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.

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 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

Work very much in progress

As September has crept around I thought it was a good time to take stock on some of the things that I’ve been working on in 2019. As ever the times when you have the least to share tend to be your busiest periods of writing, so there is quite a bit to update you on.  The folder in this photo contains artwork from comic pitches my co-writer Steve Aryan and I have worked on over the past few years, so we’ve definitely been keeping ourselves and our artist collaborators busy.

And there are plenty of things going on outside of what’s in that folder too. Much of this year has been spent on developing completely new projects.  Steve and I are in the early stages of development on a fantasy comic mini series idea and are also starting work on a TV series proposal for another concept.  (Check out Steve’s award winning fantasy novels here) 

Steve and I are a bit further along with a horror adventure comics mini-series, that’s all plotted out and we have an artist working on the initial pitch pages. I can’t say much more about that at the moment, but if you follow me on instagram you may be able to see a sneak peek as I occasionally post some work in progress there.

I’ve also been pitching quite a bit of non comics work that I’ve written solo. I’ve worked up a series treatment for a sci-fi audio drama series/narrative podcast and written the first two episodes, written a standalone straight up/non genre audio drama and also worked up a proposal for a horror screenplay too. I’m not sure where any of those ideas will go at the moment, but I’ll post here if they do go into development anywhere. Alongside this I’ve also been pitching comic series to some new contacts at a couple of publishers, including reworking some ideas that were already a little way along.

As well as all of these newer things, some of my longer established writing projects Seven Shades, Flux and Chalk are starting to gain traction and you’ll be hearing more about them in the coming months.

There is an over-sized one shot coming for supernatural western series Seven Shades, following on from the first four issues that series creator/artist Dave Clifford and I put out last year. Hell’s Belles is currently being lettered and a release date will be available soon from Deadstar Publishing (hopefully at Thought Bubble in November). And we are working on our next four issues for release in 2020 too. 

Flux is a sci-fi book that I’ve co-written with Steve, with art by Maysam Barza, lettering by Sean Rinehart and logo design by Paul Nicholas. We have all four issues written and the art is currently taking shape on Issue 3. We’ll have more information on what we have planned for this series in the next few weeks and keep an eye out for the #FluxFriday hashtag on social media where we’ll be sharing things each week too.

Chalk is an urban fantasy series, which I’ve been working on with artist Diego Simone set in the city of Winchester in England, ten pages are fully completed with letters by Sean Rinehart. If you liked my work on The Interactives and how that book blended real world locations in Monmouth, Bristol and London with fantasy elements then I think you will really enjoy it. Comparisons to Rivers of London have already been made by one editor and I’m currently reworking the overall proposal and doing script rewrites. I’m hoping that in some shape of form you’ll be able to read it next year.

Not bad for the first eight months of the year as a part-time writer with a busy day job and there is more to come on the horizon too. I’ll try to update things here more frequently alongside social media as things progress.

Novel for a dark Christmas for Tarja

Following the recent motion comic style music video for Deep Purple, I have been working on another music based project for earMUSIC in my role at Bait Studio.

Tarja Turunen, the former Nightwish lead singer (I have a CD copy of Once in my collection), has a new festive album coming out called 'From Spirits and Ghosts' (Score for a Dark Christmas)'.  

To support the album we have created a graphic novel, inspired by and loosely based on 'Together' a new original song by Tarja. Written by me, with art by Conor Boyle (Hook Jaw), colouring by Matt Soffe and pre-press by Sean Rinehart. 

You can order a copy of 'From Spirits and Ghosts (Novel for a dark Christmas)' exclusively here.