The Splintered Realm

I've gone through my page on DriveThruRPG (and will hit itch in a hot minute), and I've taken down the books for Stalwart, and replaced them with the new, improved, super snazzy core rules for Stalwart '85! Thanks to the Kickstarter backers, this book is a pay-what-you-want release, and includes everything you need for ongoing play. The Kickstarter continues until September 11, and you can get you copy of the full rules (160+ pages) in pdf and print, as well as a number of cool, exlusive add-ons and nifttiness. 
Thanks SO MUCH to the backers of the Kickstarter whose support made this project possible. We still have two weeks to go! 

My daughter is a Taylor Swift fan (a ‘Swiftie’), and I have a running joke where I sing “Look… what you made me do” as a lounge singer. I was thinking of all y’all this morning, and that song came into my head… because you need to look… at what you made me do.

Stalwart has had a few knocks against it, and I have accepted those as functions of the system. It doesn’t do street-level supers all that well. It doesn’t have a lot of granularity. The dice get swingy (especially at the higher end).

This change addresses all those concerns.

In my proposed change, there are two ‘types’ of tiers: human and superhuman. The human tiers roll 1 die, and have SVs of half the die rating +1. Human dice range from D4 to D10 (I go back and forth on the D12, but for right now it's not there)… So if you are an enhanced human who has been given a dose of the Freedom Formula, you have D10 Might and Reflex. However, the moment you cross the line from ‘human’ to ‘better than human’, you now roll two dice, starting at 2D6 and peaking at 2D12 (with 2D20 reserved for cosmic entities). However, there are also places between these tiers where we can mix and match dice to create more granularity… For example, at the Meta tier, you roll D6+D8… for these tiers, the SV is the average of the two dice, which creates a nice, smooth scale.

Human Tiers

• Normal (D4; SV 3/1)
• Trained (D6; SV 4/2)
• Expert (D8; SV 5/2)
• Paragon (D10; SV 6/3)

Superhuman Tiers

• Super (2D6; SV 6/3)
• Meta (D6/8; SV 7/3)
• Legendary (2D8; SV 8/4)
• Colossal (D8/10; SV 9/4)
• Titanic (2D10; SV 10/5)
• Supreme (D10/12; SV 11/5)
• Ultimate (2D12; SV 12/6)

This would also change dice shifts a bit, since you would shift your lowest die up +1… so you would shift down from 2D6 to D4/6, then down one more to 2D4… you would shift up from 2D6 to D6/8, then to 2D8, then to D8/10… this mechanically distinguishes humans from superhumans, and creates a remarkable amount of granularity. I am not too concerned about balance… as a quick thought through this, Arrow is an Expert human (so he attacks with D8), but he also has Aim +3, so he’s averaging 7 to hit (max 11), which means that he can reasonably use his bow against someone with Titanic Evade (10). The numbers don’t scale to the point where they are impossible. I plan to play test the HECK out of this before making edits, but I’m seriously considering this change to the core mechanic.

I've had a few conversations around the dice in the game, and different options for reducing the swinginess of the options. I had already published one alternative, but I've come up with a second as well... here is a picture of the working draft of this page. Feedback is welcome! (By the way, the 2 or 3 always failing on 2D keeps this statistically similar to the current rules for automatic failure).

I distributed the 47-page draft of the revised Core Rules to the Kickstarter backers yesterday, and I'm pleased with how the draft is coming along. I've expanded and clarified rules throughout, better organized the gifts, swapped out all of the art for public domain pieces (so that the entire core rules falls under a Creative Commons Share-Alike License), and revised language throughout for the concepts of Tier and Level. 

I also debated about the Character Sheet - Aldo (a.k.a. Dragonfly) has made incredible form-fillable sheets (which I keep asking him to revise, because I keep changing concepts)... but I felt like I should have the entire rulebook be my work. I felt a tinge of guilt for using something someone else had made and putting it in my book, even if it's 'only' one page. It's still his work, not mine, and he technically owns it, I don't. I will keep links to his character sheets on the new web site, and I encourage you to use his character sheets. They're great.

