Greetings ACTION FIGURE KINGDOM fans! – “Action” Steve here with an update on all the many things going on at ACTION FIGURE KINGDOM Headquarters, here in New Jersey, USA!
AFK IN FULL COLOR!
Although we’ve hit some snags lately (personal issues which have delayed some production — not uncommon in the art field) work has been going really well on the coloring of the interior pages of ACTION FIGURE KINGDOM, which have traditionally been presented in black & white. — As of this writing, almost the entirety of AFK#1-4 (Return of the Queen), as well as AFK#5-6 (Zombie Kingdom) have been colored. – That’s six issues (about 160 pages) of AFK in full-color!
I think everyone will marvel at the entirety of the finished colored pages when they see them, thanks to the incredible talent of AFK colorist, Lea Jean Badelles (we’ve included some samples below). – Once this initial batch of colored issues (AFK#1-6) is finalized, we will be looking to bring ACTION FIGURE KINGDOM to a much wider audience – either as full-color comics, full-color graphic novels, or both, as well as digitally. — Although I’m not really sure how I will approach any of this yet.
Color page samples… One page, from each of the first four issues of ACTION FIGURE KINGDOM. — The fourth page demonstrates the contrast we are creating between the AFK world, and the “real” world.
RETRO-CONTINUITY!
The move from ACTION FIGURE KINGDOM’s B&W “grass roots” stage, to AFK’s full-color launch, provides the opportunity to “fix” some things — mostly minor — to solidify the continuity of the AFK Universe going forward. – One of these changes will be, renaming Tommy (the main kid in the story) to Eddie (I’ve wanted to change Tommy’s name for a while now, and recently settled on Eddie as the new name). – Another name-change will be, changing FIREKING’S name to KINGFIRE. — KINGFIRE was the character’s original name, before it was changed to FIREKING (to match the, “monarch followed by elemental power” order of the names FREEZEQUEEN and ROCKJACK). – I was never really happy I made the change to FIREKING — maybe that’s why I’ve been running an ongoing joke in AFK, about characters calling him KINGFIRE by mistake. — The good thing is, I can keep all those jokes, and just switch the names around.
Perhaps the most ambitious change, is replacing a three-page scene at the very end of ACTION FIGURE KINGDOM #4, where ACROBOT gets a new faceplate (a replacement for the one with the broken “pointy-thing”). — In the “remastered” version of AFK#4, ACROBOT will be welding his pointy-thing back on. — I wanted to get rid of the faceplate concept for a number of reasons, one of them being that ACROBOT’s origin has changed since I wrote and drew the faceplate sequence many years ago (yes, there is an origin story in the works, and it’s pretty cool). –– The three replacement pages have been completed, and I am very happy with the results — I was even able to keep all of the original humor. – Those pages are now in Lea’s hands for coloring.
ACTION FIGURE KINGDOM #15 NEARING COMPLETION…
Drawing the three AFK#4 replacement pages was an excellent warm-up for the work I still needed to do to complete on the upcoming, 28-page AFK#15 (which – after countless dedicated hours at the drawing board — is now nearing completion). If everything goes according to plan — and God willing — AFK#15 will go on sale this November.
I know AFK fans are really going to enjoy this one!
Stay tuned! – And thanks for reading! – Action Steve