July was a whirlwind with DCC featuring prominently at SDCC and GenCon, and as far as I know our creative team made it out with all their comic makin' extremities intact!! Whew. If you went, we hope you had a good time, and maybe picked up one of the cool DCC drops (you can see some on the Vault Insta!)
Proof of drawing arms/ life from Brett Bean on a very recently completed page:
buh-BLAM
Okay, onto the important production updates:
The full DCC: Croc comic and book content will be completed this year (we have so many key scenes complete that this month we are finally able to draw in all of the cameos from this campaign!)
Once Brett wraps on inks, he's jumping right into all of the DCC: Crocodile b/w and color illustrations. He is also completing, uh... inexplicable yam art... and also the final illustration for our reversible croc-Florin dust jacket.
We previously communicated that a schedule shift might happen... With our new, updated timeline for the expanded book, our editorial team has estimated that we'll be printing this book in early 2027. Because we want to make sure that backers read this comic as soon as possible, we will likely be sharing the digital version of DCC: Crocodile available as soon as it is complete. This gives the entire creative team the time they need to finish the book at a healthy pace, given they are already currently working as hard as they can.
We have adjusted the release date of the standard DCC: Crocodile book (in stores) to make sure that you all get yours well in advance. That means that everyone who backed a physical tier will have their exclusive books in hand by early Spring 2027, with all the non-campaign normies getting their non-exclusive versions a month or two later in May 2027. Unfortunately we cannot help but laugh at them from our lofty perches.
What else? we've printed and sent bookplates and tip-ins for signatures from Matt Dinniman this month during his brief break from kicking a million asses. And... oh, yeah--Jeff Hays literally can't stop winning. In addition to being the one true Princess Donut, as we knew he was, he also just sent us over the custom audio recordings this campaign, which we sent out to all Celestial Jeff Tier backers right before sending out this post.
With that, we've nearly finished with the critical production of all custom and personalized rewards! And next on our list is finishing up all the physical non-book rewards to ensure that we ship as soon as they're printed. This is a massive campaign with a lot of items, so of course we'll continue to keep you updated as we draw nearer to the big fulfillment event.
fwoosh
NYCC! (in which Vault Comics makes 100% sure you're taken care of)
As Vault's biggest in-person convention draws nearer, we wanted to give a head's up that we will be printing a 2026 convention-only special edition of DCC: Crocodile with our new art and colors and even lettering in place...
Of course, we would never do this without making sure the backers are taken care of, so this is your notice that all physical backers will receive a complimentary copy of the 2026 NYCC-exclusive DCC: Crocodile issue. We didn't even want to mess around on this one--it's just automatically added to your pile of stuff. I know you didn't know you were playing, but: You win! Congrats, everyone~
I'm not yet allowed to show off the look of our booth this year (or the activities we have planned) but if you're a DCC fan, trust and believe that you're definitely gonna want to stop by!
A large 🍠
This is apropos of nothing other than to hearken back to the yams of yesteryear, but I (your loyal DCC: Crocodile campaign Zev) was at a local grocery the other day and saw this absolutely massive yam. I believe this is the type they make the yachts out of...
ridiculous
also ridiculous
The lovely backers of this campaign are always on our minds, so just wanted to share, haha.
okay enough of that
The next update is...
...on September 17th! If you want to catch up with us a bit sooner, feel free to drop by our DCC: Croc Discord channel. Otherwise, more from us coming next month 🐊
🐊 July behind-the-scenes DCC: Crocodile update! And, (S)DCC 🐊
Howdy howdy Croc flock,
A shorter update from us this month! We'll boil it down to this: the team is continuing to work very hard.
We keep saying that, don't we. May: "we're working hard". June: "we're working hard". You ever feel like we're just typing words that don't really mean anything in real life while you keep waiting for this book to come together? WELL. We can give you a little behind the scenes tour of our production, and show off what hard work actually looks like.
Slackin' Off
Since members of Vault and the Croc creative teams are located around the country, we sync all of the work we do via an app called Slack. If you're not familiar, it's like Discord but for boring stuff :[ UNLESS !! you work at Vault Comics, then it's Discord for EXTREMELY COOL stuff :]
Every week, our Slack looks like this:
We blurred out the egregious spoilers to protect your collectively delicate sensibilities (you're welcome). But as you can see, we are continually buried in pages of amazing art for this book. From, the pages are reviewed by our Editorial team for many rounds of review and revisions ahead of final production.
