Hey all, Darc here again. I hope everyone’s having a good Friday! As promised, here’s the latest update.

We heard back from the data recovery group yesterday afternoon. The analysis so far is they have to rebuild part of the drive physically before they can try reading it. We gave them the go-ahead and should hear back from them sometime Wednesday. I’m sorry for the extra delay.

I’m not sure about Matt, but I can tell that I’m stressed. I’ve eaten about everything in the house over the last few days. It’s murder on my waistline.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on a cover for a special issue. As I said a few days ago, RCSI Publishing was able to front a lot of the cost over the last week but, Matt and I had to float the business a loan from our own funds. Friends have suggested we hold a donation drive to re-coop some of the cost but, Matt and I want to offer something in return.

So, we decided to do a special, full color issue.

This issue will be available for download only. I plan on coloring/shading it like I do the covers, not the ‘base under tone’ color I do for the Supporter re-colors. In other words, no tones. Color is expensive for us to print because our print runs for ‘Hunter’ are still so low. If we ever get to the point where we can reliably move a 1,000 books, we may take it to print. Until then, it’s download only.

This means it will not be available for free online. Also, it will not be available for free in the Supporters area. We know some people won’t be happy with this idea. We apologize. But, what it comes down to is I’m doing extra work to create a product specifically to help the business recover financially.

This special issue is not part of the current storyline. It’s a flashback and isn’t required to understand what’s going on in the comic. In other words, no complaints about us holding the comic hostage, please.

So, what is this special issue about? It’s called “The Incident” and shows just why Max and Bullet don’t like each other much…

While doing Ghost rotation at Buckingham Palace, a young Max and Bullet decide to pass the time by daring each other to do stupid stunts. The end result… Bullet finds himself stuck in a suit of armor and Max is missing his clothes.

It will be twenty-four pages long, full color, rated PG-13 like the rest of the series, and available as a PDF. The cost… $4.00.

Matt and I aren’t sure yet if we want to take ‘pre-orders’ or not. It’s going to take a bit to finish. I have to get the regular updates done and possibly redraw pages if the data can’t be recovered. And again, these will be in color which takes longer per page. If we do open it up for sale before the issue is finished, we’ll be able to keep tabs on who’s ordered so, no worries.

At the moment, I’m waiting for some books I’ve ordered for reference to come in. They should be here this afternoon. Which means, I’ll start work on the pages tomorrow.

Again, while I know some people may not like us doing this, I hope everyone understands. It’s not to be malicious. It’s just to recover some of the money spent keeping RCSI running this last week and a half. Thanks in advance!

Oh! In other news, ‘Joshua’ won the vote last week. 141 votes to 97. Thanks to everyone who voted! I’ll get to work on the first segment of ‘Joshua’ once the special issue is complete. It’s shaping up to be a busy year.

Thanks guys for sticking with us! Take care and have a great weekend!

“Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get.”
– Ray Kroc