SILVER TONGUE 30XX -- SOME LAWYERS ARE ADVENTUROUS ASS HOLES

Yes, dear reader. You did read the title of this post correctly. Some lawyers are adventurous assholes. And do you want to know why some lawyers are adventurous assholes? If you do, then please strap yourself in for the following one-on-one tête-à-tête with the man behind this accusation, Fernando Sarmiento. The man. The creator. The one and only.





1) What are your own origins, Fernando? Plus what path did you take in life prior to getting to where you are today?   I've been doing lots of things since being a little boy. I did comics and videogames before 10. Shot a feature film when 16. I supervised the vfx of two feature films when 22. And now I am running an animation company called PepperMelon in Argentina, doing animation and character design for commercials. Plus, working on Silvertongue 30XX and Tough Coded, a Live VideoGame experience I'm touring the world with (going to Europe next month).

2) What inspired you to create the ‘Silver Tongue 30XX’ comic?   I've always wanted to create my own James Bond, my own Indiana Jones, or LUPIN III character. And I figured, aside from Phoenix Wright, no one had done this. I mean, there are TONS of stories about lawyers, but never with an 'adventurous perspective'. Even if my comic is a LAW comic, it's pure adventure. I struggled to find a way to make court cases and trials adventure-like, and I think I'm still working on it.

3) In your own words how would you describe this tale?   Well, Silvertongue is the story of a dude that's trying again. He used to be this super lawyer, but then had a rough 10 years where he lost everything. His family, his work, all cases, etc. etc. etc. Now it's his time to come back and win it all.

That's on the personal side, he's a mercenary of logic, he's an asshole, and logic is everything. Logic is above men. Silvertongue and his team are actually assembled by an alien terrorist who's trying to destroy his own species. It's kind of complex.

In short, the story is about time-travelling lawyers, who go back in time to re-do "trials of the century", in hopes that doing so in X way, it will mean that human society would grow quicker. Psychologically speaking, meaning that in the future, we would be able to evolve faster than an alien species that's trying to kill us. 

It's impossible to explain all this, but in short, it's about a womanizer, ass hole lawyer, trying to cope with his own personality and thoughts and feelings on humanity (or lack thereof). 

4) What song would you say best represents this project and why?   This comic refers to a Rolling Stones' song called, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" (but just sometimes you get what you need). In general it talks about human kind. We want to achieve things. We want to be these perfect humans, perfect in every way (love, work, intelligence), but in the end we don't really need all that. What we need is peace of mind, love to ourselves, understanding of one's self, one's soul. This is what the comic will be ultimately about. To just, 'let go'.

5) If you could get a celebrity – either living or dead – to promote your wares, who would you choose, and why would you want to choose this particular person?   If we're talking about who could act as Silvertongue, well, I really like Gael Garcia Bernal. He's latino (and married to an Argentine, has two kids) and has that feel of a mad spanglish speaking character. The only downside is that he's a bit short. That aside, I think he could be an awesome Hernandez. I'm enjoying Gael currently in the Amazon series Mozart in the Jungle. It's very cool. 

6) What have you learnt about yourself through this endeavour?   Lots. Screenwriting, mostly. I've studied cinema, but writing for comics is very different indeed. I mean, you can do it in the same way, but all in all the comic doesn't work. I'm still doing re-touches to the first volume. We're now working on Volume II, with Chris Mullins, the brilliant artist for the series. I'm trying to learn how to make the script and characters work. I've been getting some solid good feedback from the first volume, and in general some things are underdeveloped, and it's a bit "all over the place". This I'm correcting, not only for the first volume, but the ones to come. 

7) During your time in this field, what is the one thing that has kept you in good stead?   I think the originality of the project is keeping it alive for me. I mean, there's nothing like this out there. And I know that a comic book struggles at the beginning to get an audience. With Chris we love the characters and story too much to let it go, so we'll be doing volume after volume until we get noticed. We're being offered some publishing deals, and it's already being published in Argentina by indie publisher DEAD POP, but we're still way long from making a dime off it. 

8) If ‘Silver Tongue’ had a motto, what would it be?   'It’s pretty hard to be efficient without being obnoxious' -- Kin Hubbard

And on that note, dear reader, I'd like to thank Fernando for telling us about his comic book series, 'Silver Tongue 30XX', as well as direct you towards his website, facebook, and twitter pages.