From The Ashes - Alex De Campi, Igor Kordey And Colleen Doran

[Rich Johnston]

A few weeks ago, after Alex De Campi and Jimmy Broxton/James Hodgkins fell out over one of the more successful Kickstarter comics projects, Ashes, Alex was despairing, and talking about quitting comics for good and making moves to retrain for an entirely different career. I toldher that would be a tragedy and a waste. She disagreed.

But that was before she went away to direct a video for The Pixies' Frank Black's Grand Duchy and the song Silver Boys from their second album.



And now with a new update to the KIckstarter page, Alex De Campi has outlined her new plan for Ashes.

The nice thing about getting away for a bit was, well, getting away from the internet. I did a lot of thinking on I-81 about how to proceed with the book, and decided to go back to my original plan of having different artists draw different sections of the book. Ashes breaks down really nicely into 20-50 page chunks (and a couple really small sections, 3 or 4 pages) based on location, time and secondary characters.

I only started reaching out to artists yesterday, so a lot still needs to be done, but I'm delighted to tell you that Igor Kordey is coming back to do a 20-page flashback sequence that literally I know he will draw better than anyone else in the world (sorry, everyone else, but it's true). Colleen Doran has also said yes to a short sequence that's mainly stand-alone involving possibly my favourite secondary character in the book: a young American widow.

So, there you go. I still have a lot of sections to nail down and am waiting to hear back from a ton of people. This is super exciting for me because there are some wonderful artists out there (such as Colleen) that I'd just give my right arm to work with... but they can't commit to a 252 page book. They can commit to 24-40 pages, though, between other projects/books.

I hope to bring you more news of our developing artist lineup soon. I am aiming high, in terms of art. I think you'll be surprised and delighted. The one issue is that our timeline is likely to slip, though. As soon as I have artists for the entire book, I'll work out with them a NEW timeline and let you all know. But if it makes a massive difference to you that you won't receive the first issue in March, well, you won't receive the first issue in March.

Just to remind, the refund offer still stands -- anytime, for any reason, up to when we ship the first issue (at which point I'm afraid you're stuck with it). The offer still stands the other way, too. If you asked for a refund and now are like, hm, I actually want to be a part of this again, just message me on Kickstarter or email me on alexdecampi@gmail.com.

No refund here, Alex. I'm happy to wait as long as it takes. And I also hope that whatever you need to sort out with James/Jimmy, you step up there as well.

[thekeith82]

Fantastic news. Hugely looking forward to see the final result of this one, and I'm delighted to hear Kordey is back. The original Smoke was career best work from him.

[Matt Spatola]

Well this is good news.

[CammyKnoxville]

That music video was fantastic! Loved the use of effects, especially that one with the different layers with the blue and red color scheme.

[alexdecampi]

Hi everyone. Just a quick factual correction that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things but I feel compelled to make -- actually I shot the Grand Duchy video back in October (then it spent 2 months in post -- my life then was Kickstarter by day, FX edit suite by night) but has only just now been released to co-ordinate with their album release. I shot another one for them in December; out soon. The thing I was doing for the past 10 days was a video for Spanish DJ/singer Juan Magan. His stuff is REALLY good -- if you like electro/dance, check him out.

A director generally has to stay pretty silent about stuff until the label/artist releases the video so hence the lack of previous info on the Grand Duchy vids. For those who are interested, Charles (Frank Black) and Violet are really wonderful people and a total joy to work with.

Ashes -- more news soon. Hope to have a full lineup of artists by the end of this week.

[mquitney]

Though I may have missed out on the Kickstarter, I can't wait to add Ashes to my shelf!

[Lord Viper Scorpion]

I'd consider quitting comics too if I was working with Frank Black/Black Francis! That aside, this is fantastic news. Really looking forward to the book!

[die-yng]

THis is really good news. It would have been a shame if the project just disappear.

[Hollow]

With Igor Kordey attached as the artist (and if only for 20 pages) I can't wait either (heck I bought the first series because of him and I'd buy "Ashes" even if he would draw only 1 page).

The original Smoke was career best work from him.

Hmmm... personally I like his painted work a little bit more AND for me the best work he graced with his pencils was Darko Macan's shortlived "Soldier X". But "Smoke" was pretty nifty as well.
I also enjoy his art on "L'histoire secrète".

[Blackfist]