Jacob Pander (born January 26, 1965) and Arnold Pander (born June 16, 1967), known commercially as The Pander Brothers, are American comic book creators, artists, and filmmakers. They are best known for their work on the comics titles Grendel: Devil's Legacy, Batman: City of Light, The Batman Chronicles, and Girlfiend.

Career

Comics

The Pander Brothers first came to prominence with their artwork on

Matt Wagner Matt Wagner (born October 9, 1961) is an American comics artist and writer who is best known as the creator of the series ''Mage'' and ''Grendel (comics), Grendel''. Career Matt Wagner's first published comic book work was ''Comico Primer'' #2 ( ...

Grendel (comics) ''Grendel'' is a long-running series of comic books originally created by American author Matt Wagner. First published in 1982 by Comico, Wagner later moved publication of the series to Dark Horse. Originally a noir comic in the style of Europ ...

olume Twoissues 1-12 (collected as Grendel:Devil's Legacy), from Comico. They later illustrated the 1990 series Exquisite Corpse, from

Dark Horse Comics Dark Horse Comics is an American comic book, graphic novel, and manga publisher founded in Milwaukie, Oregon by Mike Richardson in 1986. The company was created using funds earned from Richardson's chain of Portland, Oregon comic book shops known ...

written by

Jerry Prosser Jerry Prosser is an American comic book writer and editor, best known for his work with Dark Horse Comics. Prosser was part of Dark Horse Comics from its early days, and was one of five creators, who as ''Team CGW'' created the Comics' Greatest ...

about the tragic and violent life of a serial killer, the three issue series can be read in any order. Depending on the order the reader chooses, they are left with varying impressions of the main character. In 1994, they released Triple-X International, a comic series from Dark Horse. It tells the story of a young American dissident hiding out in futuristic Amsterdam to avoid persecution after New York City falls under martial law, only to find that his refuge is about to explode into revolution. Triple-X was re-released in 1997 as a collected graphic novel. In 1997, Arnold Pander illustrated Jack Zero, a short story series from Dark Horse. The five-part series appeared in Dark Horse Presents 121-125 and was co-authored by New York Performance artist Joel Blumsack (aka Zeroboy). The following year, in 1998, the brothers released the Secret Broadcast comic, which included CD soundtrack companion, with

Oni Press Oni Press is an American independent comic book and graphic novel publisher based in Portland, Oregon. In 2019, it became an imprint label following the company's merger with Lion Forge Comics. The merged company, Oni–Lion Forge Publishing Grou ...

. Originally printed in Oni Double Feature #1&2, Secret Broadcast combined story and music to tell the story of a pirate radio broadcaster on the run from the FCC. The track numbers in the panels of the comics corresponded to tracks on the companion soundtrack. The book went through three printings, and music videos from the CD appeared on

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

AMP. It was originally released in print with

Jay and Silent Bob Jay and Silent Bob are fictional characters portrayed by Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith, respectively, in Kevin Smith's View Askewniverse, a fictional universe created and used in most of the films, comics, and television programs written and produc ...

. In 1999, the Panders wrote and illustrated a short story for

DC Comics DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...

' "Elseworlds" title, Batman Chronicles, entitled "Apocalypse Girl."

Batman Batman is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and debuted in Detective Comics 27, the 27th issue of the comic book ''Detective Comics'' on ...

must track down a girl from an anti-matter dimension who destroys anything that comes into contact with her. The Panders illustrated the four issue miniseries Accelerate from DC/

Vertigo Vertigo is a condition where a person has the sensation of movement or of surrounding objects moving when they are not. Often it feels like a spinning or swaying movement. This may be associated with nausea, vomiting, sweating, or difficulties w ...

in 2000. Written by sci-fi novelist

Richard Kadrey Richard Kadrey (born August 27, 1957) is a San Francisco-based novelist, freelance writer, and photographer. Kadrey was born in New York City, New York. Fiction Kadrey has written fifteen novels, including ''The New York Times'' Best Seller ...

, the comic explores a speculative future Los Angeles where marginalized citizens have become "Tribes" in an economically polarized society. Accelerate was reprinted as a graphic novel in 2007 through

Image Comics Image Comics is an American comic book publisher and is the third largest comic book and graphic novel publisher in the industry in both unit and market share. It was founded in 1992 by several high-profile illustrators as a venue for creator-ow ...

and was remastered in 2014 for digital release on

Comixology Iconology Inc., d/b/a ComiXology (styled comiXology), is a cloud-based digital distribution platform for comics owned by Amazon, with over 200 million comic downloads . It offers a selection of more than 100,000 comic books, graphic novels, and ...

. In 2004, the Pander Brothers co-authored the 8 issue miniseries Batman: City of Light for DC Comics with writer Mark Paniccia. In the story, illustrated by the Panders with inks by Alvaro Lopez, Batman goes into hiatus after the fatal injury of a young man. In 2009, Arnold Pander co-authored and illustrated the graphic novel Tasty Bullet for

. Co-authored by conspiracy theory historian

Jonathan Vankin Jonathan Vankin is an American author, journalist and comic book writer/editor. Biography Vankin is best known for his books '' Conspiracies, Cover-Ups and Crimes'' and, with co-writer John Whalen, the '' Greatest Conspiracies'' series, beginning ...

, Tasty Bullet is an exploration of the darker underbelly of product testing, fame building, and corporate espionage. The Pander Brothers promoted the book by creating an ARG (

Alternate Reality Game An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and employs transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions. The form is defined by inten ...

) involving a hacked website, blogs written by “relatives” of victims suffering from the drink's side effects, a militant anti Tasty Bullet site devoted to revealing the conspiracy, and YouTube videos of "real" ads from Japan, Eastern Europe, and India featuring the original 1990s drink "Tasty" that inspired the graphic novel. In 2012, a remastered digital version of the Secret Broadcast comic with additional story was released on

, along with a new soundtrack called Secret Broadcast Redux that was released digitally on DECOY Recordings through InGrooves/ Fontana. In 2015, the brothers returned to comics with Girlfiend, a graphic novel released by Dark Horse Comics. The 270-page romance horror follows the story of a runaway vampire named Karina and her mortal lover Nick who hunt down the criminal underworld to keep Karina fed and appease Nick's ethical boundaries. During their comics career, the Pander Brothers have been nominated for several awards, including the

Eisner Award The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books, sometimes referred to as the comics industry's equivalent of the Academy Awards. They are named in ...

for groundbreaking artwork in the comics medium.

Film

The brothers' film work includes music videos, narrative shorts, and the 2008 feature film Selfless. Selfless premiered at the BendFilm Festival where it took top honors including Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting actor (

Mo Gallini Mohamed Ghalayini (born February 15, 1966) is an American film and television actor, known by his stage name Mo Gallini. Biography Gallini was born Mohamed Ghalayini on February 15, 1966, in Miami, Florida. His father was from Lebanon, and his ...

), and Best Editing. It also won Best Cinematography at the Albuquerque Film Festival in 2009. In 2015, they released the short film Subtext, in which all of the film's dialogue takes place over texting between the film's characters. The Panders debuted the short online at the 2015 TechFest Northwest in Portland, Oregon, in August 2015.

References

{{Reflist Living people American comics writers American comics artists Year of birth missing (living people)