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Drifters: The Character-Driven Action/Adventure Comic x Manga About the World's Most 'Meh' Main Character

Joshua Kasali writes,

Meet Theo Adams, a 15-year-old kid who's lived a lonely, sickly life for as long as he can remember. He's an orphan who lives with his wealthy but clandestine uncle who's virtually never around and always working in his 'secret lab'. On the surface, this would be the perfect backstory for Theo to be a cool brooding anti-hero with purposeful or perhaps sinister motivations in his life… but he's not, he's as plain as vanilla yogurt. But he is curious and searching. He literally knows nothing about his 'C.I.A.' parents and so in an effort to discover more about them and find some deeper meaning in his life (though he won't admit it to anyone), he breaks into his uncle's lab and in classic comic-book style, he gets transported to a whole new dimension (where the origins of his family apparently lie), and this is where our story really begins!

Drifters is a series that's been going on for about a year and a half now and we currently have 11 Issues released already, so if I were to summarize everything properly, I'd either have to write 10 different articles or not do the story justice at all. In a minute, I'm going to talk about the Volume 2 Kickstarter that's currently running and how you can get involved, but first I thought I'd lay the foundation some more.

My name is Joshua Kasali and I'm a Nigerian-American writer who founded New Dawn Creatives to bring the stories I write to life in the form of serialized comics. The first of these series, is 'Drifters' (and no, it has nothing to do with the 'Drifters' Manga/Anime in Japan). My main inspirations for the series are Avatar: The Last Airbender, Star Wars and Naruto, so if you're a fan of any of those franchises, I think you'll like 'Drifters' once you get into it. On the surface, this series seems to be a conventional Action/Adventure Story that has the Heroes Journey trope firmly embroiled in it. At times, it appears slow, a little aimless and maybe even plain; much like the main character and that is by design. Like Theo, things are not always as they seem on the surface. Throughout the course of the first two volumes, you'll meet some new characters, get introduced to this new world (not too different from our own) and see some cool fight scenes. However, the real interesting stuff is subtle, and they revolve around Theo's journey of self-discovery (and the other main character's internal journeys. Deep themes are tackled without being too 'on-the-nose' and they're packaged in a way that allows for people of many different age-groups to get into the series.

So right now, we're currently running a Kickstarter to get Issue 11 fully funded and out there to the public. I had initially planned to get the entire Volume 2 funded at once since this is a monthly serialization, but I figured that people needed to get into this first, so we reduced the goal to just worry about getting Issue 11 funded. Here's the link so you can check it out.

But what about Issue 0-10?

Well, here's the great news about our Kickstarter, every single person that makes a pledge in this kickstarter (starting from even $1) will get every Issue we've ever done up to this point sent straight to their email so you won't have to worry about getting caught up. Now, I do have to warn you though, the art in the Issues from our Prologue Volume (0-3) aren't as pretty as the Issues we make now, so it might be a little bit tougher to get into the story but I assure you, the story's the same and the continuity is unchanged. Just in case you can't get into it though, we did provide a summary of previous Issues in the start of Volume 1 (Issue 4), so you'll be able to start from there if you'd like. Also, here's a brief summary of what went down in the Prologue Volume and Volume one, as well as a little of what to expect in the next volume:

Volume Zero (0-3) focused on setting up the new world and the main character, Theo. There's quite a bit of exposition that'll pay off as the series goes on, but I think the biggest thing fulfilled in these early Issues from a narrative POV is setting up the foundation for the entire series. We see the sort of life Theo lived in 'our world', we learn about some of the main differences between this world and the world Theo's coming from (mainly Aether energy, the energy source that enables people in this realm to do the things they can do), we're introduced to a very nefarious character (possibly a villain) who will inevitably cross paths with our 'good guys' and we even get teasers about Theo's uncle and his unknown past. Now, to be sure, there are a lot more questions than answers posed in this volume, but that sets things up nicely for the volumes to come.

Volume 1 (4-10) focused on the other main characters in the series; Dreads, Arvia and Chief Fadiq. In the zero volume, these characters are shown as powerful warriors who at times even appear as stoic cold people with masks on both their faces and lives outside of their duties. However, in Volume 1, we attempt to remove those 'masks' and emphasize their shared humanity by revealing some of their goals, motivations, vulnerabilities etc. We also see some significant growth from Theo as his purpose and character gets fleshed out as well. All of this also applies to our 'villain', who's complex character gets a bit of the spotlight as well. Even the 'evilest' characters can feel 'love'… right?

Volume 2 (11-17) is going to introduce the first really 'existential' threat in the story. For reasons I won't go into here (don't wanna spoil anything good), Theo, Dreads and Arvia are all sent on a domestic mission, one that could have dire consequences if success isn't achieved. However, they're not the only ones going on this mission. We're going to be introduced to some other Drifters-in-training as Theo gets a little more comfortable interacting with more people outside of his 'personal trainers', Dreads and Arvia. However, as is the case whenever you meet new people, things don't always go so great and Theo is about to find out that human relationships and people in general aren't an exact science, especially when you're dealing with people with supposedly big ideological 'differences'.

Something Special for Bleeding Cool Readers.

As something special for Bleeding Cool Readers, everyone who backs this Kickstarter THIS WEEKEND ONLY (From $20 and up), will receive the special perk of having their name added to the 'special thanks' credits page of the comic. For people who pledge high enough to get that perk anyways, they'll receive an extra exclusive poster signed by the creative team of 'Drifters'.

If you want so to follow up, keep up or just find out more info, feel free to follow us on our social Media platforms.

Facebook: Newdawncreatives
IG: New Dawn Creative Comics
Twitter: @Newdawncreative1
Email: Drifters@newdawncreatives.com

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