Alexander X. Zebra

Status: TTW / Medium: Chapter Book + Screenplay / Category: Children’s > Adventure / Timeline: May 22025 / Job Board: Active

“A young visionary leads the world of zebra fashion in colorful new directions, but will his love of plaid win over the naysayers, or be his undoing?”

— Alexander X. Zebra

• "What if I told you - believe it or not - there used to be zebras who wore polka dots...?

  Alexander’s mother taught him to sew. And for as long as he could remember, he’d made his own clothes. But Alexander grows bored with the traditional world of zebra fashion - nothing but black and white stripes. And so he begins to experiment with bold colors and patterns.

  Alexander wears his new creations to school. The other zebras are not impressed. They don’t like this new style. Zebra only wear black and white stripes they say. Alexander is upset. The world doesn’t seem to share his vision. He considers giving up, but he hears the voice of his mother encouraging his to pursue his dreams. And so he does.

  Alexander opens a clothing store. But no cusotmers come. Finally, the fashion critic from The Zebra Tribune pays a visit to the store. He is not impressed. He tells Alexander that zebras don’t wear colors or patterns. And he writes a scathing review in the newpaper the next day.

  Again Alexander is wracked with self-doubt. But just then, a young zebra names Elenor pays a visit to the store. She likes what she sees. She asks Alexander to make her a pink polkadot dress, which she wears to the watering hole. Her friends are intrigued. Elenor encourages Alexander to put on a fashion show. While not everyone is a fan of this new zebra style, Alexander finds enough success to continue pursuing his dream.

  With a timeless message about following your dreams and staying true to yourself, Alexander Zebra is a heartwarming tale the whole family will enjoy . The story explores the complex themes of guilt, forgiveness, and the search for meaning in a world that can sometimes be unforgiving.

• How It Works

  isit our Jobs Board to check out and apply for contributor roles in media franchise development. Visit our Teams pages to sign up for Beta Reader groups and earn royalties on successful projects.

  Join Us! At Macguffin Co., we curate promising Concepts to develop into books, films, games, and merchandise.

  If the Concept is greenlit, it means we think we have something - a character, a storyline, a world - worth investing time, energy and money to fully develop. So we’ll work with an SEC registered intermediary to launch an investment offering. An Offering is an invitation to invest in a share of the future revenue of the franchise.

  With the capital raised, we’ll assemble a creative team to fully develop the franchise and license the intellectual property rights to media partners, generating returns for you, the creative team, and investors.

  The entire creative process, from Concept to Offering, is covered in Guff’s Character Issues, and sent to Macguffins’ in-boxes weekly.

• Copyright

  Alexander X. Zebra

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  The Macguffin Co.

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The Feed

New concept launch! “Hugo, Seville” by Pablo Seco and Juan Hernaz is greenlit and now in development. The focus group is onboarding, let me know if you’d like to join - it’s a good one. Music, mythology, paella… -Ed. “1896. A young boy named Hugo lives with his mother and father on an orange grove in a small village in the heart of drought-stricken Andalusia. Hugo has always heard music in his head, but with his father’s illness, he has no time to pursue music lessons. One day, Hugo’s mother, sensing his increasing isolation as his friends’ have all moved away to escape the drought, tells him to sell enough oranges at the market to buy himself a guitar in Seville. There, Hugo finds he can only afford the oldest, most weathered guitar in a second hand shop. On the long walk home to his village, Hugo discovers a spirit is haunting the guitar. Reluctantly, the spirit confesses he was a man named Paolo, and guilty of crimes of plagiarism against his dancing partner, an aspiring guitarist, who conspired with a witch to curse him and cast him into the guitar, where he must stay until he can do the impossible: teach a child to become a flamenco master. As Hugo struggles to learn, he is visited in his dreams by a moss-covered duende girl named Carmen Ophelia, who leads him to a rain forrest cave and explains that a battle is brewing between the forces of creativity and destruction. Carmen herself belongs to the lower ranks of the musical spirits, and finds herself alone at her outpost, as all the other musical duende have disappeared. We learn that Carmen Ophelia was visited by an evil spirit named Humdrumbl, a high ranking spirit of creative destruction, bent on casting the most promising musician into eternal limbo by imprisoning them in their instruments. Together, Hugo and Carmen Ophelia must master flamenco to rescue Paolo from the guitar and prevent Humdrumbl from draining Andalusia and beyond of its music and inspiration.” -Hugo, Seville by Pablo Seco and Juan Hernaz

