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PROJECT UPDATE
Vault Comics
CREATOR
1 day ago

Project Update: THANK YOU for a fantastic campaign for LILITH!

THANK YOU to everyone who participated in unlocking our free full-issue preview of Lilith #1, and of course to all 400 backers of Lilith who helped reveal even more goodies!

Our next steps now? Corin has already over the halfway point creating the first arc of the series, and every cover featured in this campaign is either complete or being actively created right now. We'll also be creating brand-new artwork for the body pillow, calendar, and other items in the campaign (pin-ups! glorious pin-ups!), and of course will keep you updated along the way.

We'll also actively prepare for the subscription release of Lilith #1 and onwards. We will reach out in the next few weeks with surveys to verify digital and physical delivery addresses for everyone who backed at those levels. Please don't hesitate to reach out anytime if you have a question about the series, campaign, or your rewards, and we'll get back to you swiftly.

We're out for now... but you'll be hearing from us again very soon ❤️ 🖤

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PROJECT UPDATE
Alexander Macris
CREATOR
2 days ago

Project Update: When Your Graphic Novel is So Good-Looking it Even Has Good-Looking Friends

Hello, Ascendants --

Based on the results of yesterday's poll, we thought you'd be interested in checking out a few of the Comictopia projects that have embraced sex appeal and cool costumes! These are all friends of Autarch and Ascendant Comics who have worked behind the scenes to help us grow as a brand, and I hope you'll share with them some of the enthusiasm you've shared with us.

First off, of course, you'll want to check out our partner Sagaverse Studio. Their Sagaverse Chronicles cover a wide range of genres and all of them are linked into a set of RPGs they're creating. Here's their steampunk comic, Mechanical Horizon:
 

 
From there, you can head on over to check out Dynamite's Karma Vol 2, which has some dazzlingly sexy art. Be warned that this is a romantic slice-of-life comic with some naughty art, so please don't yell at me if you clink the link at work and get fired. That said, if you're a Stiletto fan, you might also be a fan of Karma....



Next up on our list of friends is The Legend of Rosa Blanca by our friends at American Mythology. La Rosa Blanca is a masked gunslinger in the vein of the Lone Ranger and Zorro. Like them, she's a skilled sharpshooter and a crack whipper, but she brings certain other assets to the table as well. Like Karma 2, this is a comic intended for mature audiences! 
   


Don't forget that if you back five (5) Comictopia projects in total, you get a special comic book featuring the characters from all the contributors. And, because Sagaverse Studios is our studio partner, if you back Sagaverse Chronicles you get the amazing poster of Aurora and Yore, too! 

And most important of all, vote in today's poll...

23 votes • Final results
user avatar image for Alexander Macris
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PROJECT UPDATE
Alexander Macris
CREATOR
3 days ago

Project Update: Uh-Oh, I think my Polling might be Biased...

Ascendants, we're at a healthy $21,000 and on track to hit $25,000 by the weekend to unlock our first stretch goal! It's great to see so much support for the graphic novel.

Thank you to everyone who has been voting in our daily polls. However, after a careful review of the polling data, however, I've noticed a disturbing trend. Namely, Stiletto got more votes for than the total of all of her male counterparts on the Squadron, and Singularity got twice as many votes as any other villain! 

The empirical data seems to suggest that highly attractive female characters in revealing costumes seem to poll much, much better than all other type of characters. Tell me it isn't so!?

With today's poll, we will get to the bottom of this shocking and unexpected polling outcome...


58 votes • Final results
user avatar image for Alexander Macris
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PROJECT UPDATE
Dynamite Entertainment Team
CREATOR
3 days ago

Project Update: New Terminator Series Coming Your Way Soon!

FINALLY!  We've been dying to share this news with everyone but we had to wait for San Diego Comic Con for the official release of this news. WE HAVE A NEW TERMINATOR SERIES COMING YOUR WAY!!!  Here's all the news and some fantastic art to get us started: 


The Terminator franchise is fully returning with new comic book stories this October — with heavy hitter creator Declan Shalvey at the helm, recruiting artist Luke Sparrow for each mission!

The war between the humans and the machines is coming home! Just in time for the franchise’s 40th anniversary, following the original film’s October 1984 release.

