A lot has happened in the last month or so and a lot continues to happen as we prepare for the future. If you haven’t learned by now, our comic preview and mugs are for sale for you to buy. We made these for you to start reading the story and get into it. Check it out when you have a chance! We are extremely proud to be at this point where we can give you a physical product, but we also understand that there is still more work to be done. The next step is to officially launch the Kickstarter for this project. This isn’t easy and we’ll need support, but we want to make sure we have some people interested before we launch that. Also we are still finalizing some of the gifts you can receive for making a donation. We want you to stay plugged in as we continue moving towards our goals! Sign up on our Kickstarter page and we’ll update you once we launch it!
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We couldn’t be more excited to share this news with you! We have a preview of the first chapter and a half of The Shadow Agency in print headed your way! We’ve been working hard to get this prepared for you to purchase and we hope you are as excited to read the book as we are excited for you to read it.
In addition, we’re getting coffee mugs with all of the characters on them for you. What goes better with a nice read than a cup of Joe or tea or whatever you like in your ceramic? Once both of these products are in, we’ll launch our store so you can buy online. Lastly, we are very close to launching the Kickstarter. We’ll keep you updated on that as well, because once it launches we will be pushing to meet the goal for the whole book. We’ll update you but keep your eyes peeled in the coming days as this all comes out. Thank you all for your patience as everything comes together. We hope your as excited as we are on this journey! It’s back to school season, whether you are ready for it or not. With this comes a lot of sad end-of-summer feelings, but now is actually a great time to get in some shopping if your in the comic field. Here are some things to look for. Writing suppliesBack to school means tons of sales on pencils, pens and notebooks, which are a writer’s bread and butter. It was the late Stan Lee who recommended always having a small notepad in your pocket, to jot down some ideas for a book, which will come in handy. Now is a great time to replace that worn out pocketbook for a new one or get a new pen for notes. Art suppliesArt students need to go back to school too, which means comic artists can save some dough by shopping now. Get pencils and inks at your art supply stores or a sketch pad for ideas from a bulk store. Now also will be a good time to target the larger items that during the school year will be more expensive to buy. Tech and computersMost of the comic process is done digitally, which means now is a great time to invest in software or hardware. Take a look at deals for the Microsoft or Adobe products or look into getting a new laptop or stylus for your work. Even an extra monitor can save you time flipping between windows on your computer. Some things though you may want to see if you can get cheaper during Black Friday, but if you need it now, this would be the best time. ComicS!Just because your back in school doesn’t mean you don’t still need some leisure reads. Whether it’s your local shop or a large bookstore, there might be some good back to school deals on comics out there. Now is also a great time to sell if you have a book that you might want to get some cash from. In general, now is the time to take advantage of these deals. Don’t forget to shop local at small shops, as sometimes they may have deals or expertise that you might not find online. Pick up supplies, tech, and some good reads and get ready for the fall to start back up!
We’ve got a lot going on that is in the works that we want to tell you about!
First off, thank you to everyone who has been checking out the site. I’m sure you may have noticed some small glitches, which we are working on, but we appreciate your patience. Second, we are still in the process of getting the first chapter finished. What we didn’t tell you though is that, fingers crossed, we are hoping to be able to get the first chapter and a half printed soon. We will keep you posted! There are a lot more steps that need to be made, but that’s our goal. Third, we are also nearing the Kickstarter phase, but we want to do some cool things first in prep for that. One of which is to open up the forum so people can submit variant covers. We’ll keep you tuned to that as well. We do have a lot of things coming soon, so keep your eyes peeled as you take this journey with us! Often when writing these posts, it challenges us to think about what we want to share that's happening for the month. This month's post is no different. The biggest thing that we've been focusing on is preparing for the Kickstarter, but that doesn't mean we're just twiddling our thumbs. Before we just jump into a crowd funding gauntlet, we want to give ourselves as much of an advantage going in as possible. Some of that means continuing to have pages of art completed. It might seem silly, but this does a few things: Gives a glimpse to the full story If you are going to donate to a Kickstarter, you want to have a good idea as to what your paying for, right? Having more art done in advance gives you and people yet to learn about us an opportunity to really get invested in the story. Gives you something to read You've already seen the preview (hopefully), so you at least know what to expect from that, but you haven't read an actual chapter. Our goal is to give you something to read (and hopefully buy) so that way you can begin the journey with us. Gives us more to submit With more pages, we can continue to submit this comic to publishers with the goal of being picked up. Not all publishers have the same page requirements, so more pages are always better. We won't give away everything, but here's a preview page of what we're working on now. We'll keep you posted as we get ready for the Kickstarter campaign and get more artwork to show. Keep an eye out for updates!
