Stan Lee to voice Masterminds animated feature

press release:

MasterMinds Unlimited Options Animated Feature ‘MasterMinds’ to Morph/DG Spot; Comics Legend Stan Lee to Voice

Up-and-coming animation house MasterMinds Unlimited(www.masterminds.us) has optioned their first property, MasterMinds,as a feature to the Korean 3D animation giant DG Spot and its production arm, Morph Studio LLC. The deal marks DG Spot’s move into original content production with Morph Studio’s representation after years as a production house for TV and video games. Capping the deal,comics legend Stan Lee has agreed to contribute a voice to the project.

MasterMinds is the story of five freakish felons who have only one thing standing between them and global domination – each other! Led by The Maniacal Monocle, their ranks include: mad scientist Doktor Pimento, giant robot CPU-571, mobster Vinnie DiThug and the mutant monkey Gorilla Kang. Doomed by over-complicated plans and ridiculous infighting, they’re driven by the dream of being able to call the shots for just one day.
“Who doesn’t want to rule the world?” asks MasterMinds co-creator Aaron Sowd. “MasterMinds is a story for everyone who ever wished that Wylie E. Coyote would catch the Road Runner. It’s about five guys who stick to their dreams no matter how utterly misguided those dreams really are.”

Stan Lee, co-creator of Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and countless other titles during his legendary tenure as writer and editor at Marvel Comics, will voice a character on the upcoming project. "Face it! We all love to hate a great supervillian,” Lee said. “ That's why artist/writer Aaron Sowd fiendishly created a wild team of truly twisted bad guys, telling his wacky, way-out tales from the villains' point of view. Why didn't I think of that?"
Sowd was an award-winning art director at Stan Lee Media before starting MasterMinds Unlimited with comics writers James Denning and Lance Karutz. Together, they’ve published three stories in anthologiesby Komikwerks (www.komikwerks.com) and created more than twenty original properties.

Soo-Mi Kim, C.E.O and Creative Director with Morph Studio LLC will serve as an executive producer on the upcoming MasterMinds feature.“The animation teams at DG Spot and Morph Studio produce fantastic work,” says Sowd. “But when we talked to Kim, we knew they really go tour mix of slapstick action and character-driven comedy.”

MasterMinds Unlimited manager Dave Alpert, with Circle of Confusion(www.circleofconfusion.com), brought the deal together in conjunction with Komikwerks. MasterMinds debuted in Komikwerk’s first volume of anthology material. Circle of Confusion is well known for bringing smart genre material to feature and television production, while Komikwerks has been a home for online comics since 2000, and features some of the finest artists in the field today.

The most recent Komikwerks volume, Rockets and Robots, featuresanother MasterMinds Unlimited property, Sally Samson, Super Sitter.Two more MasterMinds Unlimited original properties will debut in thesubsequent volume, which will be released in July, at Comic-Con International.

Initial production on MasterMinds will begin this summer. Terms of the deal were not released.