THE COPYCAT

(Artwork by Peter Kavelin)

Remember that dorky kid in school who used to wear the same clothes as you, liked the same music as you, and basically tried to glom on to your life as some kind of Bizarro twin? Now imagine that he moves into the house across the street from you ten years later. Newly married DAN JEFFERSON has to explain to his wife LENA that their new neighbor STAN isn't his long lost twin, he's just been perfecting Dan's look, speech patterns and style of dress for... god knows how long. When Stan lands a job in Dan's office and gets engaged to a Lena lookalike named GEENA, Dan decides to turn the tables and start imitating everything Stan does... creating a "double-mirror" effect that, unfortunately for Dan (and EVERYONE in Dan's life), seems to be exactly what Stan has been hoping for.

"Imitation is the sincerest form of insanity."

SPACE FUNK

Human BOHANNON BOUGGY has finally turned 21 and been released from the only life he's ever known- indentured servitude to the alien ARGLOTIANS on the distant planet Fluxir. Rather than try to hitch a ride back to Earth on a space freighter as most humans do, Bohannon sets his sights on playing a gig on Discon, the ultimate party planet in the center of the universe. FUNKATEERS from planets near and far gravitate to Bohannon and his otherworldly skills on the space bass, but when a monolithic force known as THE EQUALIZERS threaten to take control of Discon and shut down the best dance party the galaxy has ever seen, Bohannon and his crew have to take action and become space funk commandos.

"In a galaxy this big, it's really hard to get your band noticed."

QWERTY

(Artwork by infamous New York artist and designer Reed Seifer)

Meek and squeaky-clean twentysomething STUART EZZELL is happy at his job in the PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT at a big publishing company, even though he usually does semi-mindless grunt computer work. When his computer dies the morning a big presentation is due, he runs down to the basement and plugs in an ancient war-horse computer to get the job done... and is more than a little surprised when the computer talks to him and gives him helpful hints as he works. Naturally Stuart doesn't tell anyone what's occurred, but he continues to seek out "QWERTY's" help and actually becomes friends with him as they "collaborate" on work and on Stuart's dream career of becoming a novelist. When his BOSS's cute assistant MARY discovers an increasingly eccentric Stuart talking aloud to Qwerty and tells Stuart that pages from the book he's been writing are in the voice of a WRITER who died in the office years ago, Stuart must decide whether to continue on being productive- and quite possibly insane and/or possessed- or to turn Qwerty off forever.

"Side by side on my keyboard... oh Lord."

AIRBALL

It's time to satirize procedural crime dramas... and inspirational sports movies, together. Last season, once-promising high school basketball player FREDDY ZANZIBAR's life fell apart when the career 99% free throw shooter stepped to the line to shoot two free throws in the state championship and shot not one but two airballs to lose the game. Since then his prom queen girlfriend ALICIA BURNS has broken up with him and downtrodden Freddy's been greeted with the chant of "Aiiirrballll" everywhere he goes in basketball-crazed Bird, Indiana. With nothing else to do, CAPTAIN SARGENT and the LOCAL POLICE FORCE launch an investigation of the game (including "planting" young-looking rookie FLOYD GUNNER as a student to work closely with the A-V CLUB MEMBERS who've been breaking down tape of the big game looking for clues to a conspiracy) to solve the mystery before the TEAM–and pine-riding "Airball" himself–embark on another run for the championship.

"In Bird, Indiana, choking is a crime."

A PIECE OF MY MIND

(Artwork by Phony Artist)

A team of privately-funded NEUROSCIENTISTS and PARAPSYCHOLOGISTS studying psychic phenomena's connection to the brain make an exciting breakthrough when their iconoclastic leader DR. KLEIN inserts a tiny piece of his own brain into the brain of his young lover ELIZABETH and finds he is able to see through her eyes and experience her thoughts when they are standing within a few feet of each other. Klein's protege PHILLIP ACKERMAN, at first ecstatic about the possibilities of treating the mentally ill, is forced to take action... with both body and mind... when the project is suddenly taken away from the team by their benefactor ALEXIS VAN DERETZ and, one by one, the SUBJECTS and members of the team commit gruesome murders within the SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY that even they cannot explain.

