December Newsletter: Christmas and that

Inking Queen Vashti

This image was created as a character design for Queen Vashti in the Book of Esther. 
 

Christmas Gifts

“Jesus is the reason for the season” but so many of our family and friends don’t know anything about him or the things that he said, why he is at the centre of history and why we celebrate each year. 

We hope you’ll agree that Christmas is a great time to introduce someone to the story of Jesus with the Word for Word Bible Comic. 

Kickstarter Success - Thank you! 

Thank you to everyone who backed the Kickstarter or shared it with a friend, it was a bit worrying in the middle as it hung around the 7.5K make but we got there in the end!
 

Many of you will have already received your immediate rewards, including the digital rewards I sent out on a KS update.

Interview from New Wine

In the Summer I was at a Christian event in the UK called New Wine, I went on the radio station there, this is the interview I recorded at the time with pictures added. 

In this interview we talk about how the project came about, hopes for the future and things to pray for.

Progress

Here's an update on the progress on the Book of Esther. This graph shows you how far through the current book I am and will get updated once a month. 

Please add a review of The Gospel of Mark! 

It would be really helpful if you could leave your reviews and thoughts on Amazon. At the moment I have 5 stars (yay) but only two reviews (oh).

The more reviews and engagement the book gets in launch week will boost the books ranking on Amazon and make it more “discoverable” in searches.
★★★★★

USA -https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Mark-Bible-English-Translation/dp/0995603545
UK - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gospel-Mark-Bible-English-Translation/dp/0995603545

Prayer 

Since our Summer tour of all the big events and industry shows, we have several opportunities for big distributors and chains of shops to take on the project. Please pray that these will take on the books and get them out to a wider audience! Please pray for wisdom for us when dealing with them to know when to negotiate and accommodate and when to walk away. 

November Newsletter

The Book of Esther Kickstarter ends soon! 

This campaign has had an amazing start thanks to so many of you! Now I'm really counting on the rest of you to save the day! There's 22% left to go right now and just a week to get there, but I've got faith that we'll make it! 

We've had a really long "Dead Zone" this time (the middle period when the early birds are done and the last minute people haven't started yet so you get few new pledges) and so we have started to sweat as the cut-off approaches. If you planned to get involved or "see how it goes" please do back it now.

Your pledge really does make all the difference!  (No payments will go out of your bank until a little after November 11th) 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/word4wordbiblecomic/the-book-of-esther-word-for-word-bible-comic-book?ref=cahy98

This widget below (if it works) should show you the percentage funded up to date using magic... 

(If it doesn't work that's because magic is unreliable). 

Short Promo Video to Share

I've created this short 30-second video to promote the Esther Kickstarter. Please find it and share it far and wide. Also please give it a like and a comment to help its visibility 

Find it on Facebook here to share 
Find it on Twitter here to share

Please share this video 

October Events

We exhibited at a few great events last month. Christian resources exhibition was great for networking and meeting new folk including many of you. I even held two 15 mins talks there.

Then that same week we had Nottingham Comic-con which was great Comics event that really did focus on comics, highly recommended! 

Finally, we had our stand at London MCM Comic Con, a massive event with a footfall of 100,000 people. Highlights included meeting "the" Frank Miller. I queued for about 2 hours, but I got my "300" book signed and got to present him with a copy of Judges, a picture of Xerxes and tell him about the Kickstarter and Book of Esther I was working on! He knew the book and wished me luck with it which was a great moment! In what I gave him was a letter to contact me so I could send him a copy of Esther later. it's unlikely but I pray he does. He was very nice. 

Image of Frank Miller, Brian Azzarello and more comic legends on a panel about Batman. 

I also met Brian Azzarello, creator of 100 Bullets, Batman and others and had a chat to him. 

Siân and I also celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary there by working from 9am til 7pm selling books, riding the Thames cable car and eating take away noodles :) 
 

Take me to the Kickstarter! 

October Newsletter

The Book of Esther Kickstarter starts now! 

I've just hit the launch button and the campaign is up and running! We'd absolutely love you to back the projects and help us get this next book underway! If you plan to back it, please do so at the start as building momentum and showing promise inspires others to get on board too, it also stops us panicking, so there's that. (No payments will go out or be reserved until the end November 11th) 

 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/word4wordbiblecomic/the-book-of-esther-word-for-word-bible-comic-book

Sneak peek at the first page of Esther

Here we see King Xerxes, but he is a little different to in 300...

