Press - Blood Sucking Lawyers
CBC News Interview
Dale Molnar of CBC News interviews Frank D'Angelo on location at the historic Low Martin Mansion in Walkerville. Frank is the co-writer (with Matt St. Amand) and director of Jank Words & Pictures' first graphic novel, a hilarious parody of the legal system titled Blood Sucking Lawyers.
CBC Windsor Afternoon Drive
Chris Dela Torre of CBC's Afternoon Drive interviewed Frank D'Angelo about Blood Sucking Lawyers, after a fun and busy three-day location shoot at the historic Low Martin Mansion in Walkerville.
CBC Windsor Digital Online News
Blood Sucking Lawyers invade Walkerville
Comic parody uses photo technique for illustrations
Frank D'Angelo directs actors Mark Lefebvre and Joey De Marco in a scene from Blood Sucking Lawyers.
(Dale Molnar CBC News)
Social Sharing
Lawyers have returned to the historic Low Martin house in Walkerville, once owned by lawyer and politician Paul Martin. But these lawyers aren't your usual "blood suckers" — they're vampires — pretend vampires that is. Actors and models are portraying them for a graphic novel called Blood Sucking Lawyers.
The actors strike poses which are photographed, and then enhanced to resemble illustrations to give the novel a cinematic look.
Producer Jamie Lees and photographer Rodney Denis. (Dale Molnar/CBC)
Unique photo techniques
"We are the only people doing a full graphic novel this way, and we might be crazy," laughs Jamie Lees, the publisher and communications director of Jank Words and Pictures, which is producing the novel.
She and her partner Frank D'Angelo are using the photo technique, rather than just drawing pictures. "There's a shooting technique that we're using called HDR and then we bring them into photoshop, and in post we do some work there, and really bring out the highlights and dark points," said Lees.
"So panel by panel it almost looks like a movie scene as it unfolds," said D'Angelo, the director, publisher and co-writer of the novel.
Blood Sucking Lawyers is a comedy/parody based on the legal system set in the present day.
Joey De Marco as Gore. D'Angelo and his writing partner Matthew St. Amand originally wrote Blood Sucking Lawyers as a screenplay. (Dale Molnar/CBC)
"My hope is that a production company will come in and turn Blood Sucking Lawyers into a movie and we're moving in that direction," said D'Angelo.
The graphic novel is being shot all around the Windsor area using 60 local actors and models posing as the characters in the novel. Lees and D'Angelo have invested a year in the project and expect it will take about six to eight months to complete.