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| Can you smell the leather bound books & fine mahogany? |
• Megabrain is not folding.
• American Dark Age is not being canceled. Issue two is coming, if not a bit slowly.
• Kickstarter rewards WILL BE shipped as soon as issue two is printed.
• Unfortunately, we ARE canceling our appearance at the 2012 NY Comic Con
Now that that's out of the way, I shall regale you with stories of the sea and of men killing things, but first let me speak to you about comic books and my folly.
When I first started writing American Dark Age a few years ago, I really had no idea how or even if it would ever get produced. All I knew was that I had an idea and a story in my head about a girl with a sword and an apocalyptic event that few could ever imagine. I didn't know how to produce a comic book and I didn't think anyone would take the chance on producing it for me. If I wanted it made, I would have to figure it out myself. Thanks to the help of my friends and the support of my lady, we were able to create a book that reached far beyond my expectations.
Our first Kickstarter campaign really set the pace and the scope of how we began to operate and our successful debut at the 2011 NY Comic Con gave me the confidence...or I guess I should say, overconfidence to assume I had my fingers on the tip of success. What can I say? Roger Hodgson told me I'm a dreamer. I never anticipated the amount of accolades and fanfare that American Dark Age received and for someone to go from living his life in relative obscurity and anonymity to being interviewed, critiqued, and reviewed within the span of a just a couple months…lets just say my ego took a ride on the Ron Burgundy express. "Hey, everyone! Come see how good Brody looks."
I immediately began to increase the amount of merchandise and marketing that we had budgeted and started spending a LOT of time chatting to people all over the world about ADA and Megabrain instead of concentrating on making comics. I figured the more money and time we spent on getting people to our website and our book, would help to propel Megabrain and ADA to BK Vaughan proportions. I don't think any of those decisions were bad ones, but in retrospect, they may have been ill conceived. We're not a company that can operate at that type of level. We're just a bunch of friends trying to make comic books in between our day to day responsibilities. All we really needed to do, was let our work find it's fans on it's own.
So, because hindsight has something to do with Barbara Walters & Hugh Downs, we've decided to dial back the operations of Megabrain to only producing and selling our comic book until a time comes when we have the man/woman power and money to operate in the higher echelon of publishing. I began all of this because I've wanted to make comic books all my life and that's what I'm going to do. Concentrate on writing and working with Jacqueline on producing our book.
In the coming weeks, we'll be removing everything from our online store except for the comics and once issue two is completed & printed and the Kickstarter rewards from our last fundraiser are all shipped, I will be purely in writer mode.
And now to the business of issue two of American Dark Age. All I can say about it is that all of us at Megabrain are regular folk with regular folk lives. We've been working on issue two for a while, but life has a funny way of interrupting the creative process and asking you to do silly things like pay for stuff and take care of yourself. As a lot of you know, my girlfriend and I recently bought a house and that has taken up a lot of my free time that I would usually use for comic book making and Jacqueline Taylor not only recently moved in to a new place (I'm not sure what type of homes Canadian's live in, but I think there's a lot of bear skins and ice involved in creating them), but unfortunately she has also had some serious health concerns (She has an evil foot, like Jeff Fahey's arm in that movie) which have arisen and slowed her art schedule down considerably. All of these things and more have delayed the release of issue two quite a bit and I can tell you all that we are very sorry and are working to get it to you very soon.
Add all of that up, carry the two and it equals us not being prepared for our appearance at the 2012 NY Comic Con next month which is yet another major bummer.
So there you have it, campers. We're still creating your "New Mythologies", but at a highly conservative pace. We will continue to keep you abreast (Hehehehe) of everything as it happens and as soon as we know when issue two will be printed, you'll know. As always, I can not thank you enough for your support and for sticking by us. I'll meet you between the pages.
Sincerely,
JD Michel
writer of American Dark Age
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