October Events

Last weekend I was at Gloucester Comic Con which went well. I also got to chat to celebrity guest movie star Brain Cox (Braveheart, Troy, Xmen, Bourne etc). I believe we spoke for about 30mins and he was interested in the Bible Comic, turns out he collected ‘Classics Illustrated’ years ago so I gave him a copy of Mark. The idea of a movie star reading and owning the comic is pretty exciting.

16-18th October - Christian Resources Exhibition (CRE) - A huge three-day event for thousands of church and ministry leaders to find out about new resources, items and services.

20th October- Nottingham Comic Con - A con which comes highly recommended as still focused on comics 

26-28th October- London MCM Comic Con- Our largest event yet, hosting over 100,000 visitors over three days!

September Newsletter

LAUNCH! 🚀

The Gospel of Mark is now officially launched! Click the image to order your copy, why not get one for a friend?! And check out our new endorsement! 

HOW TO HELP WITH THE LAUNCH!

Please help us get the word out for this launch! 

This week I'll be posting lot's of posts on social media, if you see one please hit like and add a comment and give it a share. The more love it gets to more FB and other platforms will show it to more people! 

If you can only do one thing, please go to this post and give it some love! 

• https://www.facebook.com/wordforwordbiblecomic/videos/296942247769192/

Reviews ★★★★★

You can see some reviews of the comic using these links

TALKING COMICS

• https://talkingcomicssite.wordpress.com/2018/09/09/word-for-word-bible-the-gospel-of-mark/

THE CHICO COMICS PAGE

• https://chicocomicspage.blogspot.com/2018/09/chico-comics-page-review-gospel-of-mark.html

GOOD QUESTION BLOG

• https://goodquestionblog.com/2018/09/14/that-was-a-big-temple-and-other-realizations-from-a-graphic-novel-version-of-mark/

YOUR REVIEW?... 

Please leave your own review on Amazon, Good Reads, or if you have a blog please do review it on there :) 

• UK - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gospel-Mark-Bible-English-Translation/dp/0995603545/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1536575291&sr=1-1&keywords=Word+for+Word+Bible+Comic+Gospel+of+Mark

• USA - https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Mark-Bible-English-Translation/dp/0995603545/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1536575291&sr=1-1&keywords=Word+for+Word+Bible+Comic+Gospel+of+Mark

New Kickstarter October 12th

This October we will be running a Kickstarter for the next instalment,The Book of Esther. 

Set in ancient Persia, it is a book of high court intrigue and one woman's struggle to save her people from annihilation. 

Set in the time of Achaemenid King Xerxes the Great, the book not only features the character portrayed in Frank Miller's 300 but encompasses the time of the legendary Battle of Thermopylae!

For notifications and updates follow the Word for Word Bible Comic on Kickstarter (below) or 
follow our Facebook page.

Kickstarter launch date October 12th, running until November 11th.

NB: Early bird and limited edition rewards will be strictly limited on this campaign. 

Together at Westpoint

We had a great time at Westpoint with Commission. One great moment was Guy Miller giving the work a mid-preach endorsement from the main stage which should be aired on GodTV in the future, another was finding an envelope with "A gift from God" written on it, with a cheque inside with funds to help support the ministry and us as a family which God had prompted someone to give. Both were a real blessing. Here are a few images.

Free Entry to Christian Resources Exhibition in October!

On October 16th-18th we will be exhibiting at CRE, a big event at Sandown Racecourse in Surrey, where church and ministry leaders go to discover new resources and services to support their ministry. 

If you’d like to come along you can get in FREE with by booking a ticket using this special link just for our customers. 

• https://eventdata.uk/Visitor/CREcomp.aspx?TrackingCode=WORDFOR

See you there? 

Prayer 

We are right in the middle of our run of events! We've done some of the big summer ones but now I have several ahead with three events this month and four next month! So please pray that the Gospel of Mark will get a lot of media attention at its launch and that many people will ultimately read the Good News for the first time through these graphic novels. Also, that we are healthy and very successful at these events and take home some healthy finances to fund the next year of bible comic creation.

