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!
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!
We usually start these textwalls off with campaign progress notes, but since it's been a month and you're probably hungry, have some toast first 🍞
Okay, now onto the business:
March Campaign Updates
Printed Stuff: The book continues to be completed! It's just forward momentum all the way from here, and we've got a ton of new art flying in every day. We can't show it all to you yet, but we wish we could.
Other Stuff: We continue to make headway towards our goal of having all Croc rewards completely produced by June. Which leads to our next piece of news:
Lockin' up Shop
Because we will need to lock our final orders quantities soon, we will be closing our Pledge Manager and pre-order stores in the near future. We will give you advance notice, of course, and it's not going to happen this month, but put your mental preparation hat on because it's coming.
If you've been hemming and hawing about whether or not you want to scoop up any add-ons, now is a time to make your final selections so you don't get left out! SPEAKING OF WHICH:
Free Comic Book Day approaches--with a DCC Web-exclusive cover
The Dungeon Crawler Carl Webtoon graphic novel preview is coming to print... for FREE!?! It's true; this May 2nd, 2026, simply show up to a participating Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) comic shop to grab your own 24-page Dungeon Crawler Carl Webtoon preview while supplies last... we're printing a lot, but we still expect these to go fast.
If you've never done this sort of thing before, you'll walk in the door of your participating local shop and there will literally just be a table or display of free comics and you can just... take them... I know what you're thinking, "Free stuff? In THIS economy??" and yet: it's true. Thank you, benevolent comics overlords.
To celebrate this auspicious day, Vault Comics is offering a very special limited Web Exclusive cover with a homage to Absolute Batman #1, featuring art by Nathan Gooden, and we're offering it to DCC: Crocodile Backers first. Please note that this limited edition will not be free OR in stores, and due to being exclusives, they do cost real human currency. The content will also be the same as the free version. But for collectors who love a special cover, this is where the action is!
Now available... on The Internet only!
As of today, you can grab a copy as an add-on, via your Pledge Manager, the DCC: Crocodile pre-order store, or from the Vault Comics website. As usual, all physical edition Pledge Manager add-ons (such as this one) will only be available to folks who backed at physical tiers. And, issues ordered here via BackerKit will ship along with all your other rewards during fulfillment! Let us know if you've got any other questions about this edition.
Note: these items are currently marked as "Limited" simply because we are printing a set amount this month... however, we will do our best to print as many copies as we can to fulfill orders for you all. We're not playing weird artificial scarcity mindgames with you, we promise... but there is a slim chance that we'll be out of stock if you wait to place an order a few weeks from now.
Get the standard FCBD edition featuring cover art by Yoshi Yoshitani FREE at participating shops on May 2nd!
We already told you about this one, but it's way too good not to mention again. The Dungeon Crawler Carl Roleplaying Game launch is swiftly approaching, so sign up today for more info!
All we can say is that the Primal Hunter campaign has been a success, with over one hundred dollars raised (okay, maybe a bit more than that), a ton of wonderful unlocks achieved, and love from all corners of the internet. There's a few days left to defeat some final challenges and nab your very own set of books if you're a fan of meaty LitRPGs AND beautifully produced editions.
We'll cut off our text wall here, and leave Backers once again with some spoilery preview inks! This page features a familiar face who isn't a major character in DCC: Crocodile... but who doesn't love to see a top player in action?
Until then, we'll see you next month, and in the comments section!
It's your favorite time of the month! The time we heave our armored, primordial bodies from the muddy banks of the river we live in to write our Dungeon Crawler Carl: CROCODILE update!!
💚 PROGRESS REPORT
As you know, we like to keep it honest around here. To that end: the entire DCC: Crocodile creative team, plus everyone at Vault Comics and Aethon are as beautiful as they are brilliant (in a word, extremely). It's wild that we all happen to work on the same book. What's that? Wrong kind of honest? okay, got it. Sigh. You want accountability. FINE.
We remain on track for early book completion on DCC: Crocodile. The comic is REALLY off to the races. The final scripts are buttoned up, Brett has been drawing his arm off, and we're closing in on the halfway point of completion on inks. We're also excited to share our 100% final colors with you, hopefully for the next update.
We remain on track for early physical reward production on DCC: Crocodile. Your very own project Zev (the one writing this update) wants you to know that our priority is to have all physical and digital non-book DCC items produced by the halfway point of this year! We deeply want to get you your rewards to you as soon as those DCC: Croc books come in.
We're continuing to reach out to custom-reward backers. We've already started the info-collection process for many tiers, so thanks for your replies! If you're in an audio tier, you're next on the list, so keep an eye out for an email from us.
Brett has completed the DCC Webtoon Campaign-only Editioncover! As a reminder, this item is only available for this campaign, and when we original posted it (minus art), it looked like this:
inspiring (no)
...and here's the exclusive Brett Bean art we got in just yesterday!
