Tag: Alt-Hero

Thank you all so much for your remarkable support for the Alt★Hero campaign. I will announce the name of the co-author in an update to this post later today. I’m a little busy right now putting the final touches on a certain book that is going to be published on October 9th.

If you have ideas about new stretch goals or rewards, please feel free to suggest them in this thread. A number of people have already asked about the possibility of requesting a reward for the novel, either in ebook, print, or both.

As I mentioned in tonight’s Darkstream, we’re very pleased to announce that JON DEL ARROZ will be co-writing the first Alt★Hero novel with me, which will be published by Castalia House in ebook, audio, and paperback. He’s got a brand new science fiction novella out called Gravity of the Game, so if you want to see if he has what it takes in the literary sense, do go and see for yourself.

Along with “no one will support this” and “HAHAHAHAHA LMFAO”, “the art sucks” has been one of the constant refrains of comic SJWs since they first became aware of Alt★Hero a few days before the Freestartr launch. We had, of course, announced the project months before, but they simply hadn’t paid it any heed until the first image of Rebel triggered them into a swarm.

Now, what those of you who have not paid attention to the SJW convergence in comics may not realize is that the art bar is considerably lower than you probably imagine it to be. For example, on the left is Kamala Khan, Ms Marvel, a teenage Muslim who is tragically afflicted with elephantiasis, but nevertheless, persists despite her handicap. On the right is Janelle Jeanneret, also known as Dynamique of the Global Justice Initiative, who I will remind is not supposed to be smoking while wearing her superhero outfit.

However, I do not subscribe to the genetic fallacy. The fact that malicious people of evil intent are seeking to discredit and disqualify the project does not necessarily mean that all of their criticism is invalid. Although I vastly prefer the Alt★Hero artwork by Cliff Cosmic, and would be quite happy to proceed with the project on that basis, Castalia House has always taken an iterative approach to quality. This is occasionally a little disturbing to some of our readers, who would prefer that we try to get everything flawless at the start, but the reality is that we’re still learning what we’re doing. And since the art is not the very best in the industry, that means it can be improved.

On a related note, if you think Alt★Hero looks amateurish, have a look at the formatting of some of our early ebooks, or our first casebound hardcover. The latter was particularly bad; we used a paperback template and the back cover text wound up actually touching one side of the back cover. The choice of font was a mistake too, and the interior paragraph spacing was excessive. But we have worked steadily at improving the quality of our products, and now our print editions are generally superior to those offered by our mainstream competitors.

We are taking the same iterative approach to Alt★Hero, which is why I’m very pleased to announce that Marvel and DC Comics veteran colorist Matteo Mystic has joined the team. He sent over the following bio:

In the process of working with the best artists in the comic book business for well over a decade, Matteo Mystic learned the dark arts of the great colorists and earned the privilege of working on top Marvel and DC titles such as Spider-Man, X-Men, and Superman. But after experiencing a crisis of faith, he fled the industry to a monastery high in the Italian Alps. He now spends his days illuminating Bibles and his evenings utilizing his skills in alternative heroics.

Mr. Mystic will be coloring four of the first six volumes. You can see his first work on Alt★Hero at the Freestartr campaign, at the end of Dynamique’s six-page introduction. I await with eagerness to hear the inevitable praise of those whose helpful advice we have taken to heart.

And Dynamique is considering her options. We’ve got some very interesting new Alt★Hero developments we’ll be announcing soon, including at least one new stretch goal, although I understand it is going to be a few days before we’ll able to add the various add-ons that people have been requesting. Don’t worry, we’ve got more than three weeks left, so there is plenty of time to straighten these things out.

I’m also interested in learning what size figurine between 8 and 10 inches would be of most interest to the Rebel backers. Remember, you can back the project for only $15 and you’ll receive the first SIX volumes of Alt★Hero in their digital format.

UPDATE: In its fifth day, Alt★Hero is already in the top 5 percent of all Kickstarter projects ever. Back the project and help us move into the top one percent!

UPDATE: We’ve made some changes to the Rewards and stretch goals. We’ve decided not to wait to greenlight Paperback and Hardcover #2, both of which will include Volumes IV, V, and VI, so the two stretch goals are can now be considered preemptively reached. Both editions can be ordered now via the appropriate Reward level; Add-On: Paperback #2 is $30 and Add-On: Hardcover #2 is $65. Neither comes with anything else, but shipping is included.

We’ve also replaced the $70k stretch goal as follows:

Alt★Hero Novel
Castalia House will publish the first Alt★Hero novel, co-written by Vox Day and an author to be named when this goal is met. The book will be published in ebook, audiobook, and trade paperback editions.

Thank you, Alt★Hero backers! All three volumes will receive a sequel. To celebrate this milestone, we have added the fifth page to Dynamique’s story on the Alt★Hero campaign page.

Is she the next stage in human evolution?

To discover why Dynamique is extremely unhappy, visit the Alt★Hero Freestarter page and scroll down to read the fourth page of her encounter with Captain Europa and the Global Justice Initiative.

We’re now less than three thousand away from reaching Stretch Goal 3, which triggers the production of Volume VI. This means that all three initial stories will be receiving a sequel. It also means that everyone who is signed up at the Digital Edition level will be receiving 288 pages of novel graphic entertainment for $15. That’s an exceptional bargain, even if you’re not particularly interested in comics.