"I think you will."

TEN OF SWORDS

No-nonsense literary agent MARLO BANKS and three close friends (ALEXIS, JILLIAN and EMMA) drive to Sedona, AZ, known for its red sandstone formations and so-called "energy vortexes," for a girls spa weekend. The girls encourage Marlo to loosen up and take advantage of some of the town's "New Age" attractions, so Marlo relents and has her Tarot cards read by handsome ELLIOT CRUMBY. Marlo is surprised by flashes of a former life and danger in her future when Elliot shows her dominant card "Ten of Swords," but the girls all think she's jerking their chain and flirting with Elliot. Has Marlo been made a sucker by Sedona's New Age HUCKSTERS, or has she tapped into something mystical... and terrifying about her own life that calls her inexorably to perform an ancient ritual and climb the Red Rocks to discover her secret... and her fate?

"Tears will fall. Trouble will come."

SNAFU

Even-keeled EDGAR HENNESSEY's life has been smooth sailing, but not by accident. He has studied, worked, and loved metronomically, and made thousands of contingency plans great and small to ensure that his life will not be buffeted by any storm. Unfortunately for Edgar, nothing could have prepared him for LULU, the 22-year-old shuck-and-jiver who shows up claiming to be 40-year-old Edgar's daughter, the product of a freshman tryst. As Edgar denies the possibility of this, a strange thing occurs- his wife ANNA and teenaged children BONNIE and CALVIN take the appearance of Lulu in stride- they have been shaped by Edgar's meticulousness more than he realized- while Edgar's carefully constructed facade begins to crumble when Lulu pushes buttons in him that he didn't know existed. Edgar begins to lose his grip on reality as the true nature of Lulu's appearance in his life unfolds.

"Want to make Lulu laugh? Tell her your plans."

THE NECKTIE PARTY

1845: Texas is on the brink of becoming the 28th state. Crooked-as-a-rattlesnake landowner THOMAS HAYCOX knows his lawless days are soon coming to a close, and sets out to finish his murderin' before Texas joins the Union. He knows that the only two men to ever "know" his hot-blooded bride-to-be LOUISE APPLEBY in the Biblical sense are the outlaw FRANK MEEK and the Apache GILA, two former best friends who nearly killed each other over Louise just last year. Haycox figures the only way he can marry Louise as a virgin is to kill Frank and Gila first, so he sends his MEN out to capture 'em and bring 'em both back to the Ranch so they can be hanged at a formal "necktie party" the night before the wedding.

"You're cordially invited to a hangin'... weddin' to follow."

THE SLASHES

A tightly-knit group of FRIENDS who moved out to Los Angeles together from a Midwest college in their early 20s are now on the cusp of 30, and are holding themselves to their collective promise to leave L.A. if they haven't found measurable success in their chosen field by the time they hit 30. JEANIE (actress-slash-waitress), STEFAN (musician-slash-landscaper), LAURA (writer-slash-assistant) and MICHAEL (producer-slash-messenger) redouble their efforts in their 29th year- some even compromising their morals in a last-ditch effort to get ahead- but their chase is complicated by the reappearance in their lives of a much-changed and eager-to-share-war-stories PEARL, the fifth friend who moved West with them, found immediate success as a model/actress and dropped them all as friends when she moved to Europe.

"Are you a dreamer/artist or a peon/fool?"

KEEP YOUR PANTS ON

Feckless ALEX WIELAND is a teenage Lothario who quite deviously lures young VIRGINS to his bed with his glistening promise ring. When Alex's MOTHER remarries STEVENSON, a wealthy Southern fundamentalist who also happens to be the father of one of Alex's 16-year-old CONQUESTS, Alex is given an ultimatum by his new stepfather: no sex until marriage or he will forever be cut off from the riches that await him. This proposition is made even more difficult when Alex is forced to accompany the new family, including Stevenson's three gorgeously ripe DAUGHTERS, to work on building a new church and school on a tiny island in the South Pacific for an entire summer where the LOCAL GIRLS... and BOYS have progressive ideas about swimwear and how far things go on a first date.

