Judges The Movie

Author notes

Deadline Page 10

SteveMyers22

on July 19, 2007

Notes on this story:
Sonny's office was shot on location at some mansion or whatever. And the person who lived there had a very interesting prop: The Shakespeare bust from the Adam West Batman TV show. You know the one with the flip top head that would open to the bat poles that they'd slide down? Well the guy had it tricked out so the head flipped up and opened a wall panel to his office. And that became the villain's lair in the movie. So this project really came full circle for me when I got to draw Batman kitsch in my first pro comics gig!

Another funny aside … the Barber is Sonny's main "hitman/henchman" in the movie. And the actor loved my drawings of him in the comics so much, he gave me the patented Barber razor blade movie prop from the film. So someday, I'll get pennies upon pennies for this off of Ebay!

And finally, this story has the infamous 2 panel set where another henchman/villain was based on Brian Michael Bendis. Around the time I started working on this project Disassembled had just come out. I've been collecting The Avengers since I was knee-high, and Mr. Bendis pretty much destroyed my favorite comic book. So I took this project as a chance to Dissassemble him. Years later, at the most recent Wizard World Philly Con, the writer of this comic and I pooled some cash together and printed up 50 gag T-Shirts based on those 2 panels. I did a total play on Marvel's Civil War design, and headed the shirt: "For a Universe to Live … Bendis Must Die!" And again spoofing Civil War, I subheaded it: "A Judges Movie Event in Two Panels." The gag being that Mr. Bendis destroys, kills or maims a lot of heroes in the Marvel U. And so the only way for Marvel heroes to survive his onslaught is to take him out themselves. And thus the 2 panels from my comic demonstrating just that. I thought the shirt was hilarious. As did hundreds of other con goers. My friend Sal, the writer of these comics, went to some Marvel panels, stirred the pot a bit and got written up in a CBR story about the con. He also got written about in Tom Breevort's Blog. And was physically threatened by a poster on Mr. Bendis' Jinxworld Forums. So the shirt garnered Sal his 15 seconds of internet fame. Me? I stayed at my table most of the con and ended up being interviewed for a documentary simply because the shirt caught the guy's eye. I guess my 15 seconds of fame will come later?