This little slice of Slack represents a massive effort from everyone on the team who are not just creating Croc but also balancing work on other comics, covers, and attending conventions as well as living their non-comic lives. A huge round of applause to Brett and JP especially for doing everything they can to stick the landing on our production schedule.
Speaking of conventions...
Con season is now upon us. Godspeed to all of you who are about to have the time of your lives... we may even see some of you in the near future! For the Croc team:
Vault Comics won't be tabling at SDCC, but Nathan Gooden, Vault co-founder and DCC comic variant cover artist, will be hanging out at the Big Clutch booth. BC is a big supporter of DCC... maybe worth taking a look if you're in town!
You might see some Croc love at GenCon this year!
Our big event of the year will be NYCC in October. If you saw how huge we went last year (yes, we brought an actual big rig truck onto the show floor) you're gonna love what we're doing with Carl this year. You can be sure that we'll post pictures for those who aren't able to make it.
In the meantime...
We will see you again for next month's update, on August 13. Or, if you want to hear from us even sooner than that, go check out our BackerKit page to see what we've been up to while Croc is coalescing in the background. Fans of progression fantasy with a romantic twist might find a new project to love in our next campaign, launching in just a few days.
And for those who are really paying attention, we'll be announcing our next VERY cool dungeon-related comic project soon... you won't want to miss it. Stay tuned for more!
We'll leave you with the most recent versions of the DCC: Croc covers! Lookin' good, Florin.
🐊 G'day... It's your June DCC: Crocodile update! 🐊
Summer's right around the corner, and as promised, we've got our regularly scheduled monthly DCC: Crocodile update for you, now featuring more final color art by JP Jordan.
pictured: the average [scrolling through the monthly DCC Croc update] experience
DCC: Crocodile Fulfillment Status updates
🔒 Locked & Loaded: That's it for orders! All campaign orders and post-campaign BackerKit store orders are LOCKED. With a project this size there is a bit of a process, so BackerKit is helping us consolidate orders on their end. Charges for those items will be coming in the next few days.
Note: we will NOT charge remaining shipping costs yet--you'll get a clear update from us before we do. We want to get a little closer to book fulfillment before we pull that particular trigger. This info applies to both campaign orders AND the BackerKit store orders. So if you ordered a single copy of a comic from us post-campaign, that means yes, you will be charged for shipping along with the rest of our lovely backers.
pictured: the average [closing the BackerKit store] experience
🔓 Addresses are still editable: As before, mailing addresses will remain editable on your end right up until when we ship (not quite yet), so please feel free to adjust those if needed.
✏️ Reward production: Now that we're locked, we can attend to our pending physical reward production... yaayyy. We're still waiting on some final feedback from Jeff, but audio rewards are well underway. In the past month, we added an additional bonus thank-you for Celestial backers that will be bound in for all Dinniman signed editions--never let your guard down; we're adding more fun details all the time.
📗 Book production: What can we say? The team is on fire (they're setting off the smoke alarms constantly... we may need to remove the batteries). Brett and JP are completing batches of pages like madmen, with a few extra pages planned on top of our current total of 208 pages (if you recall, we launched with ~176 in mind), and the team is discussing adding just a few more pages to make the final action scenes really sing. Our main concern is creating a killer book, even if it means additional tinkering and revisions.
We've been keeping a very close eye on the schedule, and though the full comic itself will be completed in 2026, there's a chance it may not print and fulfill before end of this year. It's not confirmed yet, but if that turns out to be the case, we will move the entire general release date of the book (ie the release to shops and non-Backers) to make sure that all backers are the first to have theirs by a large margin. You are the reason this book exists, and please know that you remain the top priority to us.
This is all in motion, however! And at the pace the team is moving, we might beat our estimates. For the sake of transparency we're mentioning this possibility now, and we'll continue to keep you apprised via our monthly updates.
Upcoming Vault x DCC conventions!
