Your Rewards are (Finally) Shipping, so It's Time for An After-Action Review
Attention, Ascendants!Â
Star-Spangled Squadron Volume II is now en route. All of the books arrived at our US warehouse in mid-May, and our partners at Studio 2 Publishing ha...
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Autarch
about 1 month ago
Shipment Starts in May!
As those of you who have been following the logistical saga will recall, Ascendant; Star-Spangled Squadron Volume II arrived at port in the United States on April 8th, only t...
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Autarch
3 months ago
An Update on Shipping
I had hoped that this post would be an announcement of the arrival of the Star-Spangled Squadron material at our warehouses. Unfortunately, that is not the case.Â
For reason...
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Autarch
4 months ago
Manufacturing is Complete and Shipment Starts Soon!
Ascendants,
I'm thrilled to announce that we've finished manufacturing all of the rewards for Ascendant: Star-Spangled Squadron Volume II. Not only are the books finished, bu...
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Autarch
5 months ago
Manufacturing Update + PDF Release
Hello Ascendants!
I hope that everyone enjoyed a wonderful Christmas holiday and is looking forward to a happy and prosperous New Year.
2026 has started off well for Ascend...
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Autarch
6 months ago
Production Underway and Surveys Imminent
Ascendants,
I hope you are well and are enjoying the holiday season. I'm pleased to announce that Ascendant: Star-Spangled Squadron Volume II has finally been delivered to th...
Star-Spangled Squadron Volume II is now en route. All of the books arrived at our US warehouse in mid-May, and our partners at Studio 2 Publishing have begun to process and dispatch your rewards. US backers should expect to receive their rewards within 5-10 days (depending on the vagaries of shipping and handling) while Canadian, European, and Global backers will get rewards in 2-3 weeks, or perhaps a little longer if located on the far side of the globe.
It is a genuine delight to be able to tell your rewards are finally en route. This project has been beset by problems from the get-go and there were times it felt like it would be my first "failed" crowdfunding campaign. I actually had given myself 18 months (August 2024 -> February 2026) rather than my usual 12 months to ship this book. Even with 6 months of padding, we were still 4 months late! I thought it was worth doing an After-Action Review (AAR) of what had transpired to cause the book to be such a struggle.
Despite early momentum, Star-Spangled Squadron Volume II ultimately didn't fund as much as I had hoped it would. That meant the budget wasn't large enough to cover the page count I needed to tell Aurora's story the way I wanted to tell it. I therefore decided to moved forward with a 56, rather than 48, page book despite the funding shortage. I knew that comic illustrators will often work at a lower rate if I gave them more time, as they can fit in the art in between other projects that way, and thought it would be worth the slower pace. to have a more complete story.
Despite increasing the length a bit, I really struggled on the script. Partly this was due to brain fog brought on by health problems which I've written about elsewhere, but partly it was that the story simply needed more space to be told properly. Therefore I increased the length again, this time to 64 pages. I think this was the right decision creatively, but it meant the project was now further behind schedule and well over budget.
Unfortunately, progress was further stalled because we had to change colorists mid-way through. I grossly under-estimated the delay all this would entail. Changing colorists meant re-doing the earlier pages of colored art in order to maintain consistency; that was on top of the 16 pages I'd added to the story. While I had hoped for a 2 month delay, it ultimately led to a 4 month delay.
It therefore wasn't until October 2025 that we had a finished PDF and could start delivering the digital goods. Because of the delays, we included some additional PDF rewards for everyone. These were received with high spirits. I am genuinely thankful for all the goodwill and patience you guys showed through this slow process.
It was now November 2025 and concerns over a prospective tariff war between the US and China led me to investigate alternative shippers. That search took 2 more months and ultimately was fruitless. I wasn't able to find a US printer that could do a small batch of offset print full color. Attempts to use digital color printing couldn't match the quality of Star-Spangled Squadron Volume I.
Since the threatened tariff war never actually happened, we ended up just working with our Hong Kong-based printer GPSD again. GPSD had printed the first volume and working with them meant the second volume would be a perfect match. They did a great job, as always, and by February 2025 they had finished printing the book and the associated accessories. It looked like we would ship out in March!
Then, when the books finally did arrive, they were flagged for "additional screening" by DHS and languished in port in California for another month. Perhaps DHS had been alerted that the books described how ordinary people could become humans of mass destruction and were concerned about the security threat? Who can say. Eventually they were cleared for entry, removed from their containers, and dispatched by truck to Studio 2's warehouse in Knoxville.
