Announcing Blood of Atlantis, my new comics series

The search for the Lost City begins in 2024

I started the Amazing Journey column in summer 2022 to document my journey toward releasing my first-ever comic.

And now, I’m excited to announce that I am one step closer to that being reality, as I shed the working title Project Plato to reveal:

The Book

Magic is real. That’s a fact Beatrice Stallard has known for more than a decade.

It is not the magic of the storybooks though. There are no wands, no spells, no incantations. Magic, or alchemy, as it is better known, is about harnessing the energy flowing within the Earth.

Once, magic flowed across the world like a mighty river. Or sprung from the ground like an oil geyser. Or pick another natural resource metaphor, you get the idea.

No longer.

It’s been siphoned off, pilfered, used up, by those that came before.

But it’s still out there. If you know where to look.

Fortunately, Beatrice does. She’s done a lot of looking. And in the process, made some powerful enemies.

Like the Guild, a centuries-old shadowy organization that runs the Quest Board. The Guild came up with the brilliant idea of making finding magic into a game. So now you have hundreds of would-be adventurers searching all over the city for knick-knacks, rocks, plants—even rats and pigeons that may hold traces of it. These people get tokens and XP, like a video game; the ones in the know get a free labor source. It’s how Beatrice got her start, and she’s thankful for it.

But now she’s playing a different game. In her travels, trials, and tribulations, Beatrice has come across inklings and whispers that the myths of yore weren’t exactly myths.

And the big one, the one she is setting her sights on, is Atlantis, the fabled lost city that sank beneath the waves so long ago, never to be heard from again.

Or so the story goes.

Together with her business partner/wizened bartender Svetlana and a couple of newbie Questers she picked up along the way, Beatrice will traverse New York City and beyond to discover the secrets of Atlantis.

Oh, you want some art to go with this awesome logo?

Well, here you go:

Art/colors by Francine Delgado

Growing up, I loved playing Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (one of the best point-and-click adventure games IMO), and this series, while obviously sharing its Atlantean focus, reimagines the classic pulp adventure world-trotting story in a world that’s filled with magic hiding just beneath the surface of the every day. And with a kick-ass female lead to boot.

The Team

In addition to me on writing duties, I am working with some awesome comics pros to bring you an amazing book:

Francine Delgado (art)

Francine is a Costa Rican/Canadian artist who works both in the animation industry and as a comic book artist. Known for her work with Marvel Upper Deck’s Legendary Black Widow and cover art for TMNT/IDW and Mad Cave, she has also contributed sequential art to projects like The Addams Family: Charlatan’s Web (IDW) and Glarien: Short and Deadly. Francine has worked on films such as The Addams Family, Barbie: It Takes Two, and more. You can find Francine on Instagram and Twitter.

Danny Sánchez Chaves (colors)

Danny is a comic book colorist from Costa Rica, who has done work for BOOM! Studios (WWE Smackdown 20th Anniversary), IDW (Addams Family: Charlatan’s Web), Lifeline Comics (The Dancer), and others. You can find Danny on Instagram.

Toben Racicot (letters)

Toben is a writer and letterer. He’s worked on a variety of indie comics like Beastlands, Sidequest, Discordia, The Amazing Adventures of Bart Bartson. He studies Role-Playing Games and Collaborative Worldbuilding at the University of Waterloo. He dreamt of being an aerospace engineer before failing high school Physics. You can find Toben on Twitter.

Finally, special thanks to Winston Gambro for his amazing logo design.

Here is the full art from above in all its glory (click on the image or head to the web version):

The Kickstarter Campaign

Francine is already 75% done with the interiors, and ARC Worlds subscribers can read an exclusive six-page preview. So if you’re not a subscriber, now’s the perfect time to hit the red button and join the ranks.

Blood of Atlantis #1 will be launching on Kickstarter in spring/summer 2024, with a jam-packed 34-page issue. The campaign won’t go live until the issue is fully done, so expect a short turn-around time between the end of campaign and fulfillment.

Now that I can stop vague-booking, expect to see more behind-the-scenes details in future Amazing Journey editions.

The World

Finally, as you may have surmised, Blood of Atlantis takes place in the same world as my NYC Questing Guild series, where Beatrice has already caused quite a bit of trouble.

To get you even more excited for the series, I’ve got some awesome reading material for you.

First, you can read about Beatrice’s early adventures in Guild of Tokens: Origins, a collection of three prequel short stories:

Next, you can check out Welcome to the Quest Board!, a five-page mini comic with art by Francine that features one of the Blood of Atlantis characters, Damon.

Finally, you can check out the rest of the NYC Questing Guild series at my online shop. If you’ve already read the books, you’ll notice some cameos in Blood of Atlantis from some other familiar faces.

Thank you!

This announcement has been a long time coming. I want to thank all of you who have been ARC Worlds subscribers from the beginning and those who have joined up along the way.

I’m really excited to get this story into your hands later this year and take the next step in my comics journey.

Before you go, I’d love to hear what’s your favorite take on Atlantis?