But there's one thing that is still bugging me. I don't like how the naming for Tags works. While there are some tags that introduce new concepts (example: Leadership gives you a specific bonus in a specific context), others just grant bonuses to existing abilities (examples: Concentrate gives you extra Force; Stalwart gives you bonus hero points). I am thinking of getting rid of the new names for all of the second type of tag, since these only require more thinking... okay... Dodge gives you extra Evade (so, why don't I just have the Tag be 'Evade' and have it give you more Evade?). I know the answer - I didn't want confusion on the player side of saying 'wait, I have Evade twice on my sheet... which one do I use?' If you have "Evade 5" written in one section and "Dodge (Evade +2)" written somewhere else, at least you know that they are not the same thing. However, just placing these under the Tags section should be enough. I think the confusion potentially created by having the same names under Tags is lower than the ongoing confusion created by 'what does Concentrate do again?'. I think it's better to have fewer names and concepts than more.

I am playing a bit with the point-based character building rules, and trying to set up a little more of a structured approach; I personally like the randomness of character generation, but I also think that having a fixed point-based method would be helpful. One of the problems with the existing point-based method is that it's pretty heavy-handed; it basically gives you an average die of your tier. That's fine at D8, but gets problematic at D16, where you have D16 across the board (which is pretty powerful). If we go with the idea that the 'average is that you have one die of your tier, one die higher, one die lower, and one die two lower, we end up with these numbers:

D8 (10, 8, 6, 4) = 28 points (currently 36 points)

D10 (12, 10, 8, 6) = 36 points (currently 40 points)

D12 (16, 12, 10, 8) = 46 points (currently 48 points)

D16 (20, 16, 12, 10) = 58 points (currently 64 points)

It seems reasonable to set the benchmarks at D4 (16 points), D6 (26 points), D8 (36 points), D10 (46 points), D16 (56 points), D20 (66 points). This means that a D4 character is D4 across the board (well, yeah), and a D20 character might end up with D20/D20/D16/D10. These work pretty well.   

I'm confident that the game you finally get (you know I'm doing a Kickstarter, right?) will have been carefully vetted. 

Today, I spent a decent chunk of time changing the rules for invulnerable and impervious, linking these to power instead of might. My thinking was that this would give greater variety to heroes, since the characters with invulnerability tend to be the big bruisers, and the might/endure combination makes them very powerful with the single stat. However, halfway into the process of initiating this change, I realized that it created all sorts of weirdness - characters who shouldn't have high power ratings suddenly needed them to justify the invulnerability they should have had (and did with the higher might). I'm hitting the point in editing and work on the game where I realize that every change I think about making ends up being a step backward - the design is pretty solid as-is. I keep reminding myself I've been working on this game for decades (in significant ways), and everything I have learned about game design has already been baked into the core system. There isn't a lot I can do 'better' without making foundational changes to the game. It's very, very good at being what it is. I'm going to let it be that.

Also, after drawing Modi yesterday, I decided to draw her Olympian parallel today, the great Prince Heracles. My 'War of the Demigods' storyline is about the children of the elder gods and their efforts to establish a new home as their old ones were dying. Modi was a leader among the Norse gods, and Prince Heracles was a leader among the Olympians. They will both appear in Stalwart '85.

I decided at last to create Modi (who I wrote about four years ago, but never actually drew or came up with game stats for), and she's pretty awesome. I figured that she's about as powerful as a hero could reasonably hope to be (Titanic Tier, Might D16), so she would be a good one to try both weapon damage as a modifier and the dice stabalization rules with.
It went really well. The only concern is that you have two modifiers to add (she had +5 from might, since I was rolling D10+5 instead of D16 when dealing damage), and then I had the +4 from her hammer. However, since the damage was always +9, I could easily track it... and since I had her fighting a foe with invulnerability 6 (Rhonda Rekkit), damage was always D10+3. She would almost always hit (only failed on a 1, because Rhonda has Evade 4 and Modi's getting +4 to hit). 
As it was, it took two rounds for her to defeat Rhonda, and she is one tier higher, so it wasn't unexpected. Rhonda did manage to knock her down about 15 hits, so it wasn't completely one-sided. However, I really like both sets of rules, and I think they are keepers.
I especially like that the weapon gets 'bigger' as you get higher level, which is a bit better than it was before. Cap's shield is going to be a +4 weapon, just because he's a very high tier, and D8+4 is definitely better than D10 for damage.
  

Throughout the rules for Stalwart (and now the working draft of Stalwart '85), I've relied heavily on the die shift to account for some bonuses. One place I did this is with weapons and weapon damage; I found (and still find) it to be an elegant solution that your weapon (claws, a shield, a sword) allow you to shift up one die for damage; if you have Might D8 and a set of claws, you deal D10 damage. This is a simple, clean solution that is easy to remember.