"Will all work and no sex make Alex a dull boy?"

THE HIT PARADE

65-year-old CHARLIE COWLING is retiring... after a long career filled with "retiring" good guys, bad guys and other "inconveniences," first for the Marines and, for the last 30 years, the mob. At his lavish retirement party "down the Jersey Shore" thrown by DON DONALD MILICI (or "Don Don" as he's known), Charlie looks around and notices that he's the oldest guy in the room by two decades–all of his contemporaries are dead or in prison and he's literally the last man standing of his generation. As the young GOONS laugh at the ridiculously long slide show of all the guys Charlie has whacked in the "this is your life" portion of the night, a handful of YOUNG GUNS infiltrate the party to try and make their name by rubbing out Charlie the living legend... including, to Charlie's horror, his estranged son DAMON.

"When you retire, go out with a bang."

DEVIL MAY CARE

After millennia of conflict with GOD, the fallen angel SATAN decides that enough is enough and travels from Hell to Earth to renounce his evil ways, reconcile with God and at long last bring peace to Earth. Since the road to Heaven has long ago been hidden from him, and he hasn't even really heard from God in centuries, Satan asks God's HUMAN FOLLOWERS to pray to God on his behalf and ask Him to send an EMISSARY to Earth to talk about abolishing sin, ending war, and so on. Many holy men, including FATHER ANDREOLI, are skeptical at first of Satan, but as time goes on and nobody hears anything from God, gradually Satan becomes more and more accepted and even revered as he tells the world stories of "the old days" when he lived in Heaven with God himself. As the world undergoes changes that feel right but somehow still strike him as wrong, Andreoli desperately tries to find hard evidence of God as he battles his own crisis of faith and the sensation that this is not the beginning of peace on Earth but the beginning of the end.

"Does God have sympathy for the Devil?"

THE PICNIC

(Artwork by Phony Artist)

Maryland, 1962. GERRY and MARY FLAGG are feeling the pressure. Gerry's boss at the defense contractor where they both work, MR. BENSON, has not only decided arbitrarily to have them host a 4th of July picnic, but he's brought the company's top "RECRUITER" to see if Gerry would make a good candidate for the CIA. What Benson doesn't know is that Gerry and Mary and their FAMILY are secretly Russian spies. Is this the end of the line, or the break they've been waiting for?

"Cold war. Hot day."

THE INTER-NED

Computer engineer and "technomad" NED HOPP travels the world seeking help from the cutting edges of technology and spirituality to control and understand his wild and sometimes violent mood swings. After making a pilgrimage to the world's foremost technology guru known only as THE CHIP MONK high in the Himalayas, Ned is able to configure his own body and mind with computer hardware so that another person can "surf" his neural pathways as one would the internet. After some bad experiences turning access to the "inter-Ned" over to DODGY TRAVELERS, Ned decides that only the love of his life can be trusted to access his memory and discover the cause of- and find the solution to- his lifelong affliction... but is fellow plugged-in wanderer JANELLE his true love or just another hacker eager to muck about in a new system?

"His OS has been corrupted... is love the virus or the cure?"

THE ACUPUNCTURIST

(Artwork by Somsara)

A childhood accident that left both her hands with third degree burns had the unusual side effect of giving effervescent ANNI RUSSELL the ability to communicate with another person's qi, or life force, with her fingertips. By her mid 20s and with the support of her mentor SOO-HYUN, she's become one of the most sought-after acupuncturists and herbologists in Los Angeles, but when a wealthy MOTHER brings two pale CHILDREN in who haven't spoken for weeks and Anni is unable to find any qi in them whatsoever, she discovers a new power in her acupuncture needles- the ability to pass her life force into others. Can she save the lives of the children, or more to the point, can she find where their lives have gone before giving too much of her own life to save them?

