A "modern-day mythological romance," Sam and Lilah blends a timeless tale of romance with manga-styled technicolor flair. Written by Jim Dougan and Hyeondo Park, ACT-I-VATE's webcomic makes its debut today on MTV GEEK!
"It's a story of two young lovers who find that their destinies are affected by an ages-old gypsy curse," Dougan told MTV GEEK in a video interview during this year's NYC's MoCCA Fest. "And it's about what they do to fight through that and learn to grow and love one another."
Dougan explained to us how him and Park began their collaboration:
"If I recall correctly, I first saw Hyeondo’s art in 2006 on his LiveJournal, based on the recommendation of Dean Haspiel. We worked together a short story called “Come The Dawn,” which originally appeared on the site of the webcomics collective The Chemistry Set (and though the site is now defunct, you can read the story in No Formula an anthology of ChemSet stories published by Desperado and edited by Yours Truly. Like any sane person, I wanted to keep working with Hyeondo so I sent him the script for what is now the first chapter of Sam & Lilah. Dean and Dan Goldman invited us to bring it to ACT-I-VATE , but then suggested we enter it into DC’s Zuda competition first to see if we could get some money and maybe a publishing deal. We came in fourth place, but picked up some wonderful reader response that we thankfully have been able to bring over to ACT-I-VATE with us when we moved there after the contest."
Dougan has nothing but praise for Park's art in Sam and Lilah, commenting:
"He's fantastically talented, innovative, experimenting with page layouts...using iconography and manga storytelling techniques and western storytelling techniques. A very innovative use of color as a storytelling device, fashion as a storytelling device. He's continually learning and innovating."
Dougan and Park are very busy comic creators, with the former working on a top-secret research-intensive graphic novel, and the latter's work next appearing in "Under My Spell" for Lerner's My Boyfriend Is A Monster series. And, of course, there might be more Sam and Lilah stories in the future...
As for the opportunity to serialize their webcomic on MTV Geek, the team's response was short and to-the-point:
Park: Yay!!!!!!! XD
Dougan: What he said. The reception on ACT-I-VATE has been great, but we’re looking forward to exposing this story to an even broader audience!
Read the first part of Sam & Lilah #1 right here and check back every Thursday for more!
...and then stay tuned for our two-part video interview with Jim Dougan!
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