Posted in: Comics | Tagged: comic, deviants, entertainment, kickstarter

Kickstarting A New Approach To Superhero Comics: Deviants #1

Published Sat, 14 Jun 2014 12:00:44 -0500

Tory Adkisson (writer/creator), Branko Jovanovic (pencils/ink). Sebastian Cheng (color), Mick Schubert (lettering) Kickstarter Closing Date: Wednesday, July 2, 2014. Publishing Date: December 1, 2014.

Set in a world coming to grips with the fact that such powerful individuals live among the general populace, Deviants will explore some familiar tropes in new ways, combining elements of Young Avengers and X-Men mashed up with BioShock and Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Tory Adkisson writes,

I've been a fan and avid reader of comics since I was a boy, and superheroes in particular always fascinated me. In a sense, I began working on the story for Deviants when I was about twelve years old, doodling ideas on old dot-matrix paper, and scribbling ideas into a notebook.

So what is Deviants? Well, the world of Deviants is a world similar to ours, except the genetically super powered have lived in secret as normal human beings. All that has changed by the time our story starts, and many of the worlds' nations have been galvanized as a body against these "deviants". I came up with "deviants" as a term for these individuals, partially because mutant and metahuman are already taken! But also because I sort of liked the moral element implied by a world that also, plainly, describes deviation from the norm.

One of the main reasons I am pursuing Deviants now is because I'm interested in telling stories with a diverse cast of characters. Our two main characters for issue 1, Shift and Panacea, are Asian- and African-American, respectively. Sure, characters of color exist, some of them prominently, in mainstream superhero comics, but its rare that such characters are presented as protagonists without a white character also being presented the same way. The series as whole features characters of all kinds of backgrounds: black, white, Latino, religious, gay, transgendered, autistic, etc. As a gay man of mixed race who is also a huge fan of comics, I am excited to contribute to a genre I love by featuring a wider array of primary characters than are commonly seen in superhero features.

Since this is my first comic, I feel lucky that I have the opportunity to tell the stories I want to tell without having any industry bonafides or publishing credits to my name. I know the work will speak for itself once its done, but until then, I have to speak up for it, which I am doing here. At the time of this writing, after just five days of campaigning, the Deviants #1 Kickstarter has already made more than 30% of its total budget.

I am excited by what success I've already had, but know that there is a lot more work ahead if I want to get this issue finished. So I am asking you, citizens of the internet, to help me out with the Kickstarter. If we can reach $2000 in the next two days, I will release variant cover sketches for issue #1 a week early. Since one of these variant covers will be produced as a print reward for those who donate $75 or more, seeing these sketches should be an interesting sneak peak.

Donate to the Deviants #1 here. Like Deviants on Facebook here. Contact Tory Adkisson on Twitter.

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