Happy 2021! We made it out of 2020…kind of. I don’t know about you, but I’m a bit numb from the events yesterday in Washington D.C. We’re in the midst of dangerous days and there’s a strange lingering sensation that this isn’t the last of it quite yet. But alas, I hold out hope that better days are ahead.
So, tumbling civilizations aside, I’ve been feeling itchy and antsy and primed with New Year’s energy and I wanted to take a moment to share a small update with you on my comics, my life, and things coming up in the beginning of this year.
Crisis Vector is complete, at least this first iteration of it, and has been collected in one handsome volume. The end result is slick, glossy, and has that super satisfying new comic smell, which is likely a toxic printing byproduct known to the state of California as a carcinogen.
I’m happy. It’s whole. It has a beginning, middle, and end. It’s like 80 pages of full-color comic book mayhem. It’s clunky and weird and imperfect, but it’s here, ripped from the elsewhere place of pure imagination and born, thrashing madly, into our lowly plane. It takes a lot to do that, it turns out.
Writing, editing, publishing, designing, and coordinating the international production of an entire graphic novel project is a ridiculous thing to do on your own. I sincerely do not recommend it. But I did it. And it’s here.
As to what’s next: I had my favorite print house (Kablam) produce a very limited print run of this Crisis Vector beast, with the singular goal of submitting it to the almighty Diamond. I mailed it out before the holidays, and hopefully is on the right desk awaiting review, and – fingers crossed – approval.
What’s this mean? For non-comic book folks (aka sane people), Diamond is the major distributor of comic books across the English-speaking world. The operate a famed catalogue called Previews, which is the motherlode from which comic shops and specialty stores order their geeky wares. My goal is to get Crisis Vector listed in this catalogue so that all of you and likeminded folks around the country can order a copy.
Getting the book into Previews and thus comic shops around the country (world?) would be the culmination of years of work, and make Crisis Vector a legit graphic novel for all time, adorned with an official barcode and everything. Even if it ended up in the quarter next to back issues of Tribe and New Universe books, it would be awesome. It would be out there. The thought of some random person picking it up in Tacoma is kind of cool. Kind of what the whole writing thing is about, I guess.
So stay tuned- I hope to have news on the future of Crisis Vector soon, and if it is accepted I will be relentlessly spamming all you in my virtual network to order, share, and harass your local comic vendors to put it on their shelves. I’ll be leaning on you to help!
In the meantime, I have a super special limited stock of these barcode-free preview copies. If you’re interested and wanted to be a premium platinum-level VIP Radvon supporter, shoot me an email and I’ll be happy to arrange getting a copy into your desperate hands. They’re beautiful and bargain priced at $9.99.
Here’s to 2021! Not this week necessarily, but the weeks ahead, which certainly will be calmer, cooler, and less civil war-y. Right? RIGHT? Right.
Stay safe,
Erik Radvon
P.S. – Can you believe 2001 was 20 years ago? The Mummy Returns is 20 years old. I can’t quite grasp it. I feel like Homer Simpson reminiscing about Bachman-Turner Overdrive.