How are you holding up?  Staying safe?  Staying healthy?  Staying SANE?  Yeah, I’m working on all those as well.

I’ve been watching Kickstarter very closely over the past few weeks.  It’s true, Kickstarter has laid off some workers as the amount of campaigns being launched has diminished significantly.  But, if you look at COMICS, it’s still going.  Chugging right along, actually.  Lady Death, Shi, White Widow, Todd McFarlane, and multiple other creators have had amazing success with their launches.  Being a cautious fellow, I watched and waited.  Has Covid-19 impacted the comic book world in general?  Definitely.  Has Covid-19 impacted comic book creators on Kickstarter?  No.  Not at all.

Here’s some of the stuff I’ve been backing:  https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/kurtzauer

So here we go.

MAY 26th IS THE DAY! LET’s DO THIS!!!

I’m really excited to get this on track!  I’ve been working with some wonderful, generous artists (Topper Helmers, Chris Ehnot) that are helping me make this a fantastic launch.  Topper is doing a series of 10 original, unique sketches and Chris will have his original pencils/inks available as well as sketching remarked covers.  Conventions are off so this is the closest I can get right now.  My video for the launch is in its final stages of editing and I’m working w/ a guy to put together some cool graphics for my project page.  It’s taking time… but I want to do it RIGHT.

And speaking of…

CONVENTIONS

In Other News… 

Never thought I’d say this, but I’m missing the drive into work!  It was a great time to listen to audiobooks and now, obviously, I’m taking that commute time to sleep in (this is going to segue into the new Dune movie, one moment).  One of my favorite listens was Cleopatra – A Life by Stacy Schiff.  I’ve always dug Egyptian history and mythology so I checked out that book.  It’s a huge source of inspiration for my character Spectress.  Way back when, Cleopatra and her partner Mark Antony were engaged in a war of words with the Roman emperor of the time, Octavian.  Strong, indomitable personalities throwing verbal stones at each other from Rome to Alexandria.  It was only a matter of time before it escalated into real conflict and both sides new it.  Egypt was rich, but no where close to Rome when it came to military strength.  Antony and Cleopatra almost certainly considered sending an assassin to kill Octavian.  Maybe they did.  Imagine a mission like that. Imagine as assassin on a mission to save her entire country.  Imagine the cost of failure!  They say that ghosts are sometimes the spirits of those with a monumental task left undone.  That’s really the basis of my story.

And now… Dune is coming out! 

So excited!  Great casting and the director (Denis Villeneuve) is TOP NOTCH.  Sicario and Arrival are two of my favorites.  I miss going to the movies and I hope we’re good by December to check this out. 

After a bit of research on the Director’s page, what do I find?

Wait… what?

One more click….

Well…. OF COURSE THEY’RE GOING TO MAKE IT A MOVIE!  IT’S AN AMAZING STORY!!  Needless to say… I’M STOKED!!!

Thanks for bearing with me through that. 

I hope you’re well and staying healthy.  Maybe the walls are closing in a little bit but these are unprecedented times.  Stay positive, stay safe, stay sane.  I think comic books will be back in distribution here sometime soon.  That’s great news for fans!  In the meantime, Kickstarter is my go to for new stuff. 

I hope you’ll check me out on launch day, MAY 26th.