Posted in: Comics | Tagged: 19XX, Comics, entertainment, kickstarter, Paul Roman Martinez, Shining Skull 1936

The 19XX Dieselpunk Epic Concludes Its First Trilogy In Shining Skull: 1936

Published Sat, 14 Feb 2015 17:30:52 -0600

Paul Roman Martinez writes for Bleeding Cool:

The Adventures of the 19XX is wrapping up its first trilogy of graphic novels and is in the middle of a funding campaign right now on Kickstarter. The series has become a seminal work of Dieselpunk fiction, both defining and pushing the genre forward. Along the way, it has spawned a small empire of shirts, bags, patches, statues, and games that all help to build the 19XX world. The third graphic novel in the series is once again written and illustrated by me, series creator, Paul Roman Martinez. The first two books both earned Russ Manning Award nominations at the San Diego Comic Con Eisner Awards, and early buzz on the new volume is that it is even better than the first two!

The goal is more than a dollar amount, although that's in there too; it's just enough to cover printing costs. The true goal forces me to ask: Where do I want to be when the six-book graphic novel series is complete? What do I want to say? What do I want to leave behind? The Adventures of the 19XX takes the 1930s, one decade of human existence, and asks, what if? What if this epic tale of good versus evil took place right under our noses and we had no idea they were fighting for us. What if I could shine a light on a period in history often overshadowed by World War II and illuminate a brief span of time almost exclusively remembered for the Great Depression? History is where we have been as much as where we are going. No one really comes from nothing; we are all born into a world with millions of pages of history waiting to be learned. We are a direct result of all the decisions ever made by everyone who has come before us. And my goal is to tell an epic story about a history that could have been if only a few different switches had been pulled and a few of the machines imagined on the covers of those old Popular Mechanics magazines had been realized. The true history is there, and my goal is to implant in the reader a desire to look deeper into his or her own past. In completing a loop between the present and the past, this story creates a circle that will unfold in unimaginable ways in all my stories for years to come, and it all started with a kid taking his first step onto an airship the size of the Titanic.

The story is only a small part of the ambitious goals I have for the 19XX series. Along with every new artifact I create from the 19XX world, the story builds the foundation for everything to come.

In 1933, the Kid became a member of the Airship Carpathian Crew and took a step toward becoming the hero his father had been as one of the founding members of Operation: 19XX. In the early part of the 1900s, all over the world, psychics and mediums began receiving a shared vision of a terrible war to come—a war that would change the course of human history forever. A group was formed to help prevent that war, and they gathered powerful machines, agents, and ancient relics from all over the world to fight a battle in the shadows. But the war on the horizon was no ordinary conflict. The group heard whispers that it would be an Armageddon fought on Earth—the forces of Good and Evil battling for the fate of mankind. In Book 3, Shining Skull: 1936, the second horseman of the Apocalypse rides his Red Horse Mechanized Armored Walking Tank into Tibet backed by the Order of the Black Faun and their leader, Aleister Gurdjeff. Aleister wants to bring about the war, and he has an unimaginable plan to ensure that all four horsemen walk the earth again.

Every book in the series is a self-contained adventure printed in full color, hardcover with cloth binding and is accompanied by a Secret Files Guidebook. The Secret Files include facts and files from the 19XX world and illustrated short stories that tell the history of the Kid's father and the Captain of the 19XX airship. Every new book will build on each other and culminate in the mind-blowing, final sixth book. The concept of the series is to tie together the past, present, and future of the 19XX world. The sixth Secret Files will lead back into the beginning of the graphic novels and also give readers a hint of the future might hold for both the 19XX heroes and the Black Faun villains.

One of the mottos of the 19XX is Fate is the Beast. The coming war is their fate—a preordained path that they may not be able to escape—but they will fight it with everything they've got. Follow along to experience the Adventures of the 19XX.

As a thank you for reading this article about my self-published graphic novel series The Adventures of the 19XX, I'd like to offer everyone here at Bleeding Cool a chance to read the mini comic from Secret Files 3! Secret Files 3 consists of 85 pages of schematics, character bios, and illustrated short stories from the 19XX. This short, mini-comic is just a small part of all the extra action between those pages!

Paul Roman Martinez is the writer and artist of the Adventures of the 19XX series, curator of six successful Kickstarter projects, and co-founder of Arsenal Comics & Games located in Newbury Park, CA.

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