Now it can be revealed!
Here is my cover art for the first issue of our newest Die Kitty Die adventure, Die Kitty Die Heaven & Hell. On this one, I provided the pencils and inks and Dan Parent added the beautiful colors and cover graphics. He did a great job with this one. Here is Dan’s cover for this same premiere issue of DKD H&H:
The idea for our covers to compliment each other was all Dan’s and I think its worked out nicely. We’ve posted both covers across social media this week and already we’ve been getting lots of interest and some very kind feedback.
We’ve also have gotten lots of questions so I’d like to layout our plan for DKD H&H right here for everyone’s clarification…
Right now… as I type this… Dan and I are hard at work putting this series together. This series will follow the same model as our previous two. We are going to write and draw a four issue story arc that we will release as a four issue mini-series available both digitally and electronically. These four issue… along with bonus material and other stuff… will be collected into a big hardcover edition. In order to fund this work, the printing, and the extra surprises we’ve got in mind, we will be launching a new Kickstarter campaign later this year.
This brings us to Free Comic Book Day which this year will be on May 5th. This year, Dan and I, along with our publishing partners, Chapterhouse Publishing, will be releasing the special Die Kitty Die “I Love You To Death” Free Comic Book Day Special. I’ve discussed this one before. This will be an all-new special full of all new original material written and drawn specifically for this free issue. Here is the cover for the DKD FCBDS:
Dan and I specifically crafted this special to work on two levels. First, for the regular DKD fans, this issue serves as a nice bridge in between last year’s Die Kitty Die Hollywood Or Bust and this year’s Die Kitty Die Heaven & Hell. It springs directly from the shocking cliffhanger conclusion of last year’s epic. Our regular readers should not want to miss this one. Secondly, we also wrote this story as an introduction to Kitty for new readers. This FCBD special is going to go into many, many comic shops so we suspect lots of new readers are going to be discovering Kitty for the first time. Hopefully, this special will be a good way to catch them up.
Now Free Comic Book Day is also going to be special because Dan and I are looking to launch our DKD H&H Kickstarter campaign on that very special day. We hope with the excitement of FCBD and the interest generated by the FCBD special, we’ll got a lot of interest in our campaign. We’ve got a lot of plans for cool rewards and some really, really fun stretch goals… a couple of which fans have been asking for since our last campaign! We hope we can count on everyone who supported us in the past to come out and help us with this one. As I always say, we really, really couldn’t do this without everyone’s kindness and support.
Thanks, Everybody! As usual, I’ll be celebrating Free Comic Book Day at the great Dewey’s Comic City in Madison, New Jersey. I’ve been celebrating FCBD there since FCBD started. This will be the very first year that I do so with Dewey under new management. Dewey’s has been purchased by my former student and current Dynamite Comics editor, Anthony Marques, a true protege and friend. Anthony assures me that he hasn’t given his old teacher the boot and that my standing invitation for FCBD at Dewey’s still stands! I’ll be there drawing free sketches and signing comic books so please make your plans to come on by. I’ll of course be adding FCBD at Dewey’s to my Events page as we get closer to the date.
Regarding the Kickstarter campaign again, we’re going to do as we’ve done before, a month long campaign which means this one will wrap up in early June. DKD H&H should therefore be out by the Summer. Kickstarter packages and rewards should be going out shortly afterwards. By having most of the work done ahead of the campaign, we should be in a better position to do a faster turn around with the rewards packages this time. Our generous backers will get their books and goodies much more quickly this time around.
Beyond Die Kitty Die Heaven & Hell, we’re planning on getting out one more special this year, but we’ll talk more about that one as we get closer to it. (Think HALLOWEEN!)
Those are our plans as they stand now, Folks. Please circle May 5th on your calendars. That’s when the fun kicks off with our Kickstarter campaign and the Free Comic Book Day special! As always, make sure you contact your local comics retailer and ask him to make sure he has plenty of copies of the DKD FCBDS and that he orders plenty of copies of DKD H&H!
Thanks a lot, Everybody! If anyone has any questions, please ask them in the Comments section below!
