Part of why David and I love what we do is because it lets us bounce between mediums.
Most of our commissioned work starts with inspiration from another medium. We create photographic cover art that is inspired by music, building physical sets that reflect the feeling, themes, and energy of the album and then photographing the final image. Sometimes we work with fashion designers, building sets inspired directly by their collections so the environment feels like an extension of the clothes themselves. Other times we collaborate with architects and designers, creating surreal references to real, larger-than-life spaces.
But one medium we had never touched before?
A comic book.
We have worked with Kevin Smith a few times over the years, but always in a more traditional photography sense. Kevin is a massive comic book fan. Like, capital F fan. He owns Jay & Silent Bob’s Secret Stash in Red Bank, New Jersey, and he even has his own comic series called Quick Stops.
So when his movie Dogma was returning to theaters and heading to the Cannes Film Festival again, the team wanted to release a special edition Quick Stops comic to celebrate. And they wanted the cover to feature none other than the iconic Buddy Christ.
AND they asked us to create it.
Which immediately raised the question: how do photographers and set designers make a comic book cover?
That was the fun part.
We knew from the beginning that we wanted the entire cover created in-camera. No digital design whatsoever. If it was in the frame, it had to physically exist.
So David started by designing a layered shoot-through set using his xTool X1 laser. He leaned into the slightly wonky, exaggerated angles you see in comic panels. Nothing perfectly straight. Everything intentional. It felt graphic and surreal in the best way.
Because we were committed to doing this all in-camera, that also meant the comic title itself had to exist physically. So David used the laser again to cut a wooden Quick Stops sign that matched the real comic typography exactly.
Next came color.
We pulled directly from the comic’s palette: purple, red, and yellow, with blue and black accents. Bold, graphic, a little loud, and also very us.
Now we had a layered set. We had the title. But there was still one very important piece missing.
Buddy Christ.
That meant packing up and driving to Red Bank, New Jersey for an on-location shoot at Jay & Silent Bob’s Secret Stash. And if you are a comic book lover or a Kevin Smith fan and you have never been, it is worth the trip. The space is packed with iconic, genuinely cool pieces of pop culture history.
Including the actual Buddy Christ sculpture.
Buddy Christ is HEAVY.
Like, extremely heavy. He is a real sculpture and he does not move. So instead of moving him, we moved everything else.
We positioned the shoot-through set precisely where it needed to be to frame him the way we imagined the cover. We slid a painted wood panel behind him to act as the backdrop and mounted the Quick Stops sign directly onto it. Then we lit the entire scene and photographed Buddy Christ in all his glory.
And, it worked. Perfectly.
Seeing an entire comic book cover come together completely in-camera felt surreal in the best possible way.
A few months later, the comic showed up in our mailbox.
And wow.
Seeing our work cross mediums like that, from a physical set to a printed comic book, never gets old. We are endlessly grateful to Kevin inviting us into his world to create and for trusting our vision, and to Dark Horse Comics for helping bring it all to life.
Creating for creative people is the best kind of work. And getting to see a piece of our art live inside the universe Kevin Smith has built over decades is something we will never take for granted.
If you want to snag a copy of the special edition Quick Stops comic, you can find it here.
