Summer is upon us!
And just like that, Spring is a thing of the past. Is it just me or is this year literally FLYING by? Madness. But that just means it gets us to the fall and our convention appearances all the faster!
As of now Red Handed Studios is planning to attend three very exciting conventions this fall! The first, on September 11, will be the Champion City Con and we’re super excited about that show! It’ll be a smaller venue but crammed full of exciting creators offering a huge variety of great books for sale.
After that, our plans are to jump over to the New York Comic Con in October! Right now that’s still a tentative plan as no one has received confirmations yet, so we’re soft on that date right now. If we don’t make that show we might have a fill in, so stayed tuned for more on that.
And then we’re back home in November for the Wizard World Austin show! This one goes down just minutes from the house, so you know we couldn’t pass it up!
At all these shows we’ll have various members of the RHS crew front and center, signing books, offering prints, sketchbooks, and other items for sale and generally promoting the stuff we’ve got out now and will be coming out with in the near future. If you think you’ve seen all we’ve got to offer you…think again! We’ve got some really exciting stuff coming down the line here in the next 6 months, so hang in there and we’ll release all that as we get the info and dates all firmed up.
The Dynagirl series is on fire these days! We’re growing by leaps and bounds in terms of our readership, getting more viewers and page views every week so it seems like people are enjoying the story we’re putting out there! A more detailed report of our viewership this week revealed we’ve got readers in Japan, Russia, France, Belgium, The UK, Canada, The Netherlands, Australia, and many other countries! That is especially exciting as we go forward to know we’re reaching people not just here at home but half a world away! So thanks, to everyone! And stick with us. We’re going to knock your socks off in the coming weeks.
I have also updated the RHS store today with the latest and greatest links to get your hands on Red Handed books! As of this week all RHS books are exclusively available through the Indyplanet system on demand. That means there’s no waiting whatsoever. You want one issue (or several), you order em up, they print and they go out the door. It doesn’t get any easier than that! Plus, the beautiful part is they never run out of stock!
The Fallen Justice Trade paperback is officially printing as we speak. It should be in hand sometime in the next few weeks so I anticipate that my initial guess of mid-June still holds fairly accurate. Once we get them in hand we’ll have them up for sale in the store, and we’ll of course be carrying those bad boys with us as we make our convention runs, so if all else fails get to one of those shows and get your hands on this monster! The trade weighs in at 208 pages with a full blown wrap around cover designed and produced specially for this edition. Included in the book are all 160 pages of story from the original Fallen Justice series as well as 48 pages of extra material! We’ve got character bios, a huge sketchbook section, behind the scenes info, the works! It’s going to be something special without a doubt. More info on that specifically when it hits the street!
Lastly, we’re incredibly excited to announce the availability of the Fallen Justice series on the newly created Comicsmonkey Distribution system! This system works in conjunction with the Indyplanet and Kablam sites to form a true triple threat aimed at leveling the playing field for independent creators, only this time they’re bringing the brick and mortar comic stores into the mix! How it works is a retailer signs up for an account, orders books, and BAM here they come! It’s that simple! Comicsmonkey has a discount scale comparable to other distributors and is extremely easy to work with, so we’re expecting good things from this move. If your local store isn’t carrying the RHS books direct them to Comicsmonkey and get them in the know!
And that’ll do it for the time being. We’re getting ready to make some truly HUGE changes around here, so hang tight. I think you’re gonna really dig what you see.
Little Tweaks
Hey folks! As some of you’ve already seen, we’ve got the Dynagirl site up, running, and updating twice a week with brand new pages of the all new unlimited series Dynagirl! Written by Cary Kelley, with Art by Harold Edge, and Colors by Lisa Moore and Splash this series is already turning some heads! Check it out. It’ll be a blast!
Update wise around here we’re getting into full swing as convention season really heats up! Red Handed is going to end up catching the later season this year as we’re going to be sidetracked just a little bit by the birth of a brand new baby boy right in the midst of the SDCC and Chicago Comic Con time frame. Don’t think this is going to keep us out of the game for long though! We’ve already confirmed a table at the Champion City Con in Springfield Ohio, and our applications are in for both the NYCC and Wizard World Texas in Austin this year! If you catch us at any of those shows you’ll be able to see our brand new convention set up, which is looking to be something out of this world! You’ll also get ot meet some of the creative teams, check out the cool stuff we have for sael which will include the brand new forthcoming Fallen Justice Trade paperback edition, and have a great time! More convention updates coming shortly folks, so keep an eye out for all of that.