However, it is not particularly granular, and it starts to get messy when you have more dice shifts involved. I was thinking of swapping weapons out from a dice shift to a set damage rating. This would be based on half your tier SV. It then looks like this...

Wonder boy is Prodigy tier (D8[4]2) and Might D6. His battle staves deal D6+2 damage (instead of D8).

The Canadian Badger is Legendary tier (D12[6]3) and Might D8. His claws deal D8+3 damage (instead of D10).

The thunder god is Titan tier (D16[8]4) and Might D16. His hammer deals D16+4 damage (instead of D20). 

It makes weapons a little bit cooler, but carrying Mjolnir SHOULD make you a little bit cooler. I think maybe I scale back throwing the weapon as a -1 die shift; the thunder god deals D12+4 when he throws Mjolnir. That also makes sense to me. 

I also like how this works for found weapons; when the Brute picks up a tank and starts hitting people with it, he gets to add the full half SV to damage, but it degrades 1 point with every hit. If he's legendary tier with Might D12, he deals D12+3 with the first hit, D12+2 with the second, D12+1 with the third, and after that he drops the shattered piece of tank he's still holding, because it's no longer useful as a weapon. In a bar fight, when a normal person picks up a chair, it deals +1 damage with the hit, shattering on impact.  

I don't think I want to port this over to trick weapons, though... trick weapons do double-dip on tier (using the same die for both attacks and damage), and it might make more sense to tie damage to reflex... the archer with D6 reflex is going to deal less damage than the archer with D12 reflex. That seems logical. 

I've been toying with how best to approach the Cataclysm Across the Cosmos storyline for the Kickstarter campaign, and I had a few options for villains or characters who could act as the lynchpin for the whole thing... but none of them worked out just right. Then I came across a discussion of Kid Eternity... and the wheels started turning.His powers allow him to live for 75 years after the U-Boat accident, but make him virtually omnipotent... and (get this), one of his key powers is the ability to summon any hero he wants! So... as he realizes that his end is nigh, he (subconsciously) starts to let his own reality fall apart, because he wants to 'take everyone he loves with him' into the afterlife. A group of villains opposes him (realizing what he's doing), and tries to steal his powers (led by Baron Doom, I think)... and then he summons heroes from a variety of realities (because the edges of his own have frayed so badly, and things are bleeding over). So... he gets the heroes to fight the villains, but then everyone will realize what's really happening, and then the heroes and villains have to fight him... and then eventually get him to realize that what he's doing is harmful. He's already damaged his own reality too much, so his final act is to allow his own reality to merge with another, before he crosses over into the afterlife.
This gives me my Secret Wars/Crisis On Infinite Earths mash up story, and uses public domain characters to root it all.
Loving it.

As I am tinkering with the layout for Stalwart '85, I had a little bit of a revelation; I wanted the 'core rules' (40-50 pages at the front) to be totally under the Creative Commons License, and the back part of the book (maybe 120 pages) to be my copyrighted material; I realized that if I use the art of public domain characters throughout the first part of the book, and only use my original characters in the back part, I get to have my cake and eat it, too. I've been having a lot of fun playing with the public domain heroes, and adapting them. I particularly enjoyed adapting Moon Girl's Moonship. Here it is!

 

I keep posting characters to the Kickstarter page (because I cannot stop myself today), and I found the history of Captain Battle (in the public domain), and drew him. If the Kickstarter was just "Captain Battle", and you only got this character, one page of rules, and a way to fight his arch enemy "Baron Doom", the Kickstarter should raise like a billion dollars.

In fact, here's my free micro RPG for Captain Battle.

In combat, Captain Battle always goes first. When you attack (because you don't have any other choices. The game is called "Captain Battle"), roll 1d6 and see below.

1. You disintegrate your foe with your pistol. Earn all of the experience points.

2. You defeat your foe with your American fists of justice. Earn a million experience points, and the hearts of 1d6 x100 nurses.

3. You flex your muscles and your foe runs away. Earn half a billion experience points, and also increase your popularity +1,000 (oh, never mind. You already have infinite popularity. Okay, it's now infinite +1).

4. Roll twice.

5. Roll three times.

6. Do all of these things. 

I've posted an update to the Kickstarter with two characters who will be in the KS-24 superhero pack (that is released under a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 4.0 License... these are drawn from the database of Public Domain Super Heroes, but I'm adding my own twist to each of them (and doing my own designs largely). I've got about twenty more to come... (although stretch goals may increase this even further).

