12: MoonRise Launches Today!
I'm out here howling with excitement!
Another short Exner Alert this time around, o’ alert ones, but it’s filled with news, news and MORE NEWS!
First bit of business. I had a stroke this past Friday, and so even writing this paltry amount is actually quite difficult. I want to do it, and I’m choosing to do it, believe me, but it is like hanging onto the edge of a building in that I feel like I’m about to slip any second and start shenc;kwrnfn;ezrt
Kidding! Only kidding! I mean, not about the stroke or how it makes me feel (for example, in that last sentence I wrote “of” at least 3 times before I finally wrote “or”), but if I focus I can mostly keep a thought in my head and relay it fairly well, which is what I’d like to do right now , if that’s okay…
The main thing. I’m recovering at home with the help and love of my family (Hi, Pooks! Hey, boys!). It was scary, for sure, and remains so because the after effects (exhaustion, blurry vision, lightheadedness, facial numbness, this weird taste/sensation of mint when I drink water, a sort of ship-like listing to the left if I’m not concentrating, etc.) are very much hindering my ability to do, uh… everything I normally do, but I also feel very grateful to be alive (I’ve now survived two of these things) with the majority of my physical and mental faculties intact, and know from experience that the symptoms get better over time. At least, I think they do. I guess we’ll find out for certain when I start writing again in earnest.
Which brings me to Item 2! As many of you may already know, Skullgirls is currently on hiatus.
The reason for that is we switched our art team, and they need a bit of time to get ahead as Skullgirls releases weekly on Webtoon. The previous artists, known across the internet as Wiirdo and Pasteldot, are an amazing duo that did some seriously tremendous work. I’m forever grateful to them for teaming with me on the first 10 episodes of Skullgirls and will miss their talent and enthusiasm. I genuinely feel as if they made me look way better than I am.
Our new art team, thankfully, is much the same! Suzi and Black (Chris Flores) have already done some incredible things with the series and I think readers are going to be really pleased with what they do into the future as we get closer to the finale of season 1. I’m very anxious and excited to see the reaction to Episode 11, releasing on January 27th!
And lastly, but certainly not leastly (not a word) is my favorite news of this Alert…
MoonRise is launching today!
If you’ve been following me on social media at all then you know I’ve (along with my artistic partner on the series, Cem Iroz) been counting down day-by-day to this date! And now finally we’re here, on the date in question, 01/19, when MoonRise goes live!
There’s still a bit of a wait, as you’re getting the Exner Alert this morning, and MoonRise likely won’t go live until later this evening. Actually, as I’m writing this I just got confirmation from my editor that we go LIVE at 5PM PST TONIGHT, but to tide you over you’re not only getting our announcement poster up above, but you’re also the first people to see (beyond Cem and I) the official launch trailer for the MoonRise series on YouTube!
All put together by Cem, who is frankly, amazing, this is a first glimpse into the tone, action, theme and characters you’ll be introduced to over the weeks to come in MoonRise. I’m so incredibly thrilled to be sharing this series with you that, I think, is the best thing I’ve ever helped to create in my relatively short career as a comics creator/storyteller.
I’ll likely send out another quick Alert tomorrow after MoonRise goes live with a link to the series itself and a bunch of other links aplenty - because we’ve got some major things planned we want to share - but for now I just want to say thank you for reading, please give MoonRise a shot, and whether you like it or not I’ll talk to you all again as soon as I’m able.