I’m very pleased to be able to finally announce that the digital edition of Alt★Hero #1: CRACKDOWN has been released to the backers of the Alt★Hero project. If you are a backer who unsubscribed to the Castalia House bookclub or if you did not receive the email, please email me with BACKER in the subject and I will send out second mailing tonight with the link that will allow you to download the 11 meg file.
The digital edition is in the MOBI format, which will work on your Kindle. You can also use download the free Kindle Previewer for Windows or Macintosh to read the digital edition on your computer. This is the same file that will be released for Kindle and Kindle Unlimited next week, we’re just getting it out early to the backers.
We anticipate having the first print edition out in about two weeks. It will retail for $3 and will be in the same royal octavo size as the QM and Jeeves comic books. French, German, and Italian editions will soon follow.
Please feel free to discuss the first issue of Alt★Hero in the Forums. I look forward to hearing your reactions. Thanks to all the backers who have made this possible, and thanks to the Arkhaven team, especially Cliff Cosmic and Matteo Mystic, for all their hard work in bringing this from concept to comic book.
HUNGRY HEARTS is the second issue in the RIGHT HO, JEEVES series, which tells of the travails of the inimitable Bertie Wooster, who is summoned from the comforts of #3A Berkley Mansions, London to Brinkley Manor by his imperious Aunt Dahlia. Love is in the air and Wodehousian shenanigans are afoot, as Wooster’s well-meaning attempts to help out his friends sort out their romantic difficulties only leads to one disaster after another.
Adapted from the classic Wodehouse novel by comics legend Chuck Dixon and drawn by SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN illustrator Gary Kwapisz, RIGHT HO, JEEVES #2: HUNGRY HEARTS is issue #2 of 6 in the series.
On a related note, as you may already be aware, RIGHT HO, JEEVES #1: A Binge at Brinkley is now available in Kindle and in print. But that’s not all. During the Alt★Hero campaign, we were asked to offer a discussion forum as a stretch reward, which we duly offered and was subsequently funded. The stretch reward was originally conceived as follows:
Commenting on the Alt★Hero site will be limited to campaign backers and site subscribers in order to reduce the amount of SJW vandalism. Site Heroes will receive a subscription to the website, the ability to create new topics, the ability to edit the wiki (subject to moderator approval and discipline), a series of special icons available only to them, and a dedicated forum. Please note that SJWs who use this Reward to infiltrate the site for the purposes of vandalism, politics, or social justice will be identified and stripped of both their backer and Site Hero status.
Last week, a special online meeting was held with the Site Heroes to introduce the new Alt★Hero site, which is now live. After a discussion in which a variety of ideas were kicked around, we collectively decided to make some changes to the original conception. First, no subscriptions to read the site will be necessary, at least for now. Second, all APPROVED (not registered) users can comment on the forums, although certain closed forums are accessible only by Alt★Hero Backers and Artists, respectively. Approval will initially be limited to those two groups. Third, the wiki will utilize an Infogalactic frame, but is not yet operative and only Backers will have the ability to modify it. Fourth, we have established separate sections for discussing Books and Games, as well as separate subforums for discussing comics published by Marvel, DC, and the major independents. And fifth, we set up several volunteers as site moderators, who will police the forums and keep the commenting under control.
Anyone can register, but please read the site guidelines before commenting. Because we anticipate a number of younger readers, we will be much more strict on policing language and content there than I am here. Only Alt★Hero Backers and Artists will initially be approved for commenting, so if you are a backer, please email me with your backer number and new username in the subject after you register. Please note that you will know that you have been approved, have Backer status, and can access the Backer’s Only subforum when your username turns green. Artist status is limited to industry professionals and the Arkhaven/Dark Legion team.
Once the Alt★Hero Backers who have registered are all approved, we’ll move on to approving Voxiversity backers, Brainstorm members, and Will Caligan campaign backers for general commenting. Please be patient, as this process could take as long as a week since not everyone reads this blog every day.