It's that time of year again. DCC: Croc creators will certainly be at a few, and Vault will be as well! SDCC is up next month, and while Vault won't be tabling, you'll be able to catch some of our creators there. Since that's in July, we'll post more deetz in the July update.
Right after that there's GenCon for game fans! Renegade Game Studio will be hosting Matt and Jeff, and will have one of Vault's elusive Renegade-exclusive DCC covers (which some of you have even emailed to inquire about). If you're going, perhaps you'll run into it?
Last, Vault will be at NYCC in October. More on this soon--we've got some big stuff planned, and maybe some stuff for Croc backers too.
pictured: the average [literally any convention] experience
Up Next: DCC Crocodile July Update
Our next status update will be posted on July 16th... until then, you can always hang out with us in our Vault Discord channel.
Before we head out, let's get back to our roots a bit? Have some Brett Bean inked art from recent pages. As usual, scroll down to access backer-only art under the cut!
👣 Stepping in for a quick DCC comics announcement 👣
Happy Thursday! We totally said we weren't updating for another month, and that was a lie.
We're making a quick update because we have some exciting news... due to a huge and overwhelmingly positive response to Dungeon Crawler Carl from the comics community, Vault is releasing a Special Edition Web-exclusive printing of DCC #0 with a variation on cover art by our very own Croc man, Brett Bean.
This #0 issue contains the same comics as any of the other #0's we've offered so far, but with a new limited cover. Great news for all you collector-y types!
We had a few folks our Discord channel ask whether or not Backers would be able to add this item from here, so we decided to go ahead and offer this exclusive via BackerKit as well. You can find that in your pledge manager or in the pre-order store.
✨ IMPORTANT NOTE #1: ALL comic add-ons purchased through this campaign will be fulfilling together in one unholy package. If you needed a copy in your hands as soon as possible, please place an order through the Vault webstore directly. But, if you simply wanted a copy to find its way to you, and don't mind waiting for all of your rewards to hit at once, feel free to place your order through BackerKit!
✨ IMPORTANT NOTE #2: We are very much still locking down the store and finalizing orders next month on June 15th, 2026, as we mentioned in the previous update! But since there's still some time between then and now, we're letting you at this new cover here while the good times are still rollin'.
There are no order limits on either standard or the foil variant of this item here or at the Vault site, so there's no pressure at all (except the impending closure on 6/15).
Thanks for taking a look, and we'll see you at our next update!
🥩 Hungry? It's your Meaty May DCC: Crocodile update! 🐊
It's been a huge month for DCC fans, and we've got some meaty updates for you all.
DCC: Crocodile Fulfillment Status updates
🥩 Locking IN: It's time to commit! Here's your 30-days notice that we're closing the post-campaign BackerKit store AND locking in your orders on June 15. Thank you to everyone who has taken advantage of our post-campaign offerings! On June 15, the BackerKit late-pledge store will close, as well as your ability to add any more items to your order for this campaign. If you have one of those friends who is always late for everything and will be devastated to know that they lost their chance to nab a campaign exclusive item, you better let them know that the clock is ticking!
🥩 Addresses are still editable: Addresses will remain editable on your end right up until when we ship (not quite yet), so please feel free to adjust those as needed. We're going to be literally so flexible on this to make sure you all have a great fulfillment experience, but more on that when we get closer to the big Croc release.
🥩 Reward production: We're finishing work on all of our remaining custom rewards--folks are being drawn into the comic as mobs as we speak, and Jeff will begin recording some (honestly, hilarious) custom audio for a few lucky backers next month. The Matt Dinniman signing pages are in production as well! As for all other reward items, those will be headed to production right after we get those final order numbers locked in after June 15. Our lovely fulfillment partner, Whalebacker, is hyped and ready for us!
🥩 Book production: The whole creative team remains hard at work. As we've mentioned in a previous update, if the production schedule happens to slip, it will likely be in regards to the book additions as we continue to add and adjust it to perfection. The script length has already been expanded to accommodate certain scenes, and we've got all of that extra materials in progress as well. In our experience, the summer convention season (and con crud season) tends to throw a wrench into artist schedules, but we will keep you apprised in case of any unexpected developments.
