Surveys Sent! (and a small delay)
over 1 year ago – Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 02:08:51 PM

Hello everyone!

It's been one month since our last update. The Healer's Blade #1: PROLOGUE is nearly ready for the printer. Surveys have been sent out through BackerKit and 82% of surveys have already been completed! There are only 18 surveys that need completed, so we can finish the Thank You page.  If you missed your survey, you can complete it here.

 It's been one month since our last update. I was waiting for an update before publishing this update, but I can't put it off any longer. Now, there's a bit of bad news. The layout & book designer completed most of the work, but there's been a recent pause to production. The only pages left to design are: the Thank You page, 1-2 pages of backmatter material, and a promotion page. Once these are finished, we will finally be able to send the comic to the printer. 

THWIP!

There's more good news too! The Spider-Man two-page fan comic has been continuing on pace. During the first two days of August, Devin Arscott sent his editing notes back and I sent the final script to Marcus Jimenez. The letters will still be completed by Lucas Gattoni.

In the meantime, I can show off one final snippet of the script for all of you. I'm excited for the entire comic, but there is one scene, in particular, that I'm looking forward to seeing the most. This wholesome family moment that Miles must remember to recover and finish the fight!

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Stickers Ordered!
over 1 year ago – Thu, Jul 27, 2023 at 09:01:00 AM

Hey everyone, I just wanted to provide a quick update for all of you.

Stickers Ordered!

The sticker sheets have all been ordered! I've been in communication with Dezi about the book layout. Surverys are nearly ready to be sent out to each of you. I have also been tweaking my Spider-Man short comic with Marcus Jimenez.

Speaking of Marcus...

In case you'd forgotten, not only is Marcus Jimenez the artist for the Spider-Man short, but his own comic on Kickstarter for fans of Star Wars, Dune, and other space operas comes a brand new galactic epic.

FALLING STARS #1  is nearly funded with less than a day left! The first comic is completed; digital editions will be sent out the day after the campaign ends. 

Falling Stars #1 tells the story of Cero Unit, the Van Arfan Royal bodyguards, and their latest mission. Del Aeluin, the Star Snake, was placed in charge of Nola Van Arfan, The Crowned Head-to-be's protection. His duty was to keep her safe at all costs. Then one day, the Princess vanished from her tower… Cero Unit has one objective, to save the princess; they must kill the deserter.

Falling Stars #1 is the first issue of a new sci-fi action series. Co-created by Marcus Jimenez (The Whole World Blind, ISAI, Deadly Living) and Frankee White (Eat My Flesh, Drink My Blood, Starless DayDream, The Amber Door) with letters by Toben Racicot. 

A good, but overdue update
over 1 year ago – Wed, Jul 19, 2023 at 10:22:41 AM

Hey, backers! I should have finished writing this update and made a post two weeks ago. My personal life has been really busy, but the comic is nearly complete! I'll tell you more about it, but, there are more important things to talk about first. 

WE MADE IT!

126 of you came together within one month and showed such amazing support throughout the campaign! After a few errored pledges, we reached 162% funding and raised $1,802. I was thankful then, but I'm even more grateful for you all now. My writing began as fan fiction in elementary school, turned into song writing since middle school, & poetry since high school. There's been some ups and some downs, but each one of you helped this project be one of those ups. 

10 years ago, I began to give up. More and more each day, until I wanted to give up everything. If that past version of myself could've seen what we were going to do, he would've realized that things weren't so hopeless. 

If I could give them, or any of you, one piece of advice, it would be to ask yourself a question. If you knew that you would be fully supported, what would you do?  Others words can weigh us down, but it's often our own mind holding us back from some of the fulfillment we truly need.

Book Update!

The story pages are completely finished! All of the files have been sent to Dezi Sienty to design & layout the print files for the comic. I expect the prologue to be complete in July, but digital copies will be sent and physical copies will be ordered no later than August.

In the meantime, you can take a look at a BRAND NEW look at the first four finalized pages!

PREVIEW:

I feel like I owe you a little bit more... so, here's just the tip of Page 5:

"I believe there's a hero in all of us."

Since we swung past 100 backers, I promised all of you would receive my two-page Spider-Man comic short! Here's a small update on the whereabouts of this wall-crawler's story:

As you already know, this comic features art from Marcus Jimenez and letters by Lucas Gattoni. I'm excited to announce Devin Arscott will be the editor for this Miles Morales: Spider-Man script, tentatively titled "I Am the Light." 

This will be sent to my editor within the next week. After that, I can finally send this story over to the artist. In the meantime, take a look at this amazing, Across the Spider-verse inspired art by Marcus!

The Tea Leaves of My Life

I apologize for this little scrapbook of my excuses. There were a lot of real life events happening: fireworks at the park, a garage sale, a lemonade stand, a minor mental breakdown, and a 12-hour drive to Denver with my wife and 3 of her friends to see Taylor Swift. She put on a hell of a performance at the concert with over 73,000 fans there. If you want to see what some of that was like:

 Look at the reflection of the fireworks on the water! 

