Wetumpka inspires comic book

The Fain Theater, the Coosa River and its wildlife, the classic downtown Wetumpka buildings and the meteor crater all inspired StarFell — a comic book set in the 1950s and 1960s.

Michael Uhlir is a child of the 80s and grew up a comic book fan and is using the backdrop of Wetumpka to create his first comic book series.

“I’m from South Florida — I have seen palm trees and beaches my entire life,” Uhlir said. “Anything that has elevation over 500 feet is an oddity to me. When I got to Wetumpka I was blown away by it. You have this beautiful river and the park. I was so into this town.”

Uhlir is a history buff who now lives in Millbrook but keeps visiting Wetumpka studying its buildings, bridge and more.

“I dig through and eat anything I can history wise,” Uhlir said. “I was thinking this is some nice giant hill but it’s a meteor crater. I was just blown away by that.”

Uhlir works in the film industry and the idea of StarFell came to life off of storyboards to possibly create a streaming series or short film.

“The original idea was cool concept art, write a script and maybe shop it around for a short film or movie — that was the grandiose plan,” Uhlier said. “When I was writing the script, I thought it would be cool to have storyboards to go with the pitch. Then I thought it would be even cooler if the storyboards were comic book pages.”

Uhlir said he has always wanted to create and write a comic book, afterall he has been reading, collecting and allowing thousands of comics to be stacked up around his home since he was six. Uhlir also has a love of 1950s and 1960s movies.

“Especially like sci-fi movies like ‘The Blob,’” Uhlir said. “I just find them comforting to watch.”

Uhlir was making a visit to Wetumpka a few years ago when the comic idea started to come to life.

“I was walking around Wetumpka one day and just kind of struck me,” Uhlir said. “I had looked at the Fain theater. Looking at it, it reminded me of the epic scene from the old 50s movie ‘The Blob’ where all these small town movie goers are running out of the cinema and the Blob is kind of like pushing out through the window. Right then and there I was kind of like, oh there might be a really fun story here.”

Uhlir said he feels many are no longer interested in making movies of the type, but the vision of a catfish chasing people from the Fain inspired him.

“I was basically all in from that point,” Uhlir said. “The first thing I did was take a picture of the bridge and hopped on the computer. I just did some concept work of what tentacles wrapped around the bridge would look like. It just felt very 50s sci-fi movie to me.”

Next Uhlir played off his memories of watching movies.

“I’m a child of the 80s watching the Goonies, Stand By Me, Monster Squad, just all these movies about kids teaming up,” Uhlir said. “I just always thought that was a fun thing to write about.”

Uhlir created his own gang of kids using the Elmore County Museum as their hideout to build weapons and create plans to save the town of StarFell.

“You can go to these places for real,” Uhlir said. “I was looking for a building that looks fortified and strong. There is the courthouse but it is too big.”   

The project would take up all of Uhlir’s free time during the early stages of the COVID-19 project. Saturdays and Sundays Uhlir would play music and create.

Now Uhlir has the first issues of the comic book in and will place some in stores around Wetumpka. The second issue has been funded through Kickstarter and other private investment is allowing the start of issue three. But Uhlir hopes StarFell has more life to it.

“We are currently working on issue two, the artists are doing their thing,” Uhlir said. “I’m finishing up the pages. Hopefully we can complete the entire series. It will be about 10 issues if we can get to the end. At this point StarFell is a business entity.”

Uhlir has created merchandise that will be available at starfellstudios.com along with the comic book. Uhlir also hopes independent comic book publishers will take note and he hopes to one day return to his original vision.

“The idea is to keep it going and make as many issues as possible, just to complete the story,” Uhlir said. “Outside of that I still have my grandiose dream of trying to turn this into a streaming series or a movie.”