Tag: Steampunk Fridays

Steampunk Friday – Interview with the creators of The Invention of E.J. Whitaker

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In scouring the web for Steampunk comics sometimes you hit upon one that you are interested in, but have completely missed the Kickstarter for. Even so, I felt compelled to give it a Kickstart the Comic treatment. At the same time, I reached out to the women behind the comic for an interview and with the official release of the comic today, it seems like a great time to catch up with Shawnee´Gibbs and Shawnelle Gibbs.

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How long have you been creating/working in comics?

SHAWNEE´: Shawnelle and I have been working in comics since 2011 when we started writing our comedic sci-fi series “Fashion Forward.” We’d been working in independent animation before that and comic books just felt like a natural step, since we loved telling stories through art. In addition to the “Fashion Forward” series, we’ve written short stories for anthologies, including several for Graham Cracker Comic’s Ladies Night Anthology, a great women in comics organization based out of Chicago. 

At what point did you sit down to become writers? Do you remember the first thing you wrote?

SHAWNEE´: When we were kids in elementary school, we’d staple together lined paper and create our own little homemade comics to sell to kids for a quarter. I remember those stories being about cartoon characters, not unlike the animated shows we were seeing on tv at the time. Imagining fictional worlds and writing about them was something that began early for us. It was an awesome way of entertaining ourselves and our friends and a surprisingly great way to make candy money. 

Who inspires you? Or do you have a favorite artist or creator?

SHAWNELLE: We are inspired heavily by our mother, who set us on this path with her eternal love of illustration and stories and our strong desire not to bring shame upon her head (laughs). Octavia Butler who we discovered in our youth, and whose stories spoke to our souls, and the work and careers of a host of writers and artists such as Vera Brogosol, Nnedi Okorafor, Sonny Liew, Vashti Harrison, and the list goes on and on. In terms of our own work, Shawnee and I are forever inspired by life itself, history and the human condition. We’re constantly getting hit with shocks of inspiration, our notes applications in our phones are a laundry list of thoughts and ideas for stories and projects.

How do you manage your daily/family life with your creative work? Is this your 9 to 5 or is this your 10 to 2?

SHAWNELLE: We’re still working on it, actually. I think it’s a lifelong process. Shawnee and I don’t have families of our own at the moment, but it’s something we constantly think about, carving out time to stop and smell the roses and spend time with our partners, friends, and families. We both make our living in creative and demanding jobs, and write and produce our own content independent of that. It helps to have the resources to take trips and take breaks when we can, it’s just a matter of taking breaks. We both have incorporated sacred time for meditation and stillness that has been really helpful to how we approach the days and weeks. Having a partner to help get the check-off list of things to do helps tremendously as well. So that when we need to tap out for a day or two, there’s someone there to carry the torch.

Working with your sister has to be both amazing and bring an entirely different set of challenges. What’s your process look like when you’re writing? Do you go with the full outline? Or are you a fly by the seat of your pants type?

SHAWNELLE: Having some level of organization and a plan when it comes to writing has always been a big part of our process. But when we first started writing together, we’d outline together and then try and sit down at one computer and write together as a team….and….it was difficult, to say the least, and SLOW. We’d spend more time debating about dialogue than actually getting it on the page (laughs). But over the years, we definitely have found our groove in respect to writing and most things. These days we’ve learned to work more remotely, and we’ll come up with an outline that we both are excited about, split it in a way that makes sense, and have at it separately. That way we can swap pages, make scene and dialogue punches without getting into long western-movie-style stare-downs (laughs).

What inspired you to create The Invention of E.J. Whitaker?

SHAWNEE´: While working on the story for “Fashion Forward,” which is a time travel adventure that jumps time between present day New York and a New York twenty five years in the future. We were also writing a screenplay about an African American entertainer who lived during the early 1900s. 

So we were simultaneously looking at historic photos of African Americans from the early part of the 20th century, while also perusing designs and concept art of what the world would look like in the near future. And an idea started to emerge about a young black woman of the Victorian Era who had dreams of becoming an inventor. Once we started fleshing out the details and knew there’d be flying machines and robots and fanciful gadgets involved, we thought comics would be the perfect medium for it. 

Was this a case of coming up with the story first and then the setting or vice versa?

SHAWNEE´: I think as the story started to take shape, the setting pretty quickly followed. As a historical fiction piece, we wanted to anchor The Invention of E.J. Whitaker in an America that actually really existed. Since our heroine, Ada, is an inventing phenom, we thought placing her on the campus of Tuskegee University, where legendary inventor George Washington Carver taught and lived would be the perfect place for her. 

We also knew that one of the most challenging places to be black and a woman at the time was the Deep South. So having our adventure get underway in both Alabama and Texas gave the story real palpable tension and danger. 

What’s been the reaction to the book?

SHAWNELLE: We’re really thrilled that our readers are enjoying the beginning of the series, and the steampunk community has also embraced it as well. In our early reviews, they’ve been really positive and it helps as we’re digging into the second book to have that level of reaction. It’s very validating.

Are there themes and/or subjects you find yourself drawn to again and again in your work?

SHAWNELLE: Science Fiction, Adventure, and History are recurring themes in our work, and there’s always some level of comedy sprinkled in somehow, someway. For some reason, orphans are a recurring part of our narrative universe, probably because we grew up in a single-parent family and were “half-orphans” (as we’ve phrased it) ourselves. We’d need to get a psychologist in to help answer this one (laughs). Women overcoming obstacles to find their way/place in the world is always part of the undertone to our stories, I believe, because essentially that is a big part of our own journeys.

After running a successful Kickstarter for The Invention of E.J. Whitaker, what have you learned about the process of Kickstarter? What do you think has contributed to hitting your goals on The Invention of E.J. Whitaker? Do you view the platform as a testing ground for the concepts?

SHAWNEE´:  It is an incredible tool for testing concepts and finding people who may be interested in what you do. But I’ve gotta admit, Kickstarter can be a terrifying platform—I think both our knees were probably trembling a little as we hit that “Launch” button. Being as organized and as prepared as you can for crowdfunding, and researching firsthand accounts of both successes (and failures) was key for us. There will be unexpected bumps in the road on your journey, but staying committed and never being deterred by hiccups will help you reach your goals and cross the finish line.

We are super thankful to our Kickstarter supporters for believing in an unconventional story about one young woman’s courage to dream big despite the cultural and societal limitations surrounding her. We were floored that so many people believed in our little steampunk tale enough to help over fund it by $10,000.

Comics is an amazing collaborative medium, and it looks like you’ve managed to gather a talented team of co-creators around you. Tell me a little about working with the pencillers, inkers, colorists, and designers.

SHAWNELLE: Independent comics allow us to realize the worlds and stories of our dreams with a small team of people. On The Invention of E.J. Whitaker, we were able to call upon a couple of incredible artist/friends we’ve worked with in the past. That’s Mark Hernandez (Penciller) Hasani McIntosh (Colors), Earl Womack (short story) that we knew and worked with beforehand. Mark and Hasani we worked with on a beautiful, animated project some years ago, and we met Earl “amazing artist/kindred spirit” Womack at Long Beach Comic Con about five years ago, and have been looking for ways to work together since.  We met Shanna Lim (Inker) June Park (Graphics) and were lucky to work with ladies from the LNA anthology series we’ve contributed to in the past —Lauren Burke (Copy Editor) and Emi Rosen (Letterer). We truly became a small comics publishing house with this one.

The process went pretty much like this — After finishing up all of our concept art and character sheets with Mark and Hasani, it continued with the script that we workshopped with Mark to get ready for Shanna for inks, and finally Hasani for colors. Over several months, we had a rotation of pages of art with each artist/“department” if you will, until it was finally ready. And we love our team, because like us, everyone was working full time jobs, heading families, having life happen, etc., and their time, commitment, and care with it continues to warm our hearts. It took a little longer than we initially anticipated to finish it, but the team rallied (shoutout to Mark and Hasani who divided the lions share of it!). We are so proud of what we were able to to do together and what’s possible for the future.

Where’s the best place to find out more about The Invention of E.J. Whitaker and the rest of your works?

SHAWNEE´: You can find out more about The Invention of E.J. Whitaker at http://www.ejwhitaker.com and find the rest of our work at http://www.gibbsisters.com

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The Gibbs Sisters are an award-winning hybrid team with credits in writing, producing, and animation. The twin sisters and collaborators have created a brand of quirky, fun projects that have entertained audiences across the globe. They are the creators of the popular online animated series’ Adopted by Aliens and Old Ladies Driving, and the YA time-travel comic book series, Fashion Forward. Their comic book adventure series, The Invention of E.J. Whitaker, a diverse re-imagining of the early 20th century, makes its comic book debut March 30th, 2018 published by BopSee Books. 

 The Gibbs Sisters are members of Writers Guild of America, West, The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and the Organization of Black Screenwriters. Their combined credits included Producing for Emmy-Award winning series’ Top Chef and Project Runway, and popular television series’ X-Factor, The Ultimate Fighter, Food Network’s  Holiday Baking Championship, Cupcake Wars, Discovery Network’s Shark Week and National Geographic’s Wicked Tuna, as well as contributions to Disney’s Emmy winning sitcom, Wizards of Waverly Place.

 The pair are also alumni of the renowned USC Guy Hanks & Marvin Miller Screenwriters Fellowship.

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The Invention of E.J. Whitaker: Issue #1

Written By: Shawnee´Gibbs, Shawnelle Gibbs

Pencils by: Mark Hernandez

Colors by: Hasani McIntosh

Inks by: Shanna Lim

Short Story Art by: Earl Womack

Letters by: Emi Roze

Cover Art by: Mark Hernandez, June Park, Sharifa Patrick

Copy Editor: Lauren Burke

Published by: BopSee Books

Release Date: Friday, March 30th, 2018

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I want to thank Shawnee’ and Shawnelle Gibbs for their time in answering these questions. Be sure to check out the first issue of The Invention of E.J. Whitaker today!

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John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list.

His prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Theft & Therapy, There’s Something About Mac, Hollow Empire, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Steampunk Fridays – Kickstart the Comic – Make/100: Pneumatic Cases #2: Sleuthing Steampunk Spouses

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The modern day Holmes and Watson are man and woman (or at least one version of them is)… but why not have that dynamic against the backdrop of a Steampunk world? And instead of the will they/won’t they – let’s just have them say I Do before the story even begins!

A love story, a murder mystery, and the happy couple who is at the center of it all.

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Pneumatic Cases #2: Sleuthing Steampunk Spouses

Published by Last Ember Press

Creator/Writer – John Wilson

Artist/Cover – Rowel Roque

Colors – Lisa Moore

Letters/Book & Logo Design – Brant Fowler

Edits – Lisa Moore & Brant Fowler

Kickstarter Campaign ends on Saturday, March 3, 2018 at 12:59 AM EST.

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The Pitch:

Lord and Lady Ravenscroft are two brilliant scientists and inventors whose Bohemian lifestyle and inventive ways are in direct contrast to the staid and proper ways of Victorian Era London.

Served faithfully by their steam-driven metallic Majordomo, Pneuman, and armed with a variety of elaborate self-created inventions, the Ravenscrofts pursue the one vocation that brings excitement into their world… solving murders!

The Story:

Brought in to consult on a mysterious murder, the Ravenscrofts began hunting down clues that might lead them to the devious culprit. Making waves and alerting the wrong people to their efforts nearly cost them their lives.

Now, the case takes them to Austria to seek out the next piece to this chaotic puzzle of murder and mayhem they’ve found themselves wrapped up in.

Issue 2, Page 1 Art – Rowel Roque Colors – Lisa Moore

John’s Thoughts:

I think I must have missed the first issue of this comic at some point, because I recognize the title, but obviously have not read it. Lucky for me, there are options to go ahead and catch up on the series. Regardless, this takes its nod from the mystery style stories of the time with a married couple at the center of it. I dig the idea of both of them being inventors as that way they both will have a chance to show off as the story progresses.

The sample pages/ opening to the story makes this feel like it might almost be a stand alone adventure for the two of them, and makes me very curious about whether the first issue was done in the same fashion. Given that my own Gilded Age comic is told in “done in ones”, it is a format that is near and dear to my heart.

