Tag: Arkhaven

The Books Must Flow

First thing: the new Castalia Library book for March-April 2025 has been announced.

Second thing: DRACULA is being bound. SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON and ASOS 1 and ASOS 2 are being printed. We’ll keep you posted on when they’ve a) been approved and b) are ready to ship.

Third thing: We’ve finally completed the move from the second bindery space to the third one. This was absolutely necessary because the 50-ton foil stamper did not fit in the building. We are now testing our third and fourth glues, and we are optimistic that one of them will be the right one.

Fourth thing: We know we’ve built up a backlog, but we’re not quite as behind schedule as it seems because most of the interiors and the designs are done. We’ve delayed getting them made because we want to know what the full range of our bindery options are, as there were benefits and problems to each of them, even before the new tariffs became a potential issue. The point is, don’t worry, we will catch up fast once all of the necessary details are nailed down.

Fifth thing: The fancy-dancy HYPERGAMOUSE cover proof will arrive on Friday. Once it’s approved, the paperback, hardcover, variants, and book blocks will be printed.

Sixth thing: We’re close enough that we’ve started putting together the interior of THE ILIAD. It’s going to be an original layout with illustrations leading every chapter. It promises to be spectacular. More about it later this week on the Library substack.

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The Legend at Work

A WORKING MAN, starring Jason Statham, will be coming out March 25th. It’s based on The Legend Chuck Dixon’s first Levon Cade novel, Levon’s Trade, was adapted for film by Sylvester Stallone himself, and based on the trailer, appears to be pretty faithful to the novel.

Dixon. Statham. Stallone.

That’s a lot of testosterone right there.

It’s got at least one killer line in it too.

“You a cop?”

It looks like a quality action flick of the sort that Schwarzenegger and company used to make, with the trademark Dixonian working man hero. Should be fun!

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Space Morons

Games Workshop tries to claim ownership of a concept that existed long before the company itself:

Games Workshop, the company that owns Warhammer, is attempting to shut down Jon Del Arroz’s Space Marine comic claiming he is infringing on the company’s trademark. In a post to X, Del Arroz, the co-owner and founder of Fandom Pulse, shared an email sent to crowdfunding website FundMyComic demanding Del Arroz’s The Emerald Array comic be removed from its website.

Fund My Comic’s Founder and operator Luke Stone informed Del Arroz via email that he has no plans to remove the comic or graphic novel from the site. He told Del Arroz, “At this time, the campaign will remain active on our platform. Our preliminary evaluation indicates that while the campaign may contain derivative works, it does not appear to infringe on any trademarks owned by the requesting party.”

It’s an absurd attempt to expand an already-questionable trademark. In fact, the trademark is so questionable that I suspect if Games Workshop were to take anyone to court, even someone infringing upon the protected space of “video computer games, computer software for playing games” it would find itself at risk of losing a trademark it probably should never have been awarded in the first place, just as the Arthur Conan Doyle estate lost its Sherlock Holmes trademark following a misguided attempt to prevent an author from “violating” it.

There are eight hours left in the campaign, so you can still back it if you haven’t already. And while it’s not an Arkhaven crowdfund, Arkhaven Comics will be publishing the retail editions.

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Arkhaven, The Legend, and Levon Cade

Fandom Pulse has an exclusive on Arkhaven Comics and Chuck Dixon getting the crew back together to turn Levon’s Trade, aka A Working Man starring Jason Statham, into a graphic novel.

Chuck Dixon wowed the world in early January when the trailer or A Working Man dropped, a new film based on his Levon Cade novels. Now, he’s partnering with Arkhaven Comics to adapt the first novel, Levon’s Trade into a graphic novel.

While Chuck Dixon is well known for his comic book work as a legendary creator of Bane in the Batman lore, and as one of if not the most prolific writers of all time, until Jasom Statham was announced as Levon Cade for the new film, A Working Man, many didn’t know that Dixon was also an accomplished novelist with several works, including a twelve-book series with Levon Cade.

The first book, Levon’s Trade boasts a 4.4 star average rating on Amazon with more than 700 reviews, a very popular installment for the author. A new review by Douglas Marolla calls the series “great” and highlights the character work Dixon put into not only Cade, but several of the supporting characters.

A Working Man has so much buzz already that comedians are incorporating the film into their routines, with poignant commentary on Jason Statham’s past roles combined with this one.

Arkhaven will announce a crowdfunding campaign for this and another much-anticipated Chuck Dixon project, but not until after the standard Hypergamouse books ship out to the backers.

A working man’s life is often hard.

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Beginning with a Bang

The Dark Herald has taken his talents to the Arkhaven substack, and he’s gotten off to a blistering start with a comparison of Neil Gaiman’s derivative work to the woman from whose work he derived it:

One is the real deal and the other is a cheap knockoff of the original. 

There is a Swiss Rolex and there is a Bangkok Rolex. There is Classic Coke and there is Sam’s Cola.  There is the Mona Lisa in the Louvre and the one on Cousin Jimbo’s velvet blanket.

There is Tannith Lee and there is Neil Gaiman. 

This has become vastly apparent to me this weekend while reading Night’s Master. It’s a funny thing about writers, we all have that one writer that made us want to write for a living.  While learning the craft we discover our strengths and limitations.  Some of us will eventually discover that we have surpassed our masters.  In bitter truth, most of us will discover that we can’t due to the limitations of our innate talents but those who face this unpleasant realization do not resent the writer who inspired us. 

Mostly. 

