Rainy Road Warrior Newsletter
January 9, 2023
Happy New Year!
Hopefully, this year has started off well for you. At least, better than mine. Seven days in (as I write this) and we’ve had 3 days without water and 1 day without electricity. Starting the new year off with a bang here in the amazing town of Assville— I mean, Asheville!
Looking Back
Last January in this newsletter, I laid out my plan for what I wanted to accomplish and I said I would come back a year later to review how it all came out.
So, let’s all have a laugh, shall we!
GunEngine Zero #1 Kickstarter campaign. Miserable failure. Even though I did a lot of new/different things to promote it. I’ll probably relaunch sometime this year to give it one last shot. If it fails again, I’ll just write it as a prose novel.
“The First 4 Pages”. A Youtube video series in which I would read the first four pages of random novels to test the whole notion of how important it is for a story to start off with a strong hook. Admittedly, it was a silly thing but I thought it might be a simple way to attract new people outside of the comic book world. I just couldn’t keep up with it because I didn’t have the time to devote to recording the audio, editing the clips and uploading them.
“The Amazing Con Man”. Another video series in which I discussed my comic convention experience. I still need to make a year-end recap video, which I’ll probably do next week. I’m not sure if I’ll continue the series because I may not do any cons in 2023.
“Sick Figures” cartoon strip. Once again, I just didn’t have enough time to pursue it. If this whole comic book adventure finally comes to an end, the cartoon strip may be something I look into.
More issues of six:eight. This was something I thought I could put out in conjunction with Epic of Darkness but I couldn’t find an artist who could maintain the visual style of the first book. I think it’s important to do that so I won’t continue the series until I can find an appropriate artist.
More issues of Neotheric. Hopefully, this will happen this year. Joaquin Guerra and Lucia Duarte are taking over the art duties and have already done 4 sequential pages, a cover and a pinup. Unless I win the lotto, this will be a project that requires the crowdfunding money to get produced.
Epic of Darkness #1 Kickstarter campaign. Technically, this was successful enough to justify continuing my comic book journey but issue 2 will need to bring in a lot more backers and money to keep the train rolling.
Looking Forward
So, what’s in store for 2023, you probably didn’t ask? The delusions are strong with this one, you probably did say! Here’s another quick rundown that we can all laugh at next January. And, maybe this is stating the obvious, but the schedule I’ve laid out is very conditional. If EoD #2 fails, it will be the final nail in the coffin and all the other comic book projects will be permanently shelved.
Epic of Darkness #2 Kickstarter campaign. I’m thinking that most of the artwork will be done soon so I can launch this in February/March as another ready-to-print book. This time, I hope to offer some cool extras like original art pages and 3D printed models.
Neotheric #5 Kickstarter campaign. As I mentioned in the previous section, I found a new art team that I already paid to do some sample pages but this will be a book that requires the crowdfunding money to complete the artwork. There will also be a 3D printed model of “Nan” that should be ready by the time this campaign launches in June/July.
GunEngine Zero #1 Kickstarter campaign. Since this book requires the most financial support, I plan to leave this relaunch for the last project of the year. Hopefully, enough momentum can be built with EoD and Neotheric to give this project a boost.
Model Painting. Since I plan on offering models/miniatures, I figured I’d better learn how to paint them. I’ve been researching painting miniatures and invested in some basic tools to get things started. My idea is to document my journey in livestreams, which I think will be easier for me to keep up with since that won’t require tons of preparation or a lot of time editing clips and uploading them. I’ll just have to figure out a time in which I can commit to doing this for like an hour each week. I need to find a job and set my schedule before I can do that.
As you can see above, I thoroughly effed up my first attempt at this figure but I was able to strip off all of the paint so I’ll give it another go.
For Your Consideration
I’ve mentioned before that Dalibor Zujovic publishes a FREE digital magazine specifically focused on promoting indie creators. It contains interviews, tips and tricks, crowdfunders, artwork, previews and even complete stories. I have no vested interest in the magazine other than I think it’s a great thing for the indie community that could use more support.
So, check out Catalyst #8, which came out recently. And, for those that missed it, I have an interview in issue 7, if you want to give that a read.
And a backer on the EoD campaign asked me to share another campaign that he’s trying to raise awareness about. I’m all about sharing the love, so please go see if it’s something that might interest you.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fabeedenim/fabee-denim
They’re still there!
As I mentioned in the last newsletter, the print-damaged books from Comix Well Spring were never picked up by UPS and they sat on my porch for over a month. I shit you not! So I brought them in from the cold and I’ll be offering them in future campaigns at a dinged-and-dented discount.
This Week In Randomness
Can someone please explain this to me?
As someone who grew up on GI Joe, I would love to be able to introduce my kids to the rebirth of the line but they’re too expensive and there’s only ever one or two figures warming the pegs. The modern toy industry makes no sense to me! I’m thinking I should write a special edition of this newsletter in which I go on a rant about this topic just to let off some steam. I’m so tempted!
Until next time!
~Michael T Gonzalez