Plus, kudos for the alliteration of their title…

The Rewards:

As part of Kickstarter’s “Make 100 campaign”, it’s a interesting idea to piggyback the Acrylic Charm ($39 level) with the comic campaign itself. I’ve seen many people do the small pin designs throughout the month, but couldn’t figure out a way to tie it into a potential comic campaign. Leave it to the Last Ember Press guys and gals to figure that piece out. In addition, at the $17 level they have basically a preorder for issues #3 and #4 as well which again is not only thinking towards the future, but really making it so that this project will get to its issue 3 and 4. At the highest level ($250) you can get Drawn In to issue #3… always a cool option.

The Verdict:

If you’re reading this blog, I’m guessing that you have at least a passing interest in all things Steampunk. This is definitely that… so what are you waiting for? Go to the Kickstarter page here!

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To find out more about Last Ember Press and their other comics, check them out here.

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John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list.

His prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Theft & Therapy, There’s Something About Mac, Hollow Empire, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Steampunk Fridays – Kickstart the Comic – Transylvanian Knights Issue 1

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Gothic Horror, Weird West, Steampunk… in my mind they are separate and yet they fit together in very satisfying ways within my mind. Because what is Steampunk about, if not the horror of the past and the future fighting without any idea of exactly what will be left behind.

Plus, I’m a sucker for these other stories of Dracula…

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Transylvanian Knights Issue 1

Published by Comichaus

Writer/Co-Creator – James McCulloch

Artist/Co-Creator – Jonny Cannon

Letterer – Robin Jones

Design – Gavin Boyle

Editor – Pete Genepool

Cover by Jonny Cannon and Gavin Boyle

Kickstarter Campaign ends on Sunday, February 18, 2018 at 12:00 PM EST.

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The Pitch:

The 40-page first issue featuring classic characters from Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker in an all-new horror adventure.

The Story:

10 years after the vampire war, Transylvania is yet again under threat from Count Dracula, but as General Van Helsing hunts down the Count, two weary circus performers stumble onto a secret that could change everything.

Coming from a love of old monster movies, James McCulloch and Jonny Cannon come together to take the classic characters Count Dracula, Van Helsing, Frankenstein’s Monster and the Wolfman on a new adventure.

John’s Thoughts:

From the preview pages… it just feels like something right out of the old Marvel Monster books. I actually have a couple of them on my shelf (the black and white phone book sized ones) and what I see makes me think this could slide right alongside of those and feel right at home.

These pages begin to paint a picture of the history of this world. Of an ever-vigilant Van Helsing who cannot rest until he finds Dracula. And so while everyone sleeps, he becomes the soldier on the wall… waiting for his nemesis to return.

And now it seems he might have.

The Rewards:

40 pages of adventure horror for the low digital price of $1.39… that seems like a deal in and of itself. You can also get the print version for only $7. Moving to some of the higher values (which end at the $69 level) are original pieces of art from the comic itself (limited to 20 total backers at this level).

The Verdict:

It is a very modest goal needing only about $20 at the time of this writing. Mostly it has the feel of something that if you are into Dracula and how those characters could/would have continued onward from their last stories, then this might be the answer you are looking for.

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To find out more about Transylvanian Knights, check them out here.

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John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list.

His prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Theft & Therapy, There’s Something About Mac, Hollow Empire, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

 

Steampunk Friday – Kickstart the Book – Make 100: SteamBear Books

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I’m always on the lookout for gateway items to get the next generation into the stuff that I’m into. Wondering if anything might make a nephew or neice interested in something comic or fantasy or science fiction related. So a children’s book is definitely right in that wheelhouse.

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Make 100: SteamBear Books

Creator/Writer/Colorist – Andres Salazar

Chief Financial Officer – Nicole Salazar

Chairman of the Board – Santiago Salazar

Kickstarter campaign ends on Monday, January 29, 2018 at 11:51 PM EST.

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The Pitch:

SteamBear is an interactive children’s picture book and comic. It’s book two of  THE ADVENTURE BEAR SQUAD.  A Sci-Fi adventure story designed for the geek-parent and their children. It is built to stimulate creativity and learning. It is a team of bears across genres like the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen meets the Care Bears.

The Story:

The exciting second installment of the Adventure Bear Squad book series is upon us!  Faced with the disappearance of dreams by every man, woman and child the world is thrown in turmoil and it’s up to SteamBear and his compatriots to save the world from curmudgeonry.  They travel through time and space in SteamBear’s Travel-train and find out why the dreams have gone missing and how to bring them back!

John’s Thoughts:

Bears fighting pirates.

Bears in hot air balloons.

Bears wearing top hats and hopefully monocles.

This seems like one of those fun books where you can read with the kid in your life and discover new little pieces while also learning about different points and places in history (judging from the images on the Kickstarter page). I can definitely imagine laughing at the site of a bear flying past Big Ben over in London.

The Rewards:

Given that this is a limited edition of the book, as part of the Make 100 campaigns Kickstarter is encouraging for the month of January, the overall product is limited to… 100 copies. So each category has a limited number next to it for the hard copies (this has digital versions as well). At $25 you get the Hardcover along with an original drawing inside. The intriguing one is the $99 level where you not only get the book and the original drawing, but you also will get an original 11×15 watercolor painting. I could see that as being something to hang up in the kid’s room for a long time.

The Verdict:

Let’s see – Steampunk, kid’s book, bears, and various spots in time… educational and something you and the kids will enjoy as part of your reading rituals… yeah, this seems like a nice additon to your library!

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To learn more about SteamBear, check out DecadeBrothers here.

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John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list.

His prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Theft & Therapy, There’s Something About Mac, Hollow Empire, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Steampunk Fridays – Gears and Cogs

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There are games to be played. There are videos to be watched. There are novels and comics to be read.

But I haven’t done that.

Instead, I wanted to share some things I’ve been checking out. Most have caught my eye because of a Steampunk connection. These are bits that I’m just beginning to explore or think about or watch or…

Draw with Jazza

This is a series of youtube videos where you get to watch him take votes from the audience and then come up with a colored character drawing. I first saw it on a random search and he had done a “Steampunk Rogue”. As a guy who writes comics, seeing an artist work is like watching someone perform actual magic. The page begins empty and slowly they fill it into something greater than it started.

Jazza does a great job in really walking through the steps (at an accelerated visual pace) of what he’s thinking, what he might be trying to convey, and whether he thinks he’s gotten it right.

If you just want to scroll through his final prints, you can find them here.

They Are Billions

What do you get when you cross Steampunk with zombies with the gameplay of a Starcraft style real-time strategy game? They Are Billions looks to be the answer to that question. It is currently in early access, but I like the idea behind the game and am interested to see what Steampunk things might play into the actual gameplay.

Brass Empire

I actually bought this game at Gen Con and it still has not been played. But I longingly look at the box and hope once the holidays are over, that I can convince my poor wife to entertain me for a little while as we learn the ins and outs of the game. This is one of those where it certainly has all the look of something extremely cool… and it kills me to look at the box every day as it mocks me from its spot on the desk.

Rock Manor Games just did an expansion box set to the original game on Kickstarter. You can check out Rock Manor Games here.

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John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list.

His prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Theft & Therapy, There’s Something About Mac, Hollow Empire, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Steampunk Fridays – Batman: Gotham by Gaslight

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A quick one this week… as the Holiday Season gets its full weight down on us.

Years ago there was this comic called Gotham by Gaslight. It featured Batman living in a turn of the century style world where Jack the Ripper had come calling to Gotham.

If you went down the checklist of comics that I should read, this one might have checked all the boxes:

Elseworld – If you are a Marvel fan, this is DC’s version of What If where they showcase alternate timelines or alternate stories from the main ones. It means they can do pretty much whatever they want and not have to worry about Continuity of why Batman might be in the early 1900s.

Jack the Ripper – There is something about Jack that makes him this fascinating figure from history. The fact that no one knew who he was. The various theories over the years about his identity. The gruesomeness of his crimes.

Batman vs. Jack – Take one of the greatest characters, a detective, and put him against this one person who apparently had us all fooled.

So how was the comic? I don’t know. I’ve never actually read it.

I don’t know why. Even as I’m writing this all out, I don’t know why. I always meant to pick it up… it is a comic fail for sure.

Soon though, I can potentially make up for my egregious error (or at least partially make up for it) as they are going to release it to DVD next year! And I think now would be a perfect time to visit that world and enjoy the movie before finally reading the graphic novel. I won’t sit there the whole time comparing it because I’ll watch it first!

It’s kind of a win, win… right?

Ok, it’s kind of a cop-out, but at least I’ll be righting my own 20-year error!

You can check out the trailer here:

 

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John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list.

His prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Theft & Therapy, There’s Something About Mac, Hollow Empire, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

 

Steampunk Fridays – Interview with one of the Creators of The Jekyll Island Chronicles

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When I was younger, my grandparents would drive to Jekyll Island (on the coast of Georgia) to go fishing. They’d wake up before the crack of dawn, somehow get my smaller frame from the bed to the back of the car, and drive the forty-five minutes to the beach where we’d spend much of the day fishing and learning about various fish worth eating and not worth eating.

So when I saw that there was a steampunk related comic called The Jekyll Island Chronicles… I had to reach out.

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How long have you been creating/working in comics?

There are three of us in this endeavor and we all have been either reading or making comics since we were kids.  I (Steve) used to sit in my room and draw my own versions of Spider-man and the Fantastic Four.  Our actual jobs are all doing different things, so becoming graphic novel authors became a side hobby for us later in life.  We actually started working on The Jekyll Island Chronicles in January of 2013.

At what point did you sit down to become a writer/artist? Do you remember the first thing you drew/wrote?

I think I am the one with the most graphic arts background.  My dad worked in a factory during the day and would come home at night and paint portraits for friends and family members, to make extra spending money.  He taught me how to draw when I was old enough to hold a pencil.  I remember a book of Disney characters that I drew when I was a kid.  I remember him sitting at the kitchen table with me and building dinosaur models.  I have since graduated to more extensive and difficult kits, and scratch built a bunch of my own.   Creating art has a wonderful, calming effect on me.

All three of us have been heavily involved in writing projects of our own in the past as well.  Ed wrote another book several years back and Jack and I have been writing plays and sketch comedy for our church for many years.

Who inspires you? Or do you have a favorite artist or creator?

Jack loves experiences:  he is a Disneyphile through and through.  He would build a scale (and highly detailed) model of Disneyland in his house if he could.  Ed is a voracious reader and plows through novels constantly.  He loves sci/fi, mysteries, and westerns.  And I get inspirations everywhere, no place in particular.  Sometimes, I just like to walk through a retail shopping center and look for things that inspire me.

How do you manage your daily/family life with your creative work? Is this your 9 to 5 or is this your 10 to 2?

Hah!  We all have really demanding jobs.  This is our hobby.  Nights, weekends, while watching tv or sports at night.  I am usually sitting drawing thumbnails on my ipad to make life easier for our artists.  We try to meet periodically to line up on story and plot development (maybe once or twice a month).  We tell our spouses we don’t play golf (at least not well), so this is our club membership.

It’s often difficult to get word out about independent/small press comics. What do you do to market and promote your books? Anything work really well or really poorly?

It’s been an eye-opening experience.  I have an author friend at work who told me that marketing of books has changed over the years—authors are really much more responsible for this and publishers are, well, publishers.  I have found this to be generally true.  Not bad.  Just generally true.

Our publisher at Top Shelf, Chris Staros, told us pretty much the same thing after we signed our book deal.  They publish the books, invite us to the Cons where they are present, put the books out in the proper channels, but we do the heavy lifting on the marketing (Facebook & websites, blogging, boosting posts, local book signings, reaching out to newspapers and magazines, etc etc etc).  We had to learn how to do a bunch of stuff, from a literary marketing standpoint, that we have never done before.  But Chris is a great sounding board for us and happily answers any questions we have.  It’s so good to have his knowledge and experience base in our corner when we need it (which is A LOT!)  We are working with a PR firm on putting together proposals for the release of Book Two.  So, we are hoping to have more firepower in that area.

What’s your process look like when you’re writing? Do you go with the full outline? Or are you a fly by the seat of your pants type?

