Epilogue

Success breeds success more in Hollywood than anywhere else probably. The subscription network, Anna Mation inaugurated Thanksgiving weekend with Joe’s animated film the flagship, branded with a sexy Anna character of course created by Joe, and he put together an animated promotional film featuring Anna with Lindy’s voice. The network had accrued a fairly impressive gaggle of films, cartoons and live action based on cartoons, some exclusive to the service including one of the great Japanese directors who’d never had his films available like that. Internet subscription only, they hoped to continually fill out their rosters, including importing and creating series, until they had enough to go live 24 hours with a specific schedule for airing episodes, becoming a channel on premium television services.

Joe’s film actually debuted a couple weeks earlier at a comic convention in St. Louis, the only one that worked with the schedule, signing his comics there as well. The network actually rented an old theater which had been remodeled into an arthouse sort of place which would be rented for special events like Joe’s. Both the live action version and the network (Anna with Lindy’s voice) were promoted before the debut. He’d be promoting at other Comic Cons after the inauguration, which was the least appealing part of success, the promotion of it.

He’d been visiting comic book stores from California all the way to New York, the east coast aligning with the location shoot in Albany. He also came along for the West coast/western states tour of Conspiracy which he enjoyed much more, and the crowds, though not full houses by any means, were larger than he expected, thanks going to the imaginative promotions of Rachel. He managed to time visits to the comic book stores along the way. Getting to see Conspiracy wow audiences was a significant part of the enjoyment, but more was Lindy accompanying him and enjoying the foursome, or the coupling up, with Brit and Johanna. The occasional visits with Kate in her bed, either right after the show or coming by in the morning when she suggested it also added to the enjoyment.

The Conspiracy tour along with Rachel’s promotions broadened the sales of the live DVD considerably, but the song Johanna had written for the film ended up being a huge hit on You Tube resulting in substantial sales of the video, the single, and even a respectable amount of the two album vinyl set. As Joe hoped, the best unknown band in the world became known.

The touring required much more delegation on Joe’s part, Joyce directing the next animation at the loft and Bill, Sean’s partner, watching things at the Long Beach suite. They’d put up sort of dailies on the cloud for Joe to check and he’d make suggestions or give praise as appropriate. Even when he was home, he’d been working with Stuart on a new game as promised, one inspired by the tough chick fixers Sam and Scotty, Lindy voicing the former and Freja the latter, making the Scotty character a Swede and in fact calling her the Swede. One of the adventures even included the rescue of girls on a yacht which Joe also borrowed for Midnight Cowgirl. Another had a rescue at a dark mysterious castle which ended up being an elite sex club just as Joe had encountered.

Bill and Sean weren’t the only partners getting busy from Joe’s work. More Joe’s suggestion, Harvey hooked up with ultra-nerd Doug and his horny sci-fi porn comics and a discrete offshoot of Anna Mation began, called Anna Mation X with the sexy logo character drawn by Joe to be a stripper. The people at the comic network that published both Joe’s and Doug’s books helped Harvey find Hentai, only full length movies, and other dirty cartoons from around the world and even live action porno inspired by or more making fun of cartoons, and like Joe’s film, Doug’s would be the flagship feature. The exclusive way to learn about the offshoot would be via search engines like Google, though it did turn up near the top if one looked up Anna Mation. The Long Beach suite worked mostly on the dirty cartoons, setting them aside to work on Joe’s stuff much more than the other way around. They did get Joe’s growing group of vocal talent, the women getting a kick out of moaning, especially Lindy and Freja, both actually getting fucked and having it recorded a couple times. And Dave signed on to do music.

Dave ended up having some success with the new Duel with Greta, touring the local clubs and branching out as far as San Diego and San Francisco and landing a label in Sweden which would put out both Swedish and English versions of the songs, and Grass agreed to distribute the CDs in the states. It would mean a trip to Sweden to tour during the following year. Dave had the equipment to make a quality recording in his little studio.

Success led to success and Joe’s film was successful, garnering mainly rave reviews and helping to launch the network, which in turn led to further success with his comics and more significantly, success for Henry’s film which didn’t get raves, but they’d been mostly positive. The film had a limited release in major cities and Henry accompanied it to Sundance and Berlin, Lindy tagging along and perhaps because of that Joe accompanied her as did Mitch and Eduardo being actually known actors. Connie would have come too but for her pregnancy. Lindy’s pregnancy was less apparent. Both Sundance and Berlin festival entered it into the contest and Henry won best new director at Sundance, adding significantly to the promotion. A lot of it though was for advertisement and networking, for both the new network and the film itself, which actually ended up getting distribution deals in Britain, Australia and Canada such that it would be seen in theaters over several months, and in the US the film ended up being somewhat of a sleeper hit, a growing number of fans encouraging more prints and a longer time in the cinemas. The film ended up making ten times its cost, though since its cost was so low, it couldn’t be described as a blockbuster in any shape or form.