Hey friends — hope all your holidays have been going well. As we inch closer to the New Year, I wanted to lay out some plans for Meltdown Press over the coming year.
This Newsletter
This newsletter has always been free, and there will always be a free tier. But starting next year, there will be two paid tiers available for subscribers.
Those who choose to remain on the free tier will get access to occasional posts, likely marketing-heavy pieces surrounding the launch of our respective Kickstarter projects. Similar to how it was this year.
The Paid tier will be available at either a monthly or annual rate. The monthly fee is $5 per month, which unlocks weekly posts — including behind-the-scenes process posts, exclusive announcements, or other sweet pieces of content. The paid tier will also include at least one short comic story per month; some of these will be self-contained stories while others will be collected to make one-shot comics. Some of them may later be collected in print, others may live on this Substack until the end of time.
This paid tier is also available at a discounted rate of $55 per year, giving you access year-round at a price that gives you one month for free.
The Founders tier includes everything the Paid tier does, plus some physical goodies. Each Founder will get a FREE Founder-exclusive variant cover of each Meltdown Press crowdfunding release. With four scheduled campaigns next year, that means each Founder will get at least four free* variant covers.
*The comics themselves are free to those on the Legend’s Legion tier, although shipping may incur extra costs. If you back the Kickstarter campaign of the cover in question, it will be included with that shipment. Otherwise, you’ll be invoiced for your shipping charges when the covers are ready to ship.
Crowdfunding
As it stands now, we are planning on hosting at least four Kickstarter campaigns, with the potential to sneak in a fifth should the stars align just right. Our current schedule for the year is:
Q1: Nock #2 (of 3)
Q2: The Magnificent McCoys: Lost Sun #1 (of 3; the direct sequel to SH*TSHOW)
Q3: Nock #3 (of 3; an oversized volume finale)
Q4: Hypknot: Gods Unwanted (one-shot; an oversized graphic-novella clocking in at over 40pages)
The potential fifth campaign isn’t a RiotVerse release, nor did I write it. It’s an all-new title that was pitched to us and will be Meltdown’s first submitted work we’ll publish. More on that later.
Direct Market/Comic Shops
Beyond crowdfunding, we’re also getting back into the direct market. Thanks to a new partnership with Blood Moon Comics, we’ll be having some titles in comic stores once again in 2025! Fittingly enough, we’re starting right back where the RiotVerse began and rolling out a reprint of The Magnificent McCoys: SH*TSHOW.
In the January issue of PREVIEWSworld, The Magnificent McCoys: SH*TSHOW #1 is available for pre-order in four entirely new covers. The issue is set to hit stores March 2025.
Cover A: JAN251519
Cover B: JAN251520
Cover C: JAN251521
Cover D: JAN251522
If you’re reading this, you should know the drill on pre-ordering. But if not, here’s what to do: those codes you see up above? Show your the folks at your Local Comic Shop (locator here) the codes and tell them you want to order a copy (or two).
It’s my goal to make this book the best-selling title Blood Moon has ever released!
You may be asking, “Is that a new name?” To which the answer is a resounding, “Yep it sure is!”
SH*TSHOW was initially pitched as SH*TSHOW, but it’s always a name I wasn’t entirely sold on, as I knew it could be an uphill battle with retailers. An uphill battle it was, with a handful of retailers telling me they wouldn’t stock it because there’s a curse word in the title. Fair enough.
So we’re changing some things up. The book itself is going to be called The Magnificent McCoys while each volume will get a “subname,” if you will.
Volume One is SH*TSHOW, Volume Two is Lost Sun, Volume Three is [REDACTED], Volume Four is [REDACTED], and Volume Five is…[REDACTED].
And just like that, that covers everything for now. We’re looking forward to an exciting 2025 and taking all of you along for the ride!
That Lost Sun logo is fire!