UPDATE:
#1 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Graphic Novels > Adaptations #1 in Kindle Store >Comics & Graphic Novels > Historical & Literary > Literary
The Devil is raising an army! To the horror of his loyal servant, Jim, Confederate general Stonewall Jackson has been summoned back from the grave to lead Satan’s army of ravenous undead. But the great general’s arm is missing, and only Jim knows where it might be. He doesn’t know why Satan needs it, but he knows that he has to do everything he can to prevent the Devil from finding it. The South rises again in REBEL DEAD REVENGE! Written and illustrated by Savage Sword of Conan and The Punisher artist Gary Kwapisz, Rebel Dead Revenge #2: Satan’s Army is 30 pages and $2.99. Available on Kindle and KU, it is the second Dark Legion Comics release but it will not be the only one in March, as we plan to release Chicago Typewriter: The Red Ribbon later this month. Check out the Look Inside on Amazon, it’s as intense as its predecessor. And, apparently, as well-received.
#1 in Kindle Store > Comics & Graphic Novels > Historical Fiction #1 in Kindle Store > Comics & Graphic Novels > Zombies #1 in Kindle Store > Comics & Graphic Novels > Military
In Arkhaven news, we’ve had some trouble getting our first two print editions to show up in stock on Amazon due to an internal issue at our distributor that was inadvertently created by our very low retail prices of $2.99. That is in the process of being resolved, but in the meantime, you can order both Right Ho, Jeeves #1 and QUANTUM MORTIS A Man Disrupted #1 from Castalia Books Direct. Note that we do considerably better if you order print editions there than from Amazon, and that the shipping cost is the same from one to five comics. That doesn’t matter much when we’ve only got two in print, but we will have more available soon, starting with Steve Keen’s eCONcomics.
And on the Alt★Hero front, backers who are Site Heroes should check their email later today, as Markku and I will be holding an online meeting tonight at 7 PM Eastern with all 68 of them to introduce the Alt★Hero forums. This is an independent site that is hosting discussion forums for all of the comics, including both Arkhaven and Dark Legion series. There are special Backer’s Only forums, including one just for the Site Heroes to discuss how the site should be structured and run. Everyone will be able to read the forums, but only approved and registered users will be permitted to post there. The fact that Freestartr had to recently remove the ability to comment on all three campaigns there due to pornographic graffiti being posted by SJWs should suffice to explain why open registration and posting will not be the site policy.
If you are an Alt★Hero backer or a subscriber to the Arkhaven mailing list, be sure to check your email. We just sent out some VERY important news that you will not want to miss. In addition to a progress update, we have introduced a new character who will be appearing in future issues as well as a detailed update on the design of the role-playing game.
There are very interesting times ahead, because I now have good reason to believe that the Arkhaven project is going to be at least an order of magnitude more disruptive than I had previously imagined.
But regardless of whether our prognostications prove to be astute or not, we are continuing to work hard towards the launch of the initial Alt★Hero and Chuck Dixon’s Avalon issues in March.
Now that we’ve got several scripts done, it is clear that CHUCK DIXON’S AVALON is really going to be very different than the Alt★Hero comics proper. Whereas I like to focus on worldbuilding and city-level events of international significance, Chuck prefers to go street. He’s focused on citybuilding, crime-fighting, and street-level events, and while the city of Avalon is an integral part of the universe of Alt★Hero, it is a small, detailed, and distinct part of it.
FAZER is one of the first new characters created by Chuck and he will be appearing in both the first and second issues. The description: FAZER is King Ace’s crime fighting partner. He’s the brains of the pair and resents being referred to as a sidekick. The guy has a very short fuse. He’s much slighter and shorter than King Ace. His power is the ability to phase through solid objects. He can maintain the phasing stage only through tremendous concentration. Fazer wears an all-over suit that hides his face entirely. The suit is made of leather as Fazer can only phase organic materials. Fazer is Hapa, with a white father and a Filipino mother.
The amazing thing to me is how, in just two issues, Chuck has already managed to create intriguing characters with distinct individuality and complex personal relationships. It is no wonder he is considered a comics legend. And yes, if you think you recognize the artist’s signature, it is indeed the gentleman you have in mind. He is illustrating CHUCK DIXON’S AVALON #1.
I would have tweeted this link out, but Twitter suspended the ArkhavenComics account as soon as it was created, before we’d even had the chance to upload a logo for the profile. So, we’ll be posting our regular social media announcements on the AltHeroComic Facebook page and leaving any Twitter repostings up to the fans.
