Welcome to the first post in our MEMBER ONLY section!
If you purchased something related to Into the Outlands, you are officially a member! It's our little way to say thanks and to give you something a little extra in appreciation of your support.
Over the last several years, I have sort of come to conclusion that my company, Outland Entertainment, needed to have a sort of core project. So many other company's have built their brands around a particular IP - something that we just haven't done.
It's with that in mind that this started.
Into the Outlands has been around for years - both in my head and in various incarnations. It's started and stopped several times. As with any creator, I have gone through phases of self doubt that have stalled things out, or just didn't feel like I had the right amount of time to really dig into it. I've even worked with a couple different creators before we landed on this, the final incarnation.
The world really began with a story. I realize our first release is a set of prints, showing bits and pieces of the world, essentially world building. However, at the core of this is a story.
The story itself is an amalgamation of various bits and pieces of comics and fiction that I like. The story was also written based on ideas and concepts that I personally wanted to draw. So, it's a sort of piecemeal story that came together as pieces and was developed into one overall whole. I can't say how excited I am to dig into this. And I'll expand on all this later.
What really got this going, though, was Shannon Potratz.
Shannon and I have known each other for over two decades and have had a deep and mutual appreciation for each other's work through all those years. Furthermore, we have a tendency to love a lot of the same material–our ideas tend to line up pretty often. When we started looking for something to work on together, I mentioned this story and world I had created.
He was instantly on board–everything that I am interested in drawing, he is too!
Now, you might ask, how is this going to work with two artists on the project? Well, something magical sort of happened. Shannon had some sketches and I asked if I could ink them for fun. And we both really fell in love with the process and the outcomes.
There's definitely more to tell and a lot more to show, but this is going to be fun.
Welcome behind the scenes!
JM