About Us
Red Handed Studios has had a long and trying evolution to get to this point. But here we are!
Cary Kelley founder and owner does most of the writing chores, all the production and design work, and a great deal of the lettering on the books we produce. He created the Fallen Justice universe along with Harold Edge and Steven Forbes and Dead Reckoning with Scottie Ray Watson, as well as creating 48, Totem, The Kansas Hit, and several other forthcoming titles. He also lettered the first two issues of Sky Pirates, wrote three issues of the Nifty comic The Cadre, and did letters on the Zuda winning web comic Extra Curricular Activities. So he stays busy. Cary wanders the Earth a lot, but makes his home in the Texas Hill Country with his wife Victoria and their baby boy Logan!
Harold Edge first hit comic pay dirt with the art chores on the Sixgun Samurai series by Alias comics where his dynamic art style brought a whole new shine to the wild west. Once he completed that series he picked up Fallen Justice and has been with us ever since. He’s already hard at work pencilling and inking the Dynagirl series which will follows right on the heels of Fallen Justice, and he has several other projects on the burner as well. Harold lives with his wife and cats in New York City where he attends graphic design school when he isn’t chained to the art table.
Scottie Ray Watson broke into comics in a big way with a smashing win of the Small Press Idol 2007 contest working over the competition with his series Talon. Since then Scottie has been an absolute machine, producing work for several books and studios, including his forthcoming work on the Night series for Jester Press. We met Scottie in Chicago in 2007 and instantly hit it off, so getting the word that he was free to help put together a project or three was simply perfect timing. Since coming to Red Handed Studios Scottie has polished up his already fantastic Talon book as well as worked up an intro story for our forthcoming Seppuku Blues. His main focus since June has been the just announced Dead Reckoning series of stand alone graphic novels, which will take 2011 by storm!
SPLASH! is the genius behind our cover coloring, and we don’t use the term genius lightly! He brings the pain every single time he puts down the colors, and we have a number of beautiful pieces to show for his efforts. He makes his home in that state just to the North of Texas that shall not be named, and what he does outside of comic book work remains a closely guarded secret, because lives could well be endangered.
Virginia Mills-Barfield is another new addition to Red Handed, but that by no means indicates she’s new to comics! Ginny has worked at pretty much all levels of comics and we’re quite lucky to have her signed on to do the Kansas Hit for Red Handed Studios! She’s also going to be working on a brand new graphic novel co-starring Dynagirl and her own character Bandit, called Ignition! More info is on the way for that book so stay tuned!
So yeah, we’ve kept the family small thus far. Of course we have a huge number of contributors including Peter Palmiotti, Carly Spade, Troy Boyle, Sarah Perryman, Ernest Jocson, Lisa Moore, Ross Hughes, and many more that help us out of the inevitable jams that come up with daily life, and we’re always on the look out for new membership, so stay tuned because you never know who else you’ll catch…Red Handed.
Now to answer a few questions:
Why call it Red Handed Studios?
Because it sounds cool? Honestly, my grandmother is to blame for this one. She’d always bust me doing whatever my latest mischief was, and had no problem telling anyone who’d listen how she caught me red handed. So there you have it.
Is that logo really a scan of your hand?
Yup. Can you see how badly I needed a logo at the time? I was goofing around with the scanner and that led into the finished product, which led naturally to the name. Aren’t you glad I didn’t use some other body part?
Are you looking to add new people to the Red Handed team?
Always. But it doesn’t happen too often. Getting too big too fast is death in comics or any business really so we’re focused on staying small and doing our thing to the best of our ability.
Do you take submissions?
Sadly, not anymore. For the first couple of years we did, but lately we’ve had such a huge volume of submissions that we’ve had to close things down. Currently the studio operates on an “at need” basis, meaning when we need talent we’ll put the word out and fill our needs in that way. For more info check out the submissions guidelines page.
What does your production schedule look like?
We started publishing with Fallen Justice #1 in February 2009 and we stuck to a pretty stable bi-monthly schedule, so we gotta call that a win, especially in this day and age. Since we wrapped Fallen Justice we’ve shifted to a webcomic model for our follow on series Dynagirl, and we’ve held a Tuesday/Thursday update schedule since we started back in April. Other upcoming projects include a book called Talon-ted showcasing the original Talon story in all new stunning full color as well as a ton of extra content from that story, by a wide range of artists. At the same time we’ll be producing Seppuku Blues, The Kansas Hit, and our all new Dead Reckoning graphic novels. Beyond that…we’ve got things like iPad and iPhone comics in the pipeline, a couple of one shot issues, an anthology compilation of various short works we’ve done over the years, and more! If the fans are there and they like the work, we’ll keep on keeping on and add on some other titles for you guys to enjoy.
Are Red Handed books carried through Diamond?
Nope. Indy comic numbers being what they are we didn’t meet their projected estimates and they declined to carry the book. But that isn’t a problem! There are other means to get the books out to the people who want them, and we’re pursuing those means even harder. All our books will be available through Indy Planet, Haven Comics Distributors, and Comics Monkey as well as right here at the Red Handed Store for subscriptions and direct sales. We’re also looking into other avenues of distribution, so have no fear, we’re going to get the books out there!
Do you guys attend conventions?
Heck yeah! We’re going to be stepping up our appearances in 2010 as well! We’ll be announcing specific appearances on the home page in the new blog section so check that for updates. We love to meet our fans and sign the books. We’ll always have cool merchandise in addition to the comics, some of which you can also buy right here on the website!
Did you really kill the main character of Fallen Justice?
Heh. You’ll have to read the book to find out. But I can tell you once someone dies in the FJ universe…they’re dead forever. No one gets a redo.
If you have any other pressing questions about Red Handed Studios or you just want to get something off your chest, feel free to contact us at info@redhandedstudios.com and we’ll get you hooked up with as much info as we possibly can.