We also have some very exciting news to report, which is that a longtime veteran of Marvel and DC Comics has joined the team and will be working with the existing artists to help improve our art and production game.

I already have an example of one such collaboration, and I have to say, it is impressive. We’ll won’t be showing it off for a few days, for reasons that will then become clear, but I am quite confident that you will be as pleased with the results as I am.

Thanks again for all of your strong support!

Thank you, Alt★Hero backers! It looks as if we will not be needing to hold a vote on which of the first three volumes will be continued, but we will see how things proceed from here. At this point, the video producer may need to start thinking about voice

And we will hold a vote on which of the first three volumes are made into a video. Unless, of course, we have to add more stretch goals to account for more videos. To celebrate this milestone, we have added a third page to Dynamique’s story on the Alt★Hero campaign page.

Milo Yiannopoulos weighs in on Alt★Hero:

It’s no secret that SJWs are ruining comics. If trends continue, they’ll make Superman into an obese disabled pansexual Muslim woman by next spring. And who wants that? Fortunately, our friends at Castalia House still remember what comics are supposed to be about: Highly attractive heroes in skin-tight outfits who beat people up for America. 

So, I’m informed that my arbitrary selection of 150 Rebel figurines was rather uninformed, since apparently the minimum order number where per unit prices are sensible is 500. (Don’t ask me why I chose 150, it was 3 in the morning at the time and I don’t think I was expecting that more than a handful of people would order one anyway.)

Anyhow, being a collector of wargames, and, apparently, Ridgebacks, I don’t know what the rules of statue collecting are, but I do understand that the less of them that are out there, the more desirable they are. Hence the following questions:

• Do any Rebel-level backers care if we increase the number of figurines produced from 150 to 500?
• If you do care, but not that much, is there anything we can do to make it up to you? My thought was to throw in a second t-shirt with the Alt★Hero logo if you are one of the 78 backers who are signed up at the Rebel level now.
• Is going to 500 okay if they are numbered? Again, I don’t know how these things work.

We can leave things as they are and it won’t break anything, it’s just that some pretty good-looking options require minimum 500 orders. We will be offering other figurines – right now the three most-requested are a) Spacebunny, b) Dynamique, and c) More Rebel – and they will all be done in quantities of 500.

UPDATE: All right, after hearing from a lot of you, we’ve decided to increase the limited edition quantity to more viable 490, plus the 10 for the highest level backers. The statues will be numbered according to the order backed, and, depending upon what is possible, we will try to find some way to distinguish the first 150 from the next 340.

Thanks to all of the 445 backers and counting. In the meantime, Disney bans smoking in all Marvel films, and presumably, comics.

Genius billionaire playboy philanthropist Tony Stark has got some pretty bad habits, like drinking too much, sleeping around, and accidentally inventing genocidal artificial intelligence. But one thing he’s never going to do is light up a cigarette, says Disney; they will “absolutely prohibit” the depiction of smoking in all Disney films with a PG-13 rating or under, including those made by Marvel, Pixar, and Lucasfilm.

Chairman and CEO Bob Iger reiterated Disney’s current policy at a shareholder meeting yesterday (March 12), noting that the only exception is when films depict real-life historical figures who were known for their tobacco habit. “For instance, we’ve been doing a movie on Abraham Lincoln, he was a smoker, and we would consider that acceptable,” he said.

This isn’t the first time the Avengers have shied away from cigarettes, of course. When Joe Quesada first stepped up as Editor in Chief of Marvel Comics in 2001, he implemented a similar ban for all the main Marvel characters — having lost a grandfather to lung cancer, he believed that depicting smoking in comics encouraged the behavior. Issues in the Marvel back catalog remained unchanged, but recently new trade collections have had their cover art altered to reflect the company’s anti-smoking policy.

Dynamique is unimpressed.She finds fascist anti-smokers to be unendurably ennui-inspiring. The only thing she hates more are flats. Stand with her and support Alt★Hero.

As promised, we’ve added a second page to Dynamique’s story. Check it out on the campaign page. Check back every day for new pages, character sketches, and quite possibly, new rewards and stretch goals.

Alt★Hero is go on Freestartr. We apologize in advance for any inadvertent mass triggerings that may result from the release of this video. You’ll want to check out the campaign every day, because we will be adding a new page, as well as additional character art, on a daily basis. The video can be watched here as well.

On the production side, those of you who are Voxiversity supporters may be pleased to note that this video was produced by the Voxiversity producer. Also, for both campaigns, be sure to provide us with your emails so we can get in contact with you and provide you with the relevant information and digital products.

UPDATE Four hours. Four freaking hours! That’s how long it took to fully fund Alt★Hero by 242 backers, which is now officially green-lighted. Someone told me that it would be fully funded on the first day and I did not believe them, although the five thousand angry tweets by Comics SJWs in response to one image of Rebel did make me wonder.

So, thank you all, and rest assured that together, we will Make Comics Great Again and have a great deal of fun in the process.

We’ll figure out how to accept one-offs and additional orders over the weekend. For foreign backers, don’t worry about the US forms. Just cram everything into the US form, including your country. Freestartr will fix that, but in the meantime that will work.

Rebel wasn’t really expecting to have to get ready quite so quickly….