Creative Team

The EFJI Creative Crew is also subject to Morty’s evil genius!

Writer and Director: Shawn French

Shawn French is a Maine-based writer and filmmaker who possesses a mostly healthy obsession with dark and twisted tales. His directorial debut, The Wrong House, is distributed by Elite Entertainment and was named one of the 10 Best Horror Movies of 2010 by Fatally-Yours.com. When not crafting his own stories, he’s usually found checking out the year’s best horror as a judge for the Fright Meter Awards.

Escape From Jesus Island marks his first foray into the world of comics. By modeling characters after area actors, he plans to blur the lines between reality and fantasy with live-action commercials and music videos featuring characters from the Jesus Island series.
Shawn has been working on the story for this series, a twisted retelling of the Book of Revelation, for more than 20 years.

Art and Cinematography: Mortimer Glum

Artist and one-armed antagonist Mortimer Glum entered this world kicking and screaming and he hasn’t stopped since. Much of his childhood was spent in corrective institutions and mental wellness facilities, where Morty learned to escape the horrors of his life by drawing things that were even worse. After escaping captivity, he procured a fake ID and went on to serve two tours in Vietnam (one for each side).

Mortimer moved to Maine in the ’90s to avoid warrants in Alabama, New Jersey, Alaska, Wisconsin and Ho Chi Minh City. He currently lives in the basement of an abandoned asbestos factory in an undisclosed location near the Canadian border. He is assisted by his lovely man-servant Bobo and is raising a pet pig that he hopes to harvest for organs once his own finally shut down due to decades of alcoholism, drug abuse, and self-flagellation.

Morty was the winner of the Portland Phoenix’s 2014″Best Of” award in the category of Best Visual Artist. Here is a snippet of the write-up…

“Underheralded and otherworldly, the Maine graphic artist Mortimer Glum makes vibrant, haunting, and provocative illustrations that dwell in the nether region of horror, fantasy, and fascination. An illustrator for 22 years, his recent illustrations for the comic book series Escape From Jesus Island are a visual feast of necromancy and the macabre. But he’s not confined to book form: his art adorns the masts of the Gothic Maine collective as well as numerous local album covers.”

When not illustrating Escape from Jesus Island, Morty enjoys building model trains in the nude, popping wheelies in his Hoveround scooter, and shooting his Makarov PM 9/18 millimeter at photos of Justin Bieber… nude.

Typography and Catering: Peeter Parkker

Peeter Parkker’s life changed when he was bit by a radioactive turntable, giving him superhuman artistic abilities and some severe ADHD. This resulted is a juggler of many projects leading to careers in graphic design, dance instruction, and DJing.

Some of these careers include staff member/teacher for USM, Bates and Bowdoin College, as well as Portland Public Schools, performing in the band Miravie, character design for several tabletop games, a 20 year DJ career, and a failed attempt to teach Mortimer Glum the running man.

Under the moniker Thunder, he helped bring true hip hop to Maine being the 1st ever full-time hip hop dance instructor. Having been a comic enthusiast his whole life, with a comics career always on the backburner, Peeter is very excited to finally get back into it with the rest of the Jesus Island crew. The world isn’t ready… but are they ever?

Editor and Teamster Boss: Shawn Greenleaf

Shawn, currently residing in Seattle, WA, is a freelance creative specializing in editing, formatting, layout design, and graphics.

His love of art led him to launch the art blog: giveusart.com. His enjoyment of the written word led me to author collaborations and editing. His passion for visual creativity led me to layout & graphic design. And his appreciation for all three, plus a life-long desire to create comic books, led him to comic book editing.

In April of 2012, he partnered with author R. Smith over at Team Pop Culture, to edit the novel Pop Culture Sucks! Manifesto of a Vampire, a collection of serial shorts called Everything Sucks! Shorts, and, finally, the Everything Sucks! Anthology.

In January of 2013, he joined the EFJI creative team as the book’s Editor. Since then, he’s also taken on the roles of Production Manager, Webmaster and more.

Recently, he teamed up with writer/artist Joseph Shmalkie to edit his indie grindhouse mini-series The Infernal Pact.

When he’s not hunched over his laptop working, he spends most of his free time watching cartoons, playing video games and generally living up to his Gen-X billing.