August Newsletter

(Reposted a bit late to the blog but was sent by email in August, if you'd like to receive this update as an email sign up here: http://eepurl.com/bzpR9f)

This month is full of Christian events, caravaning, a random Bible exhibition and preparing for the launch. 

((Note: If the images are not visible in this email, look for "display images below" at the top of the email.))
 

Sneak peek at the Book of Mark

In this image Jesus rebukes Satan and the angels then comfort him. 

This image was released to our patrons on Patreon in all the way back in September 2017! To get exclusive access to pages before anyone else, be part of the creative process and simply support this project please consider becoming a patron from just $1 a month!. 
https://www.patreon.com/WordforWordBibleComic

August Events

New Wine

We’ve recently returned from New Wine which is a week-long event. The marketplace was open 10:30 am til 6 pm and 8:30 pm til 10:30 pm, so it was a long old week. It went really well though.

I met a few of you who backed the project’s Kickstarters and heard some great testimonies of teenagers really getting into it and reading whole books of the Bible in a morning.

I took my family with me to this event and the kids had fun in “Ground Breakers” but it was very full on getting them to their groups on time and fed between market shifts. Our new (to us) caravan served us well despite a few teething problems with the battery and such. 

Welcome to all the new people who signed up to this newsletter there!
 

Commission: Together at Westpoint

At the end of this week, we’ll be at a 5-day Christian event near Exeter. So we will see many of you there. 
 

Video: The Resurrection- Order of Events

On the Youtube channel, I occasionally release videos of my research. This is a recent one about the order of events surrounding the resurrection in the various Gospel accounts, which on the surface seem at odds with one another. 
 

Free Entry to Christian Resources Exhibition in October!

On October 16th-18th we will be exhibiting at CRE, a big event at Sandown Racecourse in Surrey, where church and ministry leaders go to discover new resources and services to support their ministry. 

If you’d like to come along you can get in FREE with by booking a ticket using this special link just for our customers. 

https://eventdata.uk/Visitor/CREcomp.aspx?TrackingCode=WORDFOR

Let me know if you take up the offer! 

Please be ready to add a review of Mark in September! 

On September 14th the Gospel if Mark will officially launch and be available on Amazon and in bookshops. At that time it would be really helpful if you could leave your reviews and thoughts on Amazon. Reviews and engagement of the book in its launch week will boost the books ranking on Amazon and make it more “discoverable” in searches. This helps it sell which also makes it rank higher and helps kick off a helpful loop on being discoverable and selling on Amazon.

I’ll send the newsletter then too, to remind you. ★★★★★

Ps. Also we’ll see them and hopefully be encouraged too. 

Random Bible Exhibition

Completely by chance while visiting Oystermouth castle in Mumbles, Wales (of all places), we stumbled upon a Bible exhibition in a local Christadelphian church. We stuck our head in to see and it was actually really good! Here is just one of the exhibits. If you are following the FB, Instagram, Tumblr or twitter you'll see the rest of the photos I took as I post them over the next week or so. 

Prayer 

We are really ramping up the promotion of the work this season, so please pray that the Gospel of Mark will get a lot of media attention at its launch and that many people will ultimately read the Good News for the first time through these graphic novels. Also, that we are healthy and very successful at these events and take home some healthy finances to fund the next year of bible comic creation.

June Newsletter

Kickstarter Backer Rewards Soon!

You will see below that we are very close to completing the Gospel of Mark, in July we will be sending out the first copies for the Kickstarter backs as well as the remaining digital PDF instalments. I've sent out the surveys so if you're a backer you'll need to input your address. 
 

At Events this Summer! 

This summer I will be at lots of events. In just 10 days I'll be at in a field near Swindon 'The Gathering' for Christian menfolk. Then in the school holiday's, we will be at New Wine: United Week 2, and Commission's 'Together at Westpoint'.  If you will be at these events please come and say hi, and drag your friends, church and family over to the new stand.

Have Your Say: Extra Pages at the Back? 

In the comic of The book of Judges and Ruth, I included extra pages with notes and sketches on character designs and some historical elements (like we discuss here). I didn't include any in Joshua and wasn't planning to in Mark, but some people have said they really liked these pages, they also add a certain amount of proof regarding the research involved. However, they cost more money to include and I imagine many people won't even read them. 

