When a Final Gamble is Your First
Band of Bards Comics is proud to announce our debut series Final Gamble!
Coming to Kickstarter on August 3, Final Gamble blends psychological thriller, action, and gaming genres into a story that explores the depth of human cruelty, the corruption of wealth, and the power of solidarity. This series has a healthy dose of horror, suspense, and action weaved to form one hell of a social commentary.
The creative team behind Final Gamble is just loaded with talent. Writer Bobby Singer (Flame Angel) is teamed up with artist Jorge Santiago Jr. (Spencer and Locke) with Harry Saxon as Colorist (The Miracles, Vagrant Queen) and George Gant as our All-Star Letterer (Beware of Toddler). We could not be more excited about working with this killer line up of comics creators.
Between press releases and social media posts we’ve put out a good bit of info about the story itself, so I’d like to take this opportunity to talk about the emotional side of bringing this project to life. This is a big deal for us as Final Gamble is the debut title for Band of Bards Comics. As such, Final Gamble deserves to have its story told as well as being told.
Final Gamble was the very first submission to come to us when we launched our website. Several others came in that day and throughout the week. Chris and I knew we wanted to make this comic, but it was among a group of first submission interviews we conducted. We had to feel out what submissions were ready to go, which ones needed time, and how to balance all of them. Not to mention put a lot of thought into what title should be our first.
For those who haven’t been through this submission process I’d like to share a few tidbits. They’re long. Like sometimes we spent upwards of two hours in the first Zoom meeting with someone. Comics are time and capital intensive, so we want to be comfortable with the creators we’re choosing to work with. We also want the creators to be comfortable with us. I often cite my experience of working in Iraq and the cultural norms that dictated a period of building rapport before discussing business during these interviews. We spend a non-trivial amount of time for each party to get to know each other before even discussing the pitch and how to potentially bring it to market.
That might seem crazy. Honestly I don’t know what the norm is for other publishers. I don’t really care. This is what works for BoB and until shown otherwise it will be the best way for us to do business. We put a high value on the personal relationships involved and on ensuring we work with creators who share our ethos. So maybe we’ll never be able to pump out 30 titles a month because of this, but that’s not who we’re trying to be. So it goes.
So anyway, when we sat down to chat with Bobby on Zoom for the first time there were nerves all around. As we all settled into the conversation and Bobby began expanding on the pitch outline Chris and I were floored by the level of detail Bobby had already planned. She clearly knew her characters inside and out. Bobby knew exactly the story she wanted to tell and her confidence radiated. By the end of the meeting Chris and I knew we had something special in Final Gamble.
That really hits you. Brand new publisher, not a whole lot to show for ourselves besides our social media interactions. We put out a lot about ourselves, but at the end of the day there was not (and still isn’t) a ton of tangible work to back up our words. That’s not to shame ourselves, that’s just the reality of being the new kid in the game. So when someone was willing to take a chance on us and bring their passion project to us it’s incredibly humbling. It’s a little scary too. There’s immense responsibility to produce these works in a high quality way that brings credit to the creative team and helps them build their own careers. This isn’t just about us becoming a publisher. It’s about being a partner with integrity in bringing new stories to life. Not to get super meta on youse, but storytelling is one of our species’ oldest forms of culture. It’s one of the first marks of civilization. Carving out a piece of that human history and placing your name on a small speck of that legacy is special. Regardless of medium it deserves to be honored.
Like I said, this is special to us. We honestly had a stroke of dumb luck in not just getting a great story, but also a dream team of creators. You don’t get to pick what stories and teams come to you, but if we could have, we would’ve picked a story like Final Gamble and a team like Bobby, Jorge, George, and Harry. They truly represent what Band of Bards is all about – Representation, Inclusion, & Diversity. No, that is not why we picked Final Gamble as our first series. That would be callous and opportunistic, the exact opposite of who we are. This is certainly a happy accident for BoB though and we’re grateful for the chance to work with this team.
Speaking of that, it isn’t just a coincidence that Bobby brought Final Gamble to Band of Bards. Everyone needs that dumb luck to break their way, but you also make your own luck to an extent. One thing we always ask in submission interviews is ‘Why us? Why did you want to bring your story to Band of Bards?” Part of what gave Bobby the confidence to take a shot on us was the support of Joe Glass. I want to acknowledge that here and thank Joe. He was one of many people we reached out to leading up to the BoB website launch to help give us a boost. Joe was willing to do that because of our own genuine actions in advocating for The Miracles (h/t to Harry here too) and just our general support for the LGBTQ+ community. We’re lucky people believed in our sincerity, because it’s so easy to be cynical in 2021.
So here we are. A few short weeks from the Kickstarter going live on August 3. It’ll run till September 3 and we’re optimistic that there will be something big to celebrate over Labor Day weekend. Fuck I hope so. Because this isn’t just our dreams as publishers riding on the line, it’s Bobby’s story too. I’m confident in the indie comics community though. We’ve seen the love and support that is here. We’ve seen and played a part in some serious Kickstarter rallies that were unbelievable. This may be an emotionally rough 60 days (actually make that 120 days but more to come on that), but damn will it be fun.
Oh, and something else you may be interested in. We’re going to have a variant cover. Not as a stretch goal, we’re just gonna do it because Final Gamble deserves something special from its publisher. What’s that? You want to know who the variant (artist) is? That’s been the million dollar question lately, eh?
Matt Emmons (Gardener). How’s that for a fucking radical cover? Yeah, I thought so too.
So make sure you click here and smash that Notify on Launch button so that come August 3 you won’t miss the launch of
FINAL GAMBLE
#comicsdoinggood