EL MUERTO American Film Market screening

I attended an 11 AM El Muerto screening yesterday in beautiful, sunny Santa Monica as part of the American Film Market. The screening was held in an actual theatre this time, as opposed to the private screening rooms I'd seen the movie in previously. This was a great screening because I was able to invite about 30 family, friends and some former students of my Comic Book Workshop.
Also, as this was the Film Market, there were various industry folks in the audience. Our head Make-up/Muerto face designer was there, Mark Buatista (another Whittier resident, believe it or not!) as well as our composer, Tony Humeke, who I was able to congratulate in person for his tremendous and atmoshperic score.

Among my guests were my dad and my two nephews, David and Christian. Christian helped me out at my table at Comic Con a couple years ago, and will probably be seen helping me out more in the future. Got to train the next generation for the family business, ya know! My mom, older sister and her daughters had come to a previous screening, so it was time to get the other half of the family in on the action.


Also in attendance were my older brother, his wife, and my younger sister. My brother Albert gave me his collection of comics when I was about 8. This was a late 60s/early 70s grab bag that included Jack Kirby FANTASTIC FOUR, Gene Colan CAPTAIN AMERICA and DAREDEVIL and Romita SPIDER-MAN as well as Neal Adams BATMAN and reprints of Stan Lee/Steve Ditko SPIDER-MAN. Albert also used to draw his own cartoon characters at the time, which also inspired me as well. Without him and his impressionable influence, there most likely would not be an El Muerto today!

And yes, I purposedly positioned us to stand in front of the CASINO ROYALE poster. As a life-long James Bond fan, it makes me very excited to know that I'm following in Ian Fleming's footsteps in having my character make the leap to the big screen!

It was great to be in a theatre with a sizeable crowd watching the film. I sat up toward the front, but could hear the audience reactions as the film progressed. During my on-screen cameo I heard my sister-in-law let out a surprised giggle as she saw me, and the cheers I heard for the title credit 'based on the comic book EL Muerto by Javier Hernandez' felt wonderful! By the way, I've created the artwork for the opening title cards. They're intercut with the live-action scenes as the film opens. How much cooler could this experience have gotten??