Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, dragon slayer, entertainment, kickstarter

Dragon Slayer: Breathe Fire

Published Sun, 11 May 2014 11:00:50 -0500

Last updated Sun, 11 May 2014 13:01:16 -0500

Devin Kraft writes,

Title: Dragon Slayer: The Collected Edition. Creators Involved: Devin Kraft, Space Gun Studios. Close Date: May 31^st, 11:59 PM. Publishing Date: July 2014.

Elevator Pitch: Dragon Slayer: The Collected Edition is the result of almost two years of work and three Kickstarter campaigns. The story follows a ronin, a king, and a dragon all of whom are trying to get revenge on each other for personal reasons. The dragon burned the king's city down because the king killed its mate, so the king sets off to kill the second dragon. The ronin vows to make the king responsible for his actions, and he follows the king to the dragon's lair.

The art is kinetic and dynamic, and the story moves quickly. Dragon Slayer is heavily inspired by the worlds of Final Fantasy games and Hayao Miyazaki's films with a pinch of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly for good measure. Check it out on Kickstarter today!

Dragon Slayer: Breathe Fire

Each year I try to find something challenging – something that scares me – and I try to push myself outside of my comfort zone to achieve something I've never achieved before. Two years ago, shortly before I decided to do illustration full time, it was attending comic conventions. Last year, my challenge was Kickstarting my comic. This year, I'm working on Kickstarting an entire original graphic novel.

One of the themes in my graphic novel Dragon Slayer is the idea that if you have to face a dragon, you too must breathe fire. The concept behind this is that if you want to fight a beast, you have to become a beast. Over the course of creating the book, "breathe fire" sort of became my mantra. I started to fall deeper and deeper into the mindset of the protagonists of the book, two of whom are tasked with facing the extraordinary challenge of killing a dragon on their own.

It is my opinion that you aren't apt to create something you are truly proud of as an artist or author unless you push yourself to the breaking point and then push yourself just a few meters further than that. There's an old quote that goes, "To achieve something that you have never achieved you must do something you have never done." In terms of drawing, this usually means that I learn more from an unplanned twist of a line that happens because I was seated funny than drawing the same faces and poses I'm comfortable with time and time again. You have to try something new to get something new.

I've been drawing comics since I was in high school, but I never drew them with any sort of concrete plan on how to get them to an audience. When I first started attending conventions, I found that fanart vastly outsold the five original comics I brought to sell, so when I saw Kickstarter was a place where original ideas get funded, I gathered up my courage and spent a month designing a Kickstarter campaign in hopes I could get my hard work into someone's hands.

It worked. The first Kickstarter was not only funded, but chosen as Staff Picks. Excited, I immediately began work on issue two and tried to Kickstart that. I was terrified that it would do less well, being the second issue to a relatively low run comic. Kickstarter chose the second campaign as both Staff Picks and Project of the Day. I hit the drawing board even harder this time, doing a third issue that was as big as the first two issues combined.

Up until this point I had been releasing each issue in black and white due to both time and budget constraints, but I decided to take a risk and hire local colorists Space Gun Studios with the leftover profits from the first two Kickstarter campaigns to color the collected graphic novel version. The risk paid off, and thanks to the generosity of fans, friends, and family, Dragon Slayer: The Collected Edition was funded in a week before being chosen as a Staff Pick once again.

To call creating Dragon Slayer a challenge would be an understatement. Being an indie creator, I've had to pencil, ink, letter, design, promote and ship the comic, which has been a colossal amount of work, but I'd argue that this is exactly the kind of work that pushes you a few meters past my breaking point.

Dragon Slayer is currently working on hitting its' first stretch goal, and if you back at the $35 level or above this weekend, let me know that you read this article on Bleeding Cool and I'll send you a digital copy of the first half of the graphic novel immediately.

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