Tag: Arkhaven

Darkhaven Nights

Since JDA is too frightened to discuss the incredible expose I’ve got on Gene Roddenberry and the occult tonight, I’ll be streaming a solo DARKHAVEN NIGHT tonight. And among other things, we’ll be discussing a) the origin story of your favorite Dark Lord and b) Larry Correia’s threatened foray into Romantasy, as covered by Fandom Pulse.

Why would he defend a smut genre when it has no place in a trade marketplace like Amazon? Selling well does not equate value, and Romantasy has objectively destroyed the fantasy genre, and pushed male readers out of bookstores, as Correia has noted in his complaint that he’s not #1.

One can tell it’s not about the values of what books have quality or anything, but simply about what sells with Correia, as he posits making his own romantasy series in a passive-aggressive response afterward. While it’s a funny idea, it’s likely one that wouldn’t go well for Correia if he did decide to write these.

#Bestselling Military Sci-Fi, Political Philosophy, and Genetic Sciences author Vox Day commented on whether this tack would work, “Anyone who’s ever read Larry’s books knows that he doesn’t know the first thing about the realities of male-female relations.”

It’s true that romantasy readers would not likely enjoy Larry Correia’s self-insert Gary Stu beta male character “getting the girl” over the slick alpha as he wrote in his Monster Hunter International series. If anything, they probably would be disappointed that the female character didn’t end up with the monsters he hunts.

Don’t get me wrong, I, personally, would very much love to see Larry Correia write a romantasy novel. I think it would be absolutely hilarious. I’m also confident that women would hate, hate, hate it with the passion of ten thousand sexy vampires staked out to burn to a crisp under a hot afternoon sun.

I mean, what woman doesn’t fantasize about a regular, competent nice guy who is too intimidated by female beauty to pursue women directly, but tries to gain their attention by showing how he is pure of heart and good at his job.

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The End of Hollywood

Fandom Pulse contemplates the significance of what was demonstrated yesterday with the animated ATOB:

Big Hollywood animation budgets start at $100 million. Traditional 2D animation outsourced to South Korea or the Philippines runs into the tens of thousands per minute for anything at broadcast quality. That economic wall has kept independent animated projects in development hell for decades, talented creators with great source material who simply couldn’t afford to make the thing move. That wall just cracked.

Any indie comic artist sitting on years of finished panels now has a direct pipeline to animation at a fraction of traditional production costs. The storyboard problem, normally one of the most expensive phases of animation pre-production, is already solved. It’s called their back catalog.

The quality ceiling will keep rising as the models improve. Seedance 2.0 is one iteration. Whatever comes next will handle model collapse better, bridge shots more smoothly, and push output closer to broadcast standard without human cleanup. Day’s timeline revision from 18-24 months to “now” happened in a single experimental session. That pace doesn’t slow down.

Arkhaven has a deep library. A Throne of Bones, Midnight’s War, Alt-Hero, years of finished panels that are now, in practical terms, an animation pipeline waiting to be switched on. Day’s confidence that this becomes a feature film isn’t bravado. The math supports it.

It’s not there yet, but it’s coming, and it’s coming fast. And Arkhaven will be more than ready for it.

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Baby Steps

AI video is not quite there, but it’s definitely getting closer. Here is a 2-minute video I put together out of Seedance 2.0 clips based on the script for THE GHOSTS OF BANGKOK. The audio is dreadful, there are massive inconsistencies from 5-second clip to 5-second clip, and there is more prompt censorship than I anticipated, but the results are fairly impressive nevertheless.

Working on an ATOB comic clip next.

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Arkhaven Goes Wide

We’re introducing a new feature on Arkhaven: Subscriber Rewards.

This gives comics reators a way to connect Arkhaven perks to membership systems they already run elsewhere. If a creator already has a subscription, membership, or supporter setup outside Arkhaven, they can now use it to offer benefits here for early-access and comment privileges.

The creators control the terms. They decide what rewards to offer, what they cost, and who gets access. That can mean anything from a paid reward to a free bonus for readers who check in on a favorite series. To help manage this, Arkhaven also now includes a minimalistic Message Center where creators and readers can handle subscription-related questions, requests, and approvals in one place.

