About the Rage Website

Rage by Thony Silas

The Rage Website began its life in November 2008, as part of an online self-publishing Graphic Novel project titled Rage, Bane of Demons. I had written the script more than 30 years ago. My goal at the time was to earn my life as a french graphic novel writer (I was young and naive), and I had no idea about how to format a script for presenting it to french publishers. In doubt, I layed out the story page by page and panel by panel, with all of the dialogs, added an extended summary of the story and a description of each character, and sent it to all of the french publishers I knew. And nobody wanted it. Almost twenty years later, I reread this old script and didn’t found it so bad. I didn’t want it to just lie on my hard drive, but obviously couldn’t send it again to the same publishers, then wait for them to say “No”. So I decided to look for a penciler, and choose the artist who would best fit with the tone of the story, then publish the finished graphic novel online.

My main goal being to find a penciler, I put online the first six pages of the Rage, Bane of Demons script, with scenes descriptions and dialogs, and a depiction of a few characters of the story. Any artist willing to participate in the project was invited to send me his interpretation of these first few pages of script and of the characters, and every artist who would send me sketches and tryouts would have his work published in the galleries of the site. After a beta-test period, the Rage Website went public in December 2008… and to my surprise, many pencilers were more than happy to send me sketches for the galleries!

I have been pleasantly surprised to discover the Art of Marcel Morote, Shannon Sapenter and Okii Shirow, to name just a few. MiRagE and Chriss’ willingness to help actually helped me keep the site alive for a long time. Without MiRagE, who sent me one of my first colored Rage drawing, Rage would not have had a face for a lot longer! Thanks to everyone who have been kind enough to participate in the project. I won’t forget any of you! Come see me at my booth at conventions, and you’ll have a surprise or two:)

A year afterward, Rage finally found his first penciller: Thony Silas! Rage Website then became Rage Website 2.0, the Official Website of the Making of Rage, Bane of Demons. Nearly three years after the creation of the Rage Website, the first Rage, Bane of Demons graphic novel was finished, and many digital publishers were willing to publish Rage in their own digital libraries.

A few months after finishing Rage, Thony Silas found work at Marvel, & DC. Since Thony wasn’t available anymore, I began working with Alan Quah on Rage #1, a story set after the first graphic novel, which marks the beginning of the Rage Series. Alan managed to pencil 20 pages of the first issue, and then went on to work for high profile publishers. Stéphane Degardin took over for the 10 remaining pages of the first issue, and became also the colorist of Rage #2. Alex Nascimento, who penciled the cover of Rage #1, is Rage’s new penciller since Issue 2, and Dijjo Lima is the new colorist since Issue #3.

As I had many ideas for the Rage Universe that just wouldn’t fit in the Rage Series, I also created the Worlds of Rage anthology series, which contains little stories taking place in the Rage Universe, drawn by Yonami & Stéphane Degardin.

A digital card game was also available in the Rage, Bane of Demons App (which isn’t available in the iTunes Store anymore, due to Apple’s policy), drawn by Yonami, Fabien Laouer, Stéphane Degardin, and many others. This card game was associated to a new story, and the goal was to use special cards to unlock chapters of the story. I am planning to recreate the App for iOS and macOS, and release the card game under another form. As for the Card Game story, I retitled it Arcana and made it available in Worlds of Rage.

At the time I am writing these lines, many things are in the works. We are working on Rage #6 with Alex Nascimento, and on Worlds of Rage #7 with Yonami & Stéphane Degardin. And I will soon be hard at work on the very first Rage Gamebook titled the The Second Night.

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