Zeros 2 Heroes - The People's Publisher

Edmonton Journal
Published: August 29, 2007

 From online comics to blockbuster movies, Vancouver firm hopes TV and film producers will check its website for talent

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

VANCOUVER - If all goes well, future blockbuster adventure movies and video games will come from a Canadian website.

Zeros 2 Heroes Media (Z2H), a Vancouver-based social media company that publishes online comic books, has received funding from Telefilm Canada to launch Canada: Comic Creation Nation.

Zeros 2 Heroes is asking Canadian writers from all disciplines to submit storylines to its website Zeros2Heroes.com. Visitors to the website can vote on what stories they like.

The company plans to have its first comic story chosen by Oct. 31 and the story will be illustrated by Z2H artists. Depending on the number and quality of submissions, Z2H hopes to publish a new comic weekly for up to a year.

Z2H president Matthew Toner hopes film, television, direct-to-DVD and video game producers will check the comics in search of projects.

Writers will not initially be paid for their stories, but will retain copyright and partner with Z2H in any development deal signed with an entertainment company.

"We look at comics as the ultimate pitch package for film and television," says Toner. "They're better than scripts and storyboards. They're rich and detailed and very much alive, and Hollywood's been snapping them up and optioning them for the last couple of years.

Last month, Z2H partnered with Rainmaker Animation, which plans to make three ReBoot animated features, for an online contest where Z2H readers can vote on a five storylines for a ReBoot comic book.

So far, Z2H has had more than 10,000 responses to the storylines. Toner and his staff like to call their company "the people's publisher" because readers have a say on which projects see the light of day.

"The fans are the best judge of what they want to see in genre entertainment."

Z2H takes one to three months to develop and produce a comic book, using writers and artists in different parts of the world. One recent comic book involved a writer in Vancouver, an editor in Philadelphia, an artist in the Philippines and a colourist in Argentina.

Toner compares Z2H with what MySpace has done for independent bands who are now being discovered on the website.