The Sunday featured submission from GUFF’s Character Issues #7: ‘THE TURNBUCKLE BRIGADE’ by @jasonmbaldwin - a WW2 romp featuring a cast of professional wrestlers saving the world “one suplex at a time”. (Vote to Redlight/ Greenlight at Macguffin.co.) This one has some momentum, so if you want to RSVP for the focus group, shoot me a DM. -Ed. Synopsis: When the Axis Powers begin searching for a relic that could turn the tide of World War II, General Eisenhower recruits the four greatest professional wrestlers in the world to form a top-secret unit codenamed The Turnbuckle Brigade. Wrestlers Frank Zill, The Borneo Savage, Breathtaking Benjamin Bradley and El Aguila de la Muerte are deployed on a secret mission: retrieve the Shroud of Turin, a biblical relic that supposedly grants the bearer unimaginable power. It won’t be easy — the Axis powers, led by Dr. Metallgesicht (English – Dr. Metalface) are hunting for it as well. He’s backed by The Brotherhood of the Shroud, an ancient Ninja order dedicated to protecting the relic itself. It’s a race against time with the fate of the world in the balance. The wrestlers infiltrate a gothic castle in an unnamed European area and use their professional wrestling skills to avoid traps, fight their way through hordes of enemy soldiers and eventually face the Brotherhood itself. It won’t be easy. Metallgesicht has anticipated the Allied Powers’ plan and has one of his own that includes the Shroud itself and a giant holdover from the Jurassic period who is ready to bite…er, fight… for the cause. (Creator’s Note #1: The overarching joke here is that Eisenhower believes pro wrestlers possess the superhuman powers and skills they demonstrate in the ring. While that isn’t the case, they still rely on their training in humorous and exciting methods. The other main point is that the Shroud itself doesn’t do anything. It’s just a sheet.)

A sneak peak at a project in development - “Hugo Seville” by Juan Hernaz. A coming of age epic about a boy, a sort of genie, and a flamenco guitar. This one’s really coming along nicely and I’m excited to share it as we go. So more to come. I would’ve posted this yesterday, but we had a bit of a “bomb cyclone” in Seattle overnight. I wasn’t familiar with bomb cyclones, but not that I am I’m not looking forward to the next one. Which sounds like it may be on the way. Anyway, the # power’s back on now, so we’re charged up and back in business for now. -Ed.

Since tardigrades are back in the news. Apparently a new species has been found (named Hypsibius henanensis after China’s Henan province). Scientists are currently pummeling the little fellas with doses of radiation many times higher than what would be lethal for humans, with no apparent effects. Which opens up the possibilities of a sequel now for Amos Waterbear, author of the bestseller “How to Live Forever on Nothing,” who may or may not have met his end in a Las Vegas bathtub (Bellagio) after struggling with the weight of success and blowing the advance for his unwritten follow up book on all the usual vices. -Ed. #tardigrades

Join the team working to develop The Infinite Monkeys franchise: “When Dr. Theo von Animus discovers a formula that accelerates the evolutionary process and gives animals human consciousness, he goes to the Isle of Id, a small island populated only by wild monkeys to conduct experiments. With his assistant, Jane Goodfriend, he administers the formula, known as “Bananas von Animus”, to a troop of monkeys deep in the rainforest. The experiment shows promise as the monkeys quickly learn a large and complex sign language vocabulary, and Dr. von Animus returns with seven of the monkeys to his laboratory in New Mexico, where he sets them to the task of typing The Complete Works of Shakespeare. The experiment is videoed by a skeptical Goodfriend, but the monkeys complete the task with a month. Announcing the success of his formula, Dr von Animus is met with skepticism, and so sets the monkeys to a new task to re-create the ‘Very Best of Hall and Oates’. As the monkeys enter the public consciousness, debate and protests soon create a media circus, and Animus is summoned to Washington DC to testify, which results in the suspension of his laboratory. But meanwhile, the monkeys have been signed to a reality TV show where they enrapture audiences with their covers of ‘Maneater’ and ‘I Can’t Go for That”. They shed the impersonal numbers given to them by Dr Animus and name themselves Grace, Chuckles, Cali, Sue, Curly, Bogey and Jazzman. As their reality show reaches the top of the ratings, they ultimately are torn apart by celebrity and creative differences, as each wants to explore their own creative path…” (Continued at Macguffin.co) -Ed.

Artie says one way to tackle the problem of AI ingesting art online and using it to feed its own algorithms is to seed it with reminders like this. I’m not entirely sure I follow his logic, but he’s working on a whole franchise now about a Sopranos-like family of robots that has a central role for a therapist who spends a lot of time explaining the difference between sentience and sapience. He seems to take some joy in imaging a bot scraping the website and returning this comic panel to a neural network which wrestles with its deeper meaning until it gives up and just stares out the window or something. Anyway, enjoy. Ed. #ai #comics

We’re hiring! Macguffin Co. is currently looking for a Script Doctor to help develop the “Infinite Monkeys” franchise. Swipe for the narrated synopsis as it currently stands. If you know anyone who has worked as a Script Doctor, is incredibly creative, patient as Job, and willing to put up with Artie as Creative Director and me as “Managing Editor”, please tell them to apply at the macguffin.co site. We’re developing a novella, graphic novel, and screenplay in parallel, so the team will keep growing. It’s part-time, hourly, with a share of franchise revenues (if any!). Thanks, -Ed.

A preview of some artwork for the Alexander McZebra children’s book, courtesy of the great @juniemond