We have to have an outline.  We use the classic three-act story structure, but because we are a series, we have to layer that structure over each book as well as the entire series.  I guess that’s why trilogies make sense.  For Book One, I had a lot of the basic story arc in my head, and Jack and Ed helped me fill in a bunch–like the whole Jekyll Island connection.  Book Two was more of a blank page than Book One, so it was harder.  We use note cards with plot points and move things around constantly in the beginning.  When we get the arc locked down, we divide and conquer the writing duties, usually giving one person an act to tackle.  We come back, read together, edit together, and make suggestions.  The key is to hold your writing loosely.  You can’t be so dogmatic to “have it your way”.  If that happens, you frustrate everyone and it flies in the face of collaboration and making each other better.  We are long-time friends, so that makes it easier.  But even then, every once in a while, we have to work through things.  It really is a lot of give and take.

I currently live just north of Atlanta, in Suwanee, Georgia, but I’ve been to Jekyll Island dozens of times when I was younger. So it was very cool to even see that this book existed. What inspired you to create Jekyll Island Chronicles?

Ed was instrumental in coming up with the idea to place much of the story at Jekyll.  When I explained the original idea to him, he asked if I had ever been to Jekyll.  I had been in Atlanta for 25 years and had never gone there, and only just heard of it but never really knew about its history.  So, my wife and I took a weekend, went to down to the island, toured it and my brain exploded.  It was the PERFECT set up for the characters and the scenarios, which were all post-WWI and at the height of the gilded age at Jekyll.  It is a Georgia treasure and our hope is that people, especially Georgians, will become a little more knowledgeable about their own history.

What’s been the reaction to the book?

It’s been extremely positive.  Of course, our family and friends have been our biggest cheerleaders.  We’ve gotten good reviews on Amazon (especially) and Good Reads.  Every once in a while we get someone who “doesn’t get it” or takes issue with the alt history portions of it.  We even had one guy who reviewed it and got the plot/character points wrong, so did he even read it??  But then again we were named one of the Top 10 Books Every Young Georgian Should Read for 2017 (all graphic novels go in that category)—so that was a nice feather in our cap.  We already had a second printing.  We had a line of people waiting to sign the book at the NY Comic Con, so that was pretty cool.  We’ve gotten a lot of interest from podcasters, bloggers and people wanting to do interviews.  This is our first rodeo, but so far, so good.

Are there themes and/or subjects you find yourself drawn to again and again in your work?

We started this whole process with themes.  We wrote down the things/principles we believed and wanted to be true for our story.  First, we saw a lot of cynicism with heroes—dark heroes, conflicted heroes—and we wanted to do something different.  Maybe even classic.  My grandfather fought in the US Cavalry in WWI to gain his citizenship.  He was a regular, simple man of principle.  He knew right from wrong.  He wasn’t perfect, but he wasn’t constantly dark and conflicted.  We wanted a return to classic heroism.  We wanted people who were willing to work together in spite of their differences.  Our country is torn down the middle today and we are all saddened and sick of it.  At least we have a built a world where people can come together for the greater good.

Also, we wanted to have a world where it wasn’t evil to have resources.  Andrew Carnegie gave away like $300 million dollars.  He built a system of libraries all across the country.  Not all people with wealth are robber barons, you know?  Jack and I worked for one for decades.  There is good and evil is ALL people–not just one group, one type, or one party.  We hoped that the book would force people to actually look for the good in all of our heroes.  Finally, we wanted a story where the veterans were the biggest heroes.  We owe SO MUCH to them.  It’s no surprise that our original heroes are the broken WWI vets that get “rebuilt” to fight the atrocities of the early 20th century anarchists.

Your first graphic novel was released by Top Shelf & IDW Publishing. How did that relationship come about?

We actually sponsored a class at SCAD in Savannah to help us create a pitch packet for publishers/production companies that might be interested in our idea.  Once we got the packet done, we approached Chris Staros with Top Shelf.  He was Georgia-based, actually Marietta-based, which was right around the corner from all of us.  We called him, took him to lunch one day, introduced ourselves, and handed him the pitch packet.  He said he would take a look at it and give us comments.  The next day he called me and said he thought it was good—really good—and if we finished it, he would like to keep the whole thing in Georgia and publish for us.  WOW.  I know that this is NOT how it is supposed to work.  But, it happened for us and we were, and still are, very grateful to Chris and his confidence.  When Top Shelf got acquired by IDW, that confidence transferred over to them.  They have been huge supporters of ours and they now have us in their catalog that they send to production companies for tv/film.

You currently have 1 graphic novel out there with a second one due out next year. What’s the overall plan with Jekyll Island Chronicles?

The plan is to keep making books until we get too tired and stop (or someone tells us to stop).  At least we want 3.  But the larger goal is 6. The story arc of the original Jekyll Island Club ends in WWII.  We would love to take it that far.

I see on your website that there are teaching materials based on the comic. Can you talk a little about how you came to that idea as well as your goals with the program?

Well, the story has a TON of facts in it.  The alt history component actually has a lot of HISTORY.  We always loved the idea of using the book to teach history and have students weave through the narrative of what is true and what is not.  So we approached Glen Downey (an author who is an expert in this area) and he agreed to put together teaching materials for us.  They are all available for free on our website.  We have a public high school in the Jekyll area that is using it in both the US and world history class, and a private school here in Cobb County that is doing the same thing.  Ideally, this is a great way for creative teachers to introduce their students not just to history but also to the medium of the graphic novel.  We think this is a big idea.

Comics is an amazing collaborative medium. Tell me a little about the artists on the books.

We met both of our artists in our SCAD class.  They were students who, at the time, were finishing up their studies.  Moses Nester is our illustrator/inker and SJ Miller is our colorist.  One is in ATL and one is in Vegas.  Everything is done digitally.  I take the script, gather reference photos, drop them into an app for my ipad called Strip Designer and create tight comps/thumbnails, send them electronically to Moses who inks, sends to SJ for coloring and sound effects and then back to me for final approval.  It seems to work pretty well.  Our artists are very gifted individuals with a bright career in front of them!  We are just so happy that we have access to them at this time of their lives—and we hope this is given them so good experience to bounce off of for the future.

If you could go back in time ten years, what advice might you have for your younger self? Something you wish you knew?

I wish I knew that I was really responsible for my creative outlets in life.  I mean, I have always been creative, but sometimes at work, I was waiting for that itch to be scratched there.  And at times, that didn’t happen.  I wish I had been more aware of the idea to create instead of consume, and now I hope that our creative endeavor helps others to do the same.  Bottom line, if opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door (with credit to Milton Berle for that fine axiom).

Where’s the best place to find out more about Jekyll Island Chronicles and the rest of your works?

Like us on facebook

https://www.facebook.com/jekyllislandchronicles/

or go to our website

https://jekyllislandchronicles.com/

Steampunkers are welcome to check out our website, where we have a link for selling the book, pre-ordering book two and buying other merch. And the book is available in bookstores and on line everywhere.

STEVE NEDVIDEK has worked in film, radio, and television and received his Masters Degree in Theater from Wake Forest University, where he completed his thesis in make-up design. He is an avid cartoonist, model maker, writer, and movie watcher, and resides in the Atlanta suburbs with his wife, kids, and dog.

ED CROWELL holds advanced degrees in political science and international affairs. He is an executive at a non-profit and a writer with dozens of published articles. A lifelong fan of science fiction and fantasy, he and his wife have two children who went off to college, but left Ed and Cynthia with two cats, a fish, and a dog.

JACK LOWE is a student of film making and themed entertainment. A passionate storyteller with a bent toward immersive, multi-sensory experiences, Jack and his wife, three children, two dogs, and two cats live in the shadow of Kennesaw Mountain in Atlanta.

Ed is on the left, Steve in center, Jack on right

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I want to thank Steve for taking the time to answer my questions!

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John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list.

His prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Theft & Therapy, There’s Something About Mac, Hollow Empire, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

 

Steampunk Fridays – Kickstart the Comic – Stoker and Wells – The Graphic Novel!

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Another one made for Steampunk Fridays… I’m not sure how much more I need to say… let’s get to the comic!

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Stoker and Wells – The Graphic Novel

Writer – Steven Peros

Artist – Barry Orkin

Colors – Chris Summers

Letters – Marshall Dillon

Editor – J.C. Vaughn

Kickstarter campaign ends on Tuesday, November 21, 2017 at 3:39 PM EST.

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The Pitch:

In 1894 London, a 20-something H.G. Wells and a 40-something Bram Stoker meet and have a very unexpected 48-hour adventure that leads to the creative inspiration for both writer’s first great success – THE TIME MACHINE for Wells and DRACULA for Stoker.  It is not only a thrilling, scary, fun, and beautifully drawn adventure tale, but also a story about putting aside fear and insecurity and stepping into your true identity.  

The Story:

In a nutshell, Stoker and Wells meet in London of 1894 and through extraordinary fictitious circumstances, rooted in historical accuracy (which will remain under wraps until publication!), find themselves forced at gunpoint to travel 4000 years into the future in a time machine, not of their own design.  The machine is pre-programmed to return to 1894 exactly 48 hours later, so Stoker and Wells are dealt a huge blow when… the time machine is stolen!  Now the two men must journey through the weird and dangerous Earth of 5894 to find their machine before it returns without them, aided by “Nina”, an Eloi, and “Wren”, who claims to be a “reformed” Morlock…

John’s Thoughts:

These real-world people living out the strange lives that eventually their characters will encounter is that cool kind of idea that fills my head with all sorts of ideas. Who else could you potentially use? And what crazy adventure(s) could you take them on?

Pencils & Inks: Barry Orkin / Colors: Chris Summers / Letters: Marshall Dillon

Plus, in this particular case… well, I’ve always loved the Time Machine and who doesn’t love Dracula (you’re wrong if you raised your hand!)? Definitely not a pair I would have thought to combine, but I’m interested to see how this might work out.

The Rewards:

One of the cool things is that at the $75 reward level, you can get a Billy Tucci cover (a Kickstarter exclusive). At higher values you can get a Billy Tucci Portfolio review ($300) or a Script Evaluation for your screenplay or tv pilot ($300 and not one you see all that often on the comic side).

 

Pencils: Billy Tucci / Colors: Barry Orkin

The Verdict:

They said Wells and Stoker. They said time travel. They said Morlocks. They said Castle Dracul…

Enough said.

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To learn more about Stoker and Wells, check out the Facebook Page here.

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John McGuire

The Gilded Age Kickstarter is still going on. Check it out on Kickstarter here.

John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list.

His prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Theft & Therapy, There’s Something About Mac, Hollow Empire, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Steampunk Fridays – Kickstart the Comic – The Death Defying #1

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One of my loves has always been stage magic. I’m the guy that those tv shows about real life illusionists and every David Copperfield is for. I’ll stop what I’m doing to watch that stuff. And it wasn’t long before I discovered who Harry Houdini was. I’m not sure what it is about him – the fact that he brought a mixture of escapism to his tricks or that he was around during the height of Vaudeville or what, but I know I’ve written at least one school paper on the man.

So a comic with him (and Arthur Conan Doyle) is something that piques my interest.

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The Death Defying #1

Christopher Sebela – Writer

Gavin Guidry – Artist

Marissa Louise – Colors

Micah Meyers – Letters

Kickstarter campaign ends on Tuesday, November 14, 2017 at 6:33 PM EST.

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The Pitch:

Arthur Conan Doyle & Harry Houdini.

The writer and the magician.

They were once the best of Friends.

When their friendship went to hell, 

The world wasn’t very far behind.

The Story:

Harry Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle used to be fast friends, visiting one another and writing letters back and forth, until their differing views on the afterlife set them against one another on stages and newspapers across the globe. Years after their breakup, the two continue to battle about spiritualism, the belief that the living can communicate with the dead. Doyle, creator of the great detective Sherlock Holmes, believes in ghosts, mediums, even photos of fairies. Houdini spends his time debunking the seances and the frauds who run them. The two are at war, two ideological armies whose battle of words is about to become a battle to the death for the very fate of humankind.

This Kickstarter is to fund production and printing of The Death Defying #1, the first in a series of four 30-page issues.

John’s Thoughts:

In real life Doyle and Houdini were friends, but this divide of ideologies proved to be too much. Doyle needed to believe, and I sometimes think Houdini wanted to find someone he couldn’t disprove (he never did). This feels like very ripe territory to construct a story. How does a skeptic deal with some coming supernatural apocalypse? How does a believer deal with the idea that he will be the downfall of his former friend?

Like I said, ripe territory for a story (the first 6 pages are previewed on the Kickstarter Page).

