Coda Sneak peek
With the imminent release of our second Omnibus this September, it feels kind of weird to talk about the third Omnibus, Coda, already. But that one will be out later this fall, in December to be exact, so we are already hard at work on it. Featuring the stunning cover by Donald Caron as chosen by our Facebook fans - it will feature the 24 pages Season Finale by Olivier Raymond and Kellam Templeton, and written by Yann and Michel Brouillette, as well as 56 pages of NEVER BEFORE SEEN MATERIAL. That’s right - the bulk of the comic wll be brand new stories that will not be available online. So far we can tell you that the book will be featuring work by Gibson Quarter & Guillermo Ortego, who gave us the kinetic madness of the Black Terror/8 Ball team-up - you can see a sample of Gibson’s pencils above, new comer to the Heroes of the North fold Christopher Yao, who illustrates a sweet Nordik tale, Geof Isherwood who pencils a New Felquistes Halloween tale created by guest writer Jean-Dominique Leduc. There will also be a Madame Doom tale which will prepare you for events of Season 2 and introduce a new villain to the Heroes of the North universe as well as a Medusa Commander tale and much more! So keep an eye out for Heroes of the North: CODA this November!Our (first) most important post of the year
The Heroes of the North 80 pages behemoth, Omnibus volume 2, will hit the comic book stores everywhere in North America this fall - September to be precise. Yet, you should nag your favourite friendly comic book store this month (July) about it. Or, alternatively, if you live abroad or do not have a comic book store nearby, you can also pre-order it from our online store.This is the wraparound cover for the second Omnibus, by Geof Isherwood.
Why now? What is the rush?, do you ask? Because the way it works is as follows: The book is currently being solicited now in comic book stores all across America in a magazine/catalog called Previews and published by Diamond Comics - which is pretty much the sole distributor of comics in North America for the retailers.
Retailers ie your favourite comic book store, must collect their orders during that month and submit them at the end of it to Diamond, who will in turn, inform the publishers of the minimum amount of copies the publisher needs to make to fulfill the demand, in order for everyone to minimize their risks, especially on lesser known titles like ours.
Now here is the rub: comics are a tough business these days and most retailers are pretty conservative. They usually stick to what they know and that is why they are still in business. They do not want to get stuck with stuff that does not sell and so on. And no one can blame them for that. But if their clients ask for it, they will order it. Maybe a few more, because there is a demand. And that is good for us and the show, for many reasons. Keep reading to find out why...
For the first Omnibus, the book was under ordered by a lot of retailers - most stores had ran out of the books three weeks after its release! - and they had to order more the next month. Thankfully we over printed a bit for conventions and so on - and we were (barely) able to meet up the demand. Whatever we had left for conventions has been selling like hot cakes with the end result that we have almost none left! If you want to get your hands on it, you can always visit our store or perhaps we will have some at the next convention, but that is the extent of it: a few dozens left.The cover of the first Heroes of the North Omnibus, released in February 2012.
Now you may be thinking that we are making lots of money going through Diamond , with its extended distribution market that is so much wider than anything we could humanely cover on our own, but the truth is we are not: once you factor in the printing fees, Diamond’s own, huge distributor’s cut (60%!), our publisher’s share and other expenses like the fees of the artists and other contributors themselves, not to mention the cost of shipping at almost every steps, there is really not that much left, quite frankly. Not enough for a profit.
But going through Diamond allows us to get the book far and wide and spread the news of the shows to people we could never afford to reach otherwise. And that is why we do it and it is also why we ask you to order it from your retailers instead of through us, even though we technically lose money when you do it at this point.
As the books get more popular, get great reviews and so on, the show also gets more known and it helps on many fronts - people end up buying merchandise that is not available anywhere but in our store, they talk about the show to their friends and neighbours, they buy the next comic and so on… Allowing us to continue our growth.
And who knows, one day we might reach the critical mass in comics sales to an extent sufficient to make us a decent profit once all the people in the chain have taken their fees and all expenses are paid. We are not there yet but we are not that far off either. And with your help, we can definitely get there.
We want to do more comics and we want to keep going with the show. It is difficult but also a lot of fun and very rewarding on so many levels.
So, what can you expect in this new book, besides comics that are already on the site? As it turns out, a lot! In the first book, we only had one extra stories that appeared nowhere else. We have several more for this book. Here is a run down:
The book will feature five of the 12 pages book currently (or soon to be!) available on the site. They are:
- Nordik and 8 Ball Team-up: Chilling me softly, written by Yann Brouillette, with art by David J. Cutler, colours and lettering by Keiren Smith.
- 8 Ball and Black Terror team-up: The Bang Bang Theory, written by Yann Brouillette, with art by Gibson Quarter (with some inks by Guillermo Ortego), colours and lettering by Keiren Smith.
- The Archie style hilarious romp called Zombots being schooled, written by Yann Brouillette, with art and colours by Dan Parent and lettering by Zen.
- The tragedy packed Acadia: Pretty Clear, written by Yann and Michel Brouillette, with stunning art by Geof Isherwood, and colours and lettering by Keiren Smith.
And, last but not least, a superb story of the Canadian written by Canadian comic legend Ty Templeton, definitely the man for the job, illustrated by Daniel Wong. Those five 12 pages stories make up some two-third of the book’s sixty pages. There is twenty more to go. Here is the line up for those:
- A 12 pages, psychedelic and bat shit insane crazy Black Terror story called The Dark Alley, written by Yann Brouillette, illustrated by Zach Fisher, coloured by Aljoša Tomić and lettered by Zen. What happens in this one is so insane, we would not know where to start if we tried to explain it. So we won’t. An image should suffice:
- There is a fun little mystery three pages story called Blood Bath, featuring 8 Ball and Alpha Q, written by Yann Brouillette, illustrated by Geof Isherwood, coloured by Aljoša Tomić and lettered by Zen.