"Her needles pierce more than skin."

THEY CALL ME ZEUS

In ancient Greece, ERIS, the goddess of strife and daughter of ZEUS, angrily tricks her father into using his power to banish himself to the future "to beg for mercy from the lesser gods of a new millenia." Zeus awakens in Hollywood, CA in the present day with none of his powers but all of his physical beauty, cunning, and appetite for sex. Needless to say, those three attributes allow him to quickly achieve celebrity stardom and, indeed, god-like status among his MORTAL FANS. Eris and several of the OTHER GODS, watching Zeus through a spell portal, decide they like the future's notion of power and adulation by subjects more than their current era of sheep sacrifices and cowering, and one by one propel themselves into Hollywood. The more gods appear in our time, however, the more Zeus regains his power, and soon a battle royale is brewing that could alter Mt. Olympus... and Hollywood, forever.

"Number one with a thunderbolt."

RUSTY NAIL

Kansas, 1915. With war looming across the Atlantic, an influx of YOUNG MEN from the Northeast pour in to Fort Riley for training. When news of the German's sinking of the Lusitania reaches them, the recruits take out their frustrations on ANTHONY, a cocky stable boy of German descent, by blindfolding him and forcing him to walk through a barn littered with rusty farm implements. Young sergeant RICHIE BLANCO takes the bleeding boy to the infirmary, but he isn't treated correctly and develops severe lockjaw... his body twists into impossible spasms before succumbing to death. With bigger issues on his hand, the base COMMANDER sweeps the case under the rug, but when the bullying SOLDIERS and misdiagnosing MEDICAL STAFF are murdered one by one in gruesome, serrated fashion, Richie believes that Anthony was buried alive and is now exacting his revenge.

"Watch your step."

FREAKAZOID

(Artwork by Benjamin Rielly)

At 14 years old, geeky MAXWELL BARKALOFF is already 6' 3" and shaving every day. Simultaneously the envy of his freshman class and the butt of their jokes, Maxwell takes his frustration and quickly evolving physical prowess out on the deejay dancefloors of Brooklyn, where his unusual personal style and hypnotically herky-jerky moves are mistaken for brilliance by a group of boogieing YOUNG PROFESSIONAL LADIES from Manhattan... especially PEGGY COLLIER, the bookish assistant to hotshot literary agent DECLAN PINSCH. When Peggy discovers Maxwell is ten years younger than she is, she breaks off their budding romance, but in the tortured rhymes, raps, pleas and graffiti he creates trying to win her back, Peggy begins to see talents in Maxwell that far exceed getting freaky on the dancefloor.

"Get in touch with yer inner freak."

MAY/DECEMBER/MAY

(Artwork by Phony Artist)

When the much older HUSBAND of author and former enfant terrible MARION GOLDMAN (57) dies, Marion throws herself back into Manhattan cultural society with a vengeance- conspicuously carousing and canoodling with the zeal of a woman half her age. Marion surprises herself- and her FRIENDS and ADULT CHILDREN- by falling for not one but two much younger lovers: conservative banker JAMES (31) and free-wheeling poet LUCIA (24). Now on the "December" side after decades as "May," Marion wrestles with her past intentions, the facts and fictions of her current relationships, the physical toll of her new romantic life, and the possibility that James and Lucia might be better off with each other than they are with her.

"A delightful new spin on coming of age."

FIT

Computer programmer BENJAMIN TRAVIS has been out of shape and overweight his whole life, but his abilities, confidence and sense of humor have always kept his spirits high and his prospects bright. Only after befriending cross-training workout fiends (and beautiful physical specimens) CLYDE and JAMIE that he "realizes" how unhappy he's been and becomes obsessed with achieving physical perfection and discovering "his true self.". His old gang of FRIENDS, including couch-potato CORINNE don't much like the "new and improved" Ben, and sabotage his efforts while Clyde and Jamie- who becomes more attracted to Ben the more pounds he sheds- push him ever harder towards peak fitness.

"Will the real Benjamin Travis stand up... or sit back down?"