Kickstarter

Ball Stars 7th-Inning stretch!

| Aaron McConnell
The Kickstarter goal for Ball Stars is over the halfway mark thanks to our backers! The game is afoot! Acme and I have received a full range of feedback, most of it quite positive, some of it along the lines of “your Kickstarter isn’t ready for the big leagues.” However, we will not be deterred! Come aboard and help us move the project forward. This is the start of something exciting… Let’s Play Ball!

If this is the first you’ve heard of Ball Stars, here’s a quick rundown: Ball Stars is a fantasy baseball inspired trading card game designed by Acme McConnell (with some assistance from me, Aaron, mainly illustrations). The game is fun to play with two players or just to collect for the fantastic artwork!

Two teams face off with rules that will appear familiar to fans of real life baseball. The core differences are every successful bat is a home run and the field is overrun by freaks and monsters! 

Equip perks to your batters and roll dice to score points. Apply reaction spells to alter the outcome of the rolls. If the pitcher wins the roll, the batter is out! Three batters out means you switch positions, and this makes up a half. Two halves equals one inning, the game lasts three innings. Whoever has the most points after three innings wins the game!

Gain the advantage by leveling up your pitcher. Your opponent will send out additional batters from their lineup to try to match the level of your super-powered pitcher.

For the full rules click the gif below:

We launched the Kickstarter in conjunction with the convention Gamestorm25 in Portland the weekend of March 21st and have continued to demo Ball Stars locally, both at Guardian Games and at Acme’s new store that opened earlier this year called Paraquosm at 322 SE Morrison St.  We also traveled to Leavenworth, WA and demoed the game at Krampus Kave. If you have a favorite game store, please let us know so we can offer them a retailer discount to stock the game.

In the meantime, please consider supporting the kickstarter HERE and sharing it with family and friends who love games and art.

Thanks again for being Ball Stars!!

Sincerely,

Ancient Futures Status update

| Aaron McConnell

The photo collage above includes pictures from Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2) where Steven (writer) and I (artist) introduced readers to our first printed volume of Ancient Futures and we’re happy to report it was warmly received, including enthusiastic response to the visuals as well as the catchy tagline for the book “Afropunk Assassins at the end of SpaceTime!” Other creative individuals (photographers, sculptors, actors, tarot readers, cosplayers) are getting involved in the project and we’re very excited to witness its development in ways that we couldn’t have imagined when Ancient Futures started about 2 and half years ago.

Absent-mindedly, I don’t think I’ve shown photos of the first printed Volume 1 on this blog, so here are some long overdue images to give you an idea of what the 40 page printed book looks like. For those who missed Volume 1, there is a reward tier that offers both this issue and Vol. 2. and the print edition of the first issue is running low, so get it while you can.

There are still 2 rewards for original art available in the Sketch Cover tier. You can expect those one-of-a-kind originals to look something like this:

Our status for the Kickstarter is currently under water with 8 days remaining. Not sure if we’ll be able to make this, so please consider spreading the word to anyone you can think of who might be interested in this project. The cost of a 40-page graphic novel is rather high these days and since we’re self-publishing this series to retain the rights we need to find people who believe in and are willing to invest in the project to make the printed book a reality. Thank you for your time and consideration.

PODCAST Appearance!

| Aaron McConnell

Steven and I were honored to be on the comic and pop culture podcast Blue Tiger Revenge last night. It was a fun conversation that reveals how Steven and I started working together on Ancient Futures and includes some of Steven’s recitation of the lines from the book. Very entertaining stuff, if I do say so myself. Host Tadd Galusha has been working in comics about as long as I have and we know each other from years back, so he had very specific and relevant questions about the drawing process and working in comics. Check it out here: https://bluetigerrevenge.substack.com/p/18-aaron-mcconnell-and-steven-white 

The Ancient Futures Kickstarter is counting down its final hours as I type this, so please hop aboard ASAP if you’d like to support it. We are so grateful to our backers and look forward to fulfilling the rewards in the coming months.