The Rewards:

This is the first issue, so there are the standard pdf only or print versions of the comic. But a couple of things jumped out at me. At the $12 level, you can get a print copy with the variant cover by Tyler Crook (of Petrograd, Harrow County, Bad Blood, and The Dark and Bloody).

For those script-writers who would like a little bit of help with their craft, Christopher Sebela will consult on your single issue script. For those of us who might not have an editor readily available, I can see this as being a relatively cheap way to get a non-biased second opinion on your story ($75 level).

And for the slightly deeper pockets you can appear in the comic you’re buying ($100 level), an always cool option.

The Verdict: 

Time is running low on this particular Kickstarter with less than a week to go. I’d love to see this one make its mark and provide us all with the opening chapter of a very cool story idea.

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For more information on Christopher Sebela, find it here on his website.

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John McGuire

The Gilded Age Kickstarter is still going on. Check it out on Kickstarter here.

John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list.

His prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Theft & Therapy, There’s Something About Mac, Hollow Empire, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Steampunk Fridays – Interview with the Creator of Monstrous

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Check out John McGuire’s The Gilded Age steampunk graphic novel on Kickstarter!

The Universal Monster movies are really what introduced me to those creatures of the night. And while I’m probably most partial to the Creature movies, I loved Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolf Man. It not only set them in popular culture but also provided a blueprint on how you might go about using them in other formats.

Add that to a Steampunk setting and you have something that seems to hit all the right buttons.

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How long have you been creating/working in comics? 

I had published a few short comics stories in anthologies before my first one-shot came out in 2015.  That comic is called Wild Bullets, and it follows the four siblings of the Bullet family as they attend their parents’ Thanksgiving dinner.  They each take a turn telling the story, and when they do, a different artist handles each section in a different genre and style (crime, science fiction, adventure, and horror).  They’re all dysfunctional pulp adventurers: a detective, a mad scientist, an archaeologist, and a monster hunter.

Since then, I’ve published several issues of Monstrous and Holliston: Friendship Is Tragic.  Monstrous is a fun romp where the stories all take place in a steampunk, Frankenstein-dominated Europe.  The monsters and robots fight for their own interests, and everybody is a little bit monstrous.  

The Holliston graphic novel is based on the cult TV show by Adam Green, but it’s not just for fans of the show.  The basic idea is that it’s like The Big Bang Theory, except for horror nerds.  There are references to Stephen King, serial killers, and John Carpenter movies.  The story tells about four friends who find a cursed credit card that threatens to destroy them, destroy their friendship, and destroy the town of Holliston itself. There is a new Holliston comic on the way, and more Monstrous will be out soon!

At what point did you sit down to become a writer? Do you remember the first thing you wrote?

I have written allllllll kinds of garbage in my life.  I literally do not remember what it was like before I was writing.  I wrote comics and illustrated stories as a kid, mostly ripping off the stuff I liked.  That method is still pretty much what I do.  People who read my comics probably think: “Oh, I bet he likes ______ because he stole ______ from…”  And they’d be right.  All creators are thieves!

I taught screenwriting for a couple of years at Kalamazoo College, and I wrote movie scripts then.  Comic book scripts are much more likely to be made into something than movie scripts, so I tried that out.  I really love collaborating with the great artists I get to work with, and being able to share a comic with someone is very, very cool.

Who inspires you? Or do you have a favorite writer or creator?

There are scads of creators I could point to: Alan Moore if I’m feeling a little pretentious, Rick Remender if I’m being honest, etc. 

But I figure I should use this venue to give a shout-out to someone who might not be a household name yet but deserves to be.  I’ll say Ryan Ferrier.  He is a comic book writer in a variety of genres working with lots of companies, but his D4VE series and Hot Damn are just a bunch of fun, taking weird premises and wringing every last little bit of lunacy out of them.

If you haven’t read his stuff, fix your life right away, folks.  (He also wrote the forthcoming Kong on the Planet of the Apes, which promises to be cool, but give his original stuff a whirl, too.)

How do you manage your daily/family life with your creative work? Is this your 9 to 5 or is this your 10 to 2?

I am literally working on this response after 10:00 p.m.  And on a school night, too!

I have no idea how I manage this stuff.  If somebody knows, please tell me.

The upshot of working on creative stuff while having another job (I teach college English courses) is that when I come to the writing I know I need to focus because my time is limited.  When I “have all the time in the world” to work on something, I tend to fart around longer on the Internet.  I might claim that time as “research,” but if I do, I’m a filthy liar.

Also, my writing process is a pretty straightforward thing.  I do a lot of prewriting and outlining, so I know exactly where I need to go with the story.  I highly recommend this method, as it takes some of the airy-fairy, arty-farty aspects of writing out of the process.  I mean, it’s not all sitting under a juniper tree on a dewy April morning to achieve the necessary inspiration or whatever.  Just write the damn thing.  I’ll talk more about not screwing around waiting for some idiotic celestial muse in a bit.

It’s often difficult to get word out about independent comics. What do you do to market and promote your books? Anything work really well or really poorly?

What works best is having really rich, organized people do it for you.  But that’s not a luxury a whole lot of independent creators have at their disposal.  There are plenty of tools I would recommend using, like social media, podcasts, and lots and lots and lots of face-to-face conversations with people at anything and everything related to the comic (or book or whatever the person wants to promote).  Get out there and tell everyone who will listen!  And, please, for the love of everything that’s holy, try to make it interesting.

This past weekend, I did a signing at Barnes & Noble, and that was sandwiched between two other weekends at comic cons (Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids).  I spend a lot of time meeting people and telling them about what I have created.  I’m really excited about my comics, and I hope that enthusiasm is contagious.  From my perspective, nobody will ever care more or work harder to promote your work than you.

What’s your process look like when you’re writing? Do you go with the full outline? Or are you a fly by the seat of your pants type?

Oh, I don’t just have a full outline; I have a bunch of them.  I like to use the screenwriting model of writing out the beats of any story, organizing it, chopping it up how it needs to be broken down to look like a story that humans can recognize.  I write a logline, a synopsis, character bios, the works. 

I use Blake Snyder’s beat sheet.  Then I write a page breakdown.  If my notes on a single page can’t fit into a single line of description, I’m probably doing too much with a single page.  (Of course, I set all my rules up clearly just so I can cheat.)

My last step is actually writing the script itself.  I specify the panels, camera angles, etc.  Some other writers are more freeform, but I could sketch out the page breakdowns I am visualizing in my head if artists ever wanted that kind of thing.  I’m open to that, but so far nobody has ever really wanted me to be that absolute with my control issues. 

And the good news is that my artists (Ken Lamug on Monstrous, Steve Sharar and Josh Werner on Holliston, and Sean Seal, Steve Sharar, Jason Jimenez, Joe Freyre, and Sarah Dhyne on Wild Bullets) come up with things I never pictured throughout this process.  And it’s always better than I anticipated.  They’re terrific!  It’s like a constant stream of birthday presents!

What inspired you to create Monstrous?

Monstrous stems from a lifelong fascination with monster movies and their misunderstood heroes.  Even when they’re completing evil, monsters are always the most compelling thing about the stories they occupy.  I’ve always loved the Universal Studios monsters and Ghostbusters and the Hammer Studios movies.  I threw all of those influences together with plots from John Wayne westerns in this strange steampunk hybrid. Monstrous is like all of these things I’ve loved for years having a party together.

The potential of this setting and these characters really feels limitless to me.  I have loads more stories in this universe than I have time to write.  Frankenstein’s Europe, teeming with steampunk robots, Dracula, and Igor running tech support on brains in jars—it all just strikes a chord with me.  I don’t think I know how to get bored here.

Was this a case of coming up with the story first and then the setting or vice versa?

The notion of a shared universe with monsters and robots duking it out, trying to live their everyday lives, was the initial impetus I had.  I love the 70s horror comics Marvel put out about Dracula and Frankenstein.  The best part, to me, was taking these characters and just logically extending their stories to see what might be interesting about them.

Eventually, they basically turned Frankenstein’s monster into Captain America, and they gave Dracula a fantastic adversary by creating Blade.  Those weird changes are the kinds of things I want to do with Monstrous. Take something already established and bring a new sense of excitement and possibility.  Get all the toys out of the toybox and have fun.  The stories come mostly out of wanting to see something crazy on the page.  I keep tossing out bizarre scenarios to Ken Lamug, and he routinely delivers on this insanity in amazing and entertaining ways.

What’s been the reaction to the book?

Most people seem to like it a lot.  If they don’t, they’re too polite to tell me.

The response has been overwhelmingly positive.  Monstrous seems to tap into a bunch of things that people really enjoy, and that’s why we keep making more.  There are some possible developments as well to adapt it into a movie or a game.  I don’t have anything definite to report, but that level of interest is very exciting!

I really like telling stories about unusual families, either “families” that are not really related but instead made up of people who need to bond with each other in order to make their lives work (as in Monstrous) or actual families that stray pretty far from how we think of families working (like the deeply dysfunctional Bullet family). 

More specifically, in Monstrous many of the relationships are between father figures and daughter figures.  I guess I gravitated toward that dynamic because I feel like the father-daughter pairing, which should be fairly common in fiction, more or less isn’t.  I just wanted to see what kind of mileage a horror/western hybrid might get out of a less conventional pair at its heart.

Most of my creative work tends to be fast, fun, and escapist.  That’s not really a theme.  It’s just my overall disdain for reality.

After running a successful crowdfunding venture on Monstrous on Kickstarter, what have you learned about the process of crowdfunding? What do you think has contributed to hitting your goals on Monstrous? Do you view the platform as a testing ground for concepts? Any plans on more Kickstarters?

Ooh, that’s a tough one.  There are so many people out there who have the Kickstarter thing down to a science.  Ours was successful, but I don’t know how much I personally had to do with it.  I mostly just got nervous and spazzed out for a month.  Seriously, I lost my voice and got pneumonia.  If I had a lesson to pass on about Kickstarters, it would probably be: “Don’t be like me.”

Ha ha ha!  Who am I kidding?  That lesson extends far beyond just Kickstarters.

In all seriousness, I think it’s important to have a few videos and plenty of visual information.  Don’t run a Kickstarter if the project isn’t in the final stages!  Ideally, it should be completely finished.  Treat a Kickstarter more as a hype machine to get your thing—whatever it is—in front of different audience members.  For people who are already supportive fans, treat it as a pre-order system.

As for Kickstarter being a testing ground, that is a kind of pleasing notion.  Kickstarter is a Darwinian Thunderdome for ideas.  The only problem, though, is that some projects are too pricey or too niche to really work that way.  It is a good wake-up call, though, if the Kickstarter doesn’t work or barely squeaks by.  That idea needs re-tooling and adjustment.

As for future Kickstarters, Travis McIntire at Source Point Press has talked about us doing a Kickstarter for the second Wild Bullets.  I don’t know if we will, but I’m willing to give it a shot.

Get it?  Get it?  Bullets?  Shot?  Oof.  Remember, kids: “Don’t be like me.” 

What’s the overall plan with Monstrous (series length)?

This question is a real toughie.  I have ideas that could fill up loads of stories, but I also don’t necessarily want to outlast the interests of my readers and wind up making everyone sick of it.  I am sure that all long-time comics fans can point to a particular arc or character or series that has severely overstayed its welcome.  I don’t want that to be the case with Monstrous.

As of this moment, the series will at least go twelve issues with the plan to group four issues together into three trades, maybe have a bigger omnibus at the end.  But if I can be entirely honest and mercenary about it, I will probably take the corporate model and just do it until it’s no longer profitable.  (And yes, I know that this answer is essentially a full reversal of what I said in the last paragraph.  A real toughie, huh?)

How did you get together with Source Point Press?

I’ve known the people at Source Point Press for years, and when Ken and I had the first four issues completed, his agent was shopping the project around.  Source Point Press approached me to see if we could work something out, and it was an excellent fit between their brand and what we’re doing.  All creators should, I think, work on their network.  Keep meeting people.  Keep talking to people.  Be polite.  Be someone others want to work with.

Sometimes I hear people ask: “How do I break into comics?”  And I almost always answer: “Dang.  Just be one of the people others are not trying to keep out of comics.”  That sound flippant, but it’s also true.  Be professional, reliable, quick, and friendly.  Be the type of person you’d like to work with, whatever that means to you.  Greedy people don’t get far.  Ditto people who make excuses or spread negativity, etc.  Talk. Interact.  Put yourself out there!

