January, 2012. The terrain around our Mountain Lair is covered by a thick, slick, layer of treacherous ice thanks to the bizarre weather we're experiencing. So treacherous is it that we have decided to avoid potential broken bones by staying in the Lair and looking back at the year that was and the year that will be.
2011 ushered in the first book in the Shame trilogy from Lovern Kindzierski and John Bolton. This dark faery tale beautifully painted by one of the all time great comic book artists was our biggest book launch by far, with advance sales more than double Diamond predictions. Reviews were great and we had great feedback from fellow creators including Jim Palmiotti and Kurt Busiek, and we were intrigued to see that 70% of trackable sales were to female readers, a very different split to what we see usually, a trend that will hopefully continue with book 2, which is already well on its way to completion.
We released three more audiobook CDs in the Doug Bradley's Spinechillers series, volumes 7, 8 and 9, featuring guest stars Robert Englund and Jeff Combs. And discovered that Tom Savini and Guillermo Del Toro are both fans.
Claude St Aubin completed beautiful and compelling interior and cover, pencil and ink artwork for Alan Grant's The Loxleys and the War of 1812 graphic novel in the same time it took the artist he replaced to draw 11 pages. Lovern and Todd are busily finishing colours and letters ahead of the books launch in April. Richmond Clements and Alex Moore completed Turning Tiger and we printed some preview copies for conventions and reviewers. Expect it in comic book stores and book stores in April through a partnership with Arcana Publishing
We attended several conventions over the year, from Seattle on the west coast for Emerald City Con, through the Calgary Entertainment Expo to Toronto Fan Expo, finishing at New York Comic Con on the east coast. They were all great experiences and it is always good to meet up with fellow creators and fans. This year we'll have an increased presence at the Calgary Entertainment Expo with the launch of The Loxleys and the War of 1812 taking place there. So far this is the only convention that we have committed to, however you'll find creators working with us attending conventions all over the globe.
Our webcomic series The Spine Chillers continued to flow from the pen and mind of Ben Clark with the secret of the attic finally revealed and Lovecraft disappearing into the night in a sudden departure that sent shockwaves through the boarding house. Two collections of Ben's work will be out this year.
2011 was also the year that we welcomed several new creators into our midst. Artist David Ross joined up to work on Lovern Kindzierski's supernatural thriller Necromantic. Gorodn Rennie, PJ Holden, Steve Denton and Jim Campbell brought their eagerly anticipated Dept. of Monsterology to Renegade, with Gordon also bringing another title and team into our fold, of which we will talk more about in the near future. Artist Jon Haward has carved himself a nice cave to work from, more details about this project soon... Al Davison became the artist on Alexander Finbow's Blood Light graphic novel, creating beautiful painted pages set during Oliver Cromwell's invasion of Ireland in the 1600's. Nicholas Burns completed script and artwork for the final story in the Arctic Comics Anthology, and William Simpson had to take a break from the next Shades of Grey story and his upcoming VMT series to create the storyboards and concept art for the 2nd season of HBOs Game of Thrones. He has since returned to us and despite the demands of director Neil Jordan, is back on both projects.
Shane Oakley continues to craft Channel Evil from the souls of anyone foolish enough to venture near his studio, with issue 3 almost upon us and issue 4 rising slowly from the primordial sludge.
With all this bubbling away, 2012 is set to be our most exciting year so far with the launch of more titles this year than the total number of titles we've released to date. So thank you 2011, you were great, thank you creators working as part of Renegade, you've been awesome, and thank you to our readers and listeners for supporting our stories so far.