However, what Capn Cummings fails to realize is that I also believe in winning by being objectively superior to the competition, regardless of what they happen to be, and by thinking beyond the conventional assumptions. That’s why my band recorded four Billboard Top 40 Club Chart hits. That’s why my game development house went 6x platinum with our fourth game. That’s why Castalia House already publishes some of the best science fiction and fantasy in the genre, and why Arkhaven’s debut digital comic book was the #1 New Release on Kindle.
I don’t care about comic books. But I care deeply about Arkhaven becoming the very best publisher of the best-written, most popular comic books and graphic novels in the comics industry. I expect excellence from everyone involved in the project, including myself. Sure, we fall short. Sure, we have no clue what we’re doing yet. It took me 12 tries to get Kindle Comic Creator to simply kick out a working .mobi file without crashing first. I still don’t really understand what flatting is or why it is necessary.
So what? I don’t need to know. I certainly don’t need to care. I just need to stay out of the way of the experts with whom I’m surrounding myself, and to whom I’m handing over the responsibility to do it right. I’m not afraid to bring on better writers than me, to hire the very best artists and colorists we can find, and more importantly, to listen to the substantive criticism and seek to continuously improve.
If you compare the first print editions that Castalia published to the most recent ones, the differences are striking. Even though all the same people are involved, we have improved with almost every single book of the 60 we’ve produced so far. It’s an iterative process. And that means the comics we are now producing are almost certainly the very worst we will ever produce.
Let me give you an example. I watched a video review of QUANTUM MORTIS A Man Disrupted #1: By the Book yesterday. The reviewer made a good point about how we had no text-indicators of sound effects; in other words, no BIFF BANG BOOM! So, I talked to the artist right after I finished watching the video and now issue #2 will have them. On the other hand, the reviewer also made a point about the lack of action in the first issue, which made me laugh for reasons that anyone who has read the novel will understand. That’s a “problem” that doesn’t need to be addressed and will take care of itself as the story continues.
But as for those who wring their hands over politics, well, I couldn’t care less what they think. They obviously haven’t even bothered to look at anything we’ve done in the comic space so far, let alone read any of my novels. Yes, there will be politics in some of our comics, but because we are not SJWs, we are not afraid to present opposing perspectives fairly and use the conflict to generate interesting plots and storylines and characters. Can anyone honestly say that Captain Europa is an unfair representation of a certain perspective that I most certainly do not share?
It’s more disappointing than anything to see criticism this uninformed and insubstantial, not because it hurts anyone’s feelings, but because it is literally useless. However, it is a good sign, because it is an indicator that interest in what we are doing is beginning to grow. Of course, the insecure professionals will do their usual OMG LOL THIS IS SO TERRIBLE THING while we proceed to demonstrate the total irrelevance of their esoteric expertise.
This review is precisely why I pay no attention to the professionals in the comics industry. Their sales are plummeting. Their channels are dying. Their industry is hopelessly converged. Their stories are lightweight, superficial, and boring, and they can’t successfully develop any interesting new characters. They are clearly doing something wrong, and yet, their first reaction to a first effort that is not only doing something different, but is literally the #1 New Release on Amazon is to smugly denounce it as awful. The SF professionals reacted exactly the same way when they smugly denounced the awfulness of my “vanity publishing house” three years ago. It’s going to be amusing to watch Ethan’s videos on the subject one year from now… or rather, to observe when he abruptly falls silent just like File 770 and the SF-SJWs have.
I’m not at all upset by Ethan’s honest, fair, and very negative review of QMAMD #1. Quite to the contrary, I am extremely pleased by it. Here is why: it confirms is that what we are doing is taking a fundamentally different approach to comic book storytelling than the standard presently being utilized by the industry as a whole. That suggests that we will either fail completely or we will succeed well beyond anyone’s expectations. And the initial response to QMAMD #1 is a very early sign of the latter.
So, stick to drawing, Ethan, and leave the storytelling to the real writers instead of the cheap wannabes in your industry. I can tell that you know nothing about how to tell an absorbing story that will hold a reader’s interest over time. The fact that you genuinely think nothing happened in Issue #1 and can’t understand the significance of the history page simply demonstrates the extreme superficiality of your perspective. I note that you are confusing the utilization of action to grab the short-lived attention of the attention-deficit-disordered reader with genuine storytelling. The two are not synonymous; only the inferior storyteller needs to rely on cheap pyrotechnics to hold his reader’s attention. In my opinion, that stupid “show don’t tell” philosophy is part of why comics are dying.
