Dave's August 2023 newsletter

The end of Killtopia, Nano Jams, Edinburgh Book Fest + More!

Hey everyone, Dave here with my August newsletter and there’s a lot of neat stuff and new updates to share, including shipping of the fifth and final issue of Killtopia.

Before we dive in, if you’d like to keep up to date with my comic and video game book projects, you van also follow me on Twitter, BlueSky and Instagram.

Let’s jam!

1) Killtopia #5 shipping / release and our first anthology!

The fifth and final issue of our award-winning cyberpunk comic series, Killtopia is now shipping to Kickstarter backers, after they helped our campaign raise over £25,000 last year.

Here’s a video flick-through of the book. Big props to Comic Printing UK for the stellar print run.

We’ll be taking Killtopia #5 and all the back issues to a few conventions later this year, starting with ACME Comic Con in Glasgow on September 23rd and 24th, followed by Thought Bubble Comic Art Festival in Harrogate on November 11th and 12th.

Once all the copies are shipped out, Killtopia #5 will go on general sale via our publisher BHP Comics. Stay tuned to their store for details.

It’ll be a long while until the Killtopia sequel I’m working on will see the light of day, but before then I’ll be releasing the series’ first anthology, titled Killtopia: Nano Jams and then further down the line a full Killtopia #1-5 collected edition. The theme of the book is ‘media’ and I’ve started to receive many brilliant story concepts from our roster of incredible writers.

Some of them are totally bonkers and very ‘Black Mirror,’ and I think our regular readers are going to love what we’re all cooking up.

Here’s a small teaser of the Killtopia: Nano Jams cover, by the talented Kim Hu that shows the main character from me and Kim’s five-page short story, ‘Frontline’

2) Killtopia live show in Edinburgh!

On Sunday, August 20th, me and Killtopia #1 and #2 artist Craig Paton are doing a live event as part of the Edinburgh Book Festival, where we’ll be discussing the conception, creation and future of Killtopia, together with lots of behind the scenes artwork and glimpses of the Killtopia TV show.

It’s called ‘Crash and Burn’ and you can get tickets now at the book festival’s site for just £5.

3) Go Straight’s 2nd printing releases Monday August 14th!

Tomorrow, publisher Bitmap Books will open orders for the second printing of my first video game history book over on their store.

Go Straight: The Ultimate Guide to Side-Scrolling Beat-em-ups takes its name from the song ‘Go Straight’ which is the stage one music from my all-time favourite brawler, Streets of Rage 2 (it’s a banger, check it out here!)

It’s a hard back, 450-page journey through beat ‘em up history, starting with Irem’s Kung-Fu Master in 1984, moving though the ‘80s and ‘90s heavyweights like Final Fight, Double Dragon and Streets of Rage, before bringing it all home through the 2000s, 2010s and 2020s with modern hits like Streets of Rage 4, the Battletoads reboot and over 200 more games. It’s a chunky book indeed!

Thanks to anyone who has already picked up a copy, it’s mind-blowing that we reached a second printing so quickly.

4) BPM #2 production update and new art

After a delay, production of our beat ‘em up comic, BPM: Beatdowns Per Minute #2 is into the final stretch for artwork, and Killtopia #3-5 colourist Lou Ashworth has started sending over coloured pages too.

Big apologies to our backers for the wait, but life kicked our asses in many ways and sent us off-schedule. You’re going to love this book once it drops, as the action really ramps up and the video game references get very silly.

Here are to small page snippets from our most recent batch, showing Maya’s sensei Hayabusa and a flashback to young Maya in big trouble:

That’s a wrap for August!

Thanks as always for subscribing to my newsletter, and I hope you have a great rest of the month.

My final thought for this month is to check out The Bear on Disney+ - the second season dropped here in the UK not too long ago and it’s absolutely brilliant. Give it a shot, but beware of a stressful and often hilarious time (you’ll see…)

Seeya!