- A short but gorgeous Pacifica story called ASAP written by Yann Brouillette, with art by David Cutler, coloured by Aljoša Tomić and lettered by Zen.
- and we round up the book with a New Felquistes Halloween tale called October Crisis, written by Jean-Dominic Leduc and illustrated by Geof Isherwood.
With this line-up, we managed to feature every single characters featured on the gorgeous cover above, illustrated by Geof Isherwood. Every single one of our Heroes, and indirectly, our current main villains, made it in this 80 pages collection!
And you get all that Canadian superhero madness for six bucks! Canadian! We are not kidding, folks! As a reviewer said (about the first book): “Heroes of the North is the best bang for your buck right now in the comic book world!”. We may be biased, but we strongly agree with that! And we are bold enough to think we even topped it for the encore!
So spread the word! Like this post, tweet it, google plus it, whatever you need to do to let it be known that the time to get the book is NOW! And order it now yourselves, regardless of the way you choose to do so!
We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your support. And we look forward to entertain you with the book this fall!
The Heroes of the North Team
ARDENN ENTERTAINMENT SEPTEMBER RELEASES
Featuring the stories available in the comic book section of the site, it also features several new stories not available anywhere else, including a story with the New Felquists, Pacifica, Alpha Q and 8 Ball, as well as a trippy Black Terror tale.
Here is the description synopsis:
Nordik and 8 Ball team up to elucidate cold blooded murders. 8 Ball and Black Terror bring down a counterfeiters ring. The Canadian, Fleur-de-Lys and Nordik thwart a zombots attack in Riverdale, Toronto. A CDO agent discovers what it means to be The Canadian. A young orphan becomes Acadia. All that and more in this 80 pages follow-up to the Heroes of the North: Dark Origins!
Order it now from your favourite comic book shop if you do not want to miss it!!!
Season Finale Sneak peek
Omnibus 2 Solicited - Coming out in July 2012
Here is the lineup of the book:
- Nordik and 8 Ball Team-up, 12 pages, by David J. Cutler, Keiren Smith and Yann Brouillette.
- 8 Ball and Black Terror Team-up, 12 pages, by Gibson Quarter, Guillermo Ortego, Keiren Smith and Yann Brouillette.
- Acadia: Pretty clear, 12 pages, by Geof Isherwood, Keiren Smith, Yann and Michel Brouillette.
- The Canadian, Fleur-de-Lys and Nordik Team-up in Zombots being schooled, 12 pages, by Dan Parent, Keiren Smith and Yann Brouillette.
- The Canadian and a CDO agent team-up,12 pages, by Richard Pace, Keiren Smith and Ty Templeton.
- ??? (12 pages): Cannot announce this one yet as we have three books currently being finished and the first one that is done wins.
plus three short stories written EXCLUSIVELY for this book!
- 8 Ball and Alpha Q in Blood Bath! by Geof Isherwood, Keiren Smith and Yann Brouillette.
- Pacifica in ASAP!, by David J. Cutler, Keiren Smith and Yann Brouillette.
- and the New Felquistes in October Crisis, an Halloween tale of mayhem, candies and lost opportunities, by Geof Isherwood, Keiren Smith, Christian Viel and Jean-Dominique Leduc!
Acadia Sneak peek by Geof Isherwood
Nordik by Isherwood
8 Ball/Black Terror Team-up Sneak Peek
Al Rio passed away
8 Ball Comic Sneak Peak
Here is a sneak peak at a sample page for the upcoming 8 Ball comic book penciled and inked by Gibson Quarter, based on a script by Yann Brouillette.
Finally!!! The Fleur-de-Lys comic book!
It took its sweet time but it is finally here! The Fleur-de-Lys comic book written by Yann Brouillette with art duties by Olivier Raymond is now available in the Comics section! And what a neat story it is! Let us know what you think about it on the comics page or in the comments below!
Medusa by Geof Isherwood
Geof Isherwood Inks for the Medusa Cover
We wanted to wait until tomorrow to post this but it is so gorgeous, we could not wait! This is the work-in-progress for the cover of the Season Finale Comic book, penciled and inked by Geof Isherwood. It features Medusa Commander (Constantine Kourtidis in the show), the voluptuous Hornet (Marie-Claude Bourbonnais) and a mysterious aryan nurse, the identity of which you will discover while watching episode 20…and reading the Season Finale comic, of course! We cannot wait to see this piece coloured! But we have only two words right now for this inked page: breathtaking and spectacular!
Layouts Madness
More stuff!
Second, we are proud to announce that artist David J. Cutler will be illustrating the upcoming Nordik comic.
Third, we were number one yesterday on Koldcast. We make regularly the top ten but it is always an honour to make #1. This time it was thanks to their blog.
Fourth, our Toronto Fan Expo Gallery is up.
And here’s a look at the Work in Progress for the Omnibus cover by Marcus MAS Smith:
So much stuff happening...
First, a really cool review from the Web Series Wonders blog to start off the weekend…
Two, big news, HUGE news in fact for our little comics that could… Can’t say too much but an American publisher is gonna put our a 96 pages Omnibus of the books throughout the comic book retailers network across North America. Huge exposure for your favourite Heroes! More detail next week as the press release comes out!
Three, stuff is brewing on the toy front as well. So much is happening it is hard to keep track….
Fourth, we got to meet lots of talented young Canadian creators at the last Fan Expo and several of them will join our art team in the coming months. Special thanks to Ty Templeton and Keiren Smith for shepherding some of these encounters...
And we are starting ground work on Season 2… That’s good for a drink, no? Come on! It is Friday night! Have one for us!
And more importantly: STAY TUNED!