Episode 1: Pilot
Episode 2: Dead Man’s Comics
Episode 3: The Upsell
Epsiode 4: Passholes
Episode 5: Guest Signing
Episode 6: The Heist
Episode 7: Tsunami
Episode 8: Manga Mia
Episode 9: Power Outage
Episode 10: Serious Business
Episode 10.2: Serious BusinessCategory: Press
QuickDFW.com interviews the cast
cast of The Variants web series (Jason Janik)
Pick up this weeks QUICK newspaper for Geoff Johnston’s interview of the cast of The Variants on page 24!
Nerd Alert: ‘The Variants’ wrap up debut season
It seems like only yesterday the staff of Zeus Comics premiered its online geek-centric comedy series The Variants. Well, it wasn’t yesterday. It was about 10 months ago. I should really invest in a desk calendar.
The show’s concept is simple: Each episode is a 10-minute adventure featuring five comic-book shop employees. They fight off hordes of zombie-like customers thirsting for free movie passes. They daydream during customer-service meetings that use Mariah Carey and unicorns as mnemonic learning devices. They don skintight costumes to attract business. They feign invisibility. You know, everyday workplace shenanigans.
Joe Cucinotti, Barry Fuhrman, Richard Neal, Keli Wolfe and Ken Lowery (as Vlad) play amplified versions of themselves; characters that amicably, if often facetiously, play well off one another. The cast’s chemistry comes off as playful and familial, a trait that overshadows the project’s shoestring budget, transforms its amateurish aspects into endearing qualities and deters inevitable fanboy cynicism intrinsic to the show’s target market.
Read the full interview online at quickdfw.com
The Best of Dallas: The Variants
It’s the time of year when Dallas’s own weekly publication, the Dallas Observer, unleashes its “Best of Dallas” write-up on us all. And what’s this, under the Culture section?
This scripted Web series launched in early August, but even at its onset, it was clear that the folks behind the serial shorts were on to something kinda special.
Nice one.
Tubefilter’d
Jacob Nahin over at TubeFilter gives The Variants web series a flattering write-up:
“…the show and its characters are very compelling and the setting unique. Jokes are normally spot-on and will get laughs from mainstream viewers and comic-book geeks alike.
Episode 2 sneak peek at Bleeding Cool!
Rich Johnston has a sneak peek of episode 2 now up at his site, Bleeding Cool. Check it out and leave a comment, if you’re so inclined.
Remember: episode 2 of the web series The Variants premieres this coming Wednesday, September 2nd!
Mutant a Day interviews Richard, Keli and Joe
The comics and pop culture site Mutant A Day caught up with Richard, Keli and Joe of the web series The Variants at Dallas Comic Con. Here’s the video:
Some kind words from DFW Quick
In Geoff Johnston’s Nerd Round-up post, he gives this nice little shout-out to the web series The Variants:
Ink and color us impressed. What could have easily been a ham-fisted exercise in shameless self-promotion turned out to be something altogether enjoyable.
Thanks, Geoff!
Props to Peter!
The cast and crew of the web series The Variants had a busy busy weekend — so it was nice to wake up Monday morning to see words like these from the Lex & Terry Show’s own Peter the news guy:
This is pretty good and the production values are surprisingly high. It is stuff like this that really show the potential for change in the enteratainment industry…
We hope so too, Peter.
The Dallas Voice: Swell folks
We got some nice pre-release coverage from the Dallas Voice. Behold:
“We’re working for comedy but not trying to be cliché,” he says. “We’re not writing the gay characters any different than we would other characters. But we cover the wacky customer service moments. Barry plays the store clerk you like to watch but don’t want to encounter in real life.”
Neal hopes to contrast both straight and gay nerd humor with lots of pop culture references in creating a series that appeals to a wide range of fans, not only from Dallas but throughout the online and comic communities.
Remember, first episode of The Variants web series premieres August 5!
Why thank you, Thrillist
No sooner do our promos go up than we get a nice mention/pimping in today’s Dallas Thrillist! Thanks, guys. This sure is some fine poetry right here:
Lemmon Ave’s own Zeus is premiering a “live action web comic” based on the Clerks-like lives of comic store employees, which apparently involve rampant sexual harassment, telling puppets children’s stories about “making people feel bad with more bullets” and, of course, men rocking thongs at gas stations while referencing how their vaginas’re hanging out. So it’s less about clerks, and more about all of us.
It’s nice when someone really gets you, you know?
Hey! We Got Press!
Thank you, Zac Crain, for your mention and kind words in the Frontburner section of the D Magazine site.
Check it out HERE.
P.S. You’re good people too. Love, Joe.
