Local artist gets development deal

Bossier City artist Al Bohl has scored a development deal for his cartoon series, "Way Out There!" A Toronto-based animation and distribution company, 9 Story Entertainment, is making a pilot about a boy who attends a boarding school on the Planet Nu-B-On. Kind of like an intergalactic foreign exchange student whose best friend is a city in a glass jar, whose bully is a jock, and whose teacher goes by "Blah Blah."

Sounds vaguely like my cousin, Daryl. Hmmm.

"For all practical purposes, he might as well be on Earth," Bohl said. "He's going to run into the same problems there that he's going to run into here."

For years, Bohl has been developing series and refining his pitch strategy at festivals and animators workshops. At the Ottawa International Animation Festival, Bohl was approached by 9 Story.

"They were looking for something for boys 8 to 12 years old," or the tweenage boy market, Bohl said. "That's really the hot area, and there are a lot of opportunities opening up."

What's they key making a good pitch?

"It's really finding that certain place where you don't overdevelop it and you don't underdevelop it," Bohl said. You can read his pitch here. Pretty direct stuff, really.

"We were thrilled to be introduced to such a fresh and highly creative property," said Liliana Vogt, vp of development for Story 9, in a release. "Al's designs and concept for the series instantly resonated with our sensibilities, our brand, and our objective which is to find unique, character-driven comedy material with solid international appeal."

By day, Bohl works as art director at Sci-Port: Louisiana's Science Center. He's also working on a documentary about 1918 documentary, "Tarzan of the Apes," which was shot in Morgan City, La. For more about Bohl, visit albohl.com.