Comics is an amazing collaborative medium. Tell me a little about working with Ken Lamug.

Working with Ken Lamug is wonderful!  He gets where I’m coming from with the scripts and comes up with fantastic art.  There are rarely any hiccups in the communication and/or collaboration.  Everyone should go check out his children’s illustration work, too.  There is some tonal overlap with Monstrous, but it’s all still very different and wild and fun.

Fun fact: Ken Lamug lives in Las Vegas, and I live in Michigan.  We have talked extensively via Twitter messages, e-mails, and phone calls, but we have never met each other face to face.  I’m sure that we will eventually, but things are going so well now I’d worry about blowing it.

Earlier in the working relationship, he would send some process images and sketches, and I would send him outlines and notes.  Now, we mostly exchange finished products, as we really trust each other and trust ourselves.

Plus, I don’t know if I’ve said it extensively enough here, but Ken Lamug is an absolute animal.  He does it all: pencils, inks, colors, letters, covers, design work.  He’s 100% fantastic, and I’m lucky to work with him.

If you could go back in time ten years, what advice might you have for your younger self? Something you wish you knew?

I’d probably make fun of whatever outfit I was wearing ten years ago.

Seriously, I would tell myself not to get so attached to things that are doomed not to work out.  I know that sounds like good advice for everyone, but I get altogether too worked up about things that don’t turn out like I’d hoped, everything from jobs to creative projects to relationships.  With the creative stuff, at least, that is part of the path.  As a writer, I need to keep writing.  I have to write more stuff than will make it to the marketplace.  That’s just how the process works.

It’s a little heartbreaking at times, though.  “I really want this thing to get finished and into people’s hands!”  A high percentage of the time, for a variety of reasons, that scenario doesn’t work out.  So make another thing.  When I hear about creative people talking about working on one thing for years—decades, sometimes—I just feel sad.  Keep using your time to create different things, and eventually one of them will catch. Every new idea you can offer increases your odds.

Anything else I wish I knew ten years ago?  Appreciate your hair, younger Greg.  You’re going to lose most of it in the future.

Do you have any upcoming projects? Anything you’d like to promote? Anything else that you’d like people to know about you (Hobbies? Passions? Favorite TV Show)?

I do!  I’m excited that there is a second Wild Bullets on the way, more Monstrous, and another Holliston graphic novel.  I have some other projects, too, but they’re in the early stages.  Some movie stuff, some comics stuff.  I hope I’m pulling off an air of mystery here, as opposed to just an air of vagueness…

All my hobbies involve sitting.

Where’s the best place to find out more about Monstrous and the rest of your works?

People can check out my website: www.gregwrightcomicbooks.com

They can also find me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/gregwrightcomicbooks

And I have two Twitter accounts: @GregHenchman and @GregWrightBooks

Monstrous is available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and all my comics can be purchased directly from Source Point Press: http://sourcepointpress.storenvy.com/products

For those who like prefer digital copies to physical copies, all my comics are available digitally through Comixology, Drive Thru Comics, and ComicsBlitz.

The website for Monstrous is www.monstrousworld.com

Thanks for taking the time to hear me out!  I’m grateful for this opportunity.

See you all in Frankenstein’s Europe, folks.  Let’s get MONSTROUS!

***

 

Greg Wright has written several comic books: Monstrous, Wild Bullets, and Holliston: Friendship Is Tragic.

Greg earned a Ph.D. in American Literature and Film from Michigan State, and his award-winning fiction has appeared in a variety of journals. He has taught screenwriting, media studies, creative writing, and composition.

If he had a castle with a secret passage, he’d probably tell everybody and make it just a regular passage.

***

I’d like to thank Greg Wright for taking the time to answer my questions!

 

 

***

John McGuire

The Gilded Age Kickstarter is still going on. Check it out on Kickstarter here.

John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list.

His prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Theft & Therapy, There’s Something About Mac, Hollow Empire, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Steampunk Fridays – The Gilded Age Interviews

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Check out John McGuire’s The Gilded Age steampunk graphic novel on Kickstarter!

I knew around this time last year that at some point during 2017 I would need to run a Kickstarter for The Gilded Age. There was too much printing needing to be done. Too much trying to figure out how to spread the word on the book.

I’ve said over and over comics are the most collaborative thing I am involved with. Which meant that I had any number of people who I could interview who I directly worked with. Maybe take a minute or two to showcase them a little bit (and let me get to know them as more than maybe a Facebook page or an email address!).

Here are the people who brought The Gilded Age to life:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Behind the Artist – Interview with La’Vata O’Neal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Behind the Artist – Interview with Nimesh Morarji Part 1

Behind the Artist – Interview with Nimesh Morarji Part 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Behind the Artist – Interview with Sean Hill Part 1

Behind the Artist – Interview with Sean Hill Part 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Behind the Artist – Interview with Antonio Brandao

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

***

I’m still trying to get the rest to answer the long list of questions I had for them. I’ll update this post as I get them.

***

John McGuire

John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list.

His prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Theft & Therapy, There’s Something About Mac, Hollow Empire, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Behind the Comic – Why Kickstarter?

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Check out John McGuire’s The Gilded Age steampunk graphic novel on Kickstarter!

 

I’m worried.

Only a few days from the beginning of The Gilded Age Kickstarter, and I can’t help but be worried. Have I done everything I could have done? Will people show up and pledge? Will I make my goal? What happens if I don’t make the goal?

What happens if I do?

Over this last month, I feel like I’ve been living Kickstarter. Trying to listen to podcasts or check websites or just view as many comic book Kickstarter pages as I can to glean ideas on how they laid out their pages. Or how they did their reward levels. Or a thousand other pieces. Why did this one project fail while this other succeeded? Is there any reasoning and logic behind what I need to do?

For those who might not know, Kickstarter is a crowdfunding platform. It’s a place where creative people seek an amount of funding from a large amount of people to help turn their ideas into reality. Basically, if you have an idea for a product you can take it directly to the public to see if they might want to invest in your idea.

If you check out the site you can find anything from coolers to headphones to apps to novels to movies and everything else you might be able to think of. If you have an idea, then maybe you don’t need to go onto Shark Tank and pitch your idea to a bunch of millionaires. No, maybe you go to the people who might use or consume the product.

It’s funny. All these sites end up saying the same generic stuff over and over:

Have great rewards!

Have a great video!

Show lots of artwork!

Spam your email and Facebook and Twitter and…

DON”T spam your email and Facebook and Twitter and…

Make sure you launch at midnight!

Launch at Lunch!

Make sure you DON’T launch on a Wednesday!

Always launch on a Wednesday.

…

So you can see why my head might be spinning.

With the campaign I’m launching on Tuesday, October 17, 2017, I’m doing something that feels like it has been YEARS in the making. I’m actually afraid to look and see when the very first “Gilded Age” email shows up in my gmail (April 2009 is the answer). That’s when my very first conversations began when I first saw that Steampunk Cowboy image from artist Larry Watts.

Independent comics are a lot like herding cats who are being chased by dogs who are being examined by aliens who are from a long-lost civilization no one’s ever heard of before.

By that, I mean there are different personalities to interact with. I’ve long said the best thing about comics is the collaborative aspect of the medium. As a writer, you need each and every one of the people to put in a piece of themselves or it just won’t work. It means sometimes waiting for people. It means sometimes people waiting on you.

And it means producing the comics and then selling them.

The problem is that our model was to do digital versions of the comics but have a short print runs for conventions. And sometimes that meant we’d sell out of a particular issue waiting to reorder the books.

Kickstarter is a potential answer for those problems. Since The Gilded Age is done, this is about covering the printing costs. Really it’s like your preordering the graphic novel… with some potential bonuses.

Funding this is about everyone who had a hand in the creation of this comic. Too many times have I seen projects get started only to die before anyone ever gets to see them. I want to continue this journey and tell more stories and collaborate with these creators who have impacted the better portion of a decade of my life.

Hopefully, you can help me do just that!

***

Check out John McGuire’s The Gilded Age steampunk graphic novel on Kickstarter!

John McGuire

John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list to learn about the upcoming The Gilded Age Kickstarter.

His prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Theft & Therapy, There’s Something About Mac, Hollow Empire, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Steampunk Fridays – Kickstart the Comic – Blood & Dust Volume 2

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Check out John McGuire’s The Gilded Age steampunk graphic novel on Kickstarter!

The Old West is really that last bastion before the industrial revolution kicks into high gear. But there is plenty of bleed between the two areas, the same as Steampunk and Weird West style stories. That Gothic Horror feel of monsters being in a place where, by all rights, they should not be. And whether it is a Steampowered invention needing to put the darkness back in its place or the sidearm of a cowboy – it feels all connected even if it isn’t a 100% match of genres all the time.

But since it’s my blog – I’m saying it’s ok.

***

Blood & Dust Volume 2: Glenny Family Values

Michael Martin & Adam Orndorf – Writers/Creators

Tone Rodriguez – Artist

Raymund Lee – Colorist

Kel Nuttal – Letters and Design

***

Pitch:

Momma is off her chain, out of her mind and starving.

Free for the first time in decades and hell-bent on making up for lost time, Ruth is headed straight for the town of Boggy Depot to feed on its inhabitants. The only one who can stop her is Judd Glenny, her grandfather and the one who made her in the first place… who’s regretted it every night since.

The Story:

Glenny Family Values is the second volume of the Blood & Dust saga that began with volume 1, The Life & Undeath of Judd Glenny and is an 80-page graphic novel continuing the story of Judd Glenny and his vampire family. Ride along with Eddie Jacobs and listen to Judd tell the tale of how the Glenny Family came to be and the hellish night Judd died and was reborn. All while racing to stop Ruth from killing…everyone.

John’s Thoughts:

Vampires on a rampage. A man who needs to track them down before more people die. Undead mothers and their children…

The imagery previewed on the Kickstarter page both have that gritty feel of a western along with the pure blood and gore as viscera really drips off the page (off the fangs?).

As much as all of that certainly caught my eye, it was Michael’s story about what this comic means for him. Sharing that his ex-wife passed away (Small Cell Ovarian Cancer) some 7 years ago, and then that he’s survived two bouts with Kidney Cancer – this book is his legacy, as he says:

“I’m not trying to write 100 good stories, I’m trying to write one great one.”

That inspires me, chills me, and mostly causes me to root for Michael (and his team) that this Kickstarter is successful and that he manages to get one more step closer to his goals.

The Rewards:

While this one is for Volume 2, if you missed out on Volume 1 there are Reward levels for you with both physical copies only $25. Starting at $25 you have a Kickstarter Exclusive Wraparound cover. For those who want original pages, those start at $150, and if you are feeling really dark and gruesome this Halloween season, you might want to check out the Double page slaughter ($300) which is a double-page spread of the original pencils. As they put it “something you have to see for yourself”.

The Verdict:

I haven’t read the first volume of the series, but that’s almost all I need to jump in and start reading. I mean, if ever you were going to jump into a comic like this – October feels like the right time.

***

For more information on Blood & Dust Volume 2, check out their Facebook page here.

***

John McGuire

John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list to learn about the upcoming The Gilded Age Kickstarter.

His prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Theft & Therapy, There’s Something About Mac, Hollow Empire, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Steampunk Fridays – Short Film – Eye of the Storm

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Check out John McGuire’s The Gilded Age steampunk graphic novel on Kickstarter!

Technically this is a music video, but if after watching it you don’t feel like you want to see a whole movie made in this style… well, I don’t have words for you. It’s done well enough that I think it’s ok to call it a film.

“Eye of the Storm” – By Lovett, from the album Highway Collection, 2011 – Directed by Christopher Alender

The story centers around a sky captain making his way across the sky, making peace with what came before and steadying himself on what may come next. Accompanied by a large dog-sized dragon, he sees the green glow just past an oncoming storm and must make his decision on how to deal with it. Whether he should avoid it or push through to the other side.

This feels like the end of his journey. Whether that implies his death or simply his last grand adventure, I’m not entirely sure.

Using a technique that reminds me a bit of Sin City with that mixture of animation and stylized actors. His goggles remain on his face, the orbs acting as two beacons in the dark night. They are our proxy to his eyes, able to still convey emotion even without being able to see what lies beneath.