Lastly in the Red Handed store you may notice we’ve added links to each and every issue of Fallen Justice giving folks yet another way to get our books. In partnership with the Indyplanet service we’ve made all our books available through them as well for a number of reasons. For one, it helps us keep our back stock down so we don’t have to store a ton of books. Plus, they take care of all the shipping concerns, and you get the same exact comic as you’d get right from Red Handed Central! That, my friends, is a win win scenario. So scoot on over, check them out, and if you haven’t picked the books up yet get on it!
In addition to the Indyplanet news, we’re also looking for any and everyone to tell your local comic shops they can order Fallen Justice from the distribution arm of the company, called Comicsmonkey! That’s right, your retailer can now get the entire Fallen Justice series at retailer discount and shipped right to the store! They simply click onto the Comicsmonkey site, sign up, and order away. You can’t get much easier than that!
Spring Cleaning!
What a difference just a few weeks makes, eh?
Well if you’ve been paying attention you’ve noticed some moving and shaking going on around here! So lets go down the list and get you updated!
First off, Fallen Justice #7 is at the printer as we speak. We’re looking at a late March or early April release on that at this point, depending on how things go with the printer folks. Anyone who has ever printed this time of year knows, it gets a little hectic! But we’ll roll with it and get the book out asap.
Next, Fallen Justice #6 is SOLD OUT! Thanks to everyone who subscribed and bought the issue! Seeing a sell out like this really gives us a great outlook going forward and we fully understand it’s the fans making it happen! So thanks! For those of you who missed out, don’t even sweat it because you can still get the book printed and shipped right to your door via the Indyplanet system! This makes it far less stressful on us and keeps us from having to hold mega back stock, and still gets you a copy of the book just like you’d get directly from us! So if you’re looking to get Fallen Justice #6, get it here!
Convention season this year may be a little spotty for the RHS crew. With a pending addition to the family we’ve pretty much got to be planning around the projected birthdate, and since that’s currently looking like July…we’re going to be a bit busy this summer! RIght now the tentative plan is for RHS to be hitting the NYCC and Wizard World Texas, with the Texas date far more firm. We’ll make with dates, times, and table locations as we get em.
Also, don’t forget you can still get Fallen Justice 1-3 on the iPhone! Kyle and the guys over at Graphics Lab 2 are hard at work converting the rest of the issues and we’ll keep you apriased as those release this year! The new reader looks wonderful and they’ve done a great job bringing this out. In addition, you might hear mumblings about the iPad. Just saying…
And if that wasn’t enough…Fallen Justice is coming to ComicsXP! This is an online comic service specialising in digital content distribution and they’ll be handling the whole lineup of RHS books as they become available. This is a great system for both creators and for fans and makes getting and reading your digital comics a snap! So check it out! Fallen Justice will be live on the ComicsXP system in the coming week, with issues 1-6 going straight up and issue 7 releasing as it prints.
Whew. That about does it huh? Not likely. Now lets talk Dynagirl! Some of you may have heard we’re shifting the Dynagirl title to a webcomic model. That’s not a rumor, it’s a fact. After printing each issue of Fallen Justice and handling all the shipping that went with it, we’ve decided to streamline things as much as possible. In keeping with that strategy, we’re eliminating the traditional single printed issue model completely. What’s this mean? Once the single issues of Fallen Justice sell out, we won’t be stocking them or even printing them anymore. They’ll remain available through Indyplanet of course, but beyond that we won’t be doing anymore printing of that series in the singles format. We will be printing and maintaining a stock of the tradepaperback, and sellingt hat at conventions, via Haven, and right here in the RHS store. What this move does is free up storage space here at Red Handed central as well as gives us far less to carry around to the various conventions we’ll be hitting.
So, how’s it gonna work? Well first of all we’ll be setting up a dedicated Dynagirl page that you can bookmark, RSS, or whatever so that when we update you know! We’re planning to update twice a week or so, with a projected output of 3 pages a week. Once we get enough pages to print a trade, we’ll do that and offer that for sale in the RHS store. This way, the fans can read the story as it’s produced rather than waiting for months while we collect enough material to begin another printing run. After looking at it from all angles, we feel this is a win for everyone. So keep it tuned here for the official release date and watch out because Dynagirl will knock your socks off!
How about some more!
That’s right! Since I posted the iPhone love yesterday I’ve received some more graphics related to that so I figured I’d share those as well.
First up we’ve got the actual displays showing the covers of the first two issues as they will appear to users who download them! Kinda WAY cool there! And again, they’ll be free for download during the SDCC and then 99cents per download thereafter. I’d like to think that our comics are at LEAST worth the same as several million songs out there, so get over there and bring those puppies down and check em out! I’ll be adding a direct link to the download in the iTunes store as soon as they go live, so keep checking back and I’ll do my very best to make it easy on ya.