🥩 And, because we promised: Our new colorist JP Jordan is hard at work adding colors to Brett's lines. We've got even more previews below the Backers-Only cut, but here is a peek of JP's recolor of the Croc cover~
Even more cool stuff we wanted to share
🥩 We'd be so remiss not to scream a little bit about the release of A Parade of Horribles. Anyone hear about this thing? It's not a comic, but books are pretty good too. Huge congrats to Matt on another Dungeon Crawler Carl milestone (and RIP in Peace to one very lucky/ unlucky Celestial Tier DCC: Crocodile backer)!
🥩Dungeon Crawler Carl Webtoon #0, previewing the online comic in print for the first time, absolutely blew folks away at Free Comic Book Day 2026, and was considered by many one of the titles to get. Did you guys manage to grab a free copy at a participating shop? We hope you did! And: a reminder that if you had placed an order for the Absolute Catman web variant through the BackerKit store listing, those will be shipping along with your other rewards come fulfillment time.
🥩And one final piece of HUGE news, another Vault project written by none other than Michael Moreci, the co-writer of DCC: Crocodile, is coming to Netflix. The Barbaric Netflix live-action series was just announced yesterday... huge congrats to Michael and Vault's Nate Gooden (who did the cover of the DCC: Absolute Catman homage)! DCC: Croc team stays winning.
(Damn, you think to yourself, if only Zev could go back in time and link me to a complimentary copy of the entire first volume of Barbaric in a DCC: Crocodile update post. GUESS WHAT, we just jumped in the time machine and we've got you covered in our December 2025 gift link update.)
Up Next: DCC Crocodile June Update
We're already bugging you with previews and DCC: Croc news once a month, just as we promised, but we figured we could make it even easier for you to know when to expect us. What should we call it. Juicy June? June Jupdate? Jomething jelse?
Anyways, our next status update will be posted on June 18... See you then!
JK we're still here, have some more color page previews
This is our first time showing interior inks and non-placeholder colors... together! The DCC: Croc creative team is so particular about the visual feeling of the comic, so we're very excited to have JP on board to give the high-energy vibrancy we were hoping for. The pages below show some amazing color tests that led him to become our series colorist.
You know the drill, Backers Only, scroll down to consent to spoilers, all under the cut~
🌍 Happy Earth Day, all you fine Humans and Crocodilians 🌍 Have yet another monthly update from us!
STATUS UPDATES
🐊 Croc comic completion: Still going strong! Brett continues to knock out chapters of the main book while also working on his original hit series, D'orc. Our Croc book has also gone through its final (?) growth spurt, with the canon comic reaching 200+ pages in length. The final physical book will have an even higher page count due to containing all the other bonus materials you've unlocked... Good stuff!
The other exciting art update is that we have our dedicated colorist joining the Crocodile team... yay! A final thank-you to Walter, who provided the colors shown in the campaign. We'll be introducing the work of series colorist JP Jordan in the next update.
🐊 Reward report: We're still chewing away at these! Expect some photos in a future update.
🐊 Con Season approacheth: Just giving a head's up that convention season is approaching... this can include travel time for artists currently working on Crocodile, and may cause some bumps in the schedule. But as always, we'll continue to keep you updated.
🐊 Shop lockdown and closed surveys?: Not quite yet! We're still in a holding pattern at the moment. This is the one area where we'll send a special update and notification before we make any changes you need to know about, so don't worry, you won't miss it when it happens.
FREE COMIC BOOK DAY!
It's almost time for Free Comic Book Day DCC!! Just show up to your participating shop to grab your own free copy of the special DCC Webtoon preview issue.
Last but not least, we're certain you've seen the ultra-popular Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG by now, but go check it out if you haven't already!
And last, we'll leave you with another spoilery page preview! Might this be our last Brett ink preview???? We may shift our focus to preview colors and even lettered pages, now that we're entering that phase of production. But if you'd like us to keep showing off preview inks, we'll make room for it... just let us know!
