Zeros 2 Heroes Media

Infobox Company
company_name = Zeros 2 Heroes Media

type = Private
genre = Science fiction
foundation = June 2006
founder =
location_city =
location_country =
location = 300-150 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
locations =
area_served = Worldwide
key_people = Paul Gertz, Chairman
Paul Dini, Editor-in-chief, Board Director
industry = Publishing
products = Webcomics
services =
revenue =
operating_income =
net_income =
assets =
equity =
owner =
num_employees =
parent =
investors = Private Angel Investor [http://www.zeros2heroes.com/content/view/1520/181/ | Company Fact Sheet]
divisions =
subsid =
homepage = [http://zeros2heroes.com/ zeros2heroes.com]
footnotes =
intl =

Zeros 2 Heroes Media, dubbed "The People's Publisher", is a Vancouver-based social media company best known for creating Zeros2Heroes.com, a social networking website focusing on gathering comic, gaming, film and animation enthusiasts together in a collaborative and creative environment.

Part of the Zeros 2 Heroes mandate is to give its members a voice in shaping the ideas of entertainment studios. Zeros 2 Heroes members recently teamed with Rainmaker Entertainment to redevelop ReBoot, the classic animated episodic television series, into a trilogy of feature-length films.

=Campaigns=As a company involved in new media avenues of entertaiment, Zeros 2 Heroes Media has launched several online campaigns since entering the business world. Since their main website is built as a virtual community, most of these campaigns revolve around the principles of participatory culture using the technology components of Web 2.0.

ReBoot: Reborn

In partnership with Rainmaker Animation, Zeros 2 Heroes Media launched in 2007 a campaign to re-establish ReBoot as a viable entertainment property. Taking the form of a contest, fans, artists and writers were encouraged to submit their pitches to pick up the property where it left off and create a comic book meant to generate interest in renewing the show. Writer Jeff Campbell and artist Ale Aragon have been selected to produce this comic, entitled .

The comic is meant to lead to the development of a trilogy of animated films to continue the story where it left off. Whether the content of the comic will be taken into consideration as canonical to the animated series or not remains to be decided. [ [http://www.zeros2heroes.com/content/view/32/196/ ReBoot Comic Writer takes the next step] ]

The official "ReBoot" website was updated with a countdown, which ended on May 30 2008, at 12:00am EST. [ [http://www.reboot.com ReBoot - Brought to you by Rainmaker ] ] At 12:00am PST, the site was updated to include information about the first webcomic to be created by the Arrival team, and continuing the community input initiated during the "voting phase". The comic, now named Code of Honor, was viewable after signing up for an account, or using an existing Zeros 2 Heroes account.

Awards

On May 23th 2008, the ReBoot relaunch was selected as the winner of the New Media BC Pop Vox awards for Best Digital Campaign. [ [http://www.popvoxawards.com/?q=new-media-bc-announces-popvox-awards-winners New Media BC announces PopVox award winners] ]

Canada: Comic Creation Nation

Announced in August 2007 at the Toronto Fan Expo Canada, Canada: Comic Creation Nation is an initiative financially sponsored by Telefilm Canada to support new and beginning Canadian writers breaking into the comic book industry. World-renowned writer Paul Dini was announced as the acting editor-in-chief of this initiative. Registered Canadian users of the Zeros2heroes.com website could use dedicated tools to publish their pitches, concept and writing samples to received feedback, criticism, comments and votes in order to advance through the rankings of the contest.

Every week on Sunday, at midnight, the comic book pitch having reached and maintained the number 1 slot would be assigned to one of Zeros 2 Heroes' editors for production. An entire team of penciller, inker, colorist and letterer, as specified at the writer's request, would be assembled to produce the script in comic book form as faithfully to the writer's vision as could be.

The initiative was featured in Creative Screenwriting Magazine as a potential entry door into getting a pitch selected and moved onto the screenwriting circuit. [ [http://www.zeros2heroes.com/content/view/2036/141/ From Strip to Screen] ]

Only Canadian citizens could benefit from this campaign due to restrictions by Telefilm Canada.

elected comic properties

Three comic scripts have been selected amongst those created by Zeros 2 Heroes interns in order to test the production process:

Morgan Jeske's
Jay Iscaryot's The Brothers McElroy
Ian Goodwillie's The Mix

Additionally, from January to April 2008, twelve site members to date have seen their properties selected for production as a single 22-page comic book from the pool of submitted comic pitches [ [http://www.zeros2heroes.com/content/view/1983/221/ Canada: Comic Creation Nation winners to date] ] . These books are slated to see publication as webcomics at the end of June 2008. [ [http://blog.zeros2heroes.com/2008/06/04/dense-foleyage-18-what-me-worry/#respond Andrew Foley, Z2H associate editor, talks about CCN deadline] ]

NSI: playWRITE

In association with the National Screen Institute, the playWRITE campaign aimed at giving a shot at gaming enthusiast to earn the opportunity to participate in a boot camp training session and paid internship with a leading Canadian game studio. A total of ten Zeros 2 Heroes site members who had pitched themselves and their concepts have been selected on May 7th, 2008 by the various partners in this initiative. [ [http://www.zeros2heroes.com/content/view/2722/262/ NSI playWRITE contest winners] ] Such partners included Bioware, EA Black Box, New Media BC, the International Game Developers Association and the Vancouver International Digital Festival.

Comic Creation Nation: APTN

Through a partnership between Zeros 2 Heroes and Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, Aboriginal Canadian writers were given the opportunity to participate in an exclusive campaign to have their comic pitch produced. The initiative launched officially on April 21st, 2008, and Aboriginal Canadian citizens were invited to participate in the pitching and voting process. [ [http://www.zeros2heroes.com/component/option,com_aptn/Title,CampaignPage/ Comic Creation Nation: APTN] ]

A total of three pitches will be selected by the end of this initiative for development following the same criterias as Canada: Comic Creation Nation winners. To this day, two pitches have been selected: "Fala", by Beth A. Dillon, and "Acceleration", by Steven Thomas.

Direct to Development

Though only comic pitches created by Canadian writers could be selected for production, another program exists within the Zeros 2 Heroes framework for non-Canadian writers, entitled Direct to Development. This initiative sees an advisory board select six pitches created on the company's website for eventual selection for the Direct to Development deal.

The winner of each round receives the same contract deal as Comic Creation Nation winners, i.e. a team of professional artists creating a 22-page comic using the writer's script and background elements, shared ownership of development rights, a publicity campaign built around their property, and the Zeros 2 Heroes team pushing the property towards other entertainement venues.

The pitch selected by the Zeros 2 Heroes community to be the first "Direct to Development" story will be announced during the San Diego Comic-Con on July 26th, 2008 [ [http://www.zeros2heroes.com/component/option,com_feature/Title,DTD/ Direct to Development goes live] ] .

=External links=
* [http://www.zeros2heroes.com/ Zeros 2 Heroes Media]
* [http://www.reboot.com/ Reboot Homepage]

=References=