Gamma males, on the other hand, live in a world blanketed by their resentments and can never bring themselves to give credit where it’s due. It’s too painful a truth to acknowledge.  How can I be the secret king when there is all too obviously a real king? John Scalzi has never given credit to Joe Haldeman for his influence on his early work, although it’s clearly there. Neil Gaiman’s disdain for Tanith Lee went all the way back to when he was doing literary reviews. By Lee’s account, (which I will take over Gaiman’s in a heartbeat), he was pleasant, fawning and even obsequious during his interview of her for the Guardian.  When he published his interview, Lee discovered that Gaiman had described her as “formerly attractive.”

On top of which, reportedly and according to Lee’s belief, he directly plagiarized entire paragraphs from her. I haven’t seen the direct evidence of the truth of the plagiarism yet, but I suspect that between the Dark Herald and me, we should be able to find it if, in fact, it exists. While I’m very familiar with the various tales of the Flat Earth, including the Secret Books of Paradys, which I own and have read repeatedly, and also own her Secret Books of Venus series, I’d never read a single Neil Gaiman work until after we launched Arkhaven and I was encouraged to read Sandman.

Which, you may recall from the streams I was doing at the time, struck me immediately as mediocre and derivative, as well as more than a little off-putting.

Anyhow, it’s no surprise that the Dark Herald is off to an excellent start at the Arkhaven substack. He’ll be blogging there henceforth, so if you’re accustomed to reading him at the store site, I’d encourage you to sign up for a free subscription there.

In other Arkhaven news, we received the test print of JDA’s Overmind omnibus from the new printer this weekend. The quality of the color printing is excellent, indeed, one could quite credibly say superlative. We’re placing an order for the initial print run of 75 leatherbound copies, so there will be a few extras available for sale when they’re ready. The Hypergamouse printing will soon follow. And two additional bonuses; the leatherbound comics will be sewn, and somewhat to my surprise, color edge printed.

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The Bad Road Not Taken

When Arkhaven Comics launched, we made a non-obvious decision to stay out of the comic stores and the traditional distribution system. This significantly slowed our growth and our exposure to potential customers, but it has proven, over time, to have been the right decision. The reason we can say that is because, as Fandom Pulse reports, the primary distributor of comics to the comics stores, Diamond Comic Distributors, filed for bankruptcy today:

Diamond Comic Distributors has been on the decline for years as the former monolith in comic book store distribution, but now a message from their CEO revealed the company is filing chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Dear Valued Customer, I’m writing to share one of the most challenging messages of my career. Earlier today, Diamond made the difficult but necessary decision to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This step is intended to stabilize our financial foundation and protect the most vital aspects of our business. This decision was not made lightly, and I understand that this news may be as difficult to hear as it is for me to share. The Diamond leadership team and I have worked tirelessly to avoid this outcome but the financial challenges we face have left us with no other viable option. Chapter 11 will provide us with the opportunity to restructure and address our financial obligations. This process will likely include the sale of key assets of Diamond Comic Distributors.

This means that there are a lot of publishers who are wondering if they are going to get paid for the comics they delivered to Diamond over the last six months. Fortunately, Arkhaven is not one of them.

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The Desperation of Backerkit

So, I received an email from Backerkit this morning, which tends to indicate the would-be crowdfunding platform is flailing and failing:

Hi,

Less than 3 days to go for HYPERGAMOUSE Volume 1! There’s still time to see a detailed breakdown of your pledges and reach out to your fans. Import your project to BackerKit Launch now to get stared.

Thanks,

The BackerKit Team

To which I replied, rather rudely, that they were collectively welcome to go and attempt to perform an anatomically-impossible task on themselves that involved sexual gratification. Which is not my usual wont, but then, this is the FOURTH time they have attempted to take advantage of Arkhaven’s very successful HYPERGAMOUSE Volume 1 campaign AFTER sending this email just a few hours before the campaign was scheduled to start.

Hello,

We are writing to inform you that after a thorough review of your project submission, BackerKit will not be able to approve your project “Hypergamouse Volume 1” for launch on our platform. This decision is based on documented association with content that violate our platform’s Crowdfunding Rules and Community Guidelines. 

 Specifically, BackerKit prohibits offensive material, both on-platform and off-platform, including hate speech, content promoting harm, discrimination, bigotry, or intolerance toward any marginalized or protected groups. Our guidelines state that we do not permit content or creators that engage in personal attacks, harassment, or the promotion of harmful ideologies, including those that may be seen as discriminatory.

 This decision is final. If you have further questions, you may submit an inquiry at trustandsafety@backerkit.com or in an email response here.

Regards,

Dave Alvarez-Villalpando

Head of Trust & Safety @ BackerKit

So, no, Dave and company, Arkhaven will not import any of our very successful projects to Backerkit. Furthermore, we are actively recommending that our wide variety of creators stay very far away from SJW-converged Backerkit and instead utilize FundMyComic or Kickstarter, since neither of those platforms ban anyone for mere off-platform “association” with content that violates their rules, instead of content that actually violates their rules.

Furthermore, this belated attempt at snaking business that they already turned down comes AFTER they promised to cease all future communications.

“This is to inform you that the recent communication you received was automated. Your project’s launch status has been updated from the draft status to “deactivated.” As a result, all further communications related to this project has been disabled.”

Sure it has. The evidence proves otherwise. Anyhow, all of this is irrelevant since there are just 60 hours to go. Join the 687 backers and help Arkhaven spike the football in the face of the SJWs who tried to shut down Hypergamouse, but failed, because the ride never ends.

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