All told we lost about 4 months from expanding and redoing the book's script, inks, and colors; 2 months from the letterer's medical leave; 2 months from evaluating alternative printers; 1 month from missing the Lunar New Year deadline; and 1 month from the DHS port inspection. All told that was 10 months of delay, which ate up the entire 6 month of padding I'd put in the schedule and then pushed us 4 months over that. Thus February 2026 became May 2026.
Be that as it may, the project is finally done and the books are en route. I think of how Xenophon must have felt when he led the 10,000 Greeks home to Greece from distant Persia. This has been my Long March, my Animeabasis. Thank you all for your patience, and I hope you love your rewards when they arrive!
As those of you who have been following the logistical saga will recall, Ascendant; Star-Spangled Squadron Volume II arrived at port in the United States on April 8th, only to be targeted by customs for intensive examination with X-rays. Yesterday afternoon I received word that the books have cleared examination, been reloaded, and will be transferred to rail for inland transit towards the final delivery area in Knoxville, TN.
We are still confirming the delivery date but it most likely will ship in approximately three weeks - 5 to 10 days for the books to reach the warehouse by train and truck, 5 to 10 days for the warehouse to ingest the books and send them out.
I am of course aggrieved that we will have ended up delivering almost a year late but I am relieved that we will be finally delivering. I'm grateful for everyone's patience and support, as always. Let me know if in the Comments if you have any questions.
I had hoped that this post would be an announcement of the arrival of the Star-Spangled Squadron material at our warehouses. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
For reasons outside my control, the logistics company was not able to get the Star-Spangled Squadron books loaded onto the transport ship before the start of the Lunar New Year Celebration in China. Instead, the books languished in the warehouse during the multi-week festival. I made a number of attempts to work around this, but China simply shuts down during the holiday; there was no one to even communicate with, let alone to arrange alternate freight.
Now that Lunar New Year is past, the books have been loaded but the net result is that they will not arrive until the end of this month or early next month, and thus shipping to you will not take place until mid to late April.
My sincere apologies for the delay. It is difficult to avoid the feeling that this project has suffered more than its share of problems. Perhaps we can blame the sinister machinations of Exodus.
Ascendants, I'm thrilled to announce that we've finished manufacturing all of the rewards for Ascendant: Star-Spangled Squadron Volume II. Not only are the books finished, but so are the ashcans, mini-posters, and canvas posters.
The books were printed by Global PSD, which did the lovely first volume, while the ashcan and posters are being produced by our BackerKit buddy Sagaverse Studios, which has built out a US-based manufacturing facility. The beautiful products our friends from Sagaverse have made can be seen in the screenshot below.
Sagaverse Studio has printed our Aschans, Canvas Posters, and Mini-Posters
All of the shipping for Star-Spangled Squadron Volume II is being handled by our US-based fulfillment house Studio Two. As soon as it arrives - which should be in early March - we'll begin dispatching your rewards. The next update will be the announcement that everything is on its way.
This project, like my other 2025 project (Treasure Tome) had a lot of logistical setbacks magnified by my ill health, so it's a big relief to be able to announce "it's all happening, it's all en route." Thank you for your support and patience. I can't wait for you to get your hands on your glorious rewards!
Hello Ascendants! I hope that everyone enjoyed a wonderful Christmas holiday and is looking forward to a happy and prosperous New Year.
2026 has started off well for Ascendant Comics. I'm pleased to report that everything is proceeding smoothly in the manufacture of Ascendant Star-Spangled Squadron Volume II. Below are some photographs I took of the ozalid proofs, folded & gathered sheets, and other work product. These are not advance release copies but the step in the process before that.
All of the proofs were color-correct and error-free so we signed off on them and have proceeded to bulk manufacture. Once that is complete, they'll be shipped to our fulfillment warehouses and then be dispatched to you. We currently expect to begin shipping product to you in the second week of March.
Meanwhile, the PDF for Ascendant Star-Spangled Squadron Volume II has also now been made available for purchase on DriveThruRPG and DriveThruComics. If you enjoyed the graphic novel and want to share the link with friends, give them these URLs: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/541991/ascendant-star-spangled-squadron-volume-ii https://www.drivethrucomics.com/en/product/541991/ascendant-star-spangled-squadron-volume-ii
