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!
Issue #2 in the house!
That’s right folks! Issue #2 of Fallen Justice has arrived! We got pushed back a little bit by the fine folks at UPS, but they came through and got the books here looking awesome! For all subscribers, your books have been mailed so you should get them here very soon!
Also in the news, we’ve held our very first drawing for subscribers! That’s right as you well know if you’ve looked at the subscription page, subscribers get cool stuff! Since we’re on the second issue we held not one but TWO drawings this time around, and selected our winners at random from the subscriber pool! The lucky winners this time around are Lawrence Roach and Richard Case! Lawrence gets a beautiful looking print of the cover to issue #1 of Fallen Justice, and Rich gets the print from the cover of issue #4. So congrats to you guys, those are in the mail as well and you’ll be enjoying them shortly!
We attended a convention last weekend called Comicpalooza at the West Oaks Mall in Houston and had a WONDERFUL time! A huge thanks to all the folks who came out and talked with us, bought the book, and made the show so much fun! We met lots of cool folks and had a great time. And I will say right now that while the Houston area isn’t the most vocal crowd of comic creators, there sure is a TON of talent around here! I think you’re going to see some things really begin to explode out of this area in the next few years, so keep an eye out!
Normally I’m a big fan of the work my friends do, and tend to shout that to the rafters, so get used to it. First off, since I get inside scoops on this stuff it’s easy for me to get excited! Second, it’s really good stuff! Jason Berek-Lewis is doing a follow up to his Tikki’s Phayrie series called Tikki’s Giant, and the stuff looks amazing! Hit those links and check this stuff out, you won’t be sorry.
Next up, is something I rarely do, and that’s pimp a competitor’s work. But I have to say, after reading both the trades of Atomic Robo plus the FCBD issue for 2009…you have to read this book. It’s funny, irreverent, and really quite topical when you boil it all down. Robo is a must read, so go get that book! It’s done by a company called Red 5 comics, and you can find it in the Haven catalog. So go! Get this book! It rocks!
Ah, even more news! Virginia Mills-Barfield, who previously graciously agreed to take on the Kansas Hit project is also working on something a little different these days! Don’t worry, the Kansas Hit is still rocking, we’re just tweaking up some of the story to give it more punch and deliver some extra pages to you guys, so trust me when I say we’re making it better all the time! Currently, Ginny is rocking something called Ignition! which puts her character Bandit in a team up with our very own Dynagirl and tosses both of them into the deep end of the pool without floaties! So what’s better than a strong female lead character kicking major ass in her own book? How about TWO of them fighting side by side to battle tyranny! Woo! You can’t beat it. The Ignition Graphic Novel will most likely be out later this year and looks to be followed by a sequel if all goes well. These girls are a blast to write and Ginny makes my job crazy easy, so you may well be seeing even more of these team ups!
If you haven’t been checking out the Zone 4 podcasts we’re doing every week over at Comic Related…you should be! We’re having a blast doing them and even though we have to work through the occasional technical issue and random otter, we seem to be getting a good reaction. You can subscribe to the cast through itunes or go over to the Zone 4 page on Comic Related and catch it there. Also, feel free to leave feedback if you want, we’d love to hear from you!
And that’ll do it for the moment folks. More scripts to write, pages to letter, and monsters to slay!
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!
You’ve GOT to be kidding me!
Nope. I’m dead serious. It’s update time people, and this one is a doozy. I mentioned we were adding some talent to Red Handed Studios, and that’s now a done deal. If you paid any attention to the buzz behind Small Press Idol 2007 you are quite aware of a guy named Scottie Ray Watson. His book Talon took the gold and won the whole thing. Since then Scottie’s been busy, but in other areas, leaving his comic art for a bit. But he’s got things lined out now, and he’s back with a vengeance! And, in case you hadn’t guessed, he’s now a member of Red Handed Studios!
So what does that mean? Well for starters we’ll be working on an all new series yet to be named, but already in production. The series features a strong ass kicking sword wielding chick, much like Talon, but we’ve set this series in the far future, where technology is king, and the old ways are all but forgotten. Trust me, the energy level is high and you’re not gonna believe how cool this is gonna be. Also in the works we’re in talks to get another sword wielding chick drawn by Scottie over here as well. But we’ll have to leave you wondering about that for the time being.
But wait, that’s not all! Co-writing this title will be RD Hall, (lately of the Heroes Graphic novels) a prolific and exciting addition to the team! We’ve got the wheels turning and trust me, you won’t be disappointed.
But again, there’s more! We’re putting The Kansas Hit back into production with Virginia Mills-Barfield rocking the art chores! Ginny is also the creator of a series called Windy City, and you’re gonna be seeing her main character Bandit crossing over with our own Dynagirl as well in the coming months. We do so love a cross-over around here and it was a natural to get these two crime fighting girls together! We’re hoping to show you quite a lot of Bandit and Windy City in time, so keep on the lookout for a special announcement about that cause it’s coming shortly!
So, you think that’s it? Nope. We’re also bringing in another inker and a colorist (I’ll tell you who soon!) to round out the fun and help out with the work load so you only get the best possible books in the fastest manner possible. What we won’t do is promise you something we can’t deliver, so if we say it’s ready to go, then you can rest assured it’s gonna be there on time, every time. Will this make our schedule a bit slower? Sure will. But everyone here feels the same as I do, that slower and superior is better than quick and half assed.
On another front we’re registering with Haven distribution and Comics Monkey as well so our books will be easier to get and available to as wide an audience as possible. We’re committed to getting books into the hands of the fans, even if that means we hand deliver them!
So there you go. How’s that for an update? More as we get it folks!
