Although best known as the co-founding bassist of Life of Agony, Alan Robert is also interested in both filmmaking and comic books, as evidenced by several new ventures. It has just been announced that Robert has formed a film production company, Wasted Talent Entertainment, and the first project will be a live-action film adaptation of Robert's horror/crime graphic novel, Wire Hangers (released last year via IDW Publishing).
"When I first got the deal with IDW for the comic book Wire Hangers, I had always envisioned it becoming a film," explains Robert. "That was always on the backburner, and being it was my first series, I wanted to test the waters and see what kind of response it was going to get. The response from the comic world and the horror scene was really supportive of the series. We wound up winning 'Cover of the Year' at ComicMonsters.com."
"We got a ton of coverage on it, and along the way, my producing partner, Jeff Mazzola, had brought up to me that he had some interest to raise financing for it, and really give it the full Sin City-type treatment, of filming actors against green screen and working in CGI, and 3D modeling the entire city. So, I decided to put together Wasted Talent and partner up with him."
And Robert offered more insight into Wire Hangers. "While I was out at Comic-Con, I hooked up with special effects designer Robert Hall, from Almost Human Effects - they've done everything from The Crazies to Paranormal Activity 2. We had started talking about designing a full costume of the main character while I was out there, and within a few days, they put together this spot-on costume and sent me a couple of test shots. I flipped out, and said, 'This is going on the cover of the graphic novel!' We just parlayed that into him working on the film, too."
In addition to getting Wasted Talent Entertainment up and running, Roberts is working once again with IDW on a new original horror comic mini-series. Titled Crawl to Me, the series will be launched on a monthly basis starting this July. "It's a very different story than Wire Hangers. Wire Hangers was very complicated, with interwoven characters. Crawl to Me is a more intimate story. I describe it as a Twilight Zone or a Jacob's Ladder. It keeps the reader kind of guessing what's reality and what's in this main character's mind. What are the origins of all of these traumatic events. It has a really great twist ending to it."
