[NYCC 2012] Flavor Monsters booth interview with Rod Maxwell

For several months now Truth®, the nation's largest youth smoking prevention campaign, has been touring the country spreading awareness of the fact that tobacco companies are using flavored tobacco products to appeal to teens and young adults.

The booth, called "45 Flavors", has been present at several of the nation's largest conventions including Gen Con, Dragon Con, and the most recent, New York Comic Con. It is equipped with all sorts of interactive activities for visitors to engage in including demos of their mobile game Flavor Monsters, which has you defend cities from invading mutant monsters; a photo opportunity with one of the mutated strawberries; a showcase of the other enemies you'll encounter in the game; and the opportunity to star in your own Flavor Monsters video with the Monster Hunt Simulator.

For the most part, these activities have remained the same throughout the tour, but at the New York Comic Con fans were treated to a live transformation of one of the Truth® tour riders into one of the game's strawberry monsters. Self-taught special effects artist and director Rod Maxwell, who starred on the Syfy original reality competition series, Face Off, was on location transforming tour rider Edwin Contreras in a monster for everyone to see.

Prior to the transformation, which spanned over the course of an entire day, we had the opportunity to catch up with Rod and learn more about his work with Truth® and Flavor Monsters.

[Thanks to Patricia McLaughlin and Michael Joshi for the photos seen in the video above]