20/20 VISION: A DECADE OF GLADSTONE’S SCHOOL FOR WORLD CONQUERORS
20/20 VISION: A DECADE OF GLADSTONE’S SCHOOL FOR WORLD CONQUERORS
Excited about what the next decade brings for Gladstone's
The very first issue of Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors came out in May of 2011 from Armand Villavert and myself. With the next year being 2020 it means that our book is nearly a decade old and will celebrate its 10th anniversary next year in 2021. We’ve been working on the series even longer. 2020 is ten years of Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors.
When the first issue was at Image retailers ordered about 5,000 copies and then on the second issue lowered their orders to 3,000 and the later issues were about 2,500, because retailers always lower their order numbers for each issue it was never enough to make money on the book or to pay for the production costs. For a time we were trying to keep that schedule and hoped that by bringing Matthew Weldon on board for book 2 or a handful of issues that we would be able to buy time on our schedule. That kind of worked except that we made book 3 a massive 200 pages. Since retailers were not there for us, we turned to Kickstarter to be able to fund more Gladstone’s and to create more stories in the universe.
As I write these words Book 3 is printed and for sale. In January of 2020 we’ll start work on Book 4 and we’re hoping to have it completed by the end of the year. We have three more books planned in the series for a total of 6 before there is a time-skip and the series becomes ‘Gladstone’s Conquerors’. Our plan is for the next three books to be around 100-120 pages from this point on so that we can deliver faster. With books one and three each being about 200 pages we really have the equivalent of five books out. We’re gearing up for book 4 and for the conclusion of this series which we hope to have wrapped by 2022.
Being around for a decade is a remarkable accomplishment. If we get to another medium such as TV or Film which brings money and more eyes to the book, we’ll have definitely earned every minute and every second of our success. After 10 years, don’t let anyone tell you that our motivation is not one out of pure love for the medium, for the stories, the universe and the characters.
What will the next decade bring?
This year we did guest one-shots with characters from the Gladstone’s Universe and we’re really proud of the first offering which was the Kid Nefarious one-shot. In the Spring we plan to offer Ghost Girl and Mummy Girl, Martian Jones and the Skull Brothers, and a Speed Specter one-shot. For the second round of one-shots we’re going to try our best to work with larger names in comics who have a following of their own that we can bring into our universe. We also want to be more inclusive and bring in women writers and have greater representation with our storytellers and our characters. We’re not doing terribly at the moment, but we want our universe to be a fun place where everyone can play in it and feel included and represented.
As the writer I plan to wrap up the first six books and then I’ll let other writers and creators take over with ‘Gladstone’s Conquerors’ and read the series for fun and enjoyment, but also be a sort of ‘show runner’ or editor for the series.
Here is to the next decade of Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors and to many more!
-Headmaster Smith
Comments
I’ll be here for it all!
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