If you're interested, you can look at this video one of her friends recorded of one of the surprise songs:

Featured in YA Creator Spotlight

Kickstarter is the most popular platform to crowdfund projects, but there are a few others. One of those other platforms is Crowdfundr. During the month of July, they are running a Child & YA Content Creators Spotlight! 

I was featured with my first comic: Kid Cretaceous! If you'd like, you can snag a shirt, a copy of the comic, or even grab out on a copy of The Healer's Blade, if you missed out, here.

That's all I have to share with you all this time. I'll see you all soon!

FINAL 24 HOURS!
over 1 year ago – Fri, Jun 30, 2023 at 11:02:30 AM

GOOD NEWS EVERYONE

I have some good news! There was a pledge cancelled last night containing the only original art available in this campaign. The creator of "Sacrimony", Matta Sorcier, offered our campaign the chance to sell the *ORIGINAL ART* for her amazing art nouveau variant and its back! 

But don't wait on this one, because The Healer's Blade #1 PROLOGUE campaign only has under 24 hours left! Take a look towards the end of this update to see a sketch of this art while in progress.

 THIS IS IT!

We're down to our final 24 hours of the campaign! The end has been a bit shakier than I anticipated. There haven't been too many people that cancelled during this past month, but a few of them were larger pledges. We were less than $100 away from unlocking our next stretch goal but I'm uncertain if we'll make it now. It's absolutely still possible! 

We are sitting at $1,781 raised across all 114 of you amazing backers. No matter what, that means we are STILL 160% funded and you've all shown so much love and support to the campaign. 

New Reward

There's one final reward available today: the Holo-chrome Catch Up tier! In this tier, you will receive holo-chrome variants for The Healer's Blade #1: PROLOGUE & Kid Cretaceous #1.  You've already seen Mariateresa Susca's holo-chrome cover, but here's a look at the holo-chrome Kid Cretaceous variant by Dee Noonan.

Commissions from Terri

I'd also like to remind everyone that our interior artist and co-creator, Maritateresa Susca, has offered a set amount of digital sketches for backers during the campaign. These are digital commissions of your choosing and there are ONLY THREE LEFT!

Here are a few examples of sketches from Terri:

Sketch vs Final variant cover art by M. Sorcier 

 THANK YOU!

Thank you all again for all you've done to help support this story. I'll talk to you all in a day, after the campaign has ended, to write a celebratory post, provide an update, and share a few other indie comic campaigns.

-Trailer edited by Cody from KEEPING IT GEEKLY 

FOUR DAYS LEFT!
over 1 year ago – Mon, Jun 26, 2023 at 02:41:03 PM

I’d get in trouble if I shared them, but Taylor was able to work on the letters ahead of schedule. Brittany will be looking over them for any lettering notes she might have. But, holy crap, he did such a great job!

Current Status

We’ve gained some more people and now have 106 backers, but we've had a few cancellations too. That’s normal and not an issue, but it does mean we are now $212 away from our next stretch goal and unlocking a free copy of Kid Cretaceous for all of our backers.

I know we can shatter this stretch goal and reach for the next goals in these next four days! We could use your help though. Please share the campaign on social media & with any friends that might be interested, if you’re comfortable doing that.

Don’t be afraid to reach out if you’d like several items and want to see a custom bundle for yourself. We can create one just for you! We’ve already set up one for a retailer bundle. 

Shoutout & Full Circle Moment

You may not have seen, but The Healer’s Blade recently received a little shoutout on Twitter.

Thanks to Terri’s original tweet, legendary comic book writer Gail Simone shared our campaign! I tried to play it cool and not tell everyone, but this felt like a full circle moment for me. 

Kid Cretaceous #1 is the first comic book I published. I feel like I've grown a lot as, not only a creator, but a human since then and The Healer’s Blade feels like a culmination of that. On page 13, it also happened to have an easter egg. For the first time, Kacey enters her new school: Gail Simone Elementary! 

I wanted to name the school after a woman who made a huge impact on the comic book industry. I had read some of her work, had respect for her, and was extremely excited at the time for her Marvel mini-series: The Variants. 

When I moved to a new state, the new middle school mascot was the same as Kacey’s new school too. Oh, and its hard to explain, but there‘s an inside joke on the internet about Gail Simone being a bear.

GO BEARS!

Indie Comics Bundle Finale

It’s time to announce the final arrivals into our indie comics bundle! There may potentially be one final comic added to the bundle, but I can’t confirm this since they have not sent their file yet. 

•  The Secret Protectors #1 by Adam Wheeler 
•  Terran 20K, plus two more comics, in a collection of shorts drawn by Vinivius Carreiro 
•  Plague Rat #1, a 36-page first issue by Bran