Intrepid - The Story So Far...
Following on from the events of issue 1 Jason and Charles must find a way to come to move forwards in the incredible situation they find themselves in.
Invited to become temporary crew members of the Star-City Qianghan, Jason embraces everything this new world has to offer, whilst Charles struggles to come to terms with everything he has lost.
As they arrive at the Kotarrian side of the rift gate the two men have a front row seat to a tense situation!
Meanwhile, The Vayron special forces team, 'The Carbonex', has beamed down to the planet's surface to investigate the loss of communications with the Kotarrian Empire.
What they discover could lead to a massive shift in the balance of power, with a new threat rising from the heart of the Kotarrian Throneworld!
What's in issue 2?
Variant Cover A
Obviously, we want to avoid spoiling Issue 1. So if you haven’t picked it up yet, you may want to do so before reading on. It is available in some tiers in this very campaign but failing that you can order it from the website or buy it at Darkstar comics in Farnborough, or Paradox comics in Poole!
What I can tell you is that this is an exciting, action-packed issue that delves into the meat of the story, introduces the stakes and the characters, and most importantly, the races involved.
Intrepid takes place in an intergalactic community linked by ‘Rift Gates’. These gates facilitate travel across unimaginable distances, making a vast universe feel very small. The gates themselves are administered and maintained by a powerful race called...
The Vayron
These statuesque, yellow-hued aliens are the keepers of peace and security in The Ring, the group of galaxies where the gates reside. Their race is structured around high education, the pursuit of knowledge is their highest goal as a Type-1 civilisation. The Vayron are also the custodians and caretakers of the underclass race of humanoids called the Anode and control all aspects of their lives within The Ring.
The Anode
They are a docile and unambitious species who could easily pass for human. They specialize in maintaining agricultural, industrial, and logistical systems across thousands of worlds. Though in the past they have shown zero aptitude or interest in space travel, an increasing number of Anode have expressed an interest in venturing to the stars.
The Vayron have reluctantly acquiesced to this and instituted a training program and outfitted vessels for this purpose (The Star-City Qianghan is one such vessel.) where Vayron crews teach and mentor Anode crews with the intention of handing off the maintenance and oversight of the Rift Gates to them… all, that is, save one: IG22, a gate located in the disputed territory of the Kotarrian Empire.
The Kotarrians
A blue-skinned feline race who rule over their intergalactic civilizations with an iron fist. They have over 300 worlds sentient worlds under their control and have bases on countless more, enabling them to launch powerful attacks and disappear into the void without a trace.
They are a fastidious, powerful, and proud race of warriors who fear dishonor more than death. In a bold tactical move, the Kotarrians destroyed one of two gates in their vast galaxy, a move that annihilated several star systems and billions of their own people.
As a result of their ‘win at all costs’ attitude, they were able to repel the powerful Vayron Academic Forces, driving them back across the Kotar galaxy to the mouth of the remaining Rift Gate. At the start of the story, we see that the Kotarrians and the Vayron are suing for peace to end the bitter, century long standoff. Peace seemed a promising possibility...that was until the Kotarrians suddenly cut off communications mid-negotiation and sealed their world behind a powerful planetary defense system.
In Intrepid, there is one race that rivals the Vayron: the Siborians, a mysterious civilisation with whom the Vayron have already signed a non-aggression treaty. The Siborians rarely leave their own galaxy since it does not have a Ring Gate. Very few outside of the Vayron Academic Empire know of the Siborians, and those who do keep it to themselves.
The tiers in the campaign are named after these key players, and each perk is tailored to their culture. There is a pin-up of each of the characters from each race available with each copy of Issue 2. They range in order from lowest to highest as Anode, Human, Kotarrian, Vayron, and Siborian. The higher tiers also include the items from the lower tiers.
There is a secret 6th Tier called Asternaz that will unlock once we reach our target. This will yield a set of additional perks for all selected tiers and will also offer something unique among all the other tiers.
Facing the Unknown... Bravely!
This is the tagline of Intrepid as shown in the trailer for Issue 1.
Intrepid is an optimistic tale that focuses predominantly on bravery, a quality that too few people understand nowadays. I wanted to tell a story, in the British tradition, that articulates what bravery actually looks like.
So many modern stories are contrived allegories where notions are twisted to fit with real-world ideologies, rendering meaning meaningless. All this is done to create a generic product designed to satisfy corporate committee approaches to entertainment.
This is a story about humans going out among the stars and taking the highest ideals of human society with them: Honor, Respect, Bravery, Service, and Sacrifice. You will not find modern ideological propaganda in this book, just good old-fashioned science fiction with themes about what it means to be human.
It is a sci-fi book that mashes genres into a pleasing, thought-provoking story of what it means to be heroic in the face of true adversity.
Inspiration for the Story
The inspiration for this story comes from a myriad of places but most notably the Film and TV shows that captured by imagination when I was a kid.
The Disney answer to Star Wars 'The Black Hole' was a movie I'm very fond of. It tried a new approach and straddled the void between Star Wars and 2001. It had a creepy metaphysical ending that haunted my dreams, a quality that has inspired me all my life.
It had cool Robots in it too!
From the same era...Flash Gordon, another firm favourite of mine that i took seriously as a child...but have come to realise was a little bit tongue in cheek. Despite this realisation...its still a favourite. The sets are beautiful and Max Von Sydow is the perfect Ming!
