Hey there Crocodilians, a quick update from us this month!

NYCC news

September is the time of year we prepare for our biggest event of the year... NYCC! We'll be making another update in early October with our full confirmed signing schedule, which will include Matt, Brett, and a passel of other DCC comic cover creatives (for those who have been collecting some of those neat DCC Webtoon covers). It's gonna be a Dungeon Crawlery good time, so we hope to see you there!

What about those who aren't going to New York? The Dungeon AI says... you get nothing.

Just kidding. As promised, we're making sure that every physical backer of this project, regardless of tier, gets the 2026 NYCC DCC: Crocodile exclusive. And, to be really exact, you'll be receiving a physical copy of the first printing of this NYCC 2026 "0.5" promo issue.

This issue contains the first block of pages with all our final colors from JP Jordan and spectacular final lettering from team Andworld. Since we're all friends here, we'll also be sharing the digital link in our next update so all of you can read it online (backers only)!

Production Update

Production-wise, we continue to press to the finish: the art team is artin' hard, we're squirreling away items at the warehouse, and Matt is still chipping away at a mountain of bookplates. We had to pick this month's preview art carefully because at this late stage production we've entered some terribly spoileriffic scenes, but here's a goodie to get you by for now!

Last but not least: we have a new non-DCC (yet Dungeon-y) graphic novel campaign in the works! We're bringing you the launch of Darkest Dungeon in just a few short weeks. Be sure to take a look and join us for a great gothic horror read... maybe even explore a campaign dungeon or two?

Like I said--short and sweet, but there's more to come. Feel free to hang with us in the Vault Discord, but otherwise our next update will be October 6 (so we can get your eyes on that digital preview issue well ahead of all the non-backer normies). See you then! 

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:

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.

NYCC! (in which Vault Comics makes 100% sure you're taken care of)

A large 🍠

The next update is...

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

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... 

• Matt Dinniman is appearing at SDCC. You can check out his page for more info. 
• Brett Bean is also appearing at SDCC! His full schedule for the con is here.
• 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!

 

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.

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.
  
  

  

  
  
  
•  🔓 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!

Up Next: DCC Crocodile July Update