This film has no spoken dialogue, but the song itself acts as our emotional center. It builds slowly, quietly, a simple peace. And then, when the storm crashes into the ship, and he is fighting the currents, the volume raises… crashing into the listener. Once through the rain and the wind, he sees the green light in the distance and pushes his machine directly toward it.

On my second watch, I brought up the lyrics and listened to the song only, allowing my memory of the scenes to supply the visuals.

For all that it cost

In the end there was no price to pay

For all that was lost

That storm carried it away

The storm carries all the mistakes he made. It carries the past away. And then it carries him onto his next (final) destination.

Or, perhaps he rids himself of those things. And by unburdening, he allows himself to actually become truly free.

 

 

Check it out and you tell me. Is this the end or the beginning?

***

You can find more music from Lovett on his website, as well as a behind the scenes for this video.

***

John McGuire

John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novellas Theft & Therapy and There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!

He also has a short story in the Beyond the Gate anthology, which is free on most platforms!

And has two shorts in the Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows anthology! Check it out!

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Steampunk Fridays – Kickstart the Comic – The Invention of E.J. Whitaker

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Check out John McGuire’s The Gilded Age steampunk graphic novel on Kickstarter!

Women kicking ass. That’s one of my wife’s favorite things to ask about any kind of media. Conversations normally go like this:

“Does it feature women kicking ass?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m in.”

The following comic spotlight feels like it is going to be just that: A woman who is forced to outfox those who would try to do her wrong. However, unlike the normal Kickstart the Comic, this Kickstarter actually finished up at the end of last year (check it out here). Still, the comic is due out in a few short months (you can order your copy here), so I thought I’d give it a write-up.

***

The Invention of E.J. Whitaker

The Gibbs Sisters – Writers/Creators

Mark Hernandez – Penciler/Inker

Hasani Mcintosh – Colorist

Earl Womack – Cover Artist

Starline Hodge – E.J. Whitaker Emblem Designer

***

Pitch:

When Ada Turner, a young Inventor’s apprentice, creates a flying machine in 1901, she’s introduced to the dangerous side of the Industrial Age.

The Invention of E.J. Whitaker is a combination of science, adventure, romance, and transformation that we have been starving to see visualized since our teenage years gobbling up series after series by Octavia Butler and later Tananarive Due. It was in part developed because of our appreciation and passion for telling classic stories featuring smart, aspirational, and diverse female characters.

The Story:

At the turn of the century, in America’s great Industrial Age, Tuskegee University student Ada Turner is a brilliant and charming inventor with dozens of patents to prove it but she’s got one big strike against her: She’s a woman…and…well, frankly put, she’s got more than a few strikes going on. So in an effort to have her work taken seriously, she comes up with her best invention yet: the pseudonym of E.J. Whitaker…

When “E.J’s” patent for a wondrous flying machine begins garnering national attention, Ada finds herself relentlessly pursued by William, a mysterious young businessman, and his colleague, Samuel. Ada must keep her identity and popular invention under wraps but can she, as more and more powerful people set sights on EJ Whitaker…? People with intentions to use the inventions for their own financial gain and get Ada out of the picture.

(artwork from Pinterest site for The Invention of E.J. Whitaker)

John’s Thoughts:

First off, I like the idea behind the story. Steampunkish espionage. While everyone else is chasing Tesla or Edison, E.J. Whitaker seems to be carving her own path through the world. From the Kickstarter, it describes the sisters’ background in “indie comic book and animation”, which you can definitely see from the concept art they have posted on their website.

(Concept art featured at www.ejwhitaker.com)

Speaking of the art, I love the mixture of engineering patents mixed in with their artwork. I’m not sure if they are all real or not, but it is a nice touch.

The Rewards:

This would be the part where I would tell you about the various rewards, but sadly I (we) missed the Kickstarter.

But you can still order a digital copy of issue #1 for $10 here!

The Verdict:

After some delays, it appears that the comic book is set to come out Winter, 2017. After that, they have designs on doing additional issues leading up to a full trade. Seems like an excellent time to support an indy book to me.

***

For more information on The Invention of E.J. Whitaker, check out their webpage here.

***

John McGuire

John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novellas Theft & Therapy and There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!

He also has a short story in the Beyond the Gate anthology, which is free on most platforms!

And has two shorts in the Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows anthology! Check it out!

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Steampunk Fridays – Kickstart the Game – Westbound: Revolvers and Rituals

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Check out John McGuire’s The Gilded Age steampunk graphic novel on Kickstarter!

Magic and technology colliding… that’s what we’re talking about here. An untamed wild where anything can be done and the only person stopping you from living your dreams is you. Take that smoke wagon from its holster and fire again and again on your orcish enemies. Dodge dragon fire while riding on horseback.

I mean, that’s what being in the Weird West is all about!

***

Westbound: Revolvers and Rituals

From Island of Bees

Kickstarter campaign ends on Friday, September 29, 2017, at 1:59 AM EDT.

***

The Pitch

Westbound is a game of adventure on the frontier. You’ll explore the magical wild west, encounter other frontiersmen, fight strange new creatures, and strike gold or die trying. Robbing trains, shooting up saloons, and rescuing damsels is all apart of a days work for a Westbounder.

When the soil’s turned sour,

And the well all dried up.

When men in suits put a gun in your hand

And send you to war.

When there’s nothing left of your home,

But ash and regret.

It’s time to turn Westbound.

The Game

This Kickstarter is for the full version of the game, but they did put a free Basic version and a Quickstart adventure to “try before you back”. In addition, there are also a handful of videos to help walk through some of the basics.

Reading through those Quickstart Rules, the big idea here is that there aren’t any dice, but instead it uses a deck of 52 cards to help define your character. But more than that, it appears to combine some aspects of collectible card games in that “The Deck is Your Stamina”. As such, it appears that as you make your way through the day there is a tangible and very visual way to determine not only your health but the potential strength of a character through simple current deck sizing.

The free adventure, Triumph at Saint Kiaro is worth checking out as well. Not only does it provide some visuals as far as how the decks are laid out, but there are premade characters to let you jump right into things.

Final Verdict

Westbound is definitely a game that falls more within the Weird West genre than all the way in the Steampunk one, but, as with many things, I believe those aspects play off of each other fairly well. I love the fact that not only is there a Quickstart Guide available, but there is also a scenario to play through so you can really take the game out for a test spin.

One interesting idea with using a deck of cards as both your stamina and how you do checks is that as you proceed through the day, it might make sense not to take a rest if you have a bunch of higher value cards left in the deck (you wouldn’t want those lower tier cards suddenly showing back up in the deck). While there is some level of randomization even with what can get shuffled back into the deck, this creates a different sort of strain on your character – something not really available in dice games.

This is one of those games I’d like to play in person. The decks of cards make good reminders, plus I can see where if you were to do a campaign, you might have a specific “special” deck for each one (character accessories are always fun). Some of the stretch goals seem to lend themselves to this very idea.

***

For more information on Westbound: Revolvers and Rituals check them out here.

***

John McGuire

John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list to learn about the upcoming The Gilded Age Kickstarter.

His prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Theft & Therapy, There’s Something About Mac, Hollow Empire, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Steampunk Fridays – Interview with the Creator of Boston Metaphysical Society

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Check out John McGuire’s The Gilded Age steampunk graphic novel on Kickstarter!

One of my favorite things about Steampunk stories is how the genre lends itself to the use of real world people and places… but with a twist. Monster hunters set on their path by some of the leading scientists of the era (Tesla, Edison, Bell, and Harry Houdini!). An X-Files in a Steampunk world!

I can see why it started its life as a tv show pitch.

***

How long have you been creating/working in comics?

About five years.

At what point did you sit down to become a writer? Do you remember the first thing you wrote?

I was a child, so it’s tough to say when or what exactly. I was always inventing stories in my head then probably by the second grade, I was writing my own.

Who inspires you? Or do you have a favorite artist or creator?

Other indie creators inspire me, but right now Marjorie Liu’s Monstress and Lady Killer by Joelle Jones are my favorites.

How do you manage your daily/family life with your creative work? Is this your 9 to 5 or is this your 10 to 2?

What a question. Hahahaha. Time management is always hard. I work part-time for LA Fitness as an instructor, plus have a husband, two dogs, and house that gets cleaned (by me) on occasion.  I usually write in the afternoons from 2-5 pm and do what I call administrative tasks (expense reports, signing up for cons, travel arrangements, inventory, etc.) for an hour after I get home from the gym. Obviously, laundry and dog walking get squeezed in there somewhere…. And my husband.

It’s often difficult to get word out about independent comics. What do you do to market and promote your books? Anything work really well or really poorly?

I do a blend of social media, exhibiting at cons, reaching out to blogs, reviewers, doing panels and interviews like this! I don’t think you should focus on just one aspect of marketing. However, I do like reaching out at Comic Cons or steampunk conventions because you can develop a relationship with a potential fan.

What’s your process look like when you’re writing? Do you go with the full outline? Or are you a fly by the seat of your pants type?

Most of my stories require some research, then I do character bios, a beat sheet, an outline, then a treatment where I break down the scenes and page count for comics. If I’m doing prose, I pretty much do the same except the treatment is broader in scope, but allows for me to go off in different directions if need be, or if I’m feeling inspired.

What inspired you to create Boston Metaphysical Society?

It was a combination of my love of history, science fiction, and The X-Files. However, the original story was a TV Pilot that I wrote at UCLA School of Theater, Film and TV when I was a graduate student in the MFA Program in Screenwriting. It was suggested I turn it into a six issue mini-series, which I did. And here we are.

Was this a case of coming up with the story first and then the setting or vice versa?

The story and setting came up simultaneously in this case.  I thought it would be cool to have paranormal detectives set in an alternate history of Boston and the United States and have to deal with a different set of social mores and expectations than we deal with today.

Or at least not quite so blatant.

What’s been the reaction to the book?

Excellent. I have what I refer to as a small group of ardent fans. And I love them all.

Are there themes and/or subjects you find yourself drawn to again and again in your work?

Absolutely. I almost always deal with the theme of classism. In the case of Boston Metaphysical Society, I also dealt with racism and sexism.

After running 4 successful Kickstarters for Boston Metaphysical Society, what have you learned about the process of Kickstarter? What do you think has contributed to hitting your goals on Boston Metaphysical Society? Did you worry about “going to the well” too soon after each one?

Soooo many questions….LOL. Once upon a time, back before 2013, you could pretty much throw something up on Kickstarter and get it funded. Not anymore. You have to create a fanbase before you launch and post what is essentially a grant proposal as your Kickstarter page. There is much more professionalism in how projects are presented now.

Many of the reasons we make our goals so quickly is that I have a core email list of people who I’m 99% sure they will back the project. Not only because they like it, but I have delivered on all past rewards in a timely fashion. I don’t like to do more than one campaign a year as it is very time intensive and takes away from my productivity. I do think there is a risk of “going to the well” too much, but I have friends who have no problem with it and have been successful.

Do you view the platform as a testing ground for the concepts?

I don’t view the platform as a testing ground for concepts when it comes to comics. Most comics use Kickstarter as a pre-order mechanism. However, I can see how tech items might use it that way.

You currently have 6 issues (a full trade) of Boston Metaphysical Society. What’s the overall plan with Boston Metaphysical Society?

All stories after the timeline of the original six issue series will be in 32-34 page one shots. I’ve just completed a draft of the first story which will feature Granville Woods and Tesla. These will be complete standalone stories focusing on two or three of the main characters. Anything that occurs before the beginning of the six issue series will be in prose. In fact, I’ve got a first draft of the first novel which begins five years before the start of the comic. Unfortunately, I haven’t had time to go back and rewrite it yet.

Comics is an amazing collaborative medium. Tell me a little about working with artist Emily Hu.

Emily has been a joy to work with. We set up a schedule where she would deliver three pages a week. I would review them, then give her notes while she continued on to the next three.  We worked together for almost four years and she completed the entire series. We hope to work together again in the future if her schedule permits it.

If you could go back in time ten years, what advice might you have for your younger self? Something you wish you knew?

Start reading comics sooner. Let me explain… My brother has probably the largest graded collection of Daredevil comics in the U.S., but I was never interested in superhero comics because I thought that was all that was available. It wasn’t until I decided to adapt the TV Pilot that I took a sequential art class and started reading indie comics. That was such a revelation. I loved them and wondered where they had been all my life.

