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!
The books are printed and on their way, and will hopefully be delivered Monday as scheduled! All the shirts are in and ready to be pressed, next week will be busy prepping and packing everything. if everything goes smoothly, I'm hoping to have everything shipped out next week.
Also, the partial refunds have been sent for everyone that selected the delayed shipping option.
For Fans Of…
Deeply personal drama spiked with dark and raunchy comedy. This is a hard, spectacularly violent book!
Imagine The Boys, Deadpool or Preacher if they were directed by Quentin Tarantino or Martin Scorsese.
This book is for MATURE 18+ AUDIENCES ONLY.
FISTICUFFS is a six-issue miniseries written by Fred Schwartz (Hardbody), drawn by Stan Yak (TMNT: The Last Ronin, Broken Gargoyles), colored by Robert Nugent (Spawn, Spawn Kills Every Other Spawn), with letters and logo by Dave Sharpe (Superboy: Son of Kal El, Harley Quinn).
Books One and Two are each 22-page “floppy” issues that will be boarded, bagged and shipped securely in Gemini mailers.
Former Fighter Haven's champion Kenny Quinn retires to wage a new fight—as a vigilante. Haunted by the murder of his best friend, he sets his sights on the Pavlov Russian mafia, the ruthless crime family he believes is responsible. After launching a brutal attack on one of their construction sites, Kenny puts himself in their crosshairs. With the underworld closing in, he must use his skills to survive and uncover the truth.
Knightwatch is a gritty, action-packed vigilante thriller where justice is personal. Illustrated by yours truly Mr Fish Lee!
First off, a huge thank you for your patience! We know we've been a little quiet, but that's because we've had our heads down, entirely focused on building out this beast that is BLITZ magazine issue 1. It's packed with some seriously exceptional raw talent!
📢 Since our last update, we've assembled an incredible lineup of international creators to bring you bold art, insightful articles, engaging discussions, and so much more. We have the fantastic work of Italy-based artists Dina Omut and Jute, alongside Mahdi Kheene, who's making waves in the NY indie scene, plus many other contributors—including the promised legendary Jim Mahfood, Shawn Crystal, and Karl Kerschl—plus we've got a few surprises in store, which we'll share more about in the coming weeks.
🎁 Also, the former insert 'Creator Universe' gets an Upgrade!
Instead of being bound within the magazine, the "Creator Universe" section will now come as a separately printed special edition included in a collector's treasure trove of extras. Thanks to the generosity of our incredible creators, we're stuffing this grab bag with original comics, postcards, posters, stickers, and more exclusive goodies!
📆 Printing & Fulfillment Timeline — we're officially on the books to take BLITZ to print in May, and we're printing locally here in Canada, which means fulfillment will begin by late May or early June. We know it's been a journey, but trust us—it'll be worth the wait!
BLITZ has evolved into something much bigger than we originally conceived — and we're trying to make it as unique, memorable, and purposeful as possible. The extra time you, our amazing backers, have afforded us has helped us achieve this. Thank you for your support and patience.
Thank you again for your patience and belief in BLITZ — we can't wait to get this into your hands!
In the meantime, please enjoy some art from some of the new faces going BLITZ issue 1!
A quick update as things are coming together for Karma Vol 2 to ship soon. As part of the ComicTopia project there was a cool collaboration gift for backers of both Karma Vol 2 and our partners project The Legend of La Rosa Blanca. Any backers that supported print levels from both campaigns are receiving two special custom Tarot cards. Here's a look at the actual cards that will be included for qualifying backers:
We will be updating more coming up shortly. Shipping will be starting in the coming weeks as soon as we have the confirmed date the books are arriving.
Checking in for our regular status update. The book has been submitted in its entirety to the printer. We’ve just wrapped up "soft proof" approvals, in which the printer provides the PDF layouts of the book, covers, and slipcases for a final review of contents. This is also the stage where we work with the printer to define precise methods and colors used for things like our cover enhancements, endpapers, etc. This part of the process is always enjoyable, as you really begin to get a feel for the final product!
After this will be “hard proofs”, where the printer will produce physical copies of book materials for approval before proceeding with the full order. This will be the point at which we’ll be able to provide some photos of the process per our request to the printer. Always a neat little peek into the book production process!
Wishing everyone well as the weather turns, whether you’re warming up or cooling off.
A bunch of updates today on the Legend of La Rosa Blanca. We have the final colors for all pages and letters done at last. We're getting ready to send them to press in the next few weeks and should be able to give everyone an updated ETA for when we can start shipping. We also just received the cross collaboration cards for backers who also supported Dynamite's Karma Volume 2 graphic novel. They look great and are going to make cool collectibles for those lucky backers.
We're working on the pledge manager for La Rosa and hope to have it launch by this time next week. Everyone will be getting a special bonus gift from us that we'll announce later on as well. We're just so happy to finally be nearing completion and shipping for everyone. We appreciate how very patient everyone has been. We hit a lot of unexpected problems with La Rosa Blanca - but we think the final book will be worth the wait.