I was particularly amused by the idea expressed by some of his commenters that Quantum Mortis is some sort of Bladerunner ripoff. It’s not. It can’t be. I’ve never seen any of the Bladerunner movies and the books have literally nothing in common with the PKD novel on which the movies were based. FFS, anyone who knows anything about me knows that Quantum Mortis is Traveller.
UPDATE: I thought this comment was particularly amusing: “Part of the problem is that he seems to have approached it like a print writer doing the prologue for a book rather than a superhero comic book writer doing a first issue.”
What planet do you have to be orbiting to conclude that the graphic novelization of a military science fiction mystery should be more like a superhero comic book? I am genuinely curious to discover on what lunatic grounds these critics are going to attack our first Wodehouse issue.
They aren’t on your side and the Arab logic of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” does not apply to them, because they are not truly the enemy of the Left. They are the Left’s lapdogs and they absolutely love to signal their virtue by attacking anyone seen by others as being “on their side.”
I wish I could say it was surprising. Ever since I created Alt★Hero, people were telling me that I should get in touch with the Diversity & Comics guy, that he was “really good on SJWs” and so forth. I was dubious but I followed him on Twitter and sent him an email about the Freestartr campaign, and it soon became evident that he was as useless as Mitch McConnell. Sure enough, he eventually revealed his true moderate colors.
Ethan Van Scriver Some Alt Right individuals are condemning me for helping to create so many “diverse” characters while also seeming to be against SJW comics. Well, dudes, quiet down. I believe in creating representative characters. They simply need to be good. Mine are. So Pbbbbblt!
Seth Englehardt I remember arguing against one of those. Dude thought that the Alt-Hero Kickstarter was precisely what I wanted from comics. No, we don’t want political propaganda from ANY side.
Ethan Van Scriver Alt Hero is a mess. Dude raised so much money from people wanting less Far Left Wing politics in comics and he wants to spend it to create Far Right Wing comics? How about just good comics?? Why does everything have to be aggressively agitating?
Diversity & Comics ALT*HERO is RE*TARDED
They’re such quality critics, they don’t even need to wait for anything to be released in order to criticize it. And to think people wonder why I simply ignore everything these type of people advise. (Before you say something patently absurd, please understand that people often email things to me. I’ve never even heard of the other two guys.)
As for the “representative characters” argument, that’s one of the proto-SJW arguments. It’s so old that I remember it being used by early SJWs to justify statistically improbable appearances by minorities in college yearbooks back in the 1990s. The best example of this was when the University of Wisconsin-Madison actually photoshopped a black student into a photograph used in their application materials back in 2000; they wanted an image that would be “representative.”
But speaking of comics, we will have not one, not two, but THREE related announcements later today. Which is to say, if you are a Castalia House Book Club member, check your email… but don’t discuss it here.
We’re just about ready to proceed with our first print tests and we’ve already successfully constructed our first digital comic book, which is Quantum Mortis #1. We’re also very close to wrapping up the inkings on the first Alt★Hero and Avalon comics, so we should be in pretty good shape to hit our February time frame.
We probably won’t wait for the first print edition to come out before putting QM #1 up on Amazon; the question is whether to utilize KDP, Comixology, or both. KDP is a slam-dunk for us, so I’d be interested in hearing how many of you who read digital comics use one store versus the other. Amazon owns both of them, so the difference will ultimately be moot, but for now we have to decide between KDP + Comixology, KDP + KU, or just KDP. I don’t see much benefit to KU with a 24-page comic, but then, this is an experiment and there is only one way to learn, right?
The digital version looks pretty snappy, I have to say. We chose a slightly larger font to make sure it was legible, and the bright colors really pop off the tablet screen. We’re breaking more than a few of the “rules” of modern comics here, particularly as it relates to the “less text more detailed pictures”, but then, what is the point of following the lead of people who are presently engaged in falling from the cliff from which they have leaped? The amusing thing about the “rules” is that a Marvel executive has publicly declared that there simply aren’t any artists whose names are significant enough to sell a comic on their own.