A silver Vaethon Benefactor Box earned and unlocked
19/20 achievements completed
An unexpected Borant takeover defeated
Most inexplicable yam memery of any project before or to come
Undoubtedly one of the most motivated and organized participants of all time
Longest Overtime Backer Train of all time, extending well over a week in length
Most funded AND most backed Comic project ever on the BackerKit platform
#4 Most funded AND most backed project of any kind, EVER on the BackerKit platform
...and most of all, you helped support Dungeon Crawler Carl: Crocodile creators Matt Dinniman, Michael Moreci, and Brett Bean in this brand-new format and expanded character focus in Dungeon Crawler Carl universe. Please take a HUGE round of applause, you've earned it.
Celestial Fan Box results (and a surprise) ✨
The results of the Celestial Fan Box, unlocked in the depths of Sunday night, are now IN. The winning upgrade is the two-sided dust jacket for protecting all of your BackerKit Exclusive editions.
As some of you guessed, we had one last trick up our sleeve. ✨As a final thank-you, we'll be including the "Florin Gets Dressed" side comic IN each book, every edition, for all to enjoy. ✨
We couldn't have done this without you, and you all deserve only the best from us.
What comes next for the DCC: Crocodile campaign?
Well, first and foremost, please expect us to stay in touch! We'll be making regular updates to keep you all informed on what we're getting up to, but here's a general sketch of what the next steps will be for this project:
We'll prepare to send out surveys for everyone to review and complete their orders. We're estimating that we'll have these out before the end of this year, likely this very month. IMPORTANT NOTE: we'll be charging all shipping costs later in the process. We'll let you know when that moment arrives!
We'll continue production on the comic, of course, but will also being production on the other rewards once we have that info from the surveys in hand.
Once we're close to fulfillment, we will confirm your addresses and collect shipping costs at that point.
If you've got any issues with or questions about your order, please submit to those to [email protected] and we will take a look!
We'll be managing fulfillment with our incredible partners at Vala Marketing, so a big yay for them and all their help in making sure that you all have the smoothest fulfillment process possible.
What comes next for Dungeon Crawler Carl?
One big thing... the DCC Volume 2 and 3 Hardcover Kickstarter is ending this week!! If you backed at a physical book tier, it is NOT too late to back the Kickstarter and grab your amazing bonus sticker sheet. You've got a whole four days left to ponder the princess, so... start pondering!
What comes next for Vault?
Aside from riding our fleet of crocodiles off into the sunset, we've got some other stuff cooking up in the background. You're a bunch of highly-motivated smarties, so you could always give us a follow and be the first to be notified of the next projects we're working on... but as always, we'll be sharing more soon.
From the entire Vault Comics team, a sincere thank you once more for a wonderful campaign. We laughed, we cried, we glittered yams, we made one of the most successful comic crowdfunding projects of all time...
July was a whirlwind with DCC featuring prominently at SDCC and GenCon, and as far as I know our creative team made it out with all their comic makin' extremities intact!! Whew. If you went, we hope you had a good time, and maybe picked up one of the cool DCC drops (you can see some on the Vault Insta!)
Proof of drawing arms/ life from Brett Bean on a very recently completed page:
buh-BLAM
Okay, onto the important production updates:
The full DCC: Croc comic and book content will be completed this year (we have so many key scenes complete that this month we are finally able to draw in all of the cameos from this campaign!)
Once Brett wraps on inks, he's jumping right into all of the DCC: Crocodile b/w and color illustrations. He is also completing, uh... inexplicable yam art... and also the final illustration for our reversible croc-Florin dust jacket.
We previously communicated that a schedule shift might happen... With our new, updated timeline for the expanded book, our editorial team has estimated that we'll be printing this book in early 2027. Because we want to make sure that backers read this comic as soon as possible, we will likely be sharing the digital version of DCC: Crocodile available as soon as it is complete. This gives the entire creative team the time they need to finish the book at a healthy pace, given they are already currently working as hard as they can.
We have adjusted the release date of the standard DCC: Crocodile book (in stores) to make sure that you all get yours well in advance. That means that everyone who backed a physical tier will have their exclusive books in hand by early Spring 2027, with all the non-campaign normies getting their non-exclusive versions a month or two later in May 2027. Unfortunately we cannot help but laugh at them from our lofty perches.
