May 2014: A new Steampunk graphic novel is on Kickstarter, with incredible art, a compelling story, and exciting prizes.
The year is 1925. Airships dot the skies, shining cities sprawl and tower over the citizenry, and the American Civil War rages on without an end in sight. The Confederates have just created a terrible new weapon; a super soldier—part man, part machine. In response, the Union resurrects an agent killed in action: her name is Dahlia, and her quest for revenge will either destroy the nation, or unite it forever in peace.
This is the story of Dahlia, a black and white graphic novel from Portland, OR. Writers Jonathan Stark and Max Lewis are seeking to crowd fund the first 150-page Book: “The script is complete, we’ve hired an amazing local artist, Mac Cooper, to illustrate, and he’s already completed a portion of the story, the fateful mission on which Dahlia is killed—which you can see by going to our website.”
That website is www.whoisdahlia.com, where the comic has already raised some interest, not least because of its fantastic art. The world of Dahlia has been rendered in loving detail by Mac, who inks the black and white graphic by hand. “You don’t see that a lot in the digital age,” says Jonathan. “It adds a personal touch to every gear and cog in the graphic, like they were built by hand.”
The goal of Dahlia is to create a new, detailed world for the fans of Steampunk to explore and lose themselves in, and to give them a strong heroine to follow. On this last point, Max says, “Rather than tell a story of another damsel in distress, we wanted to write a woman who is smart and strong enough to save herself, in the toughest of circumstances.”
Some of the prizes offer readers the chance to have their likeness appear in the graphic themselves, like extras in a film. Seven backers will even get to be main characters, black-ops commandos who follow Dahlia on a mission into the heart of enemy territory in Book One.
“Our favorite campaigns are those that seek to involve the backer in the final product,” says Max. “We want to take that idea to the next level with Dahlia; we don’t just want to crowd fund this graphic novel, we want to crowd fill it.”
If the quality of the short story already posted online is any indication, backers of these prizes won’t be disappointed with their appearance in the final product. Dahlia blends the action and drama of Westerns and Sci-Fi, while the artwork creates an unusually detailed world that seems uncontainable by the panels on the page. For fans of comics or Steampunk, Dahlia is the graphic novel project to follow this May!
Kickstarter URL: www.kickstarter.com
Video link: d2pq0u4uni88oo.cloudfront.net