That’s just…hot.
Next up is the T shirt GraphicsLab 2 guru Kyle Hurlbut commissioned for the San Diego Comic Con so that his minions can go forth and spread the news about Fallen Justice with impunity! They’ll be out and about distributing stickers and generally getting the word out there on the downloads and the story, so if you see one say “Hey I know that comic!”
Cool!
In other fun news, we’ve got us a new addition! That’s right coming right on the heels of Lisa Moore joining the studio, we’d like to welcome Michael Kellar to the fold! Michael and I go back a couple of years to Small Press Idol days, where we were both on the Sky Pirates of Valendor team together. Michael’s an accomplished inker who is growing an already impressive resume by leaps and bounds. To start with he’ll be doing some fill in work as needed on various things that come across the board, and then he’ll be taking over inks on at least one title we have planned for the very near future.
Speaking of that, at least a little bit, Red Handed Studios is looking at producing original content for the iPhone, meaning rather than undertaking the time consuming effort of converting regular comics into iPhone format, we’ve decided to turn out a comic made originally FOR the iPhone, and as such we’re in pre-production on that project. What does that mean for the fans? Double the fun baby! You’ll get the chance to see us shine on the iPhone first, and then we’ll make that available in print format as well for those without iPhone or who prefer the print version. It’s going to be a bold experiment, wtih ups and downs I’m sure, but at the end of the day I think on that’s well worth the effort.
Oh! And before I forget, remember yesterday when I mentioned that mad cool cover to Dynagirl #1? Well I got the pencilled version up and ready for you folks to check out over on the newly added Dynagirl page. I dare you to tell me that cover doesn’t kick all kinds of ass! And we’re just getting started.
If you have the time, look around the site a bit. I’ve added pages for Totem and Seppuku Blues, Caveguys, and Dynagirl, as well as updating graphics on the gallery page and a couple of other minor tweaks. Wearing the website guy hat can sometimes be rough, but I generally try to stay on top of things when given half a chance!
So that’s what’s shaking today! More to come as I get it people! Till then, enjoy!
Leaps and bounds!
So lets see…what’s up in RHS lately? How about this:
See that? That’s what an iPhone looks like with some Fallen Justice all over it. And that’s exactly what’s about to happen! We’ve partnered with a company called Graphics Lab 2 to facilitate the iPhone version of Fallen Justice! The first two issues are complete and undergoing the submission process to Apple right now and we anticipate an on time release during the San Diego Comic Con.
For a limited time both issues 1 AND 2 will be downloadable for free, so if you’re into excellent iPhone apps get you some Fallen Justice while you can! Once the special promotion is over they’re gonna be 99 cents per download. Still very reasonable! Hats off to Kyle, Erik, and all the rest of the great guys over at GL2 for making this a virtually painless experience in getting the files transferred over and being such fans of the series. I think this is going to be a most excellent venture!
What else? Well if that’s not enough for you, i can tell you that Harold Edge is hard at work on the Dynagirl series! That’s right, he’s got over half the first issue pencilled and the pages are coming out fantastic! Having had the script ready for a long time and getting to see it come to life like this…I never get tired of that feeling! The cover is being wrapped right now, but rest assured it’s awesome and I know everyone looking forward to this series will flip when they see it.
To hold you over till then, I’ll show you a little sample by Harold Edge and brand new series colorist Lisa Moore! This is the first in a three piece set called “Dynagirl Graffiti”. Harold has always enjoyed graffiti and takes a lot of his early influence from graffiti elements, so we felt like this would be a fun way to express that.
Now some of you may be saying “Wait! No Ross Hughes?” And yep, that’s true. Ross only committed to do through the end of Fallen Justice and he’s got other things on tap. So while you won’t be seeing his work in Dynagirl, I don’t think Ross will be too far from things in terms of getting his work out there. He’s an amazing talent that’s grown SO much since we started this series, and he’ll have nothing but success no matter where he lands.
So who’s this new colorist? Her name is Lisa Moore, and she’s an incredibly talented colorist who has professional credits over a host of mainstream comic book work. So Lisa’s got some chops! She’s getting warmed up with some promo stuff right now, and from what I heard this weekend she’s going to help us out in the pinch with some color work on some Totem pages as well. We’ll preview that and show you more as we get it in, but rest assured things are getting exciting around Red Handed these days!
In some more exciting news we got the first bulk order in from Haven last week! Talk about cool! What that means is someone’s carrying Fallen Justice in their store! Can’t wait to see what next month holds!
