Kickstart My Heart
Somewhere beyond your simplistic human notions of space and time lies the Akashic Library, its luminous shelves stretching off beyond the limits of vision. What wonders will we encounter there today? Read on, traveler, and see . . .
It seems like we were chatting just the other day, doesn’t it? Normally I send out my newsletter at the end of the month, but now, like the last few Februarys, I’m sending it out earlier so I can talk about my Kickstarter campaign. This year I’m crowdfunding an RPG adventure called Beowulf Vs. Grendel. It’s rad!
BEOWULF VS. GRENDEL IS HERE
Beowulf Vs. Grendel is the revised and updated second edition of the classic bone-crushing sword & sorcery adventure from Hex Games, now designed for use with the Million-Colored Sun RPG system. It's based on the epic Beowulf, the oldest surviving long poem written in English.
For only ten bucks, less than a combo meal at Wendy’s, you can get the PDF of the game, which will provide you with hours of entertainment. For just a few dollars more, fifteen bucks, you get the PDF AND a handsome paperback edition, illustrated by Josh Burnett.
You may say, “But Leighton, this adventure is for Million-Colored Sun and I don’t have a copy, what do I do?” Not to worry! Back at the $25 level and you get a discounted PDF copy of MCS included with your PDF of BvG; back at the $40 level and get discounted paperbacks of both books. Like I said, hours of fun, and they’ll look good on your shelf. You can choose your level and back here.
As I write this, the Beowulf Vs. Grendel campaign is over 50% funded with 6 days remaining. If we raise as much in the second half of the campaign as we did in the first, we’ll fund.
Unfortunately it’s not a sure thing; it’s going to be much closer than I hoped or expected. I imagined this would be a pleasant walk in the park but instead it’s more like World War I—it’s trench warfare, my friends, and we will have to fight for every blood-soaked inch of land. Who’s with me? OVER THE TOP, NO ONE LIVES FOREVER! BACK IT TODAY!
Seriously, though, I don’t have access to a marketing campaign, no TV commercials or YouTube videos—I’m not even on any podcasts. I’m counting on the best form of advertising, good word-of—mouth. I cannot do this alone; I need you to spread the word. Tell your friends about this Kickstarter, post on social media, talk about it on your podcast, let’s get the word out!
Speaking of Kickstarters, my good friend Steve has launched one for his game My Name is Hood, with a high-concept you could summarize as “redneck Robin Hood.” I helped playtest the game and it was a ton of fun, so please check it out.
And my friend Josh—the guy who did the artwork for Beowulf Vs. Grendel—has just launched (as of 2/11/25) a Kickstarter for a cyberpunk RPG called Disposable Future. I’ve playtested this one as well, and it’s also extremely fun! Check it out!
LIGHTNING MAN UPDATE
The books arrived! The Adventures of Lightning Man volume 1 is a reality, and I’m extremely happy with how it turned out. It took a lot of back-and-forth with the printer to get the cover right, and then I had to wait for them to get yellow endpapers back in stock, but it all paid off in the end. The endpapers, the ribbon bookmark, the printing, everything’s like I wanted it, look at this:
After the books arrived I enlisted the help of my children and we packed them all into envelopes and addressed them. I got them all mailed out to the backers over the course of the week, and now this Kickstarter campaign is officially concluded. Mission accomplished!
I have about 10 hardcovers remaining that I’ll put on sale soon, so if you missed the Kickstarter, you’ll still have a chance to get one. But only while supplies last!
I AM SELLING ARTWORK FOR CHARITY
As a way of making the world just a tiny bit better, I am continuing to sell artwork through my Etsy shop and donate the proceeds to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. This is an important cause, and if you don’t want to buy any of my drawings, I urge you to consider making a donation directly to them.
But if you want to donate AND get a charming pen-and-ink drawing, you can find my artwork here.
DAVID LYNCH UPDATE
In our previous installment I said I would watch Dune, so that I could give you my definitive ranking of David Lynch movies, and finish Twin Peaks: The Return, so I could share my thoughts on Twin Peaks as a whole. I have not done either of those things! It’s only been a couple of weeks and I’ve been busy running a Kickstarter and reading Savage Dragon comics. Hopefully I’ll have more for you next month.
