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The Campaign Corner: March 26 Edition
Find your salvation, or unleash the monster on the frontier in today’s edition of The Campaign Corner.
SALVATION & NIGHTFALL: MICHAEL’S AWAKENING
Greg: Welcome! I like to start off pretending that nobody knows who you are. So, here is your chance, tell us all about yourself.
Dwayne: Hello my name is Dwayne Robinson Jr. and I am the Owner of Animation Comics & Entertainment LLC or A. C. E. for short.
Greg: Tell everybody a bit about your project, give us the elevator pitch!
Dwayne: My Kickstarter project is Salvation & Nightfall: Michael’s Awakening.
Salvation is about a tortured soul named Vahn who is a Relic (half-human half-demon) and is looking for a powerful shaman named Solomon, who Vahn believes can remove and have more answers to his mysterious curse mark that was given to him at birth. So he can finally have peace & salvation.
Nightfall: Michael’s Awakening is about Michael Vash who is told by his mother about what lies within him, a special breed of werewolves. They are called ones with a Legacy-Line. Michael, unsure of what to believe but whatever he chooses his life changes forever after nightfall arises during his birthday party.
Greg: Who is involved on the creative team, and where might people have seen their work before?
Dwayne: Writer of Salvation: Terence Young and Co-Owner of A. C. E.
John Cruz – Colorist
Dwayne Robinson Jr – Artists & Writer of Nightfall: Michael’s Awakening
Greg: What does this story mean to you, not just as a creator, but to you personally?
Dwayne: These stories mean that we can use our creativity to create fun and interesting stories for everyone to enjoy. We both had doubts that we actually could, it feels good to bet on ourselves and make our dreams come true.
Greg: What else can you tell us about your campaign?
Dwayne: Our campaign was created to help us get the printing for our comics Salvation Issue # 0-1 and Nightfall: Michael’s Awakening 1-2. Our comics are 100% completed and hope that Kickstarter can also get more people to know who we are as a company.
Greg: What is your favorite reward item for this campaign?
Dwayne: The Wolf and The Demon it’s our $30 reward where you’ll be given both of our comic book titles and all issues.
Greg: What were the influences on this story?
Dwayne: I have always been a fan of werewolves but never seen a story set in a more urban area and I saw that as a challenge to create it. Terence has been writing this story since we were in High School and it’s a joy to see it finally completing it. Anything extra going directly into 5 and onwards. There are also some FREE add-ons, supplied by some truly awesome creators. That’s 5 additional comics! Greg: Thank you for coming on and talking about your current works. I am looking forward to seeing what is next!
FRONTIER FOREVER #2
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/frontierforever/frontierforever
Greg: Thanks so much for joining us, and being willing to take the time to talk about your project. Before that, introduce yourself to our readers.
Ben: I’m Ben, a lifelong comic reader but I only became interested in making them last April. I was a reluctant reader because of some learning disabilities, but got seriously addicted to it in college. Sci-fi is my jam, and I want to spend the rest of my life writing it.
Greg: Who is involved on the creative team, and where might people have seen their work before?
Ben: My primary illustrator is Gianmaria Orlandi. This is his first major project too, and I want to soak up as much of his time as I can with Frontier Forever projects, but I’m sure you’ll be seeing his name all over the place shortly. He’s doing all of the art and colors for the Regenesis line, but our team has a bunch of new additions for our upcoming anthology called Tomorrow’s Yesterday. That project already has ten illustrators working on it, all of whom are rising stars in the indie community: Dan Schmidt, Diogo Bertolin, Samrat Das, Samuel Anugrah Andre, Ricardo Alves, Elijah Richardson Jr, Dimas Aji Saputra, Eva Radi Anarado, Luca Cicchitti, and Flora Galli.
Greg: What is your creative process like?
Ben: I write whenever I can. Usually, it’s a few hours at night and then one healthy chunk over the weekend, but the production/marketing side of things has been eating up a lot of time lately. Writing comics comes very naturally to me, often it’s just a sprint to see how much I can pump out in the time available. Writing prose is a lot more difficult, and there is a much more complicated cycle of drafting, editing, scrapping and restarting.
Greg: Who are some of your biggest creative influences?
Ben: Without a doubt, Frank Herbert is my #1 author idol. I was big into Star Wars, but as soon as I read Dune I told my friends, “I’d rather be Freman than a Jedi” and I still feel that way. The worldbuilding is so insanely rich and scary, and I try my best to channel that energy into my work. For comics I was a 90s Marvel junkie. Captain America and Wolverine were the two badasses on my shoulders telling me what to do.
Greg: What does the next year look like for you in comics?
Ben: This year Frontier Forever fans can expect to see 2-3 more issues of Regenesis, the first two volumes of Tomorrow’s Yesterday, and the second traditional novel (Blood Beneath Water). Oh, AND a children’s book I’m writing with my sister. It has dogs.