Looking for Fallen Justice?
A couple of people have asked me about getting this book, specifically where to get it and how they go about it. It’s EASY! First off, you can get it right here on this site! Hit the store and go to work, either for single issues or take advantage of the great subscription deal. Either way you score!
If you’d rather go a different route, check out Haven Distributors, where our books will be available starting right now and for as long as we’re publishing.
Next, if that doesn’t work for you, go to Indy Planet and have them print you up an issue or three and send em right out. Indy Planet is a great way to get the book in case we’re currently out of stock, so if nothing else works, go for it!
You can’t beat that for availability!
Ugh. My phone lit up today non stop with people calling trying to sell me credit card service. I found out it was in connection with my having signed up for a Tax ID number last week. Evidently the State gives out your phone number to these vultures! Nice! But I think I’ve dissuaded them, at least for the moment. But like always, tomorrow is another day!
Getting fired up for the show this weekend! STAPLE is gonna be a blast! We’ve already got our Watchmen tickets for the afternoon show on Friday, so we’ll be seeing that to kick off the weekend! Then we’re planning to hit the pre-STAPLE party before heading to bed. It’ll be a full day. After the show we also have a post party to attend, and then we’ll be on the road Sunday driving back home for a much needed rest! Come on out if you possibly can, we’d love to see you!
Also got some cool mail today! Three more sets of prints showed up and they of course look awesome! I’ll be posting these up in the store for sale once I get back and get things settled next week.
And I think we have a name for our secret project! It’s called “Seppuku Blues” and I’ll let that stand for now, so you can infer what you want from the title. Suffice it to say…you won’t be disappointed.
Fallen Justice #1 is here!
That’s right folks! The long wait is finally over! Today we commence the print run of the Fallen Justice series with issue #1. In conjunction with the issues arriving here in fine form and in beautiful full color, Fallen Justice #1 is also available for order on Indy Planet. In the not too distant future it will also be available through the Comics Monkey distribution system, and Haven Distributors as well so you can decide for yourself where to get it! Of course while there’s a bunch of options available, you’ll only get the goodies by ordering the books from right here, so keep that in mind!
Also in the news, we’re getting ready for the opening of our con season with our first scheduled appearance at STAPLE, the independent media expo in Austin Texas on March 7th. SO if you’re in the area and would like to see a great convention, come on out! We’ll have comics, prints, and other cool stuff so make sure you drop by the table!
Updating again!
Yesterday I mentioned we might be expanding here at Red Handed Studios. Today I can tell you it’s not a maybe, it’s a fact. Red Handed Studios now has a couple of new members with some more possibles on the horizon as well! What’s even more exciting about all this is we’ve already started production on a brand new book! It’s happening quickly, which is awesome actually. We seem to have caught lightning in a bottle with this and as I make announcements in the coming days you’re gonna see exactly what I’m talking about! We should have some concept art for you to drool over shortly!
Also on tap is the Dynagirl series! I’m wrapping up writing chores on issue 8 this week, meaning there’s fully 8 issues worth of scripts in the can and ready to rock! After issue 8, I’m taking a break from writing for at least two issues while I turn the reins over to a couple of good friends for a romp in the sandbox! Issue #9 will be written by Chuck Kennedy, and he may well stretch that to issue #10 depending on how things go. Issue’s 11 and 12 are still tentative at this point, meaning we haven’t decided who is picking up the writing as of yet. There are a few people in line so rest assured we’ll get that nailed down. After issue 12 I’ll be back in the driver’s seat leading us into all new and crazy adventures of our favorite superchick. Believe me when I tell you we’ve got TONS of story left to tell. Dynagirl will be around for quite some time no worries.
The ongoing outrage over the whole Diamond crushing Indy books yet again seems to be raging on unabated across the internet. It makes me laugh. I don’t see the point in even paying attention honestly. Diamond is great but they’re not interested in Indy books, they’ve never been interested in Indy and they aren’t likely to get interested any time soon. So why waste time and energy on worrying about it? There are too many other ways to get the books out to the fans without having to mess with Diamond’s fascist policies and anti Indy attitude. I’ve always been the type to worry about what I can change rather than piss and moan about things I have no control over, and this is a huge example of that. Would it be cool if Diamond picked us up? I guess. But it would be more hassle than it’s worth really. They don’t sell the books for you. They don’t win you fans. They just ship the book. Seems like a lot of trouble to pay them half my profits for shipping when I could do the shipping myself and save a ton of money. So yeah, no thanks.
So hang in there. More tomorrow if things continue to materialize on this expansion front. I might just drop some names!
