Yes, it’s FINALLY available. 44 pages of comics AND text side by side as they should be, plus a few extras to bring the full page count to 52. This is a comic book sized printing. The shading has been touched up a little and some pages that were originally in black and white are now in color! The first book takes you from the beginning up until Lexx takes Chel to the ship. The first book signed is $10. I haven’t decided how much it will be through Ka-blam due to the options upcoming that will get the books into STORES. Unfortunately there will be a higher markup on them than I normally do. They’ll probably end up being $8. (I boggle at the fact that I think my first black and white printing was $10. :D) You can purchase the book through the new Shivae Studios store for the next two weeks and there is also an option for $10 more to get an original inked piece of artwork with it of a character of your choice.

I haven’t run one in awhile, but now that I know April is really going to hurt, (Hurt as in, I will not have enough coming in to cover myself due to the added $500 I’m going to be paying each month on my taxes) what would you like?

Stickers? If so, what characters.
Postcards? If so, what characters.
Bookmarks? You get the idea.
Wallpaper - Comic war incentive - I have an idea for one that will really make Lexx upset and it has nothing to do with stripping.

These are very SMALL incentives because I just don’t want to gamble with a large one like metal pins again until the fall. (I tended to go ahead and buy them even when the minimum wasn’t fully met and I don’t think I could do that this time.)

I finished with the layouts for Book #1 and decided to split the books into parts. Book #1 is all of Day 1 up until Chel goes with Lexx. Book #2 will contain Chel and Lexx on the ship and Day 2 up to the capture of Fly. Book #3 will contain the real game revelation and Day 3.

The books will all be 52 pages each. Sooo… if you want to submit some nice artwork of Lexx, Chel, Zeta, Fly and Stealth - feel free to send it! (It must be at least 300 dpi and at least 7 x 5.5 in physical size. It can be 10 x 15, which is standard for a full bleed page. These are full color. Please let me know ahead of time so I can keep a good count and know how many are going to be coming. I hope to get this book done within the next two weeks, so the due date for #1 is March 31st. You will get a free copy of the book.

I’m not willing to gamble on getting a full trade done at a good price with the current state of things. So I’m TRYING very hard to fit Alien Dice #1 into a 52 page comic book sized book. I discovered that my font was a little too big so I’ve reduced it a little, which is fitting it perfectly and will hopefully eliminate the full pages of text that WERE there. I’m only up to page 13 in redoing it, but by my count it SHOULD be doable and there will finally be a FULL color print of AD #1 with text available! (And the text is actually syncing up pretty well.) It would also likely be available for $10 AND you could pick it up at your local comic book store.

I put this into perspective.. I believe the 100 or so people who got a copy of my original black and white self done printed book … got it for $10. The manga version out of Keenspot was also $10, but also black and white.

Once I get Day 1 out, the rest should come out quicker. I’m NOT GOING TO GO AND TOUCH ANYTHING UP.. unless it just really, really bothers me. I made quite a few minor edits to noses and mouths… and added shading … I shouldn’t have done that.

Maybe someday there will be an actual full color trade collection, but that would be VERY expensive right now - $25-$30 unless I came across $8,000 Which isn’t going to happen. And if it did, I’d pay off all my bills with much glee instead of buying books.

Since I was asked a LOT about Book #1 with text at Furry Fiesta .. the moment I got home I used my time to work on it and I’m almost done doing the touching up. I will not be doing as much on the next books.

Now.. the big problem is that I’m looking at a book that if I go through Ka-Blam will cost ME $20 per book for a 150 page, full color, comic book sized, perfect bound book. But if I do what a lot of other people are doing and take preorders for a huge mass publication they will cost far less - the only problem is it’d still cost me probably 7K or 8K. I won’t know exactly how much until I ask for a new quote with the exact numbers and specs, but the cost per book would be HALF of what I’d pay at Ka-Blam, thus… I could most likely have the books in the $15 range instead of the $25 range and I’d honestly profit better.

This is why I haven’t said more about the toy - I want to do the toy and I will, but it’s on the back burner because I should do the book first.

I’m sure most of you who would buy the book would be able to purchase a $15 one over a $25 one and I will likely be trying to make arrangements with Ka-blam to distribute the book to comic book stores as well, so you can get it there.

I really don’t have any choice but to publish in this way, because day 1 by itself … is too big to send through Ka-blam without it being perfect bound, although I am likely going to keep the cheaper version for those of you who want to purchase them in pieces. There will still be mini compilations of comics in color and text in black and white. I’m going to set that up soon for Day 2 and then compile the text for print in a separate black and white book. It’ll come out cheaper in the short run… even though it’s somewhat inconvenient.