Great Things Brewing at Action Lab
Jamal Igle
By Mark Turner
By Ellen Fleischer
In the less than five years that Action Lab Entertainment (ALE)
has been on the scene, they have earned a reputation for
smartly-written, well-drawn comics that reach out to all ages
in a variety of genres. From Fracture and The F1rst Hero to
Molly Danger and the two-time Eisner-nominated and fivetime Glyph-nominated Princeless, ALE books are attracting
accolades and critical acclaim. This month, SP! sat down with
Jamal Igle, ALE’s co-director of Marketing and Publicity. Jamal
has worked as a storyboard artist for Sony Animation (Max
Steel, Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles). His Marvel
credits include New Warriors and Iron/Fist Wolverine, and his
DC credits include Firestorm and Nightwing. He is the creator
of Molly Danger, currently published by Action Lab. Here, he
talks with us about ALE’s origin, offerings, and processes.
SP!: WHO ARE THE PEOPLE BEHIND ACTION LAB? HOW DID
YOU ALL COME TOGETHER? (OR, TO PUT IT A DIFFERENT WAY,
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO UNITE “A GROUP OF MAD SCIENTISTS
WHO COLLECTIVELY HAVE OVER 25 YEARS OF COMIC BOOK
CREATING EXPERIENCE”?)
JI: Action Lab Entertainment was originally formed in 2010 by
Chad Cicconi, Dave Dwonch, Shawn Pryor, and Shawn Gabborin.
They were all friends and had been attending shows together,
each one self-publishing their own books and feeling frustrated by their places in the industry. Pryor had a publishing
company called PKD Media, Gabborin published through his
company Angry Gnome Comics, and both had a bit of success
on their own. Chad and Dave had both done work for those
companies and decided they wanted to do a project together.
The first book they produced was the first issue of our flagship
title, Fracture, which was funded through Kickstarter.
as Action Lab president, Jason Martin (publisher of Super Real
After the success of Fracture, they decided to make a real go of Graphics) as president of Action Lab: Danger Zone, our mature
it, bringing on Bryan Seaton as publisher. Later, Kevin Freeman readers imprint. Kelly Dale, our other marketing director came
(former managing editor of APE Entertainment) came on board on at the same time I did, a year ago.
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