'Joe Journeyman': A Story Of Friendship, Football, Art
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
“Joe Journeyman” is a story about friendship. Ironically, it was created by two childhood friends who reunited after drifting apart for 13 years. “The whole thing, from front to back, both in the book and what went into the book, is about friendship,” said David Bazzoni, iDNA Brands president and author and creator of “Joe Journeyman.” iDNA Brands is a consumer products business that specializes in licensed products. The company started in 2009 with a product called the Sportula, a hamburger flipper with a logo cut out of the stainless steel blade with a bottle opener at the end. iDNA holds licensing deals with the NFL, MLB and 140 colleges throughout the country. From there, the company developed a product line called Stadium View Products. Those products are 3D representations of stadiums, ball parks and arenas throughout the country. They are designed, manufactured and distributed out of Warsaw. iDNA is now launching its third line of brand offerings, “Joe Journeyman,” but the story behind the search-and-find book and related products began long before Bazzoni was hired at Wildman Business Group or before becoming president of iDNA. Bazzoni was childhood friends with Jed Bruce. They went to school together until ninth grade in North Manchester. “At the end of ninth grade, Jed and I went our separate ways and hadn’t seen each other for 13 years,” Bazzoni recalled. Bazzoni went on to school at the University of Nebraska. Bruce quit high school after ninth grade, but went on and earned his GED and attended the Art Institute of Chicago. “The tuition was too much for him, and to survive in Chicago he was a street artist. He literally did portraits on the street to make a living,” Bazzoni said. Bruce also did relief work after Hurricane Katrina, building homes in Mississippi, but ended up back in the North Manchester area. “When I ran into him at a local hangout, a local bar in Manchester – which I never go to, I really don’t, I’m dead serious. The only reason I was there was because my wife is a second-grade teacher and she was nice enough not to make me go to this program, and she said, ‘I’ll just drop you off here,’ so she just drops me off – and in walks Jed,” Bazzoni said. The two talked and Bazzoni found out Bruce was unemployed, just got laid off and expecting his first child. “The best way to say it is he was stressed out,” Bazzoni said. Bazzoni asked Bruce if he was still doing anything with his art work. He said he never stopped doing art, and showed Bazzoni his portfolio. “It was everything I remembered as kids,” Bazzoni said. “As a kid, I remember him being the most talented guy I have ever seen. I looked up to him. I was the jock, he was the artist. He probably didn’t look up to me because he didn’t care about sports, but I really looked up to him because I admired him, I admired his ability.” Blown away by his portfolio, Bazzoni offered Bruce a job, though he had no idea what he’d be doing. He told Bruce he’d figure it out and asked him to start working the following Monday. For the first six months, Bruce did odds and ends work. He built his own studio out of an old truck bay, and made the very first Stadium View prototype. After that, Bazzoni started to stress about having work for Bruce to do. “I started thinking the worst thing I could ever do to him, or the worst thing anyone could do to anybody, is give them a little bit of hope and then take it away,” Bazzoni said. “But, you have to be doing something to move the company forward and it was my responsibility to figure what that was for Jed.” Six months later, Bazzoni was watching a sports documentary with his wife about a boxer. The boxer was traveling all over the world to support his family so they called him a journeyman. A light bulb went on in Bazzoni’s head. Instead of a boxer, Bazzoni thought of a football player who was the only player who ever played for all 32 NFL teams. He would travel from team to team and city to city, and be called “Joe Journeyman.” He decided it would become a search-and-find adventure so readers would have to find Joe in every team. He called Bruce that night and told him what he figured out they would do for the next five years. The next day they got together and started hashing out the “Joe Journeyman” concept, which Bruce got immediately. “So we started putting together the first couple of teams,” Bazzoni said. Three or four months into it, Bazzoni decided to call their contacts at the NFL and tell them they had something new. They agreed to a meeting, but Bazzoni wouldn’t tell them what it was other than it was a children’s concept. Bazzoni and Bruce traveled to New York City to the NFL headquarters to pitch “Joe Journeyman.” “They were blown away. They just loved it. They certainly had a lot of questions, but they just loved it. And they approved it, they greenlighted the project,” Bazzoni recalled. That’s