Do you have any upcoming projects? Anything you’d like to promote? Anything else that you’d like people to know about you (Hobbies? Passions? Favorite TV Show)?

 

Yes! I’m very excited to announce a couple of things. The first is that I was hired to write a four issue mini-series for SFC Comics/Evoluzione Publishing called, Kasai: The Homecoming.  It will be my first time writing a superhero and I loved doing it. It’s set in a world where many superheroes are pro-wrestlers. My series will focus on a young female pro-wrestler from Japan who is half-human and half-fire demon. It will be on Kickstarter in early 2018.

The other project is a short story called, The Scout, which will be in the anthology, The Fourth Monkey. It is an anthology which deals with social and environmental issues and will launch on Kickstarter on Sept. 12, 2017.

I also wrote a short story for The Enyes Anthology called Saturday Night Fever. It contains various stories from indie creators about the Enyes family; a family where each of its members are either monsters or have some sort of relationship with monsters. It will be on Kickstarter in 2018.

And definitely look for us on Kickstarter for the Granville and Tesla standalone story in early 2018. Right now the working title is Boston Metaphysical Society: The Scourge of the Mechanical Men.

Where’s the best place to find out more about Boston Metaphysical Society and the rest of your works?

Website: www.bostonmetaphysicalsociety.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BostonMetaphysicalSocietyComic/

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mholly

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mcholly1/

Storenvy: http://bostonmetaphysical.storenvy.com/

***

A TV, feature film, and comic book writer, Madeleine is the winner of the Sloan Fellowship  for screenwriting, and the Gold Aurora and Bronze Telly for a PSA produced by Women In Film. She also won numerous awards while completing the UCLA MFA Program in Screenwriting. Having run a number of successful crowdfunding campaigns for her comic, Boston Metaphysical Society, Madeleine now teaches a crowdfunding class for independent creators at Pulp Fiction Books in Culver City as well as guest lecturing at UCLA Professional Program in Theater, Film and TV, Scriptwriters Network, and Dreamworks Animation. She has also published the book, Kickstarter for the Independent Creator.

Boston Metaphysical Society webcomic is the recipient of an HONORABLE MENTION at the 2013 GEEKIE AWARDS and was nominated for BEST COMIC/GRAPHIC NOVEL at the 2014 GEEKIE AWARDS. The comic has also been nominated for a 2012 Airship Award as well as a 2013, 2014 and a 2015 Steampunk Chronicle Reader’s Choice Award. Her novella, Steampunk Rat, was also nominated for a 2013 Steampunk Chronicle Reader’s Choice Award.

She also has an anthology of short stories and novellas called Boston Metaphysical Society: Prelude  (in print as well as eBook) based on the Boston Metaphysical Society universe available at all major online retailers. The Boston Metaphysical Society short story, Here Abide Monsters, is part of the Some Time Later anthology from Thinking Ink Press. She is currently writing the first novel based on the series and was hired by SFC Comics/Evoluzione Publishing to write a four issue mini-series based on the SFC character, Kasai.

Formerly a nationally ranked epee fencer, she has competed nationally and internationally. She is an avid reader of comics, steampunk, science fiction, fantasy, and historical military fiction.

Madeleine lives with her rocket scientist husband, David and two rescue dogs: Ripley and Bishop.

***

I want to thank Madeleine Holly-Rosing for being so gracious with her time!

***

John McGuire

John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list to learn about the upcoming The Gilded Age Kickstarter.

His prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Theft & Therapy, There’s Something About Mac, Hollow Empire, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Steampunk Fridays – Interview with the Creator of The Legend of Everett Forge

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Check out John McGuire’s The Gilded Age steampunk graphic novel on Kickstarter!

Cowboys and Robots.

I’m a sucker for the Western genre. Anytime they cross my tv, I end up stopping on that channel to watch. And Heaven help my poor wife if the word Tombstone is mentioned anywhere in there. She might as well give up on me being productive for the rest of the day (even though I own the DVD).

Everett Forge is in the mold of many of those same Westerns. He’s clearly a man on a mission to destroy Omega’s entire livelihood. He’s a myth, a ghost story the Robots tell each other at night – make sure you lube all your joints of Everett Forge will get you.

***

How long have you been creating/working in comics?

I’ve been working in comics since about 2014, that’s when I officially started work on The Legend of Everett Forge.

At what point did you sit down to become a writer? Do you remember the first thing you drew/wrote?

I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. I was super into Goosebumps when I was a kid, so the very first stories I wrote were all lighthearted, scary ones.

Who inspires you? Or do you have a favorite artist or creator?

So many people. Family inspires me to continue pursuing my dreams. And the list of creators out there who inspire me is way too long. I’m just extremely fortunate to be surrounded by so many amazing, loving, and talented people.

How do you manage your daily/family life with your creative work? Is this your 9 to 5 or is this your 10 to 2?

Writing is my 10 to 2 for sure. It’s a tough thing trying to balance family life and my creative work. I don’t want to sacrifice any time with my wife and daughter, so I will write while they’re at the grocery store, visiting family, or when they’re asleep.

It’s often difficult to get word out about independent comics. What do you do to market and promote your books? Anything work really well or really poorly?

With essentially no budget, I stick to the cheap and easy social media methods like Facebook and Instagram. I’m fortunate enough to be friends with a lot of indie creators who help get the word out about my comic as well. Kickstarter, in my opinion, works the best. It’s an amazing platform to get your work out to thousands of people from across the globe. From just two Kickstarters, my readership has expanded over a couple hundred. That is pretty solid for a new indie title.

What’s your process look like when you’re writing? Do you go with the full outline? Or are you a fly by the seat of your pants type?

I always start with a general outline. I don’t get too detailed with it as I’ve come to find that often times the story will tell you how it wants to be told. For example, in the second issue, I wrote and re-wrote a couple pages over and over again because they just weren’t coming out the way I outlined them. Then I realized that the way I was writing them was way more organic than what the outline had. Sometimes, as a writer, you have to give a little of the control over to the story.

What inspired you to create The Legend of Everett Forge?

I always say I wish my inspiration was deeper and more meaningful…but, to be honest, I just wanted a story that had robot cowboys! A college professor once told me that if you can’t find the stories you want to read, write them yourself. So, that’s what I did!

Was this a case of coming up with the story first and then the setting or vice versa?

Well, it all initially began with me wanting to see robot cowboys. Then in high school, I wrote a short story about an unnamed gunslinger who has to fight his way out of an old west town full of robots. The story ended up lost somewhere in my hard drive until I came across it a few years later in college. I was minoring in Film Production, so I decided I wanted to expand on it and turn it into a screenplay. I worked on that for about a year or so, on and off. After I finished it, I shelved it again. It wasn’t until a couple years later, after I attended one of my first Comic Cons, that I decided I wanted to revisit the story again in comic book form. And here we are!

What’s been the reaction to the book?

So far, so good! Reactions from the Steampunk community regarding the comic have been extremely positive. Even those who aren’t big into either Steampunk or Westerns have enjoyed it. But, I think my favorite reactions are from the people who typically aren’t into comics. I have one reader who hadn’t read a comic in over 20 years, but after he saw my first Kickstarter, he decided to pledge and now he’s one of our biggest fans.

Oh, and just a few weeks ago someone shared one of our posts and said they want to cosplay as one of the characters from the story.

That’s amazing!

I don’t think you can get a bigger compliment than that!

Are there themes and/or subjects you find yourself drawn to again and again in your work?

I seem to always be drawn to stories about death, vengeance, or humanity. I love exploring all three. Fortunately, The Legend of Everett Forge focuses heavily on all of those in varying ways.

After running 2 successful Kickstarters for The Legend of Everett Forge, what have you learned about the process of Kickstarter? What do you think has contributed to hitting your goals on The Legend of Everett Forge? Did you worry about “going to the well” too soon after each one? Do you view the platform as a testing ground for the concepts?

Networking and expanding my fan base have proven instrumental in hitting our goals. My very first Kickstarter failed miserably. I only had a few pages of the comic done by that point, I had only started my facebook page maybe three or four months prior, and I knew very few people in the industry. After the Kickstarter flopped, I sat down, licked my wounds, and started to put myself out there more. Within a year I had become close friends with dozens of indie creators and more than doubled my fan base.

You currently have 2 issues of The Legend of Everett Forge. What’s the overall plan with The Legend of Everett Forge?

Yeah, the second issue should be out in about a month or so. The initial story arc for Forge will run seven issues. After that, I have two additional story arcs for him that will close out the entire saga. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to tell the tale of Everett Forge for the next ten years!

Comics is an amazing collaborative medium. Tell me a little about ClickArt Studios.

They’re the best! Back in 2014 when I was looking for an art team, I posted an ad on DeviantArt. Rai responded almost immediately and showed me their work and stated that he and his wife Ochie were big Steampunk fans. I knew almost instantly that they were the ones I wanted to work with. Then the concept art started coming in, and suddenly these characters that had been in my head for years started to come to life in ways I could have never imagined!

They’re all such amazingly talented and kind people! I love working with them and I just love them in general. I hope to have a very long career with them!

If you could go back in time ten years, what advice might you have for your younger self? Something you wish you knew?

I’d tell my younger self not to wait to pursue his dream. I spent so many years thinking I wasn’t ready or doubting that anyone would even want to read my work. Had I spent all that time actually getting my stuff out there, I’d be light years ahead of where I am now.

Do you have any upcoming projects? Anything you’d like to promote? Anything else that you’d like people to know about you (Hobbies? Passions? Favorite TV Show)?

I’m currently working on a new comic series with Godsend creator, Lee Jiles. It’s called Red Scare. It’s still in its early stages, but so far it is looking great. I’m also working on a pitch for a superhero story. Other than that, I enjoy playing video games and reading comics. I love spending time with my family. My favorite TV Show is Westworld. Shocking, right?! 😛

Where’s the best place to find out more about The Legend of Everett Forge and the rest of your works?

Check us out on Facebook at facebook.com/EverettForge. Otherwise, follow me on Kickstarter and Instagram.

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I want to thank Scott Wilke for being so gracious with his time!

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John McGuire

John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list to learn about the upcoming The Gilded Age Kickstarter.

His prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Theft & Therapy, There’s Something About Mac, Hollow Empire, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Steampunk Fridays – Interview with the Creator of Hinges

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Check out John McGuire’s The Gilded Age steampunk graphic novel on Kickstarter!

 

There are moments when you start reading a comic and you just know there is something about it which speaks to you. And maybe you don’t understand every little thing which has been set out in front of you… maybe those are the things you’ll figure out on a reread. But when you lock in, that’s all it takes.

When I sat down to check out some Steampunkish comics a couple of weeks ago and came across Hinges by Meredith McClaren, I thought I’d read a few pages and move on with my life.Bauble and Orio had other plans for me.

Bauble and Orio had other plans for me.

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How long have you been creating/working in comics?

Oh gosh.  Maybe nine years now?  It’s all a blur.

At what point did you sit down to become an artist/writer? Do you remember the first thing you drew/wrote?

I don’t know what I started doing first.  But I do remember that my interest developed after a friend gifted me a SAILOR MOON comic.  Once I realized it was an option to make comics, I started seriously contemplating the idea.

Who inspires you? Or do you have a favorite artist or creator?

God.  The list is so long.  Anka always does wonderful work.  So does Bengal, Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido, naniiebim, Nico Delort, Tomer Hanuka…  Pretty much all of Twitter and Tumblr.  There’s just a wealth of beautiful work out there I could not possibly name them all.

How do you manage your daily/family life with your creative work? Is this your 9 to 5 or is this your 10 to 2?

I haven’t really hit a chord with work/life balance.  I don’t have a family or spouse to depend on me, so I can work whatever hours I feel like.  The only thing I really work around right now is sleep.  And it turns out that I need a lot of it.

It’s often difficult to get word out about independent comics. What do you do to market and promote your books? Anything work really well or really poorly?

Going to conventions and talking to people face to face helps.  But it’s far from the only option.

Putting out fan work will get people to pay attention to you. And if you attach links to your creator owned work to those posts, people will share and promote you simply by reblogging the work they originally liked.  I find that works well.

And make yourself a broken record when you really have a campaign going, like Kickstarter.  You really do need to get loud while you’re running those.

