Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, entertainment, paul jenkins

The Frenzy Of Paul Jenkins In Breaking A World Record

Published Wed, 05 Feb 2014 18:00:54 -0600

Shawn Demumbrum writes about the Amazing Arizona Comic Con world record attempt,

One of the more spontaneous parts of the World Record Attempt at Amazing Arizona was Paul Jenkins arriving at the booth to write a few pages. We weren't expecting Paul. He wasn't listed in the program or on the website. He walked up and "Hi! I'm…". "Paul Jenkins" I said finishing his sentence. He said he wanted to contribute a page or two to the book. As luck would have it, Thomax Green was finishing up his pages, so Paul quickly read what had come before and got to work. He said that he wanted to change things up so he started mapping out his pages visually on a sketchpad. The protagonist had been dropped into a junkyard. Paul wanted to take advantage of that by driving the hero and his pursuers, an army of robots, toward a large junkyard magnet. The second page has the robots being tossed from side to side using the panel borders to keep them in. The truly interesting part of the collaboration was that before the script was typed out Paul would explain each panel to each artist acting the panel out. In the previous story about Marc Silvestri, you can see Paul Jenkins explaining Marc's panel to him. It was a marvel to watch. I reached out to the artists who worked with Paul and here are two of their responses:

Paul was in a frenzy. Immediately upon meeting him, he frenetically described the panel I was to draw. It included robots in a junk yard, lots of gunfire, and the protagonist running for his life. Oh, and the mob boss delivering the line, 'Kill him!' And more robots! Paul gesticulated toward the artist working on the panel that would follow mine. That artist was Marc Silvestri. Marc had already started drawing, so Paul told me to 'coordinate with Marc.'

So there I was, expected to deliver a panel in mere minutes, and working with two comics giants. Paul came around to check on my progress, and his enthusiasm ratcheted up my own excitement–and the pressure. It was thrilling and scary and awesome.

– Rob Osborne (1000 Step to World Domination, The Nearly Infamous Zango)

I honestly wasn't sure what to expect when I joined into this project so I was just kind of playing things by ear. So when it was my time they told me to go talk to Paul about what to do for my panel and I just happened to come up as he was explaining to Danae and it turned out her and I were working the same page and that we were doing was technically all one picture but split up into four panels. We were the robots getting blasted away by the magnet page. It it was kind of an "Oh my God, how are we going to do this? I really hope I don't mess up." moment because of course we had to make sure our pictures synched up right! It was simutaneously intimidating and exciting and Paul's energy and enthusiasm made it so much more the latter! I loved the idea though and I think it came out great. I had a lot of fun with it."

– Heather Martin (Fallen INC)

I discovered later that Jimmy Jay, director and founder of the Amazing Arizona Comic Con, had sent Paul Jenkins over. Jimmy was a generous host to the World Record Attempt. Jesse James and I are both thankful for his support and behind the scenes contributions that helped make it a success.