17 years!

Hey guys, it’s time for your annual Rage News! Well, the fact that it’s annual should tell you that nothing much is happening (I still can’t make enough money with my productions compared to what I’m spending each month, so we’re still slow…) but things are happening anyway, so let’s list it all!

Alex Nascimento is working on the last pages of Rage #8! Yes, Rage #7 isn’t even out yet, but we’re working on both issues. Continuity-wise, this delay isn’t really a problem, since I’m also hard at work on The Second Night, a book which will follow on the events of Rage #6, and should be out next year (yeah, I know, that’s what I said last year, but the writing of the Serena projects took all my free time). The book is set to feature all the Rage and Serena characters introduced so far, and a lot more! You’ll understand when you read it why it could only be written as an Interactive Adventure Book. My first idea was to make it an RPG, but I thought about all my readers who don’t quite like playing RPGs, and will need to know what happened in between Rage #6 and #7. Making it first an IAB, and then adapting the story into an RPG was the best solution. At this time, the first part has been written (500 pages, more or less), and there should be roughly five parts of equal length. I’ll tell you more about it when the time comes.

Worlds of Rage #12 is finished, and soon to be online! It features a cover by Yonami, and new chapters of the action-packed series Arcana drawn by Walmir Archanjo, and of the priestesses-packed series Serena, drawn by Stéphane Degardin!

The very first Rage TPB is coming! I’ve been compiling all the chapters of the Rage Series into a new printed compilation which will be available in hardcover and softcover exclusively on Amazon. And as a bonus, the Kindle digital version of the book will be available exclusively on Amazon too, and it’ll be even free to Kindle Unlimited Subscribers! In theory, this book should be easy to publish, but I have to review my files first. The Comicraft Fonts I’ve been using have been updated, and the Affinity Apps recently became the Affinity App, so there’s some tweaking of the original files to do so that the text fits into the balloons. As I have more and more work on all sides, this is a slow process, but there’s not that much to do. More on this by the end of the year.

For those who don’t have enough Serena in Worlds of Rage, there’s a whole Characters Book too, titled The Temple of Pearls, and drawn by Stéphane Degardin. Well I’m calling it a Characters Book because that’s the only name I have for it (and it does feature Character Files), but I assure you it’s a lot more than that! You’ll understand when you read it. There are three versions of this book with a different double-cover for each (and the same content, don’t worry), so you can choose which one you like the most (or buy all three. I wouldn’t do that, but it’s your choice). You’ll understand why I had to have Stéphane create three covers when you read The Temple of Pearls.

All the printed versions of these books are already available exclusively on Amazon, and the Kindle versions will follow, but there’s been a little setback. To sum it up, the digital versions will be available in all the digital libraries publishing books in PDF format, but not yet to those who publish books exclusively in ePub format. The previous Affinity Apps didn’t allow me to export ePub files, and Amazon Kindle and Apple Books tend to authorize the publishing of illustrated books exclusively in ePub. The good news is that the new Affinity App does feature this ePub exportation function, but the bad news is that it’s still bugged, so I’m testing it and waiting for the next version to check if I can export my books. Don’t worry, I’m on it, the Affinity team is on it too, and everything should be fine next year (I hope). So, more about it next year.

Since we’re on the subject, let’s not forget to mention that all my books have been created with Comicraft and Blambot fonts and the Affinity App. Affinity 3.0 is a new version of Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, and Affinity Publisher. Yes, it does combine these three Apps into one, it’s available on Mac and PC (and will be available on iPad next year), and it’s totally free. As it’s now part of Canva, there’s also an optional subscription… if you really need AI functionalities! If you don’t subscribe, you get a professional app for free, and AI-free. For Artists against AI, t’s an ideal situation (granted, it will be a little more ideal when all the bugs will be ironed out), but knowing them, they’ll be angry anyway.

So while we’re on the subject, let’s not part without a reminder about my relationship with AI and Artists. As you know, I’m publishing my own books, which (in France at least) means I’m not really an Artist, so I don’t get any support from real Artists (save the few of them who are my friends), nor by retailers (because I’m publishing my printed books on Amazon) and least of all from publishers. It also means that there won’t be any press releases about my books on official sites about comics because my emails got lost. So when all these people are in trouble, when publishers are threatened by tons of auto-publishers crowding the market on Amazon, when retailers are threatened by the Amazon business model, when Artists and newswriters are threatened by AI, they won’t get any support from me either. I’m against the policy of companies concerning the training of their AIs, I’m against Artists using AI and making publishers pay full price for the result (and I’m not even surprised that no one is talking about it in the press), but I’m not against AI as a technology, and I’m definitely against Artists always complaining. For those of you who want more of my opinions about AI, I’ve written a ton of text about it on this page. The text is in French (my native language), and I didn’t care enough to translate it, so if you really want to read it, you’ll need to either use an AI-powered online translator, or pay a French-to-English human translator so that he doesn’t lose his job as people are so fond to say… So sorry about it.

See you on Christmas!
Eric