Arkhaven is not part of the financial transaction and does not charge anything for hosting the comic or facilitating the rewards at this time. The creator handles payment through their own system and makes the final call on reward access for their series. So if a reader has questions about payment, eligibility, pricing, or approval, those questions should go to the creator offering the reward.

This is the first version of Subscriber Rewards, and we plan to keep building on it. More reward types and more ways for creators to use them are on the way.

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Last Day for Based Books

Last day to get some of the two hundred fifty books in the 2025 Summer Based Book Sale for $0.99 or free!

I think Midnight’s War fans will be very pleased to know that the sequel to OUT OF THE SHADOWS is already underway and A MERCILESS NIGHT will be published a) after SIGMA GAME is published and b) much sooner than you would ever expect from the author who took seven years to write the sequel to A THRONE OF BONES.

In fact, I’ve already got the covers for book 2 and book 3 done, and it is only with an iron will that might be envied by Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici himself that I refrain from sharing them with you. But I can assure, they are, in a word, magnificent.

Also, if anyone has typos or errata for OUT OF THE SHADOWS, please send me a text file with them ASAP. We’d like to start getting the print editions together. We’ll also be sure to get the ebook out to the remaining Signed First Edition backers this week.

From OUT OF THE SHADOWS:

October 31st, 3:45 PM PST

Elliott stood before the wall of monitors in HemaTech’s windowless executive conference room, watching the final confirmations stream in from distribution centers around the globe…

“Mr. Grahame?” Natalie’s voice pulled him from his calculations. “David Porter is here.”

Elliott turned to see The Wall Street Journal reporter standing in the doorway, looking considerably sharper than he had three months ago. The success of his HemaTech exposé had elevated him to journalism’s highest tier—a Pulitzer nomination, a book deal, and frequent television appearances on multiple cable networks. The man who’d uncovered the life-extension breakthrough of the century now wore an expensive suit and carried himself with a new degree of confidence.

“David,” Elliott said, gesturing to a chair facing the largest monitor. “Thank you for coming.”

“After what the first story on HemaTech did for me? I’d have flown to Antarctica if you’d asked.” Porter sat, pulling out his phone with practiced ease. “Lorenzo told me there would be another story, something even bigger. I have to admit, I can’t imagine what could possibly be bigger than the life extension you’ve already announced.”

“You’re about to find out,” Elliott said, glancing at his watch again. “In approximately thirteen minutes.”

Porter leaned forward, intrigued. “That sounds unusually specific.”

“Very specific indeed.” Elliott moved to the monitor controls, bringing up a feed from the BBC. The regular programming continued, oblivious to what was coming. “You’ll recall that three months ago, I gave you the initial story about HemaTech’s breakthrough. Tonight, you’re going to learn exactly why we turned down Blackrock and the IPO.”

“I thought it was about profit and control of the technology,” Porter said. “What we turned up—”

“Your investigation was entirely accurate, insofar as it went,” Elliott interrupted. “But it was rather like describing an iceberg based on what can be seen above the water. The real story, the larger purpose that HemaTech now serves, is about to come to light.”

Natalie moved silently around the room, dimming lights and activating additional monitors. Each screen showed a different news channel from around the world—CNN, Al Jazeera, NHK, Deutsche Welle. All continuing their regular programming, their anchors unaware that their teleprompters would soon display words that would shatter human civilization’s most fundamental assumptions.

“You’re making me downright nervous, Elliott,” Porter said, though his tone carried more excitement than anxiety. “The last time someone promised me the story of the century, it turned out to be exactly that.”

“You should be. This isn’t the story of the century,” Elliott said quietly. “It’s the story of the last several millennia. And of the centuries to come.”

The clock on the wall read 11:52 PM Greenwich Mean Time. Eight minutes.

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The Dark Side of Star Trek

Star Trek was always problematic, and not just because of Gene Roddenberry’s alarming enthusiasm for young girls’ underwear, as the Dark Herald observes its intellectual roots at Arkhaven.

A bunch of scientists, engineers and assorted smartasses got together and create a new organization dedicated to conquering the world and running it with enlightened scientific centrally planned totality. No politics needed because there will be no dissent at all — after all, how can you dissent from the perfection of science?