Greg: What does this story mean to you, not just as a creator, but to you personally?
Ben: Frontier Forever is my life’s work. It started as a short film script that I wrote in college, wherein Captain Planet, Lady Liberty, and a Star Wars droid were college roommates fighting about who was going to do the dishes. It was a really simple and fun attempt to personify ethos, pathos, and logos to see what they would do in an everyday situation, but I had to write a feature script for a different class so it grew into something much larger. I was watching a lot of westerns at the time, and American history has always interested me, but sci-fi is my true love, and Frontier Forever was born. It’s got a lot of my family’s history in it. Both of my grandfathers were involved in WW2, one of them being a German Jew, so I crammed as much of the horror and heroism surrounding their lives into it as I could. The narrative structure is very Greek classic but with American themes, but the characters are much more modern. The Marshal is a neurodiverse hero, which has helped me to express some of my personal struggles with mental health and disability. Mister Morton is a sympathetic villain who is (partially) motivated by grief and trauma, which also helped me process some things that happened shortly before I started writing the first book. Honestly, I could go on all day for weeks about everything I’ve tried to work into the series, and I wonder sometimes if it’s too much, but at the same time, I don’t care. This is my baby and you’re going to love it.
MONSTER MATADOR
Greg: Thanks so much for joining us, and being willing to take the time to talk about your project. Before that, introduce yourself to our readers.
Steven: My name is Steven Prince and I am the creator and writer of Monster Matador. In a past life I worked in the toy industry where I focused on Product Development and developed properties for animation, but now I make comics. For a while I wrote and drew them on my own, but now I create with the incredible team of Ringo-Award nominated Fabio Alves (BANJAX) on art and Alex Zief (HATCHET) on colors.
Greg: Tell everybody a bit about your project “MONSTER MATADOR”, give us the elevator pitch!
Steven: A delightfully demented post-apocalyptic throw-down in which Matador Ramon Alejandro Estévez-Guerrero take up his sword and cape against the monsters that turned the world into a lawless, Kaiju-infested hellscape.Godzilla meets Mad Max by way of Santo with a hint of Telenovelas!
Greg: What are your plans for the future of this story and/or series?
Steven: Tango of the Matadors wraps up with this issue, but our next story will launch in the Fall. Rather than single issues, we will be releasing graphic novellas (64-80 page done-in-one stories) moving forward. While I don’t want to give too much away yet, the next story will see the Matador journey to South Africa to fight an ancient evil alongside a group of hardened mercenaries. Our elevator pitch is Predator meets Zombies. Plus, we’ll have some surprise guest stars. And we have a lot more planned to follow that (assuming the Matador survives!).
Greg: What is your favorite reward item for this campaign?
Steven: I’d say the Fabio Alves Original Art Tier. He draws the book digitally, so it’s pretty rare to find any original art from him. He did 5 drawings specifically for this campaign. On par with that (can I have 2 favorites?) I really love the 9×12 limited edition glow-in-dark screenprint that was printed by Nakatomi Print Labs.
Greg: What were the influences on this story?
Steven: This is basically a mish-mosh of a lot of things I love. There’s a Peter Sellers movie called The Bobo where he plays a singing Matador, Mad Max, monster movies, 80s action, telenovelas… All thrown into a blender to make Monster Matador!
Greg: What else can you tell us about your campaign?
Steven: Well, for one, the book is done. So once the campaign is over and the funds clear, it’s going to the printer. We shipped both previous campaigns earlier than the promised fulfillment and we plan to do the same here. Also, if you missed the first two issues, you can pick them up during the campaign as well. And Kickstarter now allows for Add-ons, so if there’s anything you want that doesn’t quite fit into an existing tier you can just add it. Finally, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out.
Greg: What is your creative process like?
Steven: The first thing I do is figure out what I want to accomplish with the story I’m telling, whether it’s exploring a specific theme or answering a question. For instance, with Tango I wanted to introduce readers to the character and the world without having to do info drops or exposition. I found the best way to do that was to contrast him with another Matador.
Then I consider how I want to introduce the reader into the story. In Tango we first see the Matador carried above a forest by the monstrous Volagante. He breaks free and falls to the ground ready to fight. So in a sense the reader is carried into the story media-res and thrown into battle along with the Matador.
From there I’ll come up with some vague ideas about the ending, lay out the structure for the overall story and break it down by issue.
After that I’ll write a full script and send it to Fabio to draw. We’ll make some tweaks along the way, tightening the layout and story and adding some things here and there. As for dialogue, I refine and revise up until I send it to the printer.
Greg: Thank you for coming on and talking about your current works. I am looking forward to seeing what is next!
Want to be featured in the Campaign Corner? Email Greg at greg@indiecomixdispatch.com
