Most of you probably have no idea what Midnight’s War is, unless you have been following the efforts of Our Beloved And Dreaded Supreme Dark Lord (PBUH) Voxemort the Most Malevolent and Terrible to upend the apple-cart of the comic books industry. The first major foray into this field was “Project Asteroid”, which, if I recall correctly – and I probably don’t – made impact sometime in spring 2021.
The idea behind that venture was to launch a web-comics platform, to provide a non-converged (and non-anime-swamped) portal for both Arkhaven Comics creators, and independent comic creators. The avowed goal was to produce some of the very best comics in the industry, both in terms of graphics, and writing quality.
In that, certainly, Arkhaven Comics succeeded – superbly.
This is where Midnight’s War comes in. The series was one of Arkhaven’s flagship comic publications, and had all of the strengths OBADSDL(PBUH) consistently brings to bear in his storytelling – world-building, character, and tightly-knit plots that drive the action forward without ever getting overly confusing.
The story alone is worth the price of admission. Essentially, it starts from the premise that vampires are real, and have been hiding behind the scenes, manipulating the entire world, for centuries. In the wake of a great cataclysm, the vampire lords who rule the world come out of the shadows, and take over global governance, using a blood-based currency – naturally, since it is a physical asset that is also the literal source of life for vampires – and a strict covenant that establishes a clear hierarchy between the vampire rulers and the human ruled.
The whole series is fantastic. The artwork is superb. OBADSDL(PBUH)’s writing is top-notch. Each main character gets just enough time to be interesting, without loading the reader down with a lot of back-story. Nor is there any sort of Gamma-sperging about tragic past events shaping heroes into tortured saviours – none of that crap.
The focus is on the action, the plot, the art, and the storytelling medium.
It is, in other words, what comics USED TO BE about, back in the day.
Buoyed by their success, and clearly inspired by a rabid fanbase, Arkhaven decided to launch a crowdfunding campaign to publish the various Midnight’s War episodes in serialised format, on paper, either in standard comic book form, or as part of a hardcover edition. You got various collectibles and goodies on top of that, if you paid for them, of course, but the idea was to create a crowdfunded alternative to the mainstream graphic novels and collections of the Big Two.
To be clear, this is not normal. Anyone who has ever been to a comic book store – and, for my sins, I have been to several, across three continents – knows that one-shot or serialised runs, in either paperback or hardcover formats, rarely stand well on their own, without the backing of a big publisher.
Think through all of the big serialisations in the hands of collectors of graphic novels. In my storage unit, right now, I have Batman: Year One, The Dark Knight Returns, The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Infinite Crisis, Justice League: Kingdom Come, Batman: The Long Halloween, Batman: The Killing Joke, Batman: Hush (both parts), and several others.
Oh, right – and Watchmen. And V for Vendetta. And quite a few others that I’ve probably forgotten.
Notice anything in common with all of those titles?
Yep – all published by DC. (I have never been a Marvel fan. Ever.)
As it happens, I used to be an avid reader of Batman, until the storylines went completely woke, and I realised just what a gigantic Gamma wish-fulfilment mechanism the Dark Knight really is. That did not stop me from buying many of the collected works of some of the very best Batman authors and artists. (Again, for my sins, I happen to possess a copy of All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder. Even I cannot defend the execrable writing in that one.)
The key point here is, for the most part, outside of manga collections, you really cannot buy serialised comic books like that, outside of the lines published by the Big Two, or a relative handful of indy publishers.
Arkhaven wanted to try a different approach, by crowdfunding an independent run and managing the entire process of publishing a high-quality collection on their own.
And that is where Arkhaven fell down, a bit.
The campaign itself launched in December 2022, if I remember correctly – I still have the email receipts – for fans to buy their very own hardcover (or other format) versions of Midnight’s War, Vol. 1. That was EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO.
Only NOW have the copies finally shipped out and landed in the hands of the backers.
To be clear, that is not the worst I have ever seen. I am STILL, to this very day, waiting for the crowdfunding campaign for SWAT KATS: Revolution to produce ONE DAMNED THING. The last anyone heard about it, the Tremblay brothers were still bumbling along looking to release episodes of… something, and that was two years ago. The Kickstarter campaign itself closed down over 8 years back.
But 18 months is still a damned long time to wait for what is, essentially, a graphic novel.
Was it worth it?
On balance… yeah, pretty much.
You really have to see this product, and feel it, to understand just how good the quality is. The artwork retains the fidelity of what you see on the webcomic, but it is very clear that immense effort went into arranging it properly, so that the story panels flow in a logical order. The colours are vibrant and clear. The paper feels GOOD to touch – not flimsy and easily shredded, like a lot of Big Two products feel these days.
It feels like a bespoke product – because it IS bespoke. And I have to say, I am really impressed. This is definitely going to get pride of place on my bookshelf – er, once I move said shelf out of storage and into a proper abode, that is, and once I get rid of some of the Gamma-bait products I wasted my money on for so many years.
I do hope this will have a broader production run, because this is genuinely a good product, and I would like to see comic book fans who like collectibles, to get a look at something like this.
It has been nearly a DECADE since I last purchased a graphic novel or hardcover collection. I have no regrets about that fact, because from what I can see, the Big Two focus these days on how a product looks on the outside, rather than the quality of the material on the inside.
As far as I can tell, Midnight’s War, Vol. 1, gives the collector the best of both worlds – high-quality writing and art, printed on high-quality tactile materials that you can enjoy.
If Arkhaven can up its production volume, it genuinely WILL usurp at least one of the Big Two, and soon, I reckon.
2 Comments
Thank you for the report. The quality of the paper is vital. In a print run book it should separate and elevate the material from a thin & cheap pulp print run. If you’re all in for the omnibus, you want it to last through a few sons reading through it in the future.
What has surprised me with the Arkhaven project is the shortage of artists, who presumably look for paying jobs, to do the art on these. Sword of God, Silenozia, Invasion 55, Alt*Hero, My Sister Suprema, ect all pending next available artwork.
The politics problem is significant.
To be fair, I am actually looking forward to seeing what can happen with the slight shift into a B&W focus that VD has mentioned.
Production costs are a BIG deal, both at print time and in the final product. Graphic novels as an art form are as concerned with the story as they are with the flash, and a sped-up production cycle and lower eventual costs, I’d actually RATHER see a good set of B&W art than something with tons of over-the-top color effects.