Comic books, movie scripts, video games, television shows, independent press, board games...these are all projects in the works at Tainted Publications, LLC, a company created a few years ago by two friends in search of a way to keep their work and ideas exactly that: their own.

The Tainted team, WestConn students Dan Sterling and Josh Wagner, met at the college radio station and decided to get together and collaborate creatively. Soon enough, they were tripping over their own concepts.
“We met three times a week for two or three hours at a clip,” recalls Wagner. “We would just come up with stuff. Things kept moving and evolving and we decided to do something.”

Abhorring the idea of losing creative property to the bigwigs, Sterling and Wagner contacted the Western Connecticut chapter of SCORE, an organization that provides counseling for those venturing into small business. Bob and Dick, two retired businessmen, took the young’uns under their wings and advised them on all that is business once a week for two months. A bit of paperwork and $100 later, Sterling and Wagner founded their company, Tainted Publications, LLC.

The first (and only thus far) work published by Tainted is “In These Guys We Trust”, a comic book written by Sterling and illustrated by local artist Joe DiGuiseppi. “These Guys” takes place in the heavens, a corporate setting with God, Bahá and Buddha working under the supervision of a man named Bob. Due to lack of church attendance, the overall number of heaven-bound souls is low, which means Satan’s army will win after Armageddon and God will lose his job. God sends his flighty, pot-smoking son Jesus down to Earth to recruit more souls, but not everything goes as smoothly as God desires. 

While the comic may not sit well with some people, the story is intended to make people laugh and take themselves a little less seriously. Sterling included an extensive disclaimer/thank you on the inside of the back cover, but thus far, “These Guys” has received no complaints and much acclaim.
Initially, “These Guys” was a play written for a workshop around 2002. The class loved it, and five years later, the play came up in Sterling and Wagner’s collaborations. The two planned on creating a video game from “These Guys”, but after consideration of the 70-plus team required for production, they decided a comic book to be a more practical endeavor. 

Sterling bumped into DiGuiseppi at Borders some seven years after seeing a 311 concert with him. Sterling mentioned the comic book and asked DiGiuseppi about his experience with illustration, who just happened to have a pad of his work with him. Sterling was amazed at what he saw and emailed the story to him later that day. The two collaborated on character design, and Sterling was ecstatic with the results.
“I had always imagined the characters as people on a stage,” Sterling says. “My reaction to the drawn characters was ‘Yes! Absolutely!’ The more he drew, the better they got.”

Sterling’s brother Tad helped with page layout and lettering, and after printing a few hundred copies, Dan drove around Connecticut distributing the comic himself. “These Guys” can be found in Norwalk, Middlebury, Branford and Waterbury, and Cave Comics in Newtown has sold nine of the 10 copies Sterling supplied.
“These Guys” issues 2 through 6 have already been written and illustration for issue 2 is currently in the works. Wagner and Sterling are reluctant to give solid dates for any of their projects; in the past, those dates have come and gone before projects have been completed; but the two are not worried about deadlines and concrete output.

“Nothing has been forced,” remarks Wagner. “The whole process has been very organic. It has its own momentum.”

The Tainted team is finishing up their respective degrees, Wagner in theater and Sterling in communications and media. Sterling is involved in three radio shows on Westcon’s WXCI and works as a baker at Costco; needless to say, these two are busy, yet their brainstorms never cease.

Scheduled for future Tainted release are a hush-hush video game “Dark”, numerous movie scripts and a tantalizing comic book entitled “Adultery” based on a concept album by now defunct band Dog Fashion Disco. Sterling, hailing the album, brought “Adultery” along to one of the Tainted collaborative sessions, and after listening repeatedly, stories presented themselves and the opportunity for another comic book was staring them in the face. The comic will be presented in a 13-part series with one issue for each song, and an artist in Finland has already been scouted out for illustration. While Tainted is currently more of a personal creative project than an independent publishing house, Sterling and Wagner hope to become a resource for those working in multimedia, music and art.

“We want to represent work with edge and experimentation,” Wagner says. “We’d like to have firm holds in multimedia and eventually be part of it all.”

Visit TaintedPublications.com for more information.