NORTH HOLLYWOOD , CA
The Huja Bros. have converted The Crucial Compound into "The Cartoon Coal Mine" in a shift from comics to animation. The pair are putting the final touches on their new works to be shown in the Crucial Comics booth at this July's San Diego Comicon. "And no, it's not Rat Bastard," said Cliff "Huja" Galbraith, "We still want RB to be directed by Kevin Altieri -- it was his baby when we had our deal with Imagine Television and UPN in 2000. We like him and we like his work, he's a brilliant guy. Just look what he's done with Stripperella.

"We've got a sci-fi epic called "They Came From Planet Earth" -- some people have described it as the anti-Star Trek. Could be, because I never bought the fact that humanity would be that squeaky clean in the future. I think They Came From Planet Earth is more how it would really be, corporate America in space. Let's face it, the early visitors to the Americas like Columbus. De Soto and Cortes were sent on a business trip -- the original hostile takeover. They were after gold, gems, exotic animals and plants, and real estate. And of course slave labor. De Soto was so nasty that he used attack dogs and raided villages to capture local chiefs to manipulate the natives.

Our story says that the business of mankind is business. I don't see where we've changed much from the imperialist nature of our ancestors. In this story, crew of the Cortes will wipe out anyone and anything that stands in their way of them extracting precious metals, ancient artifacts, and property rights to entire galaxies.

"The title invokes the old drive-in xenophobic sci-fi films of the 50's and early 60s.

We were always afraid of a superior lifeform advancing on the Earth. In our story, humans are the dominant species in the universe and the worlds we visit our ours for the taking.

Our other story is much lighter entertainment; a fifteen year old boy who builds robots in his family's garage called "Ruben's Robots." Clumsy and at times destructive robots give big sister and Mom fits as Ruben works out the kinks in his creations. While robots are more like misguided family pets, Ruben knows that the day is coming when he and his robots will be called on to to defend his family, friends, and all humanity."

Galbraith is co-creating the projects with longtime calibrator Tim Bird. We've had to learn a tremendous amount about animation, editing, sound and scripting," said Bird, "the last two years has been a tremendous learning curve. With Rat Bastard, we would've simply been screenwriters, but these projects require us to understand every aspect of film making. I don't see that tt's any different from learning to make comics. It's all trial and error. But in the end it's about believable, coherent storytelling and solid drawing. The rest is putting in the long hours to make it all come together."

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