This is the raw, unprocessed art... we'll be dressing this up soon (ie: adding important info like, you know, the title), but we wanted you to have the first peek!
A repeated reminder on the DCC Webtoon editions, also published by Vault Comics: we'll be shipping Campaign-exclusive books (with the Brett Bean cover shown above) to those who ordered one along with your DCC: Crocodile book rewards. However, the regular-degular DCC Webtoon with the standard edition covers will be in shops in late May 2026. So don't get surprised if you see those in shops--yours will be coming shortly!
If you somehow missed that we were offering exclusive covers, you can still add items to your order. Adjust your order via your Pledge Manager, or if you were originally not a backer, check out the Pre-order Store. You'll be able to adjust your pledge until we lock orders, which won't be for a few more months.
💚 UPCOMING FREE COMIC BOOK DAY
Did you know about this?? On May 2nd, head to your participating local comic book shop to pick up comics for absolutely free. And Vault Comics will be participating! On offer for this year is none other than DCC Webtoon #0, featuring original art by Yoshi Yoshitani. If you like free DCC stuff, mark your calendars now so you don't miss out, because we expect these free copies to fly off the shelves.
Free Comic Book Day 2026 DCC cover preview
Vault Comics will also offer a webstore-exclusive version of the DCC Webtoon #0 FCBD cover, featuring art by Nathan Gooden. This will be a nod to comic book fans... does anyone know what this new cover will homage? Here's a visual hint for you savvy-types:
Free Comic Book Day 2026 DCC (Webstore/ DCC: Croc backers only) cover preview. What could it be??????
If you're interested in picking up a webstore-exclusive FCBD cover, we're going to make it easy for you... we'll be setting aside copies for this campaign specifically and adding this webstore-exclusive cover to the DCC: Crocodile Pledge Manager store and Pre-order Store. We'll break our once-a-month schedule to let you know when those are up!
💚 PAY-AS-YOU-GO UPDATE
Pay-as-you-go folks, just a quick update to let you know that you're good, and not to worry! There have been a few questions about whether having chosen pay-as-you-go will affect anything from submitting custom reward info to availability of add-on items. We're replying to those questions as they come, but generally speaking, the answer is 100% that you're good and we are happy to accommodate any needs for extra time getting info or orders to us.
If you need to reach out, you can always do that at [email protected].
The definitive power fantasy LitRPG The Primal Hunter comes to crowdfunding with this Collector's Edition release. Get the deluxe box set, along with exclusive merch and rewards.
Definitely worth a follow, in this humble fish's opinion! This campaign is being run by our incredible collaborators at Vala, who also supported our success on DCC: Crocodile, and you know there are going to be a lot of goodies in store for die-hard fans of the series. This campaign launches next week... click here to follow!
💚 REBORN AS A DEMONIC TREE CAMPAIGN
Progression fantasy fans are eating good this month! Another extremely popular series Kickstarting right now. Xkarnation's Reborn as a Demonic Tree is an Isekai LitRPG Adventure that's been published as a webnovel, in chapters on Patreon, as an ebook, audiobook, light novel, print book (there's even a physical cd available in case you know anyone who still owns a cd player).
The story has earned a horde of loyal fans across all of these formats, and it's finally time for Demonic Tree to assume it's final form, as a feature-packed true collector's edition.
And, we've got one more message from our buds at Renegade Games:
💚 COMING SOON! DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL: RPG
Lovers of Dungeon Crawler Carl might be interested to learn our friends at Renegade Game Studios are launching the official role-playing game soon, right here on BackerKit.
Play as a familiar face, such as 🧨 Carl, 👑🐈 Donut, 🐊 Florin, 🐐 Prepotente, or build your own unique crawler, complete with a customizable class and race (if you survive to the third floor)! Entertain your viewers, gain followers, and survive an onslaught of horrors that will make your tootsies curl. This full official TTRPG lets you become a crawler in the brutal, televised labyrinth known as the World Dungeon. Enjoy expansive character creation rules for your own custom crawler. Choose from dozens of backgrounds, create your own skills, choose a race, a God to worship, and a class for a nearly infinite number of combinations!
And... a final note from us, we might have a very special bonus gift for DCC: Croc backers who also back this RPG project. More on that later.
💚 CONGRATS TO BRETT BEAN!
We're nearly done with this big update, but we wanted to give one more shout-out... Congrats to Brett Bean for his success on the comic D'Orc, which we previewed to all DCC: Croc backers last year! If you've enjoyed all the art we've shared with you so far, you'll surely love his work in D'Orc too. Go grab a copy at your local comic book store if you haven't already.
💚 BACKER-ONLY CONTENT TIME!
We'll, we've shared a lot of love, and we have a lot more love to come in the coming months. Now that we're at the end of this monthly update, why not close like we usually do, with a bit of a reward for backers?
Backers, you know the drill... Backer-only content is below the cut, for your eyes only, featuring Brett's original sketches for the DCC Webtoon Campaign-exclusive cover. Not to be missed!