"The approach of this series is new situations, new dilemmas in each issue. Mostly done-in-one stories, but as the series progresses there may be some recognizable faces…," said writer Declan Shalvey. "We’re going for a more stripped-down, pulpy approach to the book. As innovative and groundbreaking as the first film was, it was also grounded in its environment, being noirish and moody as hell. An unstoppable force is coming to kill you — that’s the element of the franchise I want to lean into."

The plans to kill Sarah Connor and her son John have failed, but that isn't going to stop the genocidal Skynet. If at first it doesn't succeed, it's going to expand the theater of operations. There are still a few more avenues into the past to try that will allow it to eliminate the human resistance before it even starts. Skynet and its Terminators are determined to stamp out these pivotal figures in history before they lead to their processors being smashed into silicon shrapnel.

This new front in the time war comes with Terminators dispatched all across the globe and throughout time to target not only current resistance fighters but also their ancestors, as well as any unlucky souls caught in the crossfire. Though at first it may not seem that this wide range of secondary objectives are as straightforward or critical as the original missions of the T-800 and T-1000, the sheer scope of this new warfare defies that. Time is literally on Skynet's side — when all of history becomes a war zone, suddenly nowhere — and no-when is safe!

Acclaimed creator Declan Shalvey is back on board in the present for what is sure to be another hit project with Dynamite, following the massive, industry-shaking success of ThunderCats. This time the Alien, Old Dog, and Time Before Time writer is joined by rising star artist Luke Sparrow (Star Trek, Old Dog: Operations). The duo are locked in and ready to unleash all-new tales of Skynet and its nigh-unstoppable mechanical assassins.

They're paired with algorithmically perfect covers from Shalvey himself, as well as Edwin Galmon, Joshua "Sway" Swaby, and David Cousens. The first issue of the upcoming series also features a stunning "Icon Cover" for collectors to grab, presenting the iconic artwork by Alex Ross early in his career for the "Burning Earth" storyline.
   


More news coming soon!  We're so excited to be expanding The Terminator lore in comics with brand new stories.  

And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Dynamite has a project running for the big ComicTopia event right now on BackerKit.  Check it out if you get a chance.  Thanks!!
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I got my books today. They look amazing. I thought I would have to wait till monday to get them as it seems that it's Rocky who is driving the delivery trucks.

user avatar image for Clint Pereira
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Alexander Macris
CREATOR
3 days ago
58 votes • Final results
user avatar image for Alexander Macris
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Alexander Macris
CREATOR
1 day ago
15 votes • Final results
user avatar image for Alexander Macris
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RAID PRESS
CREATOR
about 4 hours ago
4 votes • 5 days left
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PROJECT UPDATE
Alexander Macris
CREATOR
1 day ago

Project Update: Behind the Scenes: The Making of Star-Spangled Squadron

One of the best parts of writing a graphic novel is getting to see your words illustrated. Comic book style illustration is a multi-step process that begins with a written script, which the artist uses to make a pencil sketch of the scene. The pencil sketch is then inked and shaded, after which it is colored. Finally, the letterer adds the dialogue balloons and sound effects. 

Today we're going to examine how it all comes together for Page 14 of the graphic novel.  

Script

Panel One
Establishing shot. Big panel that takes up full page width and two-thirds of its length. We’re in the Squadron’s Female Locker Room. It looks like a high-end fitness center locker room with a long wooden bench running between rows of red-white-and-blue painted lockers. 

STILETTO is in the foreground, sitting on the bench, fully dressed except she is still lacing up her left thigh-high boot. The other boot is already laced up. There’s a wet towel laying on the tiled floor nearby. Her hair is wet.

AURORA, slightly behind and left of STILETTO, is fully dressed except for her right arm. She is still pulling her latex opera glove onto that hand. Her blonde hair is pulled back in a towel. There’s a pink fuzzy bathrobe on the bench near her.

DR QUANTUM is behind and to the right of AURORA. She is fully dressed already and floating in the air, cross-legged. She has a laptop on her crossed legs.

1.       AURORA CAPTION: Being part of the Star-Spangled Squadron means being part of a TEAM of AMAZiNG women. 
2.       AURORA CAPTION: I LOVE them. 
3.       DR QUANTUM: Are you two READY yet? 
4.       DR QUANTUM: Was hoping we’d have time for a BITE before Hawkins YELLS at us.
5.       AURORA: I just need to blow dry. But EDWiNA SCiSSORHANDS over there is still lacing up her BOOTS.
6.       DR QUANTUM: I don’t know how she does ANYTHiNG with those razor nails.
7.       STILETTO: It could be worse. I could be a FLYiNG FLASHLiGHT.