If you haven’t noticed by now, we’ve done some redesigning of the website here at Endurance Comics. We’ve added a new design as well as some cool things, so here’s what to look for. New DesignWe changed up the colors and made the new site a little bit more uniform as compared to before. Also we added the triangle designs for the characters, which should be showing up on more things in the future. If you don’t know what we mean, check out the home page. New PreviewOn our main page, you can get to our new preview of The Shadow Agency with colors and letters. This showcases how the comic will feel and I have to say I’m very proud of the work that was done on it all around. Check it out if you haven’t already. New Social MedIaOn our social media page, you can link up with our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages to catch up on the more regular things going on with Endurance Comics. See what’s happening and reach out to us there as well! All in all, we want to make sure we are giving you the best experience with us while we continue our journey towards the finished product. Do you have thoughts on the changes? Love the preview pages? Want to hit us up on the gram? Let us know! We’d love to hear from you.
It’s taken a lot of time, but we’re finally in the waiting game. The Shadow Agency is going through the process of submittals for publishing! This is exciting and terrifying all at the same time as we wait for a green light to start producing. It also can be frustrating when you are told no. Being honest, I’ve had the rejection letter sent before to me, but the real question is what do you do after that? Well there’s a few options: find another publisherIf you don’t get accepted on the first try, your not alone. Think of this like your college applications, if that was a thing for you. Don’t expect to get in everywhere but also know which is your top pick in case you do. Have a few back up options in case your dream publisher doesn’t accept and make sure you follow the submission guides for each location. self-publishWith crowd funding, you don’t have to be apart of the worlds biggest comic publisher to get an audience for your book. Try doing a crowd funded self published book if you can’t get accepted. There are even options through many of your favorite book retailers that may help you do so. ReviSe/try something newIf you don’t get accepted, try revising your story. You never know what a little more elbow grease can do for a story. Sometimes even setting it aside and going to a different project for a bit can help you get some creative juices flowing on how to better the story. All things aside, I of course will update you when I get an acceptance and/or do a kickstarter to crowd fund the project. Keep it posted here in the meantime!
Wow can you believe how much time has gone by? Since this website has officially launched, it’s been a little over 6 months. Time to check in! Let’s go over all that’s happened and what’s to come. ArtOne if the biggest things that’s happened since September has been all of the art that I have now for The Shadow Agency. I’m sure by now you’ve seen the black and white preview, but I do have almost all of that finished in color and lettered as well. Once that’s complete, I’ll be kicking it off with my script and a few other supporting documents to a publisher for approval. It’s been a long time coming, but we’ve worked really hard to get here and of course I have to thank Charles and Ramon for all their hard work so far. businessAs of now, we are officially a business! Endurance Comics LLC is alive and well. That is a big step for us, but even bigger for you because that means we can start selling stuff! Keep your eyes peeled for some surprise goodies coming your way as we get ready for the comic’s release. EventsAs things continue to heat up, there will be more events. I’ve already had my first speaking engagement for Endurance Comics (shout out to the RHPL for the love) and hopefully this momentum continues this year as well! FutureWhat does the future hold? Well I can’t say that for sure, but I do know what I have planned and what I’m working on. I do have a few story ideas for after The Shadow Agency gets published, but no spoilers of course! I can say, we will be getting ready to submit for The Shadow Agents rather shortly and I’ll be keeping you up to date as we get there. Keep an eye out for updates and I look forward to sharing more stories on this journey! We’re almost there! I hope you enjoy this preview as much as I do. It’s been a long time coming, but we’re making huge strides towards the finish line.
In order to submit my comic to a publisher, I need 5 pages and a cover for the submission. So far, we are very close! We’ve managed to get all 5 pages and the cover in inks while some of the final pages are still being worked on for color. Once that happens, I’ll be able to submit the comic with letters and we’ll see where we go from there! More announcements to come, but I hope you enjoy this! Some of you may have carried over from the old days when I was doing a webcomic that I hand-drew with colored pencils and sharpies (oh how far we've come). One of the biggest changes that you might have noticed if you remember those days would be the name of the comic was different. Back then, I published online a story called American Legends with a precursor story of American Legends: Origins. Many of the characters from back then have found their new life in this script, but with a different name: Shadow Agency. Let me give you some details as to why that changed.
It was hard to make the comics the way I was, especially since I wasn't writing anything down before I started drawing. It was even harder since no one was taking me seriously and I didn't have the money to elevate what I was doing. I got some good advice and I set out to write a script for a graphic novel that I would have someone else do the art for.
Sadly, in the time it took me to write the script while going through school, when I got around to now, the name had already been published under as a comic book. Now I could have maybe tried to sue or something, but I actually think that book had a better use of the name, so I went back to the drawing board and came up with ideas for a name. After brainstorming with my family, my artist, and some of my close friends, Shadow Agency seemed to be the best fit for what the book was going for. Personally, the art that Charles did for the book required a more dramatic name than what I had previously assigned and the name being in use just gave me a good excuse. I can't tell you how many days I sat with names or words of teams that I tried to create with no avail, but I think this one fits best. By this time of course, the story had also changed too and I think the new name fits it better. The Shadow Agency are super-powered people who work to take care of the problems that the world doesn't need to see, so it makes more sense. I cannot tell you how excited I am as things continue to come together! I have more things that I've been holding close for now, but I'll be posting them all in due time. Stay tuned! |