As always, it is the stories that matter, not the trappings that permit them to be told. And after the stories comes the characters. Whether the medium is visual or textual, there are always technicians who insist that the technical details are the most important element in determining success. And, as always, their self-serving assertions are totally incorrect.
Of course, we anticipate Quantum Mortis will be warmly embraced by SJWs celebrating the fact that the attractive Detector Derin Hildreth – an actual woman – is a primary character. Are we not all about the diversity?
We’re continuing to make steady progress on Alt★Hero. We expect to have two 24-page comics out in digital and print in late February, plus two other Arkhaven 24-pagers, Quantum Mortis #1 and Right Ho #1, as I’ve been informed that inking is complete on both Avalon #1 and Alt★Hero #1. We also anticipate publishing print editions of one or two Dark Legion graphic novels in that time frame.
The digital editions will be delivered to all the relevant backers via download codes, the print editions will not, but the pages from them will be included in the 150-page printed graphic novels that will be delivered to all of the relevant backers later this year. We will make the 24-page print editions available via our Castalia Direct store; they will also be available on Amazon, in traditional bookstores, and the comic stores that sign up to carry Arkhaven comics.
I haven’t spoken much about the third line of the Alt★Hero universe, the military one, but we do have an interesting storyline there that involves KA-FOR engaging an elite team of Chinese superhero assassins known as The Gods of Peaceful Sleep. Being assassins, the Gods seldom go around wearing their uniforms, but they do wear body armor beneath their civilian clothing, as can be seen above.
What, you might ask, is KA-FOR? The clue is in the name.
Meanwhile, Marvel continues to pare its losses by cancelling more of its SJW-converged failures:
For those keeping score, here are the ongoing titles that were part of the Marvel Legacy publishing initiative that will be facing the chopping block:
Generation X Guardians of the Galaxy Hawkeye Iceman Jean Grey Luke Cage Royals Secret Warriors She-Hulk The Unbelievable Gwenpool U.S. Avengers Uncanny Avengers
If I was a betting man, I think we’re going to be seeing a lot more Marvel books getting the axe before the summer. If I had to guess, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw the end of the following titles:
Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider Black Bolt Falcon Monsters Unleashed She-Hulk
They haven’t learned anything, of course. This is just a temporary retreat intended to stop the bleeding. And I wonder how much praise we’ll receive from the media for actually featuring genuinely diverse characters such as the Gods? None at all, I expect. Which is fine, because they’re not there for the sake of diversity, they are there because the story requires deadly superhumans in the employ of the Red Army.
Comic stores are feeling the consequences. A well-respected Chicago store called Challengers Comics regularly releases its annual numbers:
We are down 6.8{1a9740d54aaadd1290ec59721f654a3d9aaf924aeae0d9d35ee2fe84bc4370ea} from 2016, and this is our lowest yearly total since 2013. October and December took the biggest hits. Overall it’s as if our 2017 only had 11 months of sales. We were down $21,000 in single-issue Marvel sales alone. And in comparison… DC was up $2000.
The DC Rebirth made it clear that Batman is a transgender ally, and his main comic books are keeping that support alive. Even now, it’s possible that devoted fans of Batman comics missed Bruce Wayne’s stance on the issue – which was the entire point. The company-wide relaunch brought a Rebirth to Batman’s title series, while he united the rest of the Batman Family in the pages of Detective Comics. That team ended up being led by Batwoman, one of the most visible LGBTQ comic heroes. But it also introduced a new, openly transgender scientist to the DC Universe: Dr. Victoria October.
At the time, we couldn’t help but appreciate that Batman supported Victoria’s transition, mentioned and alluded to in vocabulary that non-LGBTQ readers could completely miss. But those in the community would see the exact message being sent by writers James Tynion IV and Marguerite Bennett. In the months since that issue, Detective has kept the conversation going. But as other comic titles and publishers battle the opposing forces of readers calling for diversity and those who claim it’s more marketing spin than progress, Detective is deserving of praise.
I’m not even going to pretend I’m not very pleased to see this. But not, you understand, for the same reasons as DC’s media cheerleaders. Let’s face it, there are few things comics readers enjoy more than witty banter about preferred pronouns.