MY SAVAGE DRAGON RE-READ
Recently, instead of reading books or watching movies I’ve been reading/re-reading a big pile of Savage Dragon comics. My goal is to read issues #193-275—the “Malcolm Years.” I just finished up #242 before writing this.
I’ll give a little background for non-comics fans—and I’ll make this quick, I swear. In the late 80s and early 90s there were some really, really popular artists setting sales records and making huge amounts of money drawing comics for Marvel. Eventually they decided to leave Marvel and start their own company, Image, which was founded in 1992.
Each of the 7 Image founders launched their own comic book series, which they owned and had total creative control over. As an example, Marc Silvestri had been an artist on X-Men, so for Image he created Cyber Force, a series that was like the X-Men, only more cyber. It was fine, and it ran for a few years, until Marc Silvestri got bored with it and did something else. Jim Lee, another X-Men artist, created the X-Men-like WildC.A.T.s and, again, he drew it for a few years and then moved on.
But then there was Erik Larsen, who’d become a superstar from drawing Spider-Man. When Larsen was a kid, he drew comics about a superhero called Dragon. And when he got the chance to launch his own series, he didn’t do a Spider-Man knock-off, he created Savage Dragon, based on his childhood character.
Making this series was Erik Larsen’s life-long dream and, my friends, Erik is still living his dream. He has written and drawn Savage Dragon consistently, with no other writers or artists, since 1992; issue #275 just came out a few weeks ago.
Other than this remarkable longevity, what makes the series special is that it takes place in real time. Over the course of the series, Dragon had a son, Malcolm, and Malcolm grew up. I remember when he was born! Now he’s 29. Time, man, it’s crazy.
(Quick digression—I started reading Savage Dragon with issue 40 in 1997. This guy Robert who worked at my local comic shop kept insisting I try it, it was his favorite comic, and I finally relented. I got into it, and I’ve been buying it ever since. Now when I look in a Savage Dragon comic, I see Robert listed as Image Comics’ Chief Operating Officer. What even is time, man?)
With 2014’s issue 193, Malcolm took over as the lead character. Since then he’s graduated high school, gotten married, had four kids, moved to Canada (that was in 2017, when the Trump administration banned extraterrestrials), and moved to San Francisco. He’s 29 now. His “triplets” are 10 and, who knows, maybe one of them will take over the series one day.
Describing his series, Larsen writes, “Villains come and go. Jobs change, locations change, and stories progress. No illusion of change—only actual change. Only actual progression. . . It's been a challenge to remain accessible, to be sure, but it's also been a real joy to be able to tell a bigger story. A real story. A full story. Superheroes for grown ups.”
Quick warning, when he says “for grown ups” he means it—at a certain point the series got pretty sexually explicit. Don’t buy this one for the kids!
While it’s idiosyncratic and certainly not for everyone, Savage Dragon is a fascinating body of work, a constantly evolving soap opera with a lot of punching. There’s no other comic like it.
BOOKS I'VE READ SINCE LAST TIME
Cyber Force: The Tin Men of War, Marc Silvestri, Eric Silvestri, and various
Cyber Force volume 1, Ron Marz, David Wohl, and various
(Plus about 1000 pages of Savage Dragon)
TV SHOWS I’VE WATCHED
Twin Peaks: The Return
Leverage season 3
Severance season 2
Twin Peaks is my favorite show so it’s got the number 1 spot locked down but I have a feeling Severance is going to end up pretty high on my list. It’s so good! I’m caught up and desperately awaiting the next episode.
You know, I’d never thought about a connection between Twin Peaks and Savage Dragon—aesthetically they’re very different—but immersing myself in both of them and then writing about them back-to-back in this newsletter has actually inspired me to see a connection, and it’s making me reflect on the way I engage with art. It’s pretty interesting but I don’t have time to get into it right now. Tune in next month, for these aesthetical thoughts and oh so much more! And remember, Akashic Library is 100% free—I’m giving it all to you, the people. Make sure you don’t miss the next installment; subscribe to the newsletter, and have this heaping helping of entertainment delivered piping hot to your inbox. Okay? Okay.
See you next month!
Your Pal,
Leighton