Watch: IMAGE COMICS' "BLACK LIGHT DISTRICT" ONE-SHOT gets ANIMATED!

“black light district” is the name of my home office/studio where I record music, voice overs and write comic book scripts. The walls of this studio have been adorned with posters of my favorite things since before it was a studio, when it was just my bedroom, my happy place. Growing up, my favorite place to go was a comic book store, so I turned my room into one to retreat into happiness whenever I needed it. While since then I may have grown up physically, I'll always be a kid at heart. As I grew, my bedroom became my "office" and eventually the “black light district” studio. The reason why I so love comic books are the stakes. The stakes of a comic book are largely the END OF THE WORLD. Whether that’s the end of the world for an individual or the doomed fate of an entire planet, the stakes in comic books make your average film or TV show seem kind of superfluous to me. Growing up, I suffered unknowingly from ADD, anxiety and later depression, so for me, very minor things often seemed like the end of the world, and because of that I was immediately drawn into the colorful world of comic books. Like the heroes I idolized, I wanted to save the world and the trials of my favorite superheroes inspired me to try. In 2004, I was blown away by a production of one of my songs produced by UK singer/songwriter Will Knox. Within a few months, Will and I were inside the black light district studio attempting to create music with the high stakes of comic books. Now, I didn’t know if this was going to work or not. It was just an idea. But Knox embraced it wholeheartedly and inspired by many of the comic book idolatry in my home studio, began to crank out powerful music. Music inspired by a statue of the Hulk, a Tony Moore, The Walking Dead black light poster, by Thor’s hammer Mjolnir and more began to take shape and as it did, somehow this imaginary inspiration led to me writing about some of the most personal experiences of my life: depression (Green), anxiety (Frozen), financial difficulty (Hammer) and most importantly all of my frustrations with how awfully the world is being run (Bizarro, Madhattan & Symptoms). The last of the SIX songs we wrote was “Symptoms”, a song about the zombie apocalypse as a metaphor for the greed that is destroying America and the rest of the world by proxy. As soon as we finished the demo for “Symptoms”, I was struck with incredible inspiration: This music that had been inspired by comic books had to now also inspire it’s own comic book! No one had ever done before what I had in mind. Creating comic book "music videos" that you can READ while listening to the music to help better understand and connect with the message. The message of "black light district" was and is extremely important to me. I've seen so many great song messages be lost to the mainstream over the years, but I thought if I could connect the right imagery with the right song, there would be no denying what the songs are about...PROBLEMS. Problems that still desperately need to be fixed. I reached out to every big time comic book pro I've ever met in my decade and a half of pitching comic book scripts to the big two (Marvel & DC), from Geoff Darrow to Alex Ross, and when it was all said and done I had an incredible team, including some of my idols, like Jason Pearson, Phil Hester, Erik Larsen and Chris Eliopoulos. Plus, uber talented friends like Chris Burnham, JK Woodward and newcomers David Witt and Andrea Tamme! By the time the album and comic books were all finished a year had passed and I finally sat down to experience my creation: IT WAS INCREDIBLE! I was blown away by how well it all worked. Not only was each comic book gorgeous to look at, but combined with the song created an immersive experience ever so much more than the sum of its parts. With a little help from my friends, I had created something brand new. New and AWESOME. In 2016, with the help of Trade in Cool I created www.blacklightdistrict.co/ a hub where you can still enjoy the entire black light district experience for FREE! Better still, I hired animators to merge the comic books and songs together, so that even comic book illiterates can enjoy the experience! The physical comic book comes out through Image Comics on Oct. 12th 2016, but the first FIVE mini-comics have been animated into music videos and released through Youtube.com/WatchJesse The best way to experience "black light district" is to hold a copy in your hand and listen while you read, but if you can't make that happen, I highly recommend you start here...!