Imaginos Plus: On Sale Now!

It's been a long road, folks (and it's still going by the way) but our totally original comic book "Imaginos Plus" is now officially FOR SALE. Our wonderful Kickstarter backers have been able to download their free copy for a couple weeks now, but now everyone can get in on the fun. All you need to do is head over to DriveThruComics and purchase our inaugural issue for an easy $0.99. 

We would again like to thank all the friends, family, funders and peers that have helped us get this off the ground. But this is just the beginning! We have big plans to keep this going in bigger and better ways. As always, sharing this with your geeky friends will do a HUGE part in keeping this ball rolling! We hope you enjoy the book.

'Imaginos Plus' is LIVE!

This is it, folks. Our first totally original comic book is DONE, and our faithful Kickstarter funders can download a free digital copy right now. If you're not a Kickstarter backer, don't worry: the book will be available to buy and download within the next week.

 If you've been following along at home you know the book includes three totally original comic properties: REQUIEM, CANDY COATED & JUDA FIST: 7 DEATHS OF THE YOBI. The book also includes an introduction to RIFTS®: THE ADVENTURES OF YOUNG ERIN TARN, an imaginative story based on the character from Kevin Siembieda's Palladium Books® and the Rifts "Megaverse."

Though the book itself is now done, we have plenty of work to do now, which includes submitting the book to comic publishers and printing physical copies of the book. Soon the book will be available to buy and download in digital form, as well as the physical comic book shops. 

You will need a comic book reader in order to open and read the file on your computer, and we've included a link to Comical Cross-Platform CBR/CBZ comic reader in the update. It is a quick and free download. If you don't already have comic reading software on your computer, simply download the file for either Windows, Mac or Linux. Then open or "extract" the files on your computer. You will then be able to read the Imaginos Plus file with Comical.

Stay tuned for more updates as we work to get this book in comic shops and online comic stores.

The Honeycomb Hideout: Episode 26 - A Furry New Year!

What's up, 'Combies? Your boys are back in the year 2015 with a whole lot to share! Joe, Mark and Nick welcome comic artist Ben Rodriguez to tell us about his ongoing project "Peter is the Wolf" and everybody shares their thoughts on a variety of topics ranging from the awesomeness of yesteryear to Captain America: The Winter Soldier to wrestling. Yeah, it's that kind of episode.  LOL  So sit back, relax and welcome back to The Honeycomb Hideout!

Download this episode (right click and save)

To check out more of Ben's artwork, make sure to visit: Ben's deviantART: Ben's deviantART

And to read his comic, make sure to visit his website and remember that it's age-specific for an older audience but also segmented for those who wish to avoid the more graphic content: Peter is the Wolf

Crowdsourcing Comics: A Trial By Fire

In October of last year, we cancelled our first Kickstarter campaign before its deadline was up. Our "Imaginos Plus" comic book project received generous contributions from some friends, family and supporters, but it wasn't enough to meet our financial goal. After an encouraging opening push, the donations to our comic book anthology slowed to an ever-decreasing trickle. The campaign stalled at just over $2,000, not nearly close enough to our $8,300 goal. Our first attempt at crowdsourcing our artistic ventures was time-consuming, emotional and ultimately disappointing.

It was also a learning experience; it forced us to take stock of our own work and think practically about what it meant to produce a creative, collaborative project. It forced us to explain the value of our work to other people - a surprisingly challenging and rewarding task. There wasn't a clear-cut reason why our first attempt at crowdsourcing failed. Were we explaining our project well enough? Was our financial goal too high? Did we offer the right kinds of incentives to potential backers? Did we fail to market ourselves properly? Maybe it was just timing. Most likely it was some combination of these factors. And while no one wants to fall short, we learned a lot through the process.

Fast forward to November 2013: our fledgling company Imaginos Workshop is now a registered LLC, and new artists and writers have been brought into the fold. We have a couple extra conventions under the belt, and we've made real progress on our comics. Our new Kickstarter campaign has a financial goal of $5,800 (well under our original asking price from the year before), without sacrificing any of the content. 

This time, the contributions didn't stop after the initial opening volley. People watched our Kickstarter video over 500 times and pledged an average of $46. They shared our project on Facebook, Twitter, Palladium Books and other websites. Veteran writer and columnist Bill Baker interviewed Mark Dudley on The Morton Report, and we provided our own Kickstarter updates every step of the way.

In the end, we finished at 114% of our goal. Our second try at crowdsourcing was an unequivocal success, made possible by the wonderfully generous contributions of all our backers. Perhaps it was important that we fell short on our first Kickstarter. It reminded us that some amount of failure and rejection is an inevitability in this business, and that it does not necessarily mean you're doing the wrong things. We were also reminded of the inspiring generosity of others ... an important lesson during the holidays. Our backers gave us the best Christmas gift we could have asked for. It means more work for us in the new year, but we wouldn't have it any other way. Thank you.

Jon

Influences and Juda Fist Part 2

Last time we talked. I spoke about how a plethora of art from the 70's help to inform my artistic mantra's as a whole. I want to get a bit more specific now as to some of the direct influences of Juda Fist: 7 Deaths of the Yobi.

I didn't get a chance to mention earlier that I am a HUGE HUGE player of Pen and Paper role playing games. I first played Dungeons in Dragons in 1979 and I was hooked. I loved the challenges and the imaginative aspect of the game. I was also fascinated with the possibility that though played in the ethereal world of the mind, that I could bring my characters into the real world , albeit 2 dimensionally, through drawing.

In 8th grade I got into a unique educational summer program called Horizons Upward Bound. It was there that I finally became serious about comic books. My roommate was a comic fanatic and he introduced me to Marvel Superhero Secret Wars. From then on I was hooked. I loved the fact that most of Marvel's key where in this series. It was with Secret Wars that rediscovered Wolverine. (A character I previously encountered in an X-men themed episode of Spiderman and his Amazing Friends.) 

It was also through my further exploration of Wolverine that I discovered The Uncanny X-Men, and it's penciller and Co-plotter JOHN BYRNE. I never seriously thought about comics, or drawing, as a career choice until I read John's take on this superhero team. Byrne's art had gravitas, his backgrounds and characters felt alive and the stories made me feel for mutants as a whole. This book had DRAMA, and I mean GREAT Drama. It is a crying shame that most of that drama was dismissed in Marvels later attempts to capitalize on it. From this point I devoured anything Byrne did,

I thought that Wolverine was far more visceral than anything that I was familiar with from my early cursory comic readings. He fit the 80's action motif of big dudes, ninjas and impossible action heroes to a tee and I love every minute of it. It was also at this point where my new found comic book fanaticism lead me to a product that was the perfect marriage of comics and pen and paper rpg's, TSR's MARVEL SUPER HEROES RPG.

I really loved the fact that I could create and play my own characters against those from the Marvel Universe. This gave me a huge amount of freedom. It was in this paradigm that I created my very first superhero character, the enigmatic cosmic sentinel and( rip off of Starhawk from Guardians of the Galaxies) Force Phantom.

 I also began to realize that Marvel and DC didn't an shouldn't have a monopoly on cool characters. Later, the catalyst for what would become the most pivotal event in my artist career took root. The discovery of PALLADIUM BOOKS HEROES UNLIMITED RPG. It was in this game that I created THE YOBI a character specifically created to counter Wolverine, to whom over exposure had begun to diminish my favor toward.

In Part 3, we are going to jump head first into two of the most influential mediums of all as it relates to Juda Fist and my process. ANIME and HIP HOP!!!!


Mark