Elsie Hooper
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| Elsie Hooper | |
|---|---|
 Elsie Hooper heroes Ridley Hooper and Trent Gardner in a classic pose featuring hard shafts of light, heavy black inking, and jagged edges. |
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| Author(s) | Robert D. Krzykowski |
| Website | http://www.elsiehooper.com/ |
| Current status | Weekly |
| Launch date | 2002 December |
| Genre(s) | Horror, Action, Sci-fi, Dark comedy |
Elsie Hooper is a black and white horror serial that began printing in December of 2002. The strip appears regularly in the UMass Daily Collegian. Since August of 2003, Elsie Hooper has been in the works as a motion picture in Hollywood[1] - the first online comic ever to do so[citation needed] - and has gained a substantial cult following on the net[2]. Strips are posted weekly, often with additional gallery art or bizarre scribbles from the artist, Robert D. Krzykowski.
Contents |
[edit] The Serial
Elsie Hooper is set in sleepy small-town America, in the fictional town of Campbell Falls, and follows the progress of Ridley Hooper from the morning he wakes up to find the streets silent, sunless, and infested with strange creatures referred to as 'shadowmen'. The journey Ridley embarks on is subtle and very human - not to save the world, or even his small town; nor for the love of a well-proportioned heroine - he fights simply to be reunited with his younger sister, Elsie Hooper.
As Ridley searches the empty neighbourhoods for signs of life and gathers strange hints as to the Elsie's whereabouts, he is joined in his cause by two eclectic companions - a young boy named Trent, who possesses an unexplained link to the thoughts and intentions of the shadowmen, and Arch Stenton: an old man with nothing left to lose, who seems intent on making his last stand. Together, the three move through the nightmare towards the place where Elsie is held by the sinister leaders of the infestation.
[edit] The Characters
[edit] Ridley Hooper
Ridley is the everyman protagonist of the serial, and is by no means an action hero. We learn early on that both parents are dead, which may go some way towards explaining his determination not to lose Elsie to the shadowmen. He is not a naturally violent person - he mentions a hunting trip when his father remarked that Ridley 'was a good shot but [he] didn't have the instinct'. Despite his initial revulsion at the anger brought out in him by the shadowmen, Ridley soon develops the instinct through necessity and frustration, but retains his stoicism and dry humour throughout the serial. His fraternal instinct to protect Elsie translates naturally into protecting Trent, and this gives him new energy and resourcefulness when it comes to facing down shadowmen. He is also, interestingly, the only member of the group who sees truce as a possibility, and takes pity on fallen shadowmen.
[edit] Trent Gardner
Trent is the first fellow human encountered by Ridley, and quite possibly the only thing standing between Elsie and her fate at the hands of the shadowmen. Like Elsie, Trent has been selected to provide immortality for the invading force by acting as a vessel for their minds. However, this mental link has proven to be a powerful asset to the trio of survivors, as it provides an early warning system whenever the shadowmen turn their attention towards them. Aside from this, Trent also fulfils a role of companionship and optimism, not to mention little league standard pitching of grenades in a tight spot.
[edit] Arch Stenton
If you could imagine Commissioner Gordon with his back against the wall, a fire axe, and a score to settle, you might get an idea of the position Stenton finds himself in with the arrival of the shadowmen. Having been persuaded by his family to check into the hospital overnight for chest pains, the aging policeman awakes to find everything taken away from him - including his chances of survival when he is critically injured by a shadowman. Now he has no reason to hold back, and no desire to lose to the infestation, whatever the cost. Like Ridley, Stenton is a gentle person hardened by circumstance, but age has reduced his compassion for their agressors.
[edit] Elsie Hooper
Not much has been revealed about Elsie, either in the narrative or from Ridley's mentions of her. She seems almost emotionless when she appears in the strip, but makes clear that she believes Ridley will come for her. Although the serial is centred around her, she is the only main character who does not give her own side of the story at any point, and in fact rarely speaks at all.
[edit] Father and Leader
The enigmatic and threatening pair at the head of the shadowmen's invasion play an unexplained double role, in which Leader is in charge of their operation, but Father is very much the one calling the shots. Although we know the purpose of their presence in Campbell Falls, we know very little about their identities or reasoning.
[edit] Origins
The serialized comic originated as a storyboard for a "backyard" movie that Krzykowski planned to shoot in the summer of 2003. While drawing storyboards in class at UMass, a student noticed the art and suggested Krzykowski submit the work to the student newspaper, The Massachusetts Daily Collegian. Krzykowski approached the editor at The Collegian about printing the strip in the paper. He didn't actually expect the comic to be accepted, but to his surprise, it was. Due to the serialized nature of the strip, the demand for a website[1] grew from those who would miss the strip in print on their off days of classes.
Shadowmen came from a fever dream Krzykowski had as a child. His fever was so severe that he saw strange, gangly creaures stalking his neighborhood. He says to this day that it was the most terrifying thing he has seen in his life. Following this experience, he created heroes in his mind that would fight these creatures. From these early characters and ideas evolved the beginnings of a story that years later became the story of Elsie Hooper.
[edit] Motion Picture Project
In August of 2003, only months after Elsie Hooper's debut online and in the Massachusetts Daily Collegian, Krzykowski was contacted by Hollywood movie producer, Troy Neighbors, who wished to produce a feature length, live-action motion picture of the comic strip under his Impact Entertainment banner.[3] Neighbors had written and produced the cult sci-fi actioner Fortress in 1993, which was directed by horror maven, Stuart Gordon.[4] Shortly thereafter Neighbors was joined by producer Steve Traxler who had salvaged production as line-producer on infamously over-budget productions such as Waterworld and Windtalkers.[5]
Nearly a year later, the project had moved away from Impact Entertainment and into new hands. Since 2003, Elsie Hooper has traded hands from at least six producers and numerous studios including The Jim Henson Company, Disney Feature Animation, Lighthouse Productions, and Gremlins director Joe Dante's Renfield Productions[6]. Krzykowski and affiliated filmmakers on the Elsie Hooper project remain notoriously tight-lipped about the production and its evolution as a motion picture in development.
[edit] References
- ^ "Original Movie Boy article", MassLive.com, March 2, 2004.
- ^ "Movie Boy interview", MassLive.com, June 22, 2005.
- ^ "The Greenfield Recorder", The Greenfield Recorder, 2004.
- ^ "Fortress on IMDB", Internet Movie Database, 2006.
- ^ "Hollywood.com Profile for Steve Traxler", Hollywood.com, 2006.
- ^ "Movie Boy interview", MassLive.com, June 22, 2005.
