Comics' Unlikely Hero

After months of pursuit by mail and telephone, the former high-tech wunderkind finally corralled movie producer Michael Uslan in person. "He waited till I was toward a corner, and then he just backed me in," Uslan recalled in an interview. "There was no way for at least the next four minutes that I wasn't going to listen to him."

Having served as executive producer of the "Batman" series, Uslan is accustomed to people pushing scripts at him. But in Alessi's case, it was a fistful of comic books and a simple pitch: Read these and if you don't love them, I'll never bother you again.

Today, back at the San Diego Convention Center once again for Comic-Con International, the industry's biggest annual gathering, Alessi and Uslan are on the same page.

Under a long-term development deal the two signed weeks after that first meeting at Comic-Con in 2001, Uslan is Hollywood ambassador for Alessi's maverick publishing house, CrossGeneration Comics Inc.

Less than two years into the alliance, an eye blink by Hollywood's clock, CrossGen has 11 movie and TV projects in the pipeline with some big names: studios such as DreamWorks SKG and Castle Rock Entertainment; filmmakers including Chuck Russell ("The Mask") and Robert Zemeckis ("Forrest Gump"); and writers like Bob Gale ("Back to the Future") and Mike France ("Cliffhanger").

And not one of the projects, as everybody connected with CrossGen repeats incessantly, involves a spandex-clad superhero.

The titles include:

* "Way of the Rat," an action-adventure yarn set in ancient China and featuring a comical thief and his mentor, a talking monkey.

* "Route 666," a horror tale with an early-'60s feel whose protagonist is a female college student who sees ghosts but can't convince anyone else of their macabre conspiracy.

* "Brath," a historical adventure based on the Roman Empire's 1st century efforts to quell Scotland's pugnacious Highland clans.

* "Meridian," a fantasy and coming-of-age story about an orphaned young princess who has to save her world from the clutches of her ruthless uncle.

Hollywood used to believe that for a comic book to become a hit movie, it had to involve a household name -- Superman or Spider-Man, say. That theory was overthrown by the grand success of a string of movies based on little-known comic books: "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," "Men in Black," "The Mask" and "Road to Perdition."