The tone of Intrepid is very much inspired from one of the most underrated shows ever to be broadcast on Network TV...Buck Rogers in the 25th Century the intro of this show captured me on a level that I never understood and made the entire show feel like a window into a distant future rather than a kitsch TV series. The idea of a man waking up to discover his family, friends and entire way of life were gone, then simply shrugging his shoulders and becoming an ace fighter pilot who brings good old fashioned gumption and determination to an emotionally sterile and technologically reliant future civilisation; was absolutely brilliant!
Battlestar Galactica was just as influential to me as Star Wars. The fact that they were looking for Earth made me feel that they were out there and that one day I'd get to meet them. (I was a very nerdy child!) Colonial Vipers were also one of the best space fighters I had ever seen...right up there with the X-Wing!
Last but not least the Story of Intrepid was borne out of a frustration that Farscape had ended and the TV Gods were showing no sign of ever bringing it back. The premature cancellation of Farscape on a cliff hanger meant that fans all over the world unilaterally demanded the story be finished and so we got 'The Peacekeeper Wars', which whilst great fun...was lacking the energy that the show had built up prior to its cancellation. Farscape was treated very poorly but its brilliance was recognised when it was practically remade by James Gunn and packaged as his version of 'Guardians Of The Galaxy'.
Farscape is a masterpiece and is slowly being recognised as one of the greatest sci-fi shows of all time... It had one of the best sci-fi villains ever seen on television, the half Scarran, Half Sebacean, Peacekeeper Commander... Scorpius! The show was a perfect blend of science fantasy and soap opera beats and definitely had a massive influence on everything I have written since.
The way it brought thematic action and small scale character conflicts together was excellently handled. The writers had them bicker and fight felt and it all felt very lifelike and certainly created tension for the audience in the early seasons. This made the pay offs in later seasons, as they learn to work together as a team, so satisfying and it is this 'emotional aspect' above all that I hope to capture with Intrepid.
There are plenty of other shows that inspired me. Star Treks TNG, Voyager and DS9, Battle Beyond The Stars, The Last Starfighter and Joss Whedon's Firefly (and follow up movie Serenity ) were all honourable mentions.
The Campaign- Business, Business, Business!
NOTE: I set up a publishing company, Narrabox, that is currently trading and plan to make comics regardless of my success with crowdfunding. But crowdfunding is an excellent gauge of what people want. If you want to learn more about what I plan to do with the money raised from this project this section outlines our plans!
However we have limited resources and so If you like the look of Intrepid...don't delay in backing it.
Your interest now will be what helps us to decide where to put those resources and lets us know that this is something you want to be a part of.
Forward A Book Scheme
If you want to help us but don't want the book. Use the pledge button to donate and for every £5 we will ensure that a kid gets a copy of our book!
Our goals for Intrepid are ambitious! New Target of £6000
This crowdfunding campaign is for more than just our comic, we are trying to build a movement! We believe that the UK comics market has the potential to become a global powerhouse.
Much of the UK's brightest talents are working for the US owned companies developing IP for their corporate overlords.
All this at a time when the corporations that run the two biggest have decided to abandon quality storytelling, strip-mine Intellectual properties that they have co-opted, push controversial ideologies and engage in divisive social engineering.
We want our talent doing what they do best...telling great tales!
With the £6000 raised from this issue we will:
- Print 2000 copies of Intrepid
- Promote the book in the UK and invest in creating the infrastructure to get our books into the hands of our growing audience.
- Begin building a creative team to help with the creation of our planned titles
This is about more than just us
The US comics market is worth nearly $7bn
The Franco-Belgian comics market is worth nearly $6.5bn
British comics market value is so small that it barely registers…we want to change that!
Narrabox is the publishing company that will do everything they can to uphold the direct market in the UK. Our values are formed of three pillars
- Growing our prospective audience- In order to raise the profile of UK comics and the UK direct market as a whole we need to promote UK comics creators as a whole.
- Tell authentic, heroic, adventure stories free from corporate oversight that stifle true creativity.
- Begin finding the next generation of talent and work with them to create meaningful comic stories, with themes that everyone can understand and relate to!
Failing Bigtime!
Our last campaign failed to reach our goal but we count it as a success because it allowed us to get our book into the hands of fans and is currently making a modest profit because of the support it received.
Setting such a large goal for our 2nd issue increases the risk of campaign failure but we believe failing big is better than succeeding small!
We want the best UK talent to be working for the best UK companies and we believe that with careful planning, a sound business plan and excellent contacts we can raise all ships on a rising tide.
Become a valued customer!
Our campaign is about more than just selling a book and our tiers reflect this, if you simply wish to buy the book please visit our website www.narrabox.com to get a copy of issue 1 or be added to the pre-order list for issue 2.
Alternatively you can buy it in store at:
Paradox Comics 19 High St, Poole BH15 1AB
Dark Star Comics, 28A Cove Rd, Farnborough GU14 0EN
Other ways to help
If you don't want to back the book at any of the tiers listed or don't have the money there are other ways to help.
- Look for another UK campaign you might want to back.
- Introduce Narrabox to someone who may like what we do.
- If you know any comic industry professionals, consultants, specialists or printing firms who might be able to assist us with our outreach please send them our way!
- Most importantly spread the word on your social media account. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Linked In and Twitter (X) and Youtube to help the Internet gods to notice us!