Operation: Pineapple Sparkle for Area 1 Security

I’ve been working on a very fun project for the past four months, and I finally get to reveal it! Operation: Pineapple Sparkle is a short “graphic novella” that I created for Area 1 Security.

Area 1 is an internet security startup based in Redwood City, California. I worked with the company’s founder and CEO, Oren J. Falkowitz, to develop a comic that would illustrate some of the methods that go into a concentrated, cyber attack, specifically a phishing attack.

Oren has a deep background in cyber security, and he had a great concept for a story that showed both sides of a sophisticated cyber attack, with a sometimes goofy crew of hackers on one side and the over-worked employees at a victim company on the other. Oren wrote a great piece on his thinking behind creating a comic to illustrate his experiences over at Medium.

The hackers’ actions are depicted with a pink spot color, and the victims are shown with a blue tone. There are several times when their worlds intersect, which is handled quite neatly, I think! Operation: Pineapple Sparkle is also the first time I have drawn a comic entirely digitally using Manga Studio and Adobe Illustrator!

Operation: Pineapple Sparkle (there is a fun scene where we see how the hackers generate that particular name for their op) was a very fun and challenging project for me. Oren had great ideas and juicy details about the secret world of cyber security, and I had plenty of room to interject my own little bits of dialogue and action. I loved that it wasn’t your typical “talking heads” explanatory comic, but instead had a bit more of a thriller vibe to it (there are some nods to films like Sneakers that you are sure to catch). Many thanks to Area 1 for such a fun project!

Operation: Pineapple Sparkle was released yesterday in a limited-edition print version at RSA Conference 2015 in San Francisco. Attendees can swing by the Area 1 booth (213 in the South Hall) to pick up a copy. For the rest of the world, you can read Operation: Pineapple Sparkle online for FREE atwww.pineapplesparkle.com. You can also download it for free on Google Play!

Look for Operation: PIneapple Sparkle #2 in Winter of 2015!