What else? we've printed and sent bookplates and tip-ins for signatures from Matt Dinniman this month during his brief break from kicking a million asses. And... oh, yeah--Jeff Hays literally can't stop winning. In addition to being the one true Princess Donut, as we knew he was, he also just sent us over the custom audio recordings this campaign, which we sent out to all Celestial Jeff Tier backers right before sending out this post.
With that, we've nearly finished with the critical production of all custom and personalized rewards! And next on our list is finishing up all the physical non-book rewards to ensure that we ship as soon as they're printed. This is a massive campaign with a lot of items, so of course we'll continue to keep you updated as we draw nearer to the big fulfillment event.
fwoosh
NYCC! (in which Vault Comics makes 100% sure you're taken care of)
As Vault's biggest in-person convention draws nearer, we wanted to give a head's up that we will be printing a 2026 convention-only special edition of DCC: Crocodile with our new art and colors and even lettering in place...
Of course, we would never do this without making sure the backers are taken care of, so this is your notice that all physical backers will receive a complimentary copy of the 2026 NYCC-exclusive DCC: Crocodile issue. We didn't even want to mess around on this one--it's just automatically added to your pile of stuff. I know you didn't know you were playing, but: You win! Congrats, everyone~
I'm not yet allowed to show off the look of our booth this year (or the activities we have planned) but if you're a DCC fan, trust and believe that you're definitely gonna want to stop by!
A large 🍠
This is apropos of nothing other than to hearken back to the yams of yesteryear, but I (your loyal DCC: Crocodile campaign Zev) was at a local grocery the other day and saw this absolutely massive yam. I believe this is the type they make the yachts out of...
ridiculous
also ridiculous
The lovely backers of this campaign are always on our minds, so just wanted to share, haha.
okay enough of that
The next update is...
...on September 17th! If you want to catch up with us a bit sooner, feel free to drop by our DCC: Croc Discord channel. Otherwise, more from us coming next month 🐊
A shorter update from us this month! We'll boil it down to this: the team is continuing to work very hard.
We keep saying that, don't we. May: "we're working hard". June: "we're working hard". You ever feel like we're just typing words that don't really mean anything in real life while you keep waiting for this book to come together? WELL. We can give you a little behind the scenes tour of our production, and show off what hard work actually looks like.
Slackin' Off
Since members of Vault and the Croc creative teams are located around the country, we sync all of the work we do via an app called Slack. If you're not familiar, it's like Discord but for boring stuff :[ UNLESS !! you work at Vault Comics, then it's Discord for EXTREMELY COOL stuff :]
Every week, our Slack looks like this:
We blurred out the egregious spoilers to protect your collectively delicate sensibilities (you're welcome). But as you can see, we are continually buried in pages of amazing art for this book. From, the pages are reviewed by our Editorial team for many rounds of review and revisions ahead of final production.
This little slice of Slack represents a massive effort from everyone on the team who are not just creating Croc but also balancing work on other comics, covers, and attending conventions as well as living their non-comic lives. A huge round of applause to Brett and JP especially for doing everything they can to stick the landing on our production schedule.
Speaking of conventions...
Con season is now upon us. Godspeed to all of you who are about to have the time of your lives... we may even see some of you in the near future! For the Croc team:
Vault Comics won't be tabling at SDCC, but Nathan Gooden, Vault co-founder and DCC comic variant cover artist, will be hanging out at the Big Clutch booth. BC is a big supporter of DCC... maybe worth taking a look if you're in town!
You might see some Croc love at GenCon this year!
Our big event of the year will be NYCC in October. If you saw how huge we went last year (yes, we brought an actual big rig truck onto the show floor) you're gonna love what we're doing with Carl this year. You can be sure that we'll post pictures for those who aren't able to make it.
In the meantime...
We will see you again for next month's update, on August 13. Or, if you want to hear from us even sooner than that, go check out our BackerKit page to see what we've been up to while Croc is coalescing in the background. Fans of progression fantasy with a romantic twist might find a new project to love in our next campaign, launching in just a few days.
And for those who are really paying attention, we'll be announcing our next VERY cool dungeon-related comic project soon... you won't want to miss it. Stay tuned for more!
We'll leave you with the most recent versions of the DCC: Croc covers! Lookin' good, Florin.