been several years, and now iDNA has launched the “Joe Journeyman, Volume One” book. Each of the 16 teams featured in the first book also has its own puzzle, poster and a canvas. All of those products are available on joejourneyman.com. “We’re making our retail launch in the coming weeks,” Bazzoni said, noting that Kohl’s has committed to it. The items also will be sold in gift shops, team shops and they will have their own kiosks in 45 malls. “But, I’m just so proud of Jed,” Bazzoni said. “Our ‘why,’ if we want to talk just a minute about our ‘why do you do it?,’ I do it for him. And I do it for everyone at iDNA Brands because it takes an army of people to support this. Everything from distributing the product to getting the files ready for print, it’s really an army of creative people. We have animators on staff that are bringing these characters to life, they walk and talk. One hundred percent of this thing is hand done.” Ten percent of all net profits from “Joe Journeyman” supports the local Warsaw organization Joe’s Kids as well as local children’s hospitals like Riley Hospital for Children. “So ‘Joe Journeyman’ is a product for kids benefitting kids. That really is the overall ‘why,’” Bazzoni said. There will be an auction, dinner and tailgate for Joe’s Kids Sept. 26. Bazzoni said they will auction off the ability for the highest bidder to be drawn into volume two of “Joe Journeyman,” among other packages. Joe isn’t the only character in the search-and-find books. Touchdown Ted is the life of the party and often cheers Joe up. Pom Pom Polly is the team’s cheerleader. Leon the Lion is Joe’s best friend and trainer. End Zone Ernie is the team driver and researcher. Super Fan Franny is the team’s personal trainer, while Copycat Carl is Joe’s arch nemesis who is always out to steal Joe’s playbook. Joe is always losing his playbook and it’s up to the reader to find it again before Copycat Carl does. Besides finding the characters in each of the team’s hometown artwork, readers also have a list of 24 items per team in the back of the book to look for in the picture. “We like to say these are literal translations of everyday expressions that will make you laugh out loud,” Bazzoni explained. “So, for example, here’s a cow tipping – that would be the item you’re looking for in the back – it’s a cow placing a dollar in the tip jar.” Bazzoni said they do a ton of research for each team as much as they can to make sure they capture the mood and feel of the city and make sure they get it right. “What Jed does, what makes him so special, what makes this so special, is that this is a blend of illustration and fine art,” Bazzoni said. “It’s that blend that makes it unbelievably awesome.” In 30 days, Bruce goes from a concept sketch to the final product. He said the process starts with a list of ideas. “I do a composition sketch and put in all the subject matter and lay it out roughly,” Bruce said. “Then from that I go to the original, which is a lot larger. I draw the whole thing out in pencil, that takes a week to do that. Then from there, I draw the whole thing in ink, then I erase the pencil, and that also takes a week. Then I do the color phase, which takes a week.” Bruce said he starts with the sky and works his way down. “The sky always kind of sets the mood or the tone for the piece colorwise, and from there I color everything. On the last week I go over everything with a bolder ink outline to help make it really pop. Then touch up a little bit with markers at the end,” Bruce explained. The balance of the NFL teams will be featured in volume two, which will be available for Holiday 2016. In addition to that book, there will be 16 more puzzles, posters, canvases and any other additional product they come out with, “which we will,” he said. After that, he said they have further ideas that they’re not disclosing yet. “Jed and I want to make products for the rest of our lives. And I know everybody else at iDNA Brands wants to do the same thing. As a company we want to do this for a very, very long time and our goal is to be the best in the world at what we do. Specifically, with this product, we want to be the best in the world at search-and-find,” Bazzoni said. He also said, “We don’t cut corners. This is our business. We pour every ounce of our effort, our heart and our soul into these products because we want to be the very best in the world at what we do. And we think we can do that right here in little Warsaw, Indiana. We have no idea how we all ended up here together, but I wouldn’t trade our team for any team in the world, any team in the consumer products business and I’ve seen a lot of teams. ... A lot of people say that but don’t mean it. I actually mean it.” In the back of the book is a quote from Bruce on how feels about being involved in “Joe Journeyman.” It reads, “Joe Journeyman changed my life ... I hope in some crazy way he changes yours, too. Great things will happen if you just don’t quit.”