There are still 2 Original Art rewards available to purchase, Ancient Futures artworks drawn by Adam Benet Shaw and Dustin Weaver. This is a unique opportunity and I’m selfishly hoping that someone purchases these so that I can see their artistic interpretations of the characters from the book.

Ancient Futures Kickstarter is live!

| Aaron McConnell

Dear subscribers and comic lovers,

I’m excited to announce the launch of a passion project I’ve been working on for over a year with a writer in Chicago Steven White, aka Seven, on this Valentine’s Day, 2022. What started as weekly zoom meetings to exchange story ideas and concept drawings organically grew into a compelling narrative as characters began to form and ideas bubbled to the surface brought about by the challenging and perplexing times we were experiencing in our collective lives. This story feels very “of the moment” and Seven and I wanted to find a way to bring an audience along with us as it forms rather than keep it hidden away until the entire story has been written and drawn. The hope is to keep it alive and growing in dialogue with reader interaction. Kickstarter seemed like an appropriate choice and so today marks the christening of our ship Ancient Futures as we embark into the great unknown. I hope you’ll check it out and consider joining us on the journey. We have a 40-page Part One that is scheduled to print this spring and ship this summer if the Kickstarter is successful, and we hope it captures your imagination as much as the creation of it has for Seven and myself. Thank you! http://kck.st/3oLKLgi

Final Hours Of Dust and Blood!

| Aaron McConnell

Today is the final countdown for backing Of Dust and Blood by Jim Berry and Val Mayerik.  The original graphic novel is funded, so backers are guaranteed a book, but the Kickstarter has a stretchgoal for getting the book in full watercolor by Val!  I did the drawing below to support the cause and the original is currently available as one of the pledge goals.  India Ink on Bristol paper, 22″ x 13.5″.  Please consider contributing to the project.  Thank you!

ODAB_INKScanB_72dpi

Original art detail (click to enlarge):

ODAB_INKDetail_D_200dpi

Stepping Out and Kicking In

| Aaron McConnell

Stepping Out: I left Portland a couple weekends ago to meet my dad in San Diego for the Reuben Award weekend, and the days have just been ticking away since then.  I think meeting and just sharing the room with so many legends in cartooning set my brain on fire and it’s still smoldering.  I “talked shop” with  Sergio Aragonés and Russ Heath, shook hands with Mel Lazarus and Rick Geary, just to name a few.  Here’s a picture of my dad with some of the cartoonists at our table during the award ceremony.  Can you spot a Dan Piraro or a Matthew Diffee?IMG_5614a I’d like to do a thorough report of my experience.  It really was a remarkable weekend, but I’m going to have to put that on the back burner for the time being.NCS_NewMember

Kicking In:   I would like to direct the attention of anyone in the industry to the National Cartoonists Society because they are looking to expand the roster of qualifying members. There are new perks for being a member that are in the works.  That’s right, “Perks in the Werks!”  You can find out everything you need to know about joining at the newly renovated website HERE.

Kicking In:  I recently contributed to a Kickstarter that my friend, photographer, comic book collector, and comic book writer Jim Berry is running to fund the production of a thrilling graphic novel about The Battle Of The Little Big Horn (Greasy Grass) featuring art by legendary illustrator, Val Mayerik.  Please take a look at the Of Dust and Blood Kickstarter and consider pitching in to make this book a reality. ODAB_Kickstarter

Stepping Out…to the comic shop, I encountered a number of excellent books coming out right now.  Probably at the top pf my list for entertainment is Starlight written by Mark Millar with art by Goran Parlov that is just riddled with nods and homages galore to the late, great Moebius.  I’ll sign off with this piece of Starlight fan art that was created in everyone’s favorite new graphic software, Manga Studio 5. Stepping out of my comfort zone to learn this new tool, after kicking in some cash to buy it;-)  Starlight_FanArt