Hell yeah, it happened: I booked a movie!

It’s for a sci-fi (no, not SyFy) horror flick called Grey Skies – about a group of friends vacationing in a cabin in the woods when things start going wrong. Very, very wrong. Abductions, paranoia and screaming ensue in a suspenseful movie guaranteed to make you afraid of isolated spots far from civilization (if you weren’t already). I play one of the friends, so of course I get to be terrorized and abducted. The cool thing is that it’s not your typical slasher-type, gore-fest, but has fully fleshed-out characters and an alien threat that is revealed in clever, creepy ways. Most of the cast and crew met recently and I cannot be more excited to work with such a talented group, including actor/producer Stacy Jorgensen, writer/producer Mark Reilly and director Kai Blackwood. Oh yeah, and an amazing actor/producer you might be familiar with, Michael Cornacchia (aka The Cornfather). I can’t wait to see what happens.

Now, what this means for JEFbot is uncertain, since I’m flying out to Michigan in a couple of weeks for shooting through the first week of October. I figured I’d just take my drawing supplies with me and continue updating the strip from the set and/or wherever I’m staying. Unfortunately (well, fortunately, actually), I’ve been informed that I’ll be on-set every day due to a fast-paced shooting schedule and will need the nights for prep and rest. Doing quick, penciled strips of the adventures of jefbot making this movie, which I can then scan in from the set, might be fun. Or maybe I’ll do a run of guest strips if I can get friends and peers to help me out. I’m not exactly sure, but I’ll form a plan-of-attack in the next couple of days and will keep you informed.

Shooting a movie and writing and drawing JEFbot are my dream jobs, so needless to say, I’m not going to abandon one for the other, especially with all of you readers who have supported this webcomic and who I feel I’ve gotten to know over the course of doing this strip for the past two years. This site won’t be dark while I’m shooting this movie, is what I’m saying, and since the producers are fans of the strip and have given me carte blanche (well, mostly) to use Grey Skies as material for blogs and strips, it should make for some interesting content for the site. Let’s just hope the location has wifi.

One more thing: all you L.A. peeps should come by Molly Malone’s at 7pm tonight (Tuesday, September 1st) and celebrate with the Grey Skies’ cast and crew with a kick-off party featuring the hilarious, stand-up stylings of Amy Claire, Michael Cornacchia, Erin Foley and Theo Von, hosted by the comedy powerhouse known as Ric Barbera. It’s going to be a lot of fun and (as far as I know) there will be no anal probing (unless you get lucky).

Molly Malone’s Irish Pub
$10 cash at the door
575 S. Fairfax Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Twitter.com/jefbot
Twitter.com/greyskiesmovie

Looks like I’ll be taking the “semiautobiographical” out of the description of this webcomic for a bit…

Since I’m flying out of town this Saturday (September 12) to shoot a movie in Michigan for three weeks (WAH-HOO!) I’m going to need some help with the site from the JEFbot community, and that means guest strips! Although I’m also going to be emailing a few of my webcomic peers, part of what convinced me to do this was some awesome comments and emails I received from a few of you readers out there, generously offering to supply a guest strip while I’m away. So YES, please send them in! I’m excited to see how the world of JEFbot and the characters within are interpreted outside my own brain. Check out the requirements below if you’d like to submit a strip:

• Keep it Rated T for Teens, which means no explicit language, nudity, illegal drug use, etc. Use common sense with this one.
• The artwork should be 900 pixels wide. The height can be whatever you’d like, just keep it within reason.
• Explore anything but the current (jefbot+cel+beach) storyline. Even though the guest strips won’t necessarily be canon, I have plans for what happens with cel and jefbot, and it might get confusing if there are alternate futures going on.
• Send the strip to me in RGB, jpeg format. Can be black & white, but still send to me in RGB.
• Deadline: I’d like to get at least one or two this week, before September 12, so I have some time to put up a strip before next Tuesday, especially if I find myself without wifi. However, I’ll be accepting them the entire month of September.
• Email the strip to me with “Guest Strip” in the Subject header by clicking here.
• If you have any questions, feel free to email me, although I might not be able to answer once I’m in Michigan.

That’s it! Now go to town with those pencils and pens, mice and styli, and let me see what you come up with! While I can’t guarantee that every strip submitted will run, as long as you adhere to the rules, I should be able to put yours up on the site. And thank you in advance to everybody who sends in a strip. You’re really helping me out here!