Yearly Archives - 2018

Yup, yup

Richard Bonk brings Ruff to life in the first issue of the Swan Knight Saga. There was a happy barking, and a dog that was half Border Collie and half who-knew-what came bounding up the stairs. He had a white muzzle and chest, black ears, black flanks, white stockings, and bright eyes with a black mask around them. However, he lacked any collar, dog tags, or fixed place of residence. He was Gil’s dog in every way but legally. Gil did...

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Attracting Female Readers, part II

by the Legend Chuck Dixon Continued from Attracting Female Readers, part I Back to history for a moment. The female comic readers, along with the boys, stopped buying and reading comics in significant numbers in the 1970s. This led to the “implosion” in sale that very nearly drove the major comics publishers out of business. Only through timely sales of properties to ancillary media, licensing from a sudden interest in superhero action figures, and some canny marketing (by Stan Lee at Marvel) did...

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Alt★Hero: Q 2.1

As promised, we have relaunched the Alt★Hero: Q campaign for the final 28 days, with all the same rewards, but on our own site this time. However, we never stopped moving forward on it, as this image from Issue #1 will serve to demonstrate. The Legend Chuck Dixon has already finished the script for the first two issues, and Helix Haze is making excellent progress on the illustrations.

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Swan Knight Saga #1 preview

A preview page of the first issue of Swan Knight Saga #1: The Thirteenth Hour. This page shows Gil, the protagonist, watching in dismay as the sleepwalking people of the town go forth to make their offerings to the evil elves who secretly rule over them.

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Comic size poll

About 10 months ago, we requested from our printer the ability to print comics in the traditional size, which is 6.625 x 10.25, and is a little bit wider and just over an inch taller than the royal octavo size that we have been using. This week, our printer made the standard size available to us, the only downside is that it is a little more expensive so we cannot offer them at retail for $2.99 given the discount required...

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Attracting Female Readers, part 1

by The Legend Chuck Dixon There’s a lot of loose talk and misinformation about what the comic publishers need to do to attract more female readers. The conventional wisdom is to create titles specifically aimed at women and girls. Thus the spate of GRRRL power, female-centric comics loaded to the rafters with wise, knowing, capable Mary Sues with all the color and half the density of a piece of Christmas wrapping paper. But there happens to be a much simpler way...

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Alt★Hero #4 Premium cover

An early look at the illustration by Helix Haze for the Premium edition of Alt★Hero #4: The War in Paris. It features the UN-SPC Incident Team of Yanzi, Cloud, and Candle showing up for duty in Paris in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. It's always interesting to see the different illustrators' takes on the same characters.

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