DC Oddjobs, 2006-2010
I’ve written before about the experience of bouncing back and forth between storyboard assignments on Marvel cartoons and DC cartoons. From what I’ve read, it’s not unlike doing the same in the comic book world. You go where the work is at any given time. At the director level, you tend to stay in one camp or the other, but this is due to logistics; during the years I served as a director on Marvel shows, I didn’t have time for anything else. But as a freelancer, you’re welcome wherever you are needed.
My largest DC project was The Brave and Bold (all three seasons), but I also dipped my toe into Teen Titans and Young Justice for brief periods. For even briefer periods, I worked on the two projects presented here.
Legion of Super Heroes, 2006
A group of young heroes from the 31st century – Superman, Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad, Brainiac 5, and Bouncing Boy – bands together to defend the rights of all free worlds and uphold the laws of the newly-formed United Planets. That is, if they don’t kill each other first.
This series ran for two seasons on Kids WB (now called CW) with a total of 26 episodes from September 2006 to April 2008. I was called in by director Ben Jones (who I’d worked with on Teen Titans) to help him with Episode 6, a haunted-house-in-space story titled Fear Factory.
My Teen Titans experience served me well on this project, allowing me to assimilate the stylized body shapes quickly and find the tone without any struggle. My only regret was that I didn’t get to do more. I drew the storyboards for three short segments…
Segment 1: the show opens with the characters watching a horror movie meant to mimic Alien. Right in my wheelhouse. A Ripley-type character tracks down her cat and is jumped by the xenomorph.
See the storyboard here
Segment 2: a little later in the episode, Bouncing Boy relives the Alien scenario scene for scene. As you can imagine, this was pretty easy once the first part was drawn.
See the storyboard here
Segment 3: the epilogue at the end of the episode with closure for the characters.
See the storyboard here
The episode aired November 2006 and can be seen on Youtube in 5 parts. However, the first minute and a half is missing, so you won’t be able to see Segment 1. Segment 2 can be seen in Part 2 (at 4:15) and Segment 3 can be seen in Part 5 (at 3:30).
Legion of Super Heroes is available at Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Google Play, and Vudu
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DC Superfriends: The Joker’s Playhouse, 2010
The Hall of Justice has just been renovated, including a training facility with holographic training simulations. But when the holographic technology goes crazy, it doesn’t take Batman and Superman long to discover that The Joker has been doing some secret renovations of his own! The two heroes send out a call for help to the rest of the Justice League — The Flash, Hawkman, Cyborg, Green Lantern — but The Joker has built in so many tricks and traps, it’s not even funny. Who will have the last laugh?
This was a straight-to-DVD project that was part of the “Imaginext” toy line from Fisher-Price. I’m pretty sure it came bundled with figures or a playset, but I never saw a copy out in the wild to confirm this. The DVD can be found separately on eBay, though.
The style was slightly softer than other DC cartoons, but not enough to require any retraining on my part, so it turned out to be a breeze. The entire film ran 17 minutes, and I storyboarded two segments that pitted Hawkman against Gorilla Grodd. I no longer have my storyboard, but I kept my thumbnails.
See the thumbnail storyboard here
See the finished piece on Youtube here. My first segment starts at 6:00, and the second starts at 10:00.
The writing and acting heavily referenced the 70s Superfriends cartoon I watched religiously as a kid, and it served as a sort of pilot for a later series of 15 mini-episodes. See them all on Youtube here.
Find out more about The Joker’s Playhouse at DC Fandom.com here.