About this project
HOTBLOOD! ☼ Omnibus Edition
$82,522
1,626
Hello! My name is Toril Orlesky, alias Starlock, and I'm an independent comic artist with a BFA in Film/Animation/Video from the Rhode Island School of Design ('13). I’m also the creator of Hotblood!, an online graphic novel about centaurs in the American Old West. I’ve posted a page of Hotblood! twice a week since September 2013, and now the comic is finished and ready to be published as a complete omnibus! I am also looking to print a comprehensive, limited edition art book– Foundry– of illustrations, worldbuilding, process work, and production notes for the project.
☼NEW STRETCH GOAL: $80,000: ONLINE SEQUEL TO THE COMIC☼
Thanks to the incredible success of the first week of the campaign, I am able to introduce a previously secret stretch goal for the project! Deep breath:
If we hit $80,000, I will draw an all-new SEQUEL TO THE COMIC: HOTBLOOD!: ZARCO. Zarco will run for 50-70 pages (approximately) and will follow the adventures of Sheriff Rafael “Buck” Zarco of Sonoma County, California, and his encounter with the renowned criminal James Rook and his partner, Asa Langley. The comic will update once a week and will be free to read for everyone online!
The campaign is half over and we’re over halfway to 80k! Tell your friends, spread the word, and be sure to back the winning horse ;^)
OK, back to the books we're printing:
Hotblood! follows James Rook, a washed out Civil War vet who happens to be a centaur, and his human employer Asa Langley, America’s most irreverent steel tycoon. There are elements of romance, adventure, and corporate intrigue set against a backdrop of sublime landscapes, the Transcontinental Railroad, the early days of the steel industry, and the latter days of the gold rush. And, of course, there is a great deal of equine-related humor ;^)
You can read Hotblood! here!
The aim of this Kickstarter is to print the entire comic in one volume, as well as an accompanying art book of development material– one campaign, two beautiful books! In addition to the content available for free online, the omnibus edition of Hotblood! will contain cleaned up art, revised text, additional pages, an epilogue, and a prequel comic starring Paris Wakefield and Ming Li Feng. None of this content will be available anywhere else!
The art book, Foundry, will be limited edition and exclusively available through this Kickstarter (and, if I can wrangle it, at TCAF 2017). As I have produced Hotblood! over the last two and a half years, I've accumulated a wealth of art and information about the world of the comic as well as a lot of notes on my process for running a webcomic. Both of these topics have been a source of fascination for many of my readers (and myself) and I am thrilled at this chance to share a behind-the-scenes view of Hotblood!
☼ HOTBLOOD! OMNIBUS EDITION
☼ FOUNDRY: HOTBLOOD! MATERIALS BOOK
☼ R18 COLLECTION .PDF (ADULTS ONLY!)
☼ SIGNED BOOKPLATES (LIMITED) A slick bookplate sticker, signed by me, to put in your book (or anywhere else)!
☼ TRADITIONAL SKETCH COMMISSIONS (LIMITED) An original 5x7" B&W ink + marker sketch of a Hotblood! character of your choice!
☼ DIGITAL COMMISSIONS (LIMITED) A hi-res, full-colour drawing of yourself or your original character as a centaur!
The goal of $24,000 has been estimated based on the quote for printing the books as well as freight shipping, fulfillment, reward production, and Kickstarter and Amazon fees. Printing, shipping, and distribution will be handled by the amazing team at Printninja!
THANK YOU!
Risks and challenges
Both the omnibus and the art book are done and their final page counts have been locked in! I'll be sending them out to be proofed as soon as the funding goal is met.
The estimated delivery dates for rewards have been buffered with extra time to account for any possible delays during printing or freight shipping to the United States, which are predictably unpredictable. Again, fulfillment will be handled by my printer, Printninja!
This is my first Kickstarter campaign but these are not the first books I have printed– in the past I have worked with the short-run press RA Comics Direct to print individual chapters of Hotblood! as well as a number of stand-alone zines.
The work that has yet to be completed is one of the two new R18 comics– however, I don't expect it to take more than a month to finish, and delivery of the .PDFs will not affect the delivery of the printed books.
RE: ZARCO: Although the sequel comic will need to be scripted and drawn if the stretch goal is met, I can guarantee that it will happen. I posted pages of Hotblood! for 2.5 years twice a week without missing an update (except during planned hiatuses between chapters). This comic has been and will continue to be my job, and I take it very seriously.
Learn about accountability on KickstarterQuestions about this project? Check out the FAQ
Support this project
Funding period
- (31 days)