor office drone forced to run Hell after Satan loses it in a poker game. Note the panic and the terror sweats.

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That's Virgil the hellhound puppy on the leash. Fred got him for Minnie, the succubus love interest who wants out of seduction, as a first date gift. Minnie will show up here in a couple of days.

Grandma, Red Shirts and Fred

Lots of movement on several fronts.

On Wednesday, I finished my rough draft of Grandmother Clock, the dark children's fantasy I've been working on for about two years. This was the longest and hardest write I've done since Undergrads, and for similar reasons. I'm rushing now to get a working draft done to disseminate before we take of for Hawaii on Monday. If you want to read it, shoot me an email. Just remember that all the regular first draft provisos still apply.

About a month ago, I was contacted by a very talented pair the AFI class of 2008, the year after mine. Tom Mahoney and Nick Simon, the producer and director of The 7th Claus, went flipping through the 2007 screenwriter's pamphlet looking for projects, and Red Shirts caught their eye. Which is not a surprise if you consider we share a favorite AFI instructor, Star Trek alumna D.C. Fontana. We met and they pitched me an idea for the project that I instantly dug: why not set it in 1960s TV sci-fi, with all the ridiculous sets and costumes and hairdos and social attitudes? The idea excited all of us and breathed new life into an otherwise dormant project. Tom and Nick took the project to AFI class of 2004 producing alumn Brian Udovich, who I first met here, and got him similarly stoked. We're all four in the early stages of some pretty thorough research. (Translation: we're gonna be watching a lot of original series Star Trek.) I'm excited to see where this goes.

I've mentioned before that Fred, Prince of Darkness, my animated sitcom pilot, has been on hold for about a year. We need character and concept art to complete our pitch package before we take Fred out to share. Three times last year, Jonah hired an artist, and three times the guy flaked out before producing anything. Finally, though, we found our guy: Aussie comic book and pinup artist Martin Abel. His style is perfect for Fred, both hilarious and edgy while not sacrificing character for look. If Hopjockey were ever a comic, I'd go to this guy. I'll be sharing some of the concept art here in the next few days.

So yeah, things are good. Maybe the cookie was right.

Cookie Prophecy

Last night's fortune cookie: "Your ideas are clever, and you will be rewarded." Sweet.