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HELLO HELLO -

I'd like to thank those who wrote in after the last newsletter to give me some input on Kickstarter and Patreon. Your insights and suggestions were truly welcome! Based on what people have said, I think for now I am going to focus on my Kickstarter goals for later this year.

My thought process on Patreon is more project-specific. Creating a graphic novel or book is so much work in and of itself doing extras like how-to videos or tutorials would, I feel, be counterproductive to the project. 

To expand on this thought - should people become patrons of a particular project; say Kukuburi, they would receive updates containing art ahead of public release, behind-the-scenes development and progress, live streams while I work, and so on. All things that are a direct result of working on Kukuburi. The patrons would be the driving force behind the creation and execution of the project and once it was complete they would receive a published hardcopy. In Kukuburi's case, this would be a printed edition of the book - along with a few limited extras like a print/poster, t-shirt, or perhaps a special Patron-only cover.

I still think this is a viable way to utilize Patreon to drive project creation and execution, and I will most likely revisit it in a few months. Most likely not for Kukuburi, but for another more self-contained project. 

Always happy to hear people's thoughts on this - so feel free to write in and give feedback!

Now though, onto other things...

 

KUKUBURI

.... as mentioned above, I'll be focussing on a Kickstarter instead of Patreon for the immediate future. 

The focus of that Kickstarter will be Kukuburi Vol.1

When I originally created Kukuburi I intended the online version to be the initial 'draft' of a 3 volume series of about 300-pages each. I soon realized how daunting, and a little crazy, this was - but attempted to stick to my guns. Now years since, reality has knocked me over the head - and after a few discussions with fellow peers, I have decided to try and reformat the story into smaller chunks of around 128 pages, and spread it over 5 to 6 volumes. It works out to be the same(ish) but just in smaller more manageable chunks.

As mentioned in the prior newsletter, my last few years have been un-art focused due to family, professional, personal, and finally pandemic reasons. The dust has settled (for the most part) on much of that and I'm refocussing on art and telling stories again. And one immediate goal from all of this is focussing on Volume 1 of Kukuburi as a Kickstarter campaign later this year.

What this would entail is a 128-page premier volume containing the first chapter of the story. This would be what you see online, but with added pages for storytelling - with some special back-matter.

Keep watching here for more news on this, and the online re-launch of Kukuburi's continuing story.

As well, if you'd like you can follow The RAID Studio on Kickstarter to get immediate updates when any of my, or other RAID PRESS creator-projects, goes live.

BUTTERNUTSQUASH
Remember these guys?

They're old farts now. they had their moment in the sun, but they still, I think, have one more tale to tell.

Butternutsquash was a big part of my, and co-creator Rob Coughler's lives for so many years - for better or worse we are the characters. One thing I've been considering is doing an ultimate print edition of BNS, containing all the online comics, the extra comics (from our one floppy comic), along with any and all related art (x-mas cards, posters, covers, etc), plus taking the time to complete a bunch of new strips based on old notes and ideas special to this one-time print edition.

Am I crazy?

Let me know - we'd love to kickstart an ultimate edition of Butternutsquash to live on people's shelves forever.
 
PAYASO
A short Payaso story appeared in RAID ONE - and he's now the focus of my next independent graphic novel. I am spending 2021 writing the script about this clown with the upside-down frown in a post-apocalyptic world - and it's some of the most fun comic silliness I've had in a long while. I won't go on about it too much today, but he'll be a regular feature in updates as I begin to develop the book for a 2022 release. 
 
ART
Every Newsletter I'll also, if I'm able, share a piece of art I'm working (or have worked) on. This month I'm showcasing the cover to issue 7 of Stillwater. This issue sees the beginning of the next arc following the collected TPB of issue 1-6 which came out in March and is available in our RAID ONLINE SHOP. This new arc begins with a town in ruins, city hall has burned, and its residents split, broken into vying factions. To convey this idea I took inspiration from Saul Bass' poster for the film Anatomy Of A Murder. Hope you like.
As inspired by Saul Bass, my cover to Issue 7 of Stillwater.

Thanks for reading - and I'll see you next month where I'll chat a little about bebop and jazz, share some sneak peaks into upcoming Kukuburi pages, along with some fun pinup art I've done! 

All the best,


Ramón.
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