For a while, people have been asking “when are you going to release a collected edition of Al’Rashad like you said you wanted to do, we want to buy that.”
Yes! We did ask about that!
In answer, Davinder and I have set up a Patreon page for the sequel to Al’Rashad, entitled Ra-Boka: Kingdom of the Bound. More swords! More undeads! More Joro mouthing off! Everything you love and new things as well, which he hope you will love, including numerous other major cultures in this world what we have created, and new characters who we are sure you will like (or, as appropriate, hate) as much as the original cast. And, if the Patreon is successful enough, we’ll put out pages at a faster rate than we did for Al’Rashad.
…but that’s not exactly what we asked for?
We know. We’re currently trying (and have been for a while) to get a deal with a traditional publisher, because Davinder and I both have time-consuming day jobs, and the time spent on publishing a book, even via an assistance service like MakeThatThing or similar, is time that we would prefer to spend on other things. An ongoing Patreon that is successful makes us more attractive to publishers – and I will not lie, pretty much every publisher we’ve talked to says some variation of “I like this, but it doesn’t fit into our current paradigms of what makes for a successful comic release,” so demonstrating that we have an audience via the Patreon will help us a lot in that regard.
And if it turns out the paying audience is smaller than we hoped, well, that’s what Kickstarter is for. But we’re hoping to avoid that.
Are there like, rewards and things?
Yes! Getting to see pages in advance before they’re published on the website; getting to see rough pencils before the pages are finished; PDF copies of any promos/prints we might do for yourself; and, for our most generous contributors, insertion of yourself as a character into the comic, either in a non-speaking role or – and this last one is pretty exclusive – with lines. Ra-Boka will have a larger and more diverse cast than even Al’Rashad had, so we can do this easily without tainting the artistic integrity of the work. Pretty cool, if we do say so ourselves.
Okay, I’m sold. What’s the link again?
Glad you asked, Invented Person Who Doesn’t Really Exist! It’s here.
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So I was thinking about pledging at the $5 level, because woo, early comics. But then I discovered, in a rather nasty surprise, that that stupid fucking European VAT on virtual goods and services is now being applied to Patreon. (Apparently I haven’t become a patron of anything since that change went through, or I missed it last time).
I’m gunna have to go check my bank statements to see if it’s being applied across the board, because of course Patreon doesn’t tell me that except for the actual pledging page.
So anyway, sorry, I’m only in for the $1 level, because while I really do want more Al’Rashad comics, I’m blowed if I’m gunna pay more than an extra 20c a month that you’re not going to see in any way, shape or form*.
But Yay! New comics! Possibly even a physical book at some point! Woo!
*Unless you come to Europe and use some public services.
In regards to getting published, have you considered smaller indie-press publishers? (Iron Circus comes to mind.)
Love ya man, but you cannot write serious comics well. At least “Al’Rashad” didn’t have a spark. Boring, boring, boring. Terrible world-building. Art was nice enough.