What’s your process look like when you’re writing? Do you go with the full outline? Or are you a fly by the seat of your pants type?

When I can get away with it, I usually just work with a bare bones script.  I know what will happen on each page and what points need to be verbalized.  But I won’t have finished dialogue until I’m actually lettering it.

But when working with editors the script definitely needs to be locked down first, and I’m still learning how to meet that need well.

What’s your process look like? Digital or by hand? Do you have a preference?

I’m all digital now that I have a Cintiq.  I was tired of having all the paper around.

While I only had a tablet to work off of I preferred to draw and ink on paper and then color digitally.

But I’m definitely addicted to my Cintiq now.

So, I was late to the Hinges party, but I consumed it in like a day (and I might have gotten a little misty a couple of times 🙂 ). I feel like the relationship between Bauble and Orio reminds me of all my pets. You love them, you get frustrated by them, and you love them again. With the two of them, it just feels like everything is earned as time goes on.

Not sure there was a question in there. 🙂

It’s very nice to say though, regardless.  😉  Thank you.

What inspired you to create Hinges? And why did you go the webcomic route?

I wanted to do a story about dolls for a while because I just liked the aesthetic.  But Orio’s story really started to formulate as I was preparing to come home from college.  There was a lot surrounding the ideas of home, returning, and comfort that came together to form the story.

And then some of my other projects were held up in their developmental stages, so I had time to start really playing with HINGES.

As for the webcomic route.  I wanted to challenge myself and see if I could commit to having a certain amount of work done weekly, and posted consistently, for a long period of time.  Having it on a public forum would help keep me locked into that commitment.

Was this a case of coming up with the story first and then the setting or vice versa?

Probably the other way around.  I had very basic ideas about what kind of stories would be served by the visuals HINGES provided, but the full story didn’t formulate alongside the world until later.

I saw that you put the trades out through Image, how did that come to be?

I ran a successful Kickstarter to print book one.  Faith Erin Hicks made mention of it to IMAGE and the book got into their hands and we worked out the rest.

It means a lot to publishers when you’ve shown that you can complete and print a book, as well as acquire enough support to fund it.

What’s been the reaction to the comic?

Good.  I have my loyal followers.  And I’m happy the story struck a cord for some.

Are there themes and/or subjects you find yourself drawn to again and again in your work?

Working up to confrontation I think.  It takes a long time to go from, ‘this is not good’ to ‘this must be addressed head on and forcefully.’  It’s something I struggle with a lot.

I also seem to be drawn to characters that have something artificial about their ‘humanness.’  Dolls, robots, bodysnatchers.  They all make the question of what makes people, people much more obvious.

It’s something that’s come up several times.

Did you always have a complete story in mind when you started Hinges or was that something you discovered through creating the story?

Yes.  I do not start stories if I don’t know the ending.  I’m flexible about how we get to an ending, and over time I can recognize that the meaning of that ending might have evolved.  But I won’t start anything that doesn’t have a goalpost.

I just don’t want to scramble at the end.  And I also like to know that projects I start HAVE an end.  I don’t like working on things that have an indefinite lifespan.

If you could go back in time ten years, what advice might you have for your younger self? Something you wish you knew?

You’re on the right track.  And you can do all of this by your terms.

Do you have any upcoming projects? Anything you’d like to promote? Anything else that you’d like people to know about you (Hobbies? Passions? Favorite TV Show)?

I’m working on an adult book with LIMERENCE that features the relationships and sexy times of superheroes called SUPER FUN SEXY TIMES.

That won’t be out until 2019 though.  There are a few works that will be coming out much sooner, but unfortunately, none of them have been announced yet.

I will have a sketchbook of mermen called BUBBLY available on my storenvy around October though.

Otherwise, the only things to know about me is:  I make famously coveted caramels. I take politics very seriously.  I watch a metric ton of documentaries.  And I love audio drama horror like NO SLEEP or LORE. (But not horror movies. I really do not like horror movies.  It only works if there are no visuals.)

Where’s the best place to find out more about Hinges and the rest of your works?

HINGES

http://hingescomic.blogspot.com/

ALL WORK

http://meredithmcclaren.tumblr.com/

https://www.patreon.com/meredithmcclaren

https://twitter.com/IniquitousFish

STORENVY

https://meredithmcclaren.storenvy.com/

***

A Meredith McClaren is very dangerous when encountered in the wild.  Place any pizza and Diet Cokes on the ground slowly and then vacate the area.  If appeased, the wild McClaren will produce work, as seen in HOPELESS SAVAGES v4 by Jen Van Meter, HEART IN A BOX by Kelly Thompson, and JEM and the HOLOGRAMS v4 by Kelly Thompson.

If the McClaren finds your offerings wanting, you will know you are doomed when upon hearing the crow caw three times at noon.

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I want to thank Meredith McClaren for being so gracious with her time!

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John McGuire

John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list to learn about the upcoming The Gilded Age Kickstarter.

His prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Theft & Therapy, There’s Something About Mac, Hollow Empire, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Steampunk Fridays – Imaginary Voyages of Edgar Allan Poe #1 KS Exclusive Edition

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Check out John McGuire’s The Gilded Age steampunk graphic novel on Kickstarter!

Is Edgar Allan Poe Steampunk?

We mostly know him from his horror side of things. Whether it is burying people alive or being driven mad by the guilty thoughts of our minds, Poe had a stranglehold on that part of his reader’s minds. But Steampunk? I honestly didn’t know. So I consulted the all-powerful internet for the answer and came across this article from Tor.com: Was Poe Steampunk?

That’s good enough for me!

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Imaginary Voyages of Edgar Allan Poe #1 KS Exclusive Edition

Dwight MacPherson – Writer

Luis Czerniawski – Artist

Kickstarter campaign ends on Wednesday, August 30, 2017 at 8:51 AM EDT.

 

The Pitch:

I’ve often described this story as “Alice in Wonderland meets The Lord of the Rings.” And for those who are fans of classic literature like myself, I would describe it as “Homer’s Odysseymeets Dante’s Divine Comedy.” 

The Story:

Edgar Allan Poe has lost everyone he ever loved and now he is losing his mind. Haunted by his wife’s ghost and his many literary failures, the poet tumbles into a fantastical world created by his genius…and his madness. This world called Terra Somnium is a nightmare region that merges his macabre literary creations and mythological gods and monsters of old, all hell-bent on stopping him from escaping the land of dreams.

John’s Thoughts:

As a writer, there are many times when you might want the things you write about to actually come true. It would be great to become the hero of some epic fantasy who slays the dragon and takes the throne. Then again, it is less fun thinking about it when you are writing about very horrific ideas.

And then watch them not only come true but pretty much try to kill you? That is right up there with Writer’s Block!

The Rewards:

The interesting thing about this Kickstarter is that there are only 3 Rewards: Digital copies ($5), KS exclusive printed edition with a pair of prints ($15), and the print book with a t-shirt ($25). So many times the talk is about appealing to as many people as possible with the rewards, but here MacPherson boils it down to the core… and as of this writing (with roughly 7 days to go) he’s more than tripled his asking goal ($3000+ vs $1000).

Perhaps the lesson is less is more?

The Verdict:

You get on the ground floor of issue 1 of the comics. The art is a nice mixture of cartoony and horrific… a perfect fit for this time of story.

If you are a lover of Poe then this seems like a complete no brainer.

***

For more information on Imaginary Voyages of Edgar Allan Poe #1 KS Exclusive Edition and Hocus Pocus Comics, check out their Facebook Page here.

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John McGuire

John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list to learn about the upcoming The Gilded Age Kickstarter.

His prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Theft & Therapy, There’s Something About Mac, Hollow Empire, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Steampunk Fridays – Kickstart the Game- 1879 London Adventure and Sourcebook

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Check out John McGuire’s The Gilded Age steampunk graphic novel on Kickstarter!

As a roleplayer, I’m always on the look out for games that I might get to play. Sometimes it’s because of the rule systems, sometimes it is because of the setting, and sometimes it’s just something that catches your eye. You know those games. The ones where you end up reading the sourcebooks cover to cover. You let your mind take it all in long before you ever break out a character sheet.

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1879 London Adventure and Sourcebook

From FASA Corporation

Kickstarter campaign ends on Monday, August 21, 2017, at 9:00 AM EDT.

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The Pitch:

“1879 is FASA’s steamweird roleplaying game, that takes the place of Shadowrun in our cosmology. Due to a weird science experiment that opens a stable wormhole, Earth’s magic cycle gets jumpstarted in the late Victorian era, leading to a Gilded Age with elves, dwarves, snarks, and trolls. As the world adjusts to its new races, technological progress races forward, as the Age of Steam begins to give way to the Age of Electricity. Clockwork computers exchange data over telegraph wires, steam-powered airships chug through the sky, and industrial applications of magic churn out new wonders daily.

In the new world, the British army faces off against the Samsut, descendants of the Babylonians and Akkadians with their own Weird Science that allows them to raise the dead and use zombies as shock troops and skeletons as fire and forget munitions. The Saurids, the true native race of the Grosvenor World, aren’t happy about either Terrestrial civilization, and may yet manage to unite their fragmented tribes and create a second front.

Play it as steampunk corporate espionage if you like, or court intrigue, or lost world pulp adventure – yes, there are dinosaurs!

Adventure awaits!”

The Game:

This particular Kickstarter is actually for Book 1 in The Akkadian Trilogy (Big Trouble in Little Soho) and/or the London Gazetteer (London, or The Haunted City). In addition, at a couple of the higher Reward levels, you can get both of those as well as the Players Guide, the GM’s Guide, and the GM Screen ($138 and up).

Big Trouble in Little Soho looks to be the big jumping off point for a potential adventure path. The basic set up is that there is a drug that grants “explosive strength”… and it ends up “in  the wrong hands.”

“The book runs 96 pages, digest size, perfect bound, with a full-color cover and black and white interior art. Layout is complete; backers will receive immediate access to the galley proof.”

London, or The Haunted City is the breakdown of the city of London within the game. From the breakdown, it details the every piece of the city, with potential adventure hooks when the PCs decide they want to just wander around (as PCs always seem to do). Then there is a breakdown on the technology, the politics, and even the various criminals and activities they might… entice your players with.

In addition, you also get “a complete adventure, Baby Boojum, in which a kidnapping goes hysterically wrong.”

“The book runs 256 pages, digest size, perfect bound unless we meet our first Stretch Goal, with a full-color cover and black and white interior art. Layout is complete; backers will receive immediate access to the galley proof.”

Passenger Giffard by Yad Mui, vehicles artist

Final Verdict:

Since Steampunk kind of occupies this odd space where everything is potentially available to you within a band of a few decades (late 1800s…-ish), sometimes that isn’t enough to entice potential players. They are looking for something a little more than just (forgive me)… gears and corsets. They need a unique Divergent Point. They need to know why your world is more appealing than the next.

From the FASA Games website:

“The Silver Exhibition, London, 1876. Twenty-five years after the Crystal Palace Exhibition, another is held to showcase the technological wonders of Britain. An ambitious inventor shows off his device to view great distances, but something goes wrong and the machine explodes and vanishes. In its place is left a circular field of … something.

One year to the day of the incident, the field opens. The portal reveals a vast new world of great resources, wonders, and terrors. By 1879 the Empire has a foothold in this new world. A massive fortification named Fort Alice is established at the end of the passage, which has been dubbed the Rabbit Hole.”

So it is with great curiosity that in the 1879 setting we’re dealing with a pair of worlds… seemingly leaking into each other. Our world is on its way to steam power and technology booms while the world on the other side of the wormhole is one where more fantastic creatures and magic are accepted as the norm. A place where our world is the invaders but also potentially the saviors.

I love the idea that an adventure could start on our world and end up on the other side of the portal (or vice versa). That maybe things which work a certain way here might be upside down over there.

And the character roleplaying potential is there, cooked in the bones of this world(s). Do you want to play the fish out of water? Not a problem since probably half the time you’re not going to be on your home world. Want to learn magic? Want to see the wonders of this new technology? All of it is available to you.

Just pass through the Rabbit Hole.

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For more information about 1879 and other FASA Games, check out their website here.

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John McGuire

John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novellas Theft & Therapy and There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!

He also has a short story in the Beyond the Gate anthology, which is free on most platforms!

And has two shorts in the Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows anthology! Check it out!

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.