A few weeks back I talked about the plans for the rest of the year. To catch you up they were:
Complete the Tart #14 Variant Cover campaign. And now that is (Please say it in Strong Bad’s Voice): COMPLETED!!!
And if you don’t know how to say that in Strong Bad’s voice, here is my personal favorite entry point to the Homestarruner Universe:
https://homestarrunner.com/toons/fluffy-puff-marshmallows
If you like that at all; just carve out three hours of your day and explore.
The rest of the goals still have to be completed:
Deliver the rewards for both the Tart 14 Variant campaign and the Tart Vol 3 hardcover campaigns.
Launch a Kickstarter for Tart 16 and The Tart/Miskatonic High crossover story (If you missed the last email, the order of this will depend on if Ludo has completed Tart 16 when I’ve completed fulfillment of the two outstanding campaigns.
Start organizing and writing the next few chapters of our story.
But this week a project that has long been dormant woke up.
Maybe ignore that “aggressive” estimate of the year that comic might come out, because it is my guess we miss that goal by… a smidgen.
But the artist we chose to bring this crossover to life has removed the roadblocks that kept them off the project and is ready to start soon. Will and I hadn’t pushed, as at least for me, finances were very tight last year, so I was happy to wait a bit before investing in the pages.
If you don’t know, or forgot (again, haven’t talked about it in a while), this crossover came about by chance.
Will Allred and I wanted to have a crossover print for our simultaneous Kickstarter campaigns, and commissioned this artwork by Kyle Roberts (line art) and Ryan Kroboth (colors).
It was a simple fun idea that characters from both of our stories ran into a famous creature from literature and had to fight it. As you probably know Tart is sent anywhere in time, and any place on earth to fight demonic anomalies that are seen in the timestream. As you may or may not know, Crossover Division is a series about fictional stories being accidentally pulled into our reality and causing havoc. Hank and Hector arrive at the Crossover point and try to end the chaos (think flying monkey kidnappings).
We actually asked for Frankenstein (because it would be funny to have Tart trying to unscrew the bolts in his neck), but Kyle turned in The Minotaur.
I didn’t know why he made that choice, but I didn’t care because…well… look how cool the image is! I then learned Kyle was secretly working on The Blazing Blade of Frankenstein so he wanted to go in a different direction. Tricky rabbit!
Fast forward. During the Pandemic I was having a hard time writing anything. While I was trying to jumpstart my brain, Will and I discussed how much we liked the print and spitballed ideas on how Tart and Hank & Hector might plausibly be in the same area to meet up with the fabled Minotaur.
When one of us figured out the way that it worked logically for characters from both of our universes to converge, we decided to write it without expectations. I did 3 or 4 pages and left him with scene break. He wrote 3 or 4 pages and left me with a scene break. And on and on until we had a complete adventure.
We then looked at it and were pretty happy. So we got down to editing and polishing.
Full disclosure I haven’t reread this script in at least a year. So I’ll be cracking it open with new eyes as our artist begins penciling. I’m certain I’ll still love it, though.
So that’s what is happening this year even though I had completely removed it from my mind. It’s very exciting!
As a Tart reader (I assume you are if you’re receiving this post in your email), you’ll have the opportunity to catch up with Crossover Division when that eventually launches. But if you’d like to learn more about it, Will is days (actually less than 60 hours) away from concluding his Kickstarter Campaign to bring Crossover Division 5 into the world.
Here is a variant to Crossover Division 5 illustrated by Ryan Kroboth (who colored the print above). And for good measure, here’s a variant to Crossover Division 3 illustrated by Tart’s Co-Creator Ludovic Sallé.
As you can probably guess by the first cover, the crossover for issue 5 is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Will is cagey about which Shakespearian play is crossing over in issues 4 and 5 so my typing fingers have to be bound (I was trying to make a lips are sealed play here. Not certain it worked).
I love this affect of this issues “Crossover” completely changing London before our very eyes.
Crossover Division is a fun adventure comic that takes the stories that they touch on seriously, but not themselves. While you could wait a year or more to catch up with it when we have a crossover to release; I highly recommend you get in on this before the campaign closes!!!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wallred/crossover-division-s-1-5-hyde-and-seek
I’ll check back in in a few weeks to let you know how I’ve progressed on this year’s tasks.
Kevin
Hey Kevin,
I’m a lot better at buying comics than reading them so it takes me a while, but I just finished the Tart Vol 2 hardcover and wanted to send a note of congrats and thanks. I’m just blown away by how good this series has been from the very start, how you and Salle seemed to start with such a fully realized idea of what Tart, how it would look, and where you would go with it. The art and design have such a inventive but defined style and vocabulary, and the world building seems so in place from the very beginning. And then the variety and quality of your covers is second to none, I’m so jealous of your cover game. Also, if I ever get to the point I’m collecting my shit in a hardcover I need to take a class with you on how to do it, they are really well done. Can’t wait for Vol 3. You rock!
Colin Devonshire