Panel Two
Close-up on DR QUANTUM. She has her hand over her mouth to hide her smile. 

8.       SFX: Tee-hee

Panel Three
Close-up on AURORA. She has her head cocked and looks confused.

9.       AURORA: Wait. Are you talking about ME? 
10.    AURORA: That’s not funny!

Panel Four
Close-up on STILETTO. She’s admiring her nails.

11.    STILETTO: You’re right. 
12.    STILETTO: I should have said FLYiNG FLESHLiGHT. 
13.    STILETTO: THAT would have been funny.
14.    AURORA CAPTION: OK, so sometimes it’s more LOVE-HATE.

You be wondering why all the "i" are in lower case in uppercase words but not for uppercase "I" as in "I am." It's because in comic lettering, a different "I" is used for the pronoun to ease readability. Writing the script this way enables the letterer to easily cut and paste the script. 

Pencils

Here's how Mel Joy illustrated the script. Mel Joy works digitally, so in her case "pencils" actually refers to the first sketch on her digital sketchpad.  This is, by comic book standards, a relatively simple page with just four pages. It's just some dialogue of Stiletto making fun of Aurora while Dr Quantum laughs. 

But Mel Joy is very good at what she does, so she takes advantage of the framing of the scene to add depth and humor. See how Stiletto is in the top frame, but the heels of her boots extend towards the bottom two frames, where Dr Quantum and Aurora are in portrait? It's illustrated such that Stiletto's right foot is almost resting on Dr Quantum's head, while her left foot seems poised to stomp on Aurora's head. The characters, obviously, don't know they're in comic book frames, but we as the reader see the whole scene at once. (Those of you who have read Volume I can also see this sort of artistry at work on the very last page, with Stiletto gazing through the panel at American Eagle and his wife.)


Inks

Here's how Mel Joy transformed the pencils into inks.


Colors

The inked page was then colored by colorist Rohvel Yumul.  Rohvel uses digital coloring and has worked extensively with Mel Joy. Different artists have different styles of inks, and a colorist needs to adjust his style accordingly. When working with Mel Joy, Rohvel uses a light touch that emphasizes rather than paints over her fine lines.
 


Letters

When I first started working on comics, my mentor David Campiti told me that lettering is what separates an amateur comic from a professional comic, and recommended I hire the best letterer I could find. That turned out to be Kathryn Renta, a veteran with 20 years of experience in the industry. Below you can see how the image looks after she's added the speech balloons and captions. Notice how she manages to place all of the speech balloons in such a manner that the flow of conversation is preserved while at the same time ensuring that the balloons only fall on "dead space" in the image.


I hope you enjoyed this walkthrough of "how the sausage gets made." This is only the second graphic novel I've written, so I am myself still learning the trade. I cannot tell you how many pages of my first script were sent back as "undrawable"! Fortunately, I have had excellent mentorship from David, who has teamed me up with top-tier professionals.  

Let's finish off today's update with another daily poll....!

15 votes • Final results
user avatar image for Alexander Macris
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PROJECT UPDATE
RAID PRESS
CREATOR
about 4 hours ago

Project Update: LET'S FILL THESE EXTRA PAGES...

Earlier this week we reached our $8K Stretch Goal to add another 16 pages to BLITZ #1. This expands our proposed 64-page comic magazine to a whopping 80 pages! 📚✨

Now, we want YOU to get involved! We've prepared a poll in our community section, and we want to know what you'd like to see in these additional 16 pages. Here are the options:

  • Comic Strip Feature: A Sunday Funnies style section showcasing some comic strips - whether it be a short funny, or a adventure strip!
  • Share Your Comic Book Shelf aka "Shelf Pron ;)": individuals can submit pics of  their collections - book, toys, whatever! We'll review and showcase the funniest, weirdest, and most unique ones we receive!
  • Comic Guilty Pleasure: Share your secret comic book indulgence with us. We know you have one hidden away—it's time to reveal it!
  • Casting Call: Cast your favorite actors and actresses in your favorite indie comic.

If you have another idea - please feel free to share in the comments section below!

BTW, We're just shy of our NEXT STRETCH GOAL of 10K - let's get us there over the weekend, and get everyone an extra issue of BLITZ! 🎉

Much thanks,

The RAID Team
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