A Night at the Pirate's Haus

Hey everyone, so I just wanted to catch you all up on my whereabouts. I just finished rough drafting the first three chapter's of Flagler's Few and I'm heading back home for the holidays. I managed to get off from giving tours the weekend following Christmas.

I decided to finally take that trip into Saint Augustine and stay at the Pirate's Haus Hostel. So far it's been a fantastic experience. I was a little concerned at the beginning, having never stayed at a hostel and the idea of sleeping in a dorm room with complete strangers was a bit disturbing. I called the Info center just to get a second outside opinion (despite the countless positive reviews on the site) and was told it was a top knotch place. Especially if you're looking to stay downtown for cheap!

I could have stayed at the beach house, but driving 30 minutes extra into the wilderness of the beach house community (by myself) didn't fit well with me.

I've enjoyed my stay. I've been wandering about the city snapping photos for reference, specifically stuff that had a direct connection with specific scenes. I also decided to go on a ghost tour. Usually my experience with tour guides in Saint Augustine have been iffy at best, but the guide (who had a big old white beard and went by the name Andy) was a master at the craft and we struck up a few conversations. We mostly talked about the history of both Saint Augustine and Savannah as well as how we delt with tourists.

Andy himself is a fictional writer having scribbed a few books and currently working on a series. I also ran across another series based out of the Ancient City entitled "La Vida Vampire" about a vampire ghost tour guide living in the city. I haven't read it yet, but the synopsis sounds interesting and I plan to check out the "competition". :-P

Right now I'm sitting in the kitchen of the Hostel, chatting it up with a French family here visiting their daughter who is interning in Miami as well as several VERY LOUD little girls from Sarasota. I'm busying myself on finished pencils and still plan to have the 3 chapters finished before February of next year.

More to come, and hopefully Jim Harold of Paranormal Podcast will have our interview up soon, so everyone be patient with that.

Happy Holidays!

Inspiration...

One person I cite constantly as an inspiration to my work is the famed artist, Edward Gorey.


Gorey, an American born artist, was well known for his macabre style of cartooning. His works are collected in the Amphigorey (his most commonly known work) but he is the talent behind a numerous amount of fiction, novels, advertisements and short animations.

Much of Tim Burton's work is obviously influenced by Gorey's distinctive whimsical (yet morbid) subjects. For example, The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories written by Burton displays many similar characteristics to Gorey's work.

My first acknowledgment of the artist came at the age of 6. When I used to stay up to watch the PBS show Mystery! hosted by Vincent Price. I was a fan of Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes mysteries, but I think I was most excited by Gorey's animated opening for the Mystery! show.

Years later, as I sat down to start the designs of the book's characters and set about a general direction for the story, the first artist who came into mind was Gorey. I felt his creepy, spooky and sketchy style was something that would lend itself to Flagler's Few PERFECTLY! I set about collecting as much as I could on the artist and tried as best as possible to assimilate (but not copy) his distinctive pen and ink style.

Any dumby in the field of art will tell you inspiration is one of the key driving forces to a successful artist. It's how you get the masterpieces you see today, from Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" to Picasso's "Guernica". Fascinating enough, Gorey himself mentioned in an interview late in his life that inspiration for one of his final works came from the show Batman the Animated Series.

If that isn't a sign comic books inspire all forms of art...I don't know what is!

Flagler's Few: The Movie

As a treat, I've decided to release some stills from the 2005 smash hit film Flagler's Few starring Michael McVicar, Jujuan Burton, Nick Dean, Talon May, Yvonne Droese and Candice Fallin. It is also the directorial debut of the one and only...ME!

This was the very beginning of Flagler's Few. Usually the book proceeds the film, but in this case it's vise versa. The film took over a year to make and was shot entirely on location in Saint Augustine. As you will notice from some of the choice photos below that a lot of the character designs are similar to the actors, and in some cases the actors personalities shaped the characters themselves.

I hope you enjoy these photos. I didn't want to release too many of them for fear of giving away the story, but as the books progresses I may release more.

Also, one final fact. Flagler's Few premiered at Gator Cinema in Gainesville Florida in August of 2005 to a full theatre. In it's ONE-TIME midnight showing it sold more tickets then The Brothers Grimm did the entire weekend (as stated by the theatre manager). In hind-sight of seeing the film...I'm not to sure of that was such a great compliment. :-P

The film was dedicated to my father, Albert Rene Frattino, who passed away the same year.

Book Cover Design

I am pleased to announce that the latest pages to Flagler's Few are going swimmingly. I plan to have at least the second chapter inked and third chapter in finished pencils by the end of December. As I stated previously, I'm planning on preparing the first three chapters for Editor/Publisher review.

I am also THRILLED to announce that the book cover illustration will be done by my close friend, Kate Kasenow! I have always been an admirer of her work and feel that her whimsical and fluid style of art will lend itself well to the cover design of Flagler's Few.

Kate is currently working on her own endeavors but has agreed to do me this favor. As I would do the cover design myself, I always enjoy collaborating with friends and fellow artists and I'd be under-exaggerating if I said I was only a little excited to see how Kate designs the characters and builds the illustration.

I still have a hand in the cover's creation. Using the Cintiq I quickly sketched out some rough concepts of how I want the book cover to look like. You can check them out below.

Also, be sure to check out Kate's work on her blogspot.

Below, are the first three pages of Chapter 1. These are the pages that will take the reader on a speedy historical tour of the city. Most of these illustrations are thanks to the reference photos I took on my visits.

I was very pleased with how these pages turned out.

Reference Photos

In a book like "Flagler's Few" where the setting is highly important, and acts as a character all unto itself, it is important to make sure that the backgrounds and settings are detailed and accurate, so that the reader generally feels that it is Saint Augustine, and cannot be mistaken for just a generic city.

Every visit I make to the ancient city, I collect more and more reference shots. These are just a few shots of the city.









Sometimes the reference photos require a bit of creativity, for example, in one panel I needed a shot of people's feet to show that they were walking on top of the dead. Generally, drawing feet does not require reference shots, but I wanted to make sure I could show depth in the scene...so in order to photograph people without weirding them out, I set my camera on the street and acted as if I was tying my shoe. Then as people walked by I snapped photos of them.

LONGEST-SHOE-TYING-EVER!

Paranormal Podcast Nov. 20th

On November 20th Jim Harold of Paranormal Podcast will be interviewing me in regards to "Flagler's Few" as well as discussing other things paranormal and how I came about involving them in my life.

Jim Harold's podcast is a long running, and highly respectable show that has been interviewing professionals in the field and taking both the unknown and the scientific into account. It is an extreme honor to be able to be a part of his show and I look forward to sitting down and chatting with him about my book.

So stay tuned in on November 20th!