This is called a “Technocracy.”

In Wells’ horrible dream of the future this organization was called the Modern State Movement, (The movie version was called Wings Over the World). From their base in Basra, the self-proclaimed Air Dictatorship begins a campaign to bring order to the world by force, suppressing warlike “backward” national regimes and establishing a unified, rational, scientific world order. And they were dressed like BUF Black Shirts with breast plates.

They impose global peace, eliminate national sovereignty, abolish all traditional political systems, and construct a universal education program designed to create scientifically minded citizens, (yeah nothing bad can come from that).

All religion is suppressed… Of course

Family structures are destroyed — this is the big one for all of the totalitarian movements. The state is what raises the kids, not their parents. The state is what teaches children their governing values, not their families. Marriage is a very temporary and ephemeral matter, both sides are urged to move on from it as quickly as possible. And depending on how honest the technocrats are being about it — incest is to be encouraged.

Material abundance returns through centralized planning and technological management. The world eventually becomes a world state — stable, secular, regimented, paternalistic, eternal and it sounds like my idea of Hell on Earth. This is a world governed by Madelaine L’Engle’s IT.

From Things to Come, you can trace a straight line through to Doctor Who to Asimov’s Foundation to 1960s liberal utopianism, and Walt Disney’s original plan for EPCOT.

A long time ago, I started writing what Nick Cole described as STAR WARS NOT STAR WARS with a co-writer. He was going to write STAR TREK NOT STAR TREK with a co-writer at the same time. But mine didn’t work out, for a variety of reasons, and Nick and Jason ended up writing STAR WARS NOT STAR WARS themselves, which was eventually published as GALAXY’S EDGE and worked out rather well for them.

It’s rather amusing that people in SF/F keep trying to cancel my science fiction career, when I am more than adept at sabotaging it myself. Did I ever mention that I turned down Blizzard and Simon & Schuster when they approved my outline for the first STARCRAFT novel and asked me to write it? The lesson, as always is this: just shut up, write what they want you to write, and stop getting in your own way.

But the Dark Herald’s piece does give me an excellent idea… albeit one that will likely make JDA very, very sad.

In other writing news, I’ll be sending the OUT OF THE SHADOWS ebook to the Signed First Edition backers, the original MW ebook backers, and putting it up on Amazon this week. It will also be available as part of the Based Books Sale for everyone else. The paperback will be sent out to the MIDNIGHT’S WAR Vol. 7-12 backers along with THE TRAGEDY OF THE TRIBUNE omnibus both of them are ready.

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An Unmitigated Disaster

Hollywood has run out of magic tricks to conceal the fact that its raging didacticism isn’t entertaining.

The summer movie season, the biggest and most important for the industry, was an unmitigated disaster. The least attended, after adjusting for inflation, of any summertime period since 1981. That’s nearly 45 years ago.

The United States in 1981 also had roughly 110 million fewer people living in it. And there were fewer people at the movies this summer than that year. This is a five-alarm fire for Hollywood, no matter what they say about box office records of reaching certain hurdles of box office revenue year in and year out.

This October saw just $445 million in total box office. The last pre-COVID October saw roughly $1 billion in ticket sales. What’s behind all this, and what can be done to fix it?

Well, one of the big problems is that Hollywood made itself into a political activist organization. Stars, personalities and creative talent have spent much of the past decade telling more than half the country that they hate them and despise their way of life. That doesn’t help. They’ve prioritized subject matter with miniscule appeal instead of the broad, successful comedies and dramas of the past.

The COVID lockdowns supported by the industry also decimated moviegoing. Audiences stayed home, waiting for streaming services, instead of buying tickets to go to the theater. Then, in the aftermath, the industry chasing short-term streaming service gains, shortened the window between theatrical releases hitting, say, Disney+.

That’s all created incentives for people to simply wait a few weeks or a month for a non-event movie to hit the internet. So films are losing money at the box office, then hitting streaming where the return on investment is substantially worse for studios. It’s a mess.

One of the biggest factors? Quality has inarguably dropped.

