Flux on hold while the world is on lockdown.

The Kickstarter campaign for Issue 2 of Flux was due to launch today, so I was expecting to be writing a post here extolling the virtues of the sci-fi series written by me and Steve Aryan, with art by Maysam Barza, colours by Pressy, a cover by Azim Akberali and letters by Sean Rinehart. However, the world and everything in it has changed beyond recognition since we completed work on the issue.

Since the CV-19 virus outbreak has taken hold of society and shows no immediate sign of loosening its grip, we have taken the decision to put the campaign on hold until things settle down. We did toy with doing a digital only campaign, but our backers preferred the idea of including physical copies still, so ultimately ,despite people being willing to wait for those copies, we felt it best to hang fire. With so many people, ourselves included, concerned about the health of loved ones, their livelihood etc it felt like the best course of action. We’ll be back bigger and better later in the year.

To give people something to read during social distancing and while staying at home we have put Issue 1 up on Gumroad as a reduced price of £1.99 . So you can pick it up there if you haven’t already and please do share the link around.

Flux success and the launch of a new imprint

The Kickstarter campaign for Flux # 1, which ended about a week ago, was a success and we ended the campaign on 168%. Getting to over 150% of our target unlocked our stretch goal, so all our backers receive a special pilot season PDF of other projects Stephen Aryan and I have in the pipeline. Sean Rinehart has been doing a great job on the pre-press design work, pulling together the print version of the book (which has now been sent to the printer) , the digital edition, digital special edition, director’s cut alternative scene and the pilot season too.

The imprint that Steve and I have set up for our first Kickstarter comic series and beyond is called Atlas Stone. My friendship with Steve got me back into watching strongman events over the past six or seven years, as he’s a big fan of the sport. World’s Strongest Man 2017 Eddie Hall’s ‘never say never’ attitude (back up your BS as he’d put it) has been a real inspiration for both of us to keep going with our creative endeavors. Here he is becoming the first person ever to deadlift 500kg.

48 Hours - with no Eddie Murphy

As I write this it’s 48 hours until the end of the Kickstarter campaign for Flux. We’ve managed to make our target and are currently sitting on 136%, thanks to our amazing 117 backers.

I don’t think we’ll make our 150% stretch goal, but I didn’t realise that our final days were on Thanksgiving and Black Friday when we launched!

If you haven’t backed the book yet and would like to there is still time. The issues is all done, PDFs are made for the digital rewards and we just need to give the printer final numbers, then we’re all go. So having copies in Dec/Jan is a certainty.

This is what our cover looks like in all its glory, with art by series artist Maysam Barza, Flux logo by Paul Nicholas, Atlas Stone logo by Zach F Evans and overall design by Sean Rinehart.

We have had a little bit more coverage too and you can hear what Come get Some thought of the issue on their YouTube indie comics special.

Ten days left to back Flux #1

There are just ten days left in the Kickstarter campaign for the first issue of Flux, the sci-fi conspiracy thriller comic written by me and Stephen Aryan with art by Maysam Barza.

We’ve been overwhelmed by the support we’ve had so far, we hit our £1,000 target just before we hit the halfway mark and now we have 101 backers. Our next goal is to get to 50% over target, as that will unlock our first stretch goal an exclusive Pilot Season Preview. If we hit £1,500 all backers will receive this special digital comic packed with over 30 pages of content written by myself and Steve, previewing some of our other projects.

Thanks to all who have backed us and shared the campaign’s details.

Flux is on Kickstarter

Sci-fi crime thriller mini-series Flux is now on Kickstarter. You can pre-order Issue 1 through the site and if we get to our target, you’ll have the book very soon indeed. We’re offering some special rewards including the script to the issue, a director’s cut style alternate scene, an early look at part of Issue 2 and an audio commentary on the issue from me and co-writer Stephen Aryan.

Here is the link to the campaign, we’ve been live for about a day and a half and we’re currently on 30% of our goal. If you are able to back the book, we’d all really appreciate it and sharing the campaign on social media will really help us too. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/peterogers/flux-1

If you aren’t sure what Flux is all about, watch the video below.

Flux coming to Kickstarter

Steve Aryan and I have been friends for years, we originally met when we both had tables at comic conventions for our self-published books. In the subsequent ten plus years we’ve become close friends, not only do we podcast together (Bags of Action), we also co-write together too.

Sci-fi thriller comic book mini-series Flux was the first thing we worked on together and we realised very quickly that our differing writing approaches complimented each other very well. Skype calls helped us shape the story beyond Steve’s original idea and then we met up in person to really break the story fully. That was in Leeds for Thought Bubble one year, though I can’t remember which one of us was sitting at the laptop and which one was pacing the hotel room. Once we found artist Maysam Barza on the Small Press Commandos Facebook page things really started to take shape.

““An ongoing, complex mystery, FLUX shows readers a twisted version of today where time travel terrorism and casual homicide have become a terrifying norm. Fans of Looper and Blade Runner will feel right at home in the world Rogers, Aryan, & Barza have created.” ”

— Sterling Gates, writer/producer, The Flash

We’ve come very close to the book being picked up by a large publisher on more than one occasion, but now we’ve decided that the best way to get Flux out into the world is via Kickstarter. We’re planning to launch our first campaign in November for Issue 1, with the subsequent three issues and trade collection following in 2020 if we’re successful.

Sean Rinehart is doing lettering and pre-press on the book, Paul Nicholas designed the Flux logo and Zach F Evans is helping us with our video and imprint logo design work for the campaign. If you’re on twitter you can keep up with our progress by following FluxFi and if you like the sound of the book, you’ll be able to pre-order via Kickstarter very soon.

“Smartly using the familiar framing of a Police Procedural, Flux introduces us to a world like our own but with a serious twist: Time Travel is REAL. Time Terrorism is real. Echoing the best of Fringe and the X-Files the team take us in a world we only think we understand. Fantastic.”

— Mike Collins, artist for Marvel, DC, 2000AD. Storyboard artist on Doctor Who, Good Omens and His Dark Materials