(upbeat jazzy music) - [Jule] For over three decades, they've been tearing up the Portland art scene with their cutting-edge comic books, underground parties, innovative animation, and feature films.

The Pander Brothers have made their mark.

And now Jacob and Arnold Pander are bringing a new vampire to life.

(dramatic music) - "Girlfiend" follows the story of Karina and Nick, and Karina's a sort of a runaway vampire who's seeking true love in the big city.

They meet in the morgue in which he works and it's love at first sight.

(dramatic music continues) But it really becomes a story about how do two people from these extreme side of the tracks, one being a vampire, one being a mortal, how do they make it work?

- This is the first project that we've drawn totally digitally.

And I would say that this is probably the most collaborative drawing project we've ever done.

I'm just gonna go ahead and put in the lettering into these, just right over the thumbnails, so we can kind of mess around with placement.

- Okay.

We can take images and copy them and enlarge them or spin them around or flip them very easily while we're still working on the drawing.

- What page was that again?

40?

- 42, book six.

- Gotcha.

We're creating this book in record time compared to the books that we've drawn in the past.

(gentle music) (brush scratching) - [Jule] The Pander Brothers were born into a world of art.

Their father, Portland painter Henk Pander, is internationally known for his stunning and provocative work.

- There were art materials laying around, there was paper, there was paint.

And these kids, I'd be working all night together and they'd sit on top of each other and just making these intense drawings until like 2:00 in the morning.

- I think this is some of the stuff we were doing.

We were living on Clay Street.

- There's really strong, special kind of dimension and distance and coming towards you and... - [Jacob] The world and the life that we were exposed to as kids was really rarefied and really special.

There was no line between fantasy and reality and it was a perfect kind of set of ingredients for stimulating a very creative life.

- [Arnold] The very first comic books we did.

- [Henk] Yeah, I remember it.

- This is the one we were doing when you would come home and- - Tell us to go to bed.

- At 2:00 in the morning and and go to sleep.

- Yeah, "Hey go to bed."

(gentle music) - [Jule] Their mother Merrill is also an accomplished artist.

She gave Jacob and Arnold lots of creative freedom and supported their early love of comic books, a fact that didn't thrill their classically trained father.

- It took me a bit to get used to the idea because you get this sort of notion about comic books being sort sort of common in a sense.

However, they were like especially in the 60s, there were like great comic books.

After I sort of thought about it, I realized that there was just a very powerful idiom which really fit them really well too.

- [Jule] Jacob and Arnold drew for the high school newspaper, created posters for local bands, and made films, including "Time Gate", a story of time machines and post-apocalyptic Portland.

(lasers blast) But then, in 1986 they hit the big time.

(groovy music) Hired to illustrate the nationally known comic book, "Grendel", a huge leap for two artists still in their teens.

- So that really kind of launched things for us because that book, in terms of the timing, it just kinda hit a nerve.

We were really at that point, kinda getting into fashion and music and kind of all this other pop culture influences and we really just injected that into this comic book.

- [Julie] Suddenly the Pander Brothers were famous.

- That book basically became one of the largest selling indie comic books of its day.

And that really did launch our national career and the publishing side of things.

- They were like world famous, just like that.

They were like not even 20.

At the time, I was pretty well known and people would come up to me and they ask me, "Are you Henk Pander?"

Then all of a sudden the question became, "Are you one of the Pander Brothers?"

(laughs) That was very funny.

Their reputation sort of started to grow and sort of supersede mine in a sense.

This is wonderful.

"Are you one of the Pander Brothers?"

"Yep."

(chuckles) (relaxed funk music) (relaxed funk music continues) - [Jacob] Batman was a really exciting project and opportunity and it was something that we'd wanted to do for quite a while.

And so, we wrote a project basically about Batman having a kind of state of psychological crisis between, "Is the beast kind of overtaking his psyche?"

- [Arnold] In a lot of ways, We were making movies in our comics.

- [Director] Okay, cut.

- And it got to a point where we were just kinda bursting from the seams and really just needed to start making film.

(tense music) - "Selfless" is our first feature film.

It was great.

It was amazing.

It was a watershed event for us in terms of just our creative career and process.

- What do you think you're doing?

With your book there, you're staring at me like I'm some kind of freak.

I can tell.

- No, I'm just drawing people.

- You drawing me?

- [Jacob] We got into the Bend Film Festival, and we got "Best Feature", "Best Screenplay", "Best Supporting Actor", for our bad guy.

For quite a while, we looked at comics and film as really two separate things.

And I think over the last few years, we've really come to realize that that kinda central core aspect of great storytelling is the most important thing.

(upbeat music) (vinyl record rips) (intense music) - It's exciting.

We feel like we've barely scratched the surface.

We've got a lot of stories we haven't told yet.

(gentle music) - Really, what part?

(indistinct dialogue) - [Jule] Most of the time, the brothers are tackling the next big creative thing.

But some days, they're just two sons helping their dad move a painting.

- [Arnold] All good, I got it.

Yep.

Just lower her slowly.

I'm gonna get in the back side of it.

Yeah, got it.

- It's really wonderful that they're continuing to develop it.

I think they're great, and I'm really glad they live so close here and gave a lot of purpose to my own life.

(birds calling) That's my family.

Well, my boys.

(gentle music fades) (no audio)