Marvel Studios, one of the most reliable factories of mid-level entertainment, abandoned its formulas in favor of hitting specific quotients and targets based on political priorities. It backfired, spectacularly. Bomb after bomb followed their about face. Disney animation and Pixar churned out low-quality progressive slop, undermining their hard-won reputations. Now, outside of sequels, most audiences have stopped giving them the benefit of the doubt.

I’m seeing a little bit of this from the inside of late. It’s clear that Hollywood is essentially one giant herd mentality with a hive mind, if you’ll excuse the mixed metaphors. Everyone is afraid to step outside of the ever-shrinking box, so it’s becoming increasingly impossible to simply tell a straightforward story capable of entertaining anyone.

Fan service in sequels and familiar beats in remakes is all they had left to offer, and that well has apparently run dry. Fortunately, the collapse of Hollywood and the rise of AI is going to create a fantastic opportunity for UATV and Arkhaven, so if you’re not already on board with both, this is the time, because the ride is just getting rolling.

A frame from a video render of Midnight’s War.

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Big Sale Next Week

So, a few things to let everyone know about in the leadup to the annual Castalia Library and Castalia House Thanksgiving sale. We’re going to have a number of Arkhaven and Castalia House products on sale at the NDM site as well as the Library and Libraria books, and we’ll have Library, Libraria, and Junior Classics on sale at the Arkhaven store. So, you’ll definitely want to check out both sites, although I’ll try to have a post with links to everything here.

The Based Book ebook sale is also coming up, and we’ll keep you posted on that too.

Now, we also have an offer for MIDNIGHT’S WAR backers. For a variety of reasons, mostly relating to artists, we’re not going to be doing the planned 7-12 issue anytime soon. However, what we are offering both paperback and hardcover backers as a substitute is the following:

  1. Your choice of any Arkhaven omnibus of the same length of 140+ pages
  2. The soon-to-be-released THE TRAGEDY OF THE TRIBUNE: A Throne of Bones Issue 1, which is now complete, 150 full-color pages, and includes stories from A Throne of Bones and Summa Elvetica. We never crowdfunded this one, but it was illustrated by Midnight’s War illustrator Ademir Leal and colored by Blond, so it’s absolutely top quality.
  3. We’ll also include a complimentary ebook and paperback edition of the now-complete Midnight’s War novel OUT OF THE SHADOWS for all of the affected MW backers.

I’ll send out an email tomorrow to all of the MW 7-12 backers so everyone can let me know their preference. We still plan to tackle it someday, but it’s so far out of the schedule at this point that we don’t want to leave those backers hanging any longer. The leather edition backers are unaffected; we will still be releasing that as well as NIGHT STREETS soon, as it is complete.

And finally, since we decided to do the larger edition of Hypergamouse for the coffee table backers, we’re going to be offering the smaller ones, which are probably some of the highest-quality traditional horizontal comic books ever produced, for sale to anyone who wants one until the 150 or so copies that we’ve got run out.

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Leveling Up

On last night’s Darkstream, after discussing the recent unmasking of longtime civic nationalists as the foreign ethnonationalists they truly are, I demonstrated some interesting AI technologies that I’m optimistic will allow Arkhaven to start putting up digital shorts on UATV soon. Here are two examples of screenshots, not rendered images, screenshots from a digital video, based on the lead character of the Black Warrant comic.

And below it are two screenshots taken from a digital video from Midnight’s War. Notice that while the scene is familiar, neither image is a specific image that you’ve seen before from the comics, they are from the videos produced using those images as starting points.

If this is the sort of project you’d be interested in volunteering for – which would require getting your own subscriptions to one or more AI services – feel free to mention that in the comments on SG. And if its the sort of thing you’d like to help support, please subscribe to UATV.

To be clear, this is NOT related to the Black Warrant project for which The Legend and I completed the script yesterday. That’s a traditional film project with a studio, a producer, and the works which we are not going to be financing. But the current state of the technology, combined by our vast library of comic art, suggests to me that the time for micro-episodes and eventually episodes of longer stories is now dawning.

It feels rather like where we were with AI music about this time last year. And if you watched last night’s Darkstream, it’s easy to see how far that has come in the last 12 months.

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