One alternative idea is to have one page to show the sort of thing and give a link to an online version for people who are interested. The advantage of this is you can potentially link them to buy other books, sign up to the newsletter etc. 
The Gospel of Mark is 164 pages, including just the comic and intro pages. The price will be £14.99. If I add pages there will be 16 pages of sketches and go up to 180 pages. 
In the comments below, I've included a few pages from the Judges sketchbook. 
Please add your opinion on the poll at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/wordforwordbiblecomiccommunity/
 

Progress and Prayer

I didn't add a progress report last month due to all the boring GDPR stuff, but in the intervening time, we've covered a lot of ground. I have 8 pages of the comic to draw and 144 are complete. We are working our way through checking for errors and then it will be a case of finishing off the few pages that surround the comic (intro etc).

Please pray that we finish the book in good time and there are no errors in the printing. Please pray that the Gospel of Mark will get a lot of media attention at its launch and that many people will ultimately read the Good News for the first time through these graphic novels. 

May Newsletter-Creating Comics and the Sanhedrin

Creating Comics and the Sanhedrin

Normally I create about a page a day, (that's drawing, inking and lettering). However, I started this page last Thursday and I've just finished it now (Wednesday). I created this little video about the making of the page and some facts about the image while I was making it. Now it waits to haunt the nightmares of the colourists. 


 

April Newsletter

I have realised I've forgotten to post Feb and March's newsletters on the blog. You can view them with these links:

FEB : https://mailchi.mp/8e372d713461/february-newsletter?e=276ff80ddf

MAR: https://mailchi.mp/c26682958a12/march-newsletter-snow-slow-and-go-go-go?e=ddb119009d

Here are some images and updates from us...

((Note: If the images are not visible in this email, look for "display images below" at the top of the email.))

A peek at the Gospel of Mark

Here is a little peek at a page from the Gospel of Mark. Mark 1:32-34

At the top, we have Peter's house which was drawn from the floorplan of the real site discovered with archaeology.  

If you'd like to see more pages of Mark now, you can do so by becoming a patron
https://www.patreon.com/WordforWordBibleComic
 

Interesting video I found "What did Yeshua think of the Mishnah? "

Doing my research I found this interesting video about how Jesus may have viewed the Mishnah. It's a balanced presentation by a Canadian Messianic Jew and Hebrew teacher Izzy. His views don't necessarily match those of ourselves but I found it very informative...oh yeah, it has slightly annoying inserted memes in this one but if you like this video his others don't have those.

To get more connected with our research and discussion come and join the FB group

https://www.facebook.com/groups/wordforwordbiblecomiccommunity

My reviews (Instagram/Facebook/Tumblr) 

When I read comics or watch a movie or TV series, I write a little social media post with my thoughts. With so much great stuff coming out soon (Avengers Infinity War, Westworld, Runaways, Han Solo Movie, Ready Player One etc), I thought I'd flag it so you can come and geek out about it with me.  Use these links to connect!

• Facebook Page - https://www.facebook.com/wordforwordbiblecomic
• Facebook Group- https://www.facebook.com/groups/wordforwordbiblecomiccommunity
• Twitter - https://twitter.com/WforWBibleComic
• Google+ https://plus.google.com/+Wordforwordbiblecomic
• Pinterest - https://uk.pinterest.com/wforwbiblecomic/
• YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/channel/wordforwordbiblecomic
• Tumblr - http://wordforwordbiblecomic.tumblr.com/
• Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/wordforwordbiblecomic/ 

Progress and Prayer

I'm getting closer to the end of drawing the pages now. I'm about to draw page 131 and Jesus will be getting handed over to Pilate. Our colourists are going full throttle now too to ensure we get it all finished before the summer holidays begin, and that's when they'll go out to the Kickstarter backers. The official launch and release will be in September.  

Please pray that we continue to be productive and get this book finished in time. Also, for the ongoing financial provision for the work as we have been blessed so many times by the Lord from your prayers. 

Please pray that the Gospel of Mark will get a lot of media attention at its launch and that many people will ultimately read the Good News for the first time through these graphic novels. 

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