For years large comic book covers of Apama – The Undiscovered Animal dominated the windows of a building located at the corner of E. 9th and Superior Avenue.
While intelligent and curious folk would use the Internet to find out more, others – you can call them lazy folk – may still be in the dark regarding the local comic book series co-written by Ted Sikora and Milo Miller, and illustrated by Spanish artist Benito Gallego.
Now a few years later, the Apama – The Undiscovered Animal series is about to take another step forward going from digital existence at comiXology.com to 160-page hardcover edition including all five issues with extras. There’s currently a Kickstarter campaign behind the project.
Cool Cleveland talked to Sikora, who directed and co-wrote the independent film Hero Tomorrow, about the Cleveland-based comic book series.
Cool Cleveland: First of all, what’s the origin of Apama – The Undiscovered Animal?
Ted Sikora: This is an oddball spin-off of a movie we did called Hero Tomorrow. It really has taken on a life all its own. You don’t have to know anything about the movie we did to enjoy the comic series. It’s meant as a standalone piece. We did the first issue a few years ago and then started releasing them digitally. Once we got through this fifth issue, which is the introduction of his arch nemesis, we thought this was a good place to do a collection and put it into print for the first time.
In a nutshell, how does Apama – The Undiscovered Animal relate to Hero Tomorrow?
In the movie there’s a guy who has an idea for a superhero comic book series and it’s called Apama – The Undiscovered Animal. David can’t get that published so his girlfriend makes him a costume of his own character for Halloween. He starts going nuts wearing this costume and thinking he’s a superhero. We thought it would be really cool to do the book that’s in his head and that’s what Apama is.
What’s the reaction been to Apama?
We’ve gotten reviews all over, blogs and really all over the nation. It’s been very positive. People are really digging the sort of small-town vibe of this superhero thing. I think one of the things we can do in this series that Marvel and DC comics can’t really do is start something with a blank canvas. It’s not populated by a ton of other superheroes and villains, and there’s not this ridiculously long history. It’s a clean slate, so to speak. The other thing that I think is cool about our book is a lot of superhero stuff has been happening with movies here in Cleveland, but Cleveland has to be New York or Washington. This is the series that Cleveland gets to be Cleveland, and we just wallow in that.
Considering Gallego lives in Spain, how does the creative process work?
We love his style because it has the look of the ‘70s classic comics. What I do is I photograph areas where stories are to take place. I give him all of these reference shots. I shoot actors and actresses meant to portray characters. Valerie Mayen from Project Runway. She’s the person who our character goes to when he rips his costume. He’s right across from her in the Gordon Square Arts District. So she’s got a cameo in a couple of issues. We really wanted this to be Cleveland-centric. It’s our hometown and it makes perfect sense.
At this point, considering the unlikely route Apama – The Undiscovered Animal took before coming to fruition, any chance the comic book series ends up on the silver screen?
This whole thing with Issue 5 is it introduces this villain, who is based on Helltown and Boston Mills, this cult stuff. So that’s what sprung that idea for this villain, who would be the leader of Helltown. As I was thinking about her origin, I wrote an entire other screenplay about her called “Bloom.” So there’s a spin-off right now of the comic book being shopped around Hollywood to try to find a producer.
Considering in many ways the Apama reference in Hero Tomorrow wasn’t fully fleshed out at the time, if you could go back would you change how it’s approached?
I don’t think we would. One of the things that’s funny about it, Apama – The Undiscovered Animal was intentionally a weird, hard-to-sell idea. In the movie, it’s based on the notion that so many great superheroes are based on creatures of nature like bats, spiders and a wolverine. What if there’s another animal that was never discovered by man that was even more powerful than all of them? So he’s based on this spirit force of this other animal creature. It’s a strange idea, that’s why the guy can’t get the book published. But when we started unpeeling it, thinking about it as its own comic series, we really found a lot of depth within it. I guess the strange thing is, had we not made that movie, I don’t think we would have ever put any stock in this idea. You come up with a lot of ideas and sometimes you’re like. “That’s silly, we won’t do that.”
The irony is now the comic is getting published.
Yeah, it’s bizarre. I think we stumbled onto something that’s kind of fresh and people responded to it.
Freelance writer John Benson spends most of his time writing for various papers throughout Northeast Ohio.