Road To Pandemonium

A new comic book series by Soul Punk Studios.

Download a PDF of our 2nd Issue, "Yesterday Is Gone." We are offering it for free as a promotional preview during our Kickstarter Campaign. Just click the image above to download it.

PLOT:
Set against the close of a thousand year war in heaven where the devil has all but won, our story follows Gauge Knight on his journey through the afterlife. Gauge is saved from certain death when he first crosses over by our heroine Helena, one of the last angels left alive after centuries of war. With an ancient power emerging inside him, they embark on an epic quest to find the Devil in the high capitol of Hell, Pandemonium, and turn the tide of war.

Soul Punk Studios was co-founded in 2012 by Sam Dabbs and RJ Harbour.

After many years working together in the visual effects industry, we decided to branch out and follow our dreams of telling our own stories to the world. Mariana Traverso, a brilliant illustrator and longtime friend, came on board to create concept art and initial pencil sketches for all of the panels. We are currently working with a pool of extremely talented freelance artists including Daniel Dussault, Rio Harrington, Eugene Huang, Min Soo Kim, Joe Laude, Jim Moore and Glenn Snyder to round out the production.

Soul Punk Studios was founded with the mad passion to publish original stories for a global audience — action packed epics that have quality and substance, that we see as compelling stories told through great works of art.

We have dozens of feature film visual effects credits between us including Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Tropic Thunder and Superbad. We have also worked as main title designers and written and directed our own short films as well as music videos for EMI, Sony and Universal.

THE PLAN:
Our initial mission was to create a single issue as a proof of concept. We had an idea for a series and spent the next few months bouncing ideas off of each other and developing the story into a solid script. In May of 2012 we officially started production on our very first series, Road To Pandemonium.

We started with our second issue, “Yesterday Is Gone," as a way to introduce our two main characters, Gauge and Helena, while we continue to work and finish our first issue, “Sucker’s Night Out” as well as our Prologue, “Atheist In A Fox Hole.” We are launching our Kickstarter project to allow us to print the first few issues as well as continue production on future issues. Our goal is to build a wide audience and develop a successful independent production studio based out of Los Angeles, CA — a company built on the core values of respect for the artists and creating original world-class artwork.

Once we have completed the first few issues, we plan to release Road to Pandemonium as a digital comic through online marketplaces as well as printing issues to be sold through our website and comic book shops around the world.

HOW THE MONEY WILL BE SPENT:
The funds will be used for 3 primary purposes. The first one is to continue production of the series starting with the 3rd Issue, “Veil City.” This will allow us to re-hire our artistic team back to do this issue as well. The second purpose is to print the first edition of all our completed issues. We have quotes from several printers that will allow us to print 1000 copies of each of the first three issues and the prologue. With our current goal in mind this will allow us to provide each pledger who pledged for the comics to receive their first edition print, and have some left over to sell on our own afterwards so hopefully we can continue production on future issues ourselves. The third purpose is to fulfill and ship all of the rewards to everyone who pledged.

DETAILED EPISODE SYNOPSIS:
Issue #0 Prologue "Atheist in a Foxhole" 16 pages featuring artwork by Daniel Dussault and storyboards and layout by Eugene Huang.

We first meet Gauge on a frozen battlefield. A postcard with devastating news from home pulses inside the jacket pocket of his worn soldier's uniform. In this dystopian earth, a brutal arctic trench war rages as countries scramble to claim rights to the precious resources under the still melting ice. 18 year old boys fight the wars of older men. Gauge and three others have survived the last brutal onslaught, and desperately radio for any other survivors before the next wave of enemy soldiers overruns their position.

Issue #1 "Sucker's Night Out" 32 pages featuring artwork by Mariana Traverso and Min Soo Kim.

Miraculously surviving wounds that would have killed any ordinary man, we flash forward and find Gauge several years later brutally scarred and disfigured at a dead-end job. A New Year's Eve masquerade party full of debauchery rages on the upper floors of the office building he works at. Gauge commits the perfect crime at midnight on New Year's Eve. About to board a bus to leave town, a desperate cry for help will seal his fate.

Issue #2 "Yesterday is Gone" 32 pages featuring artwork by Jim Moore and Mariana Traverso.

ISSUE #2 FREE DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE as a promotional preview during our Kickstarter project. Limited time only!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD ISSUE #2 RIGHT NOW

Gauge wakes up to a beautiful light shining on him from the distance. His body completely healed, he bathes in the warm glow of the light. But everything is not as it seems — Gauge has only a short moment of peace before war, pain and suffering find him again.

Issue #3 "Veil City" 32 pages featuring artwork by Mariana Traverso.

Barely escaping a frenzied Chasten horde with their lives, Helena takes Gauge's unconscious body to the Veil City Council for instructions. An inept and corrupt band of creatures rule over a decadent council chamber. Evacuations have been delayed by weeks because the council members squabble over the loot left behind as the citizens evacuate. The smart fled long ago, retreating with The Veil. Only the brave, the greedy and the stupid remain in the collapsing city.

What is Soul Punk?

In the tradition of Cyber Punk and Steam Punk, Soul Punk describes a world powered entirely by Soul Energy. Those with the power to wield the soul energy can augment their armor and weapons with it, creating elaborate constructs from their minds. Some creations can even use it to sprout wings or build entire cities and complex structures.

There will be Blood.

Inhabitants of this world are full of Veil energy that bleeds out just like blood, but with characteristics of energy. Everyone has an energy spinal chord running through their bodies. The chord must be severed to cause death otherwise even the most gruesome wounds will eventually heal. They are strong and sturdy and do not die easily.

The strong fortitude of their physical bodies developed a fighting style with devastating attacks meant to decapitate or even cut an opponent clean in half. Most battles are short with devastating results.

PUSH GOALS:
If we reach beyond our goal we have several plans for the extra money — we want to continue creating as many issues as we can. We will put a majority of it into developing new issues and potentially other series.

We also want to commit more resources to our motion comic, which we see as a way of getting in front of a larger audience. People will be able to view this through YouTube as well as have a download option. Currently it is challenging for us to finish the motion comic in a timely manner because of the lack of computing power needed to render it. By upgrading our render farm we will be able to drastically reduce our render time.

FUTURE PLANS:
After we launch the series, we plan to continue to create a wide range of limited edition merchandise such as toys, t-shirts and posters printed for each issue. These will have small, limited edition runs so our die-hard fans can have true collectables.

Our future goals also include developing applications for tablets and mobile devices as well as branching out into many new storylines and genres.

Thank you for checking out our Kickstarter page. Jump down the rabbit hole and join us on the Road to Pandemonium! Thank you to all the backers making our vision a reality.

Please be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter and also be sure to sign up for our mailing list here. If you have any questions feel free to send us message through Kickstarter or email us at info@soulpunkstudios.com.

Issue #1, "Suckers Night Out" Storyboard Preview