After Hours Press Profile

Introduction:

After Hours Press is the brainchild of Buddy Scalera and Darren Sanchez, two people who have had a lot of experience in the comic book industry. Both have worked for Wizard - Buddy previously and Darren currently - and used their knowledge that they have gleaned from their contact with the comic book world to pursue self publishing of their own comic books. They have produced a fair amount of comics with 7 Days To Fame, Model Operandi, Impossible Tales, and Necrotic to name a few. They have also released a widely popular CD-ROM entitled, "Visual Reference For Comic Artists."

What follows is information about After Hours Press from President and co-founder Buddy Scalera.

Name:

After Hours Press

Chief Staff:

President: Buddy Scalera Publisher: Darren Sanchez

Started by:

Darren Sanchez and I created the company around Necrotic, a comic book that I had written for another company. When they decided not to publish the book, we quickly formed After Hours Press. The name comes from the fact that we both worked at Wizard. They allowed us to publish our own little comics, as long as all the work took place "after hours."

Characters:

We publish a line of comics that include Necrotic (a mummy story), Celestial Alliance (sci-fi), 7 Days to Fame (a contemporary drama), Model Operandi (action adventure), Desperate Times (humor), and Impossible Tales (sci-fi).

Famous For:

Our biggest-selling title wasn't even a comic book, but more of a comic book resource. I created three multimedia CD-ROMs called "Visual Reference for Comic Artists" Vol. 1, 2, 3. These were huge, breakout sellers for us. Each disk contained 600+ custom photographs of people, places, and things that would be useful to a working comic book artist. These CDs have been continuously in print since 2001 and continue to sell in comic stores, conventions, and from our website.

Since all of our creators have either worked for Marvel or Wizard, we create fairly mainstream comics. So when people read our books, they get mainstream stories and art. "7 Days to Fame" got a lot of attention this past year. This story is about a reality TV show where people go on live television to commit suicide. It's a timely drama, and the critics really seemed to enjoy it. Personally I am proud of that story because a lot of non-traditional comic readers said that they really liked it.

Several people have connected with our newest title "Impossible Tales." There's not a lot of good, fun science fiction out there anymore. Most of it is pretty dark, which is great, but can get a little redundant. So I think a lot of people responded to Darren's smart, light script for Impossible Tales. We're going to try to do an Impossible Tales project each year, just to keep the fire burning.

Public Company (Can you own a piece of it?):

No. We're barely even a private company. Okay, we're a private company that is the leader in losing money.

Creator Owned Projects:

So far all of our projects are creator owned, but mostly we have just published stuff that we wrote ourselves. We did our first creator-owned project recently when we published Model Operandi. We all just really loved this book, and really wanted to bring it to a wider audience.

Location:

New Jersey, about 15 minutes outside Manhattan

Website:

www.ahpcomics.com

Send Projects to:

Email is good. Conventions are better. I don't want concepts or scripts, I want to see completed books. If I publish something, it will be a title that looks (quality-wise) like something put out by Marvel and DC, but not necessarily a superhero book. I want to publish stories that move me emotionally. Right now, honestly, I just don't think we have the resources to publish anything new this year.

Other Media:

Not yet. Lots and lots of talk, but no signed contracts.

Get A Job With:

Just email me or come up to me at a convention. We've had helpers and interns and assistants since we started. We have no money, but we give people chocolate, hugs, and we promise to be nice to them for at least an hour.

History:

My co-writer and I wrote Necrotic and it was supposed to be published by a small indy company. So I promised everyone that, if they worked on my book, I would guarantee that it would be published. When the orders came in the publisher realized that it would lose money, so he decided not to publish it. But I had promised everyone that the book would come out. So I took a loan out from the Bank of Dad and published Necrotic at a huge financial loss. But I kept my promise and published the comic. Once we had put out a book, we wanted to do more comics, which we did.