Meet Team Flashback!

Pierre Villeneuve
Artist/Colorist/Inker/Co-creator

In his own words:
My name is Pierre Villeneuve. I am 36 years old and have studied Graphic Design Arts at Salette College.

I have worked in animation for various studios such as CINAR, Cactus Animation and Cine-Groupe, since 1996. I have worked on a wide variety of projects ranging from the television series Arthur, Ultimate Spider-man licensing/merchandizing, Marsupilami to the movie Heavy Metal 2000.

My work is constantly evolving, and I am always on the lookout for new experiences that will help me improve myself and my work. I hope you enjoy the Flashback Universe as much as I enjoyed creating it!

Check out Pierre's Online Portfolio!

Jim Shelley
Writer/Editor/Graphic Designer/Co-creator

I'm a graphic artist and web developer. Many of you may have seen my work under the name of CapVsBats

Long time DC/Marvel Fan who misses Comics like DC Comics Presents, Black Lightning and Marvel Two-in-One. My current favorite writers are Geoff Johns and Kurt Busiek.

Brush with comic fame 1: I once wrote a couple of Silverhawks comics for Marvel that never got published, but Don Daley, my editor at the time, saw that I got some money anyway. (That was back in the 80's.) Silverhawks was a spinoff from Thundercats. Marvel lost the publishing rights to the series after about 8 issues.

Brush with comics fame 2: Wrote up a plot synopsis for a Vertigo series based on the Marjor Arcana that Alisa Qwitney really liked. She had me write up a full issue for the series, but then I never heard from her for like 6 months. Finally after several attempts to contact her, she responded telling me the project was dead because DC was going to publish an actual Tarot Card Deck based on existing Vertigo characters and they didn't want the two projects to confuse the buying public.

Currently I hang out a lot on many different Message Boards - a big HEY to all my fellow posters at Newsarama! ;)

What is the Flashback Universe?

The Flashback Universe is really two things: a tip of the hat to old comic books and an exciting glimpse into the future of comics.

A Flashback to an age of discovery

This project began, as many such projects do, as a discussion among friends about how much fun it was to pick up an old Marvel or DC comic book when we were kids and just be bombarded by a vast array of images and characters we'd never seen before.

For me, it was the Fantastic Four Wedding Issue. Picking up that comic and seeing panel after panel of heroes and villains just popping in really captured my imagination. I used to pour over the issue trying to figure out who was who and what their deal was. As I continued to collect Marvel comics, I would eventually put all the pieces together. Later, I would discover DC Legion of Super-heroes and the whole process would start again.

This grand sense of first time discovery is something I wanted to recapture with this project. In our comics, you are going to see many different heroes and villains, some for just a flashback panel. Some will seem familiar, being based on age old archetypes. Others will be completely alien to you. Hopefully, you will enjoy all of them.

A Flash to the age that is coming

But that's just half of what the Flashback Universe is all about. While our stories may be reminiscent of ones long past, our delivery system is bleeding edge by current industry standards.

I have watched as the vast, ever growing numbers of comic book downloaders has grown from 700 to over 12,000 in the space of 2 years. Every Thursday and Friday, the comics that you buy at your local shop are torrented all across the globe where eager readers download them to read on demand.

Is this legal? Is it right? Those are questions I can't answer.

What I can say is here is a PROVEN delivery system, using FREELY available software that the users have said they prefer. Not Macromedia Flash. Not Adobe Acrobat. CDisplay and CBRs.

Let's face it - cbr is to comics what mp3s are to music - the way of the future.

Wired Magazine said it best - http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.05/start.html?pg=3

[quote] Most piracy doesn't spring from the desire to get free content. It comes from a desire to get it in a specific way. Successes like Apple's music business have shown that consumers will pay for content if it's offered at a fair price without unreasonable restrictions. Right now, comics publishers could enjoy a win-win situation - they could reach out to new fans and increase revenue - if they would just decide to take advantage of it. And if they don't? Worst. Decision. Ever. [/quote]

The comics industry needs an iTunes Level distribution model to survive into the future.

Sadly, no such application exist currently, so we have decided to put our fate in the hands of those who would control this future - you.

You control the future

So there you go - we have created the FIRST comic book designed specifically for the cbr format to take full advantage of todays technology and user preferences. What happens next is up to you. You can donate or you can just download and send us a nice e-mail. Either way, your voice counts. Let's prove to the industry that YES! We want downloadable comics in cbr format!

Thank you for your time!

- Jim

The Flashback Universe: Download - Donate - Enjoy!