Alright folks, gather 'round! Your friendly neighborhood artist, Steve Rude (the one with the crippling art supply habit!), is back with a brand new sketchbook project: The Art of Steve Rude 2025 Sketchbook!
This bad boy's hitting crowdfunding in January, and lemme tell ya, art supplies ain't cheap. That's why your support is golden!
Speaking of gold, be sure to check out our Patreon page – those dedicated dudes and dudettes get some special deals during the launch.
And hey, while you're at it, head over to our launch page (www.steverude.com/2025skb) and sign up for the Backerkit livestream! We'll be dishing all the juicy details about the sketchbook and maybe even throw in a few laughs.
Now, to keep this humble dude motivated, let's hear it! What kind of goodies would make YOU excited for the next crowdfunder? Hit that poll and let your freak flag fly! (Select all that apply)
We just wanted to let everyone know that work on the comic is currently underway, and to say thank you to everyone for their patience. We joined onto the comictopia project on rather short notice, but during the campaign it became clear that while we love Backerkit for our fulfillment solution, we've just built up too much of a an audience on Kickstarter to try and move everyone over here. So we will be launching issue 1, the full issue, over on Kickstarter next month, and we will have enough art to finalize assembly of the ashcan very soon.
Artist Antonio Baldari also had to take on another gig unexpectedly but is back working on CSR, and also contributed this awesome cover for the upcoming full length issue.
So hopefully if everything lines up right, you will have the ashcans in hand just as everyone is starting to talk about the first issue, before it goes to press. This will also get a wide circulation through comic book stores nation/world-wide, making this limited ashcan release something special. As soon as the new kickstarter pre-launch page is live we will share that too. More to come soon!
At this point if you have not filled out your survey, you've missed the bus and we're going to need for you to reach out to us at [email protected] so that we can arrange if we can issue a copy to you. Please be sure to reach out to us there if you have a problem, as we try not to discuss personal information in the comments/messages within these websites for both more active monitoring reasons and your security.
We really hope that you loved the physical print of this comic! In a while, we will be announcing 'Burn It Down', the second volume's funding campaign over here on Kickstarter, which we would love for you to be a part of as well! 🌲
Thank you all again so much for helping us bring S.E. Case's fantastic chronicle of small-town teen troubles to print for the first time. If you've just started to read from Iron Circus' crowdfunding campaigns, I personally cannot wait for you to read this next volume, which has an amazing, almost-monochrome color palette choice that sets you into the tone of Anna's chapter.
Thank you for your patience. Sorry for the delay in updates. We hit a few snags with the tariff situation and finding a new printer, but we're good now. We're at the final stage of putting together the graphic novel. The graphic novel is being lettered by Tom Napolitano now. Once that's done we'll take a final look at the book and then send it to the printer. As soon as the book is done, hopefully in two weeks, we'll make the digital editions available.
Jonathan is sending me the signed books and they'll be shipped along with the graphic novel and other rewards.
Here's one of my favorite two-page spreads in the book.
And here's the opening of Jonathan prose short story that will be included with the deluxe edition of the graphic novel.
ON MOONLIT ROADS
A Joe Ledger & Violin Adventure
By Jonathan Maberry
-1-
Clinton County, Pennsylvania
There were four bow hunters at the cabin.
Bear season opened in two days, but they had already taken two of the animals. A pair of black bears, each weighing just shy of five hundred pounds were in a basement cold room that had a concealed access outside. The four-wheel ATVs with tow-carts were stowed in a shed, and all traces of blood and hair had been carefully wiped off the vehicles.
Dennis Riley, the oldest and wealthiest of the four, had a business meeting in Manhattan on the first day of legal hunting, but that had never stopped him from taking what he wanted, when he wanted it.
He was very much like his father, Pops Riley, in that. Pops Riley always told his son that laws and restrictions were for tourists. Real men followed higher laws. There was a quote from Genesis, Book 27, Verse 3 done up in needlepoint framed on the wall.
Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow,
and go out into the field and hunt game for me.
Old Testament, which meant it outranked any rule, law, or policy written by any local, state, or federal government.
Pops had been a fire-and-thunder fundamentalist who loved God and by-god loved to hunt. Dennis remembered the way Pops taught him how to hunt. After training him in the skills of archery, he gave him two arrows and told Dennis not to come home without enough meat for the whole family to eat for a week.
It meant some cold nights huddled together under blankets deep in the woods. Once, Dennis came back empty-handed, starving, frozen to the bone, and desperate. Pops took his bow away, bent him over an upended chair, and beat him with a switch. A sturdy one, because blood was the pathway to righteousness.
Dennis was ten at the time.
Three long days later the boy came staggering back dragging a young doe. Pops stood on the porch, smoking a Pall Mall. He gave Dennis a single nod.
That was the Riley family hunting history. There were a lot of similar chapters to it.
Over time, and as Dennis navigated the polluted waters and tangled jungles of corporate America, he saw the purity of his father’s vision. Faith and redemption at Heaven’s gate was not supposed to be an easy road. And the path was often clouded by lies from the devil’s many agents, and by the subtle corruptions of women who lured men from the truth.
Like the one on the bed now.
Her name was Mary. Everyone in the area called her Mother Mary. It was that nickname that made Dennis focus on her. Mother Mary was the mother of Jesus. This Mary was more like the whore Magdalene. A slut who needed a man to guide her to purity.
There had been others before her, and would be more to come.
![[ENDED] My Assassination Target is My Childhood Crush? Print Edition](https://bk-prod-r2.imgix.net/active_storage/backerkit_production/blob/7cjgg5j35j1uhwt2ad8yz5gounr3?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&auto=compress%2Cformat&cs=srgb&lossless=true&w=300)
