TIME COUNCIL ADVISORY: The following rebel biographies are considered contraband. Read, listen to, and experience their accursed works at your own risk.
CHUCK LIGHTNING is a cofounder and the Chief Creative Officer of Wondaland and Wondaland Pictures, as well as a co-producer and one of the core architects of Janelle Monáe’s Afro-futuristic album manifestos: Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase) (2007); The ArchAndroid (2010), The Electric Lady (2013) and Dirty Computer (2018). (He excitedly worked as a consigliere and creative director on The Age of Pleasure as well!) Additionally, as the Chief Chaos Officer of Wondaland, he has written and collaborated on transmedia campaigns, lexicon branding initiatives, zany "blacktronic" marketing plans, innovative stageshows, and epic music videos, including writing and co-directing Ms. Monáe’s fifty-minute epic emotion picture Dirty Computer. In addition, he has written and produced songs for Outkast and his own group Deep Cotton, whose debut single "Let's Get Caught" ignited a wave of millennial free love energy on Tinder, and whose debut album release is coming soon. As a writer, he is currently at work on The ArchAndroid, a science fiction epic film based on The ArchAndroid album, several other mind-bending film projects, as well as the ArchAndroid Graphic Novel Volume One, and his first short story collection entitled Space Reigns Supreme. Lastly, as a filmmaker and creative director, he has founded 40 Acres and a Pool, a micro-production studio with aims to drive innovation across the verticals of music, publishing, transmedia, gaming, art direction, world-building and design.
Lastly, Chuck Lightning is tired of folks telling him he looks like Don Cheadle, Wesley Snipes, and Miles Davis. In his spare time, he wonders what will happen to the celebrity industry when cloning becomes legal. Will it be illegal to look exactly like Barack Obama? But legal to look like Al Sharpton? Go figure.
CHAD WEATHERFORD is the Art Director and principal Illustrator for 40 Acres and a Pool, founded by Chuck Lightning. Following his image crafting and worldbuilding for Janelle Monáe’s Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase) (2007), and The ArchAndroid: Suites II and III (2010), he further sharpened his craft in the entertainment industry, working as a concept designer and eventual Art Director on award winning film and TV animation projects for an array of companies including Disney, Dreamworks, Netflix, and Weta Workshop. In 2018, He won a Daytime Emmy for his character and design work on DreamWorks Dinotrux. A lifelong lover of comics and Sci Fi, he can currently be found inking, and coloring pages at a feverish pace for the epic ArchAndroid Graphic Novel Volume One, while simultaneously lending creative input into various design initiatives within the Wondaland Universe.
Lastly, Chuck Lightning is tired of folks telling him he looks like Don Cheadle, Wesley Snipes, and Miles Davis. In his spare time, he wonders what will happen to the celebrity industry when cloning becomes legal. Will it be illegal to look exactly like Barack Obama? But legal to look like Al Sharpton? Go figure.