I added a special reward for backers within the first 48 hours... and I really think you want to get this. I kept laughing at myself as I was working on it tonight. If you happen to have seen a particular blockbuster superhero movie that might be in theaters right now, you're going to want to get this.

I'm in the zone with this Kickstarter. No lie. I REALLY want to post the picture I drew, but I'm saving it for backers only.

Some background for the Kickstarter Campaign...

***

The Startling Company of Comic Publishers (also called SC Comics) was a relatively minor comics company that started publishing in 1948. They launched a series of romance, war, and western comics, with titles like "Two Hearts", "Patriots in War", and "Wonders of the Wild West". However, when Kirby Jackson was looking for work after his time in World War II, publisher Gordon Richards offered him a job - launch a line of superheroes with his own title, "Startling Comics Presents". 

Running for 57 issues from July of 1951 through March of 1956, Kirby Jackson (along with several uncredited assistants) churned out superhero adventures featuring, among many more, the Powers Squad, Tribune, and the Blue Bowman. You were always aware of these characters growing up - and your uncle, who was a huge comic collector, had a particular affinity for these characters. He always had the comics around the house when you went to visit him, and he loved talking comics with you.

However, it was no big surprise when Startling Comics declared bankruptcy in 1979; they had been running on fumes for over a decade, and their superhero line never recovered from Kirby Jackson's departure in 1956 (after they refused to increase his pay per page from $10 to $12). They continued to reprint his books continually from the time he left until they went bankrupt, despite turning out relatively scant new stories in the superhero genre. A suspicious fire at their warehouse - that destroyed much of the original art - was the final nail in the company's slow decline.

In an amazing turn of events, the bankruptcy of the company caused the rights to the characters to fall into question. When Kirby Jackson decided to pursue legal action to get these rights (which he considered a longshot), he was shocked when he appeared in court and representatives for SC Comics failed to appear; the judge awarded the rights to Mr. Jackson. Many believe that the same people who could have claimed copyright had bigger problems - notably their insurance fraud case - and were trying to put as much distance between themselves and the company as possible.

Moved by the public outpouring of support for him, and for the love these characters were receiving, Mr. Jackson decided to allow the characters to be used for the Mighty Doc Stalwart Annual #2, and he would allow a young up-and-coming creator to assume the rights for $1 so that the characters could continue.

At the end of the 'greatest comics jam ever', Kirby Jackson himself appeared and, to anyone who had contributed to the issue, he offered entry to the lottery. Dozens of creators held their breath as the lot was drawn - someone would be able to build upon the legacy of these characters created decades ago by Mr. Jackson. 

You were as shocked as anyone when you won.

We're at 22 hours to launch, and I'm really look forward to the KS going live. I want to talk a bit about my mindset, because I think it's important (at least for me), to put this out there.
It doesn't matter if the campaign is 'successful'. I mean, I really (really) want it to be successful. But it doesn't HAVE to be. In the past, I've NEEDED things to be successful, because I wanted so badly to get something else from the project or campaign or whatever - validation, or reputation, or public acceptance, or some sort of score keeping 'against' other creators. I had a revelation last night while listening to Ron Talks Tabletop and an interview with the creator of Prowlers & Paragons, Leonard Pimentel. I listened with interest and spent a lot of time nodding my head and agreeing. Then, I went over and checked out Prowlers and Paragons, and read a little bit about it, and perused the quick start rules. I realized that 1) It's not much like my game at all, and 2) I have zero jealousy of his success. I mean, he's been successful at a very high level with a very polished game. I'm happy for him. I really am. Seems like a nice guy. But, maybe for the first time, I had no twinge of "must be nice" or "why isn't that ME" or some variation thereof. Historically for me, the hardest thing about being a creator is the way that the world constantly presents the success of others as a yardstick to see my own shortcomings. Walking into a comic store or Barnes and Noble or perusing DriveThruRPG has often been a 'this is your life - NOT' sort of journey, where all I could do for the longest time was see how many people had been more successful than I was.
I'm already successful. I have a game I'm proud of. I have people who like it. I get a lot of positive feedback regularly. I have a huge sandbox I've framed in and filled with sand and buried cool stuff in, and now I get to spend a lot of time playing in it and creating for it.
If the KS gets one person who signs up for $10 and then that's it for thirty days, I'll be a bit surprised, but I will be okay. I'm still going to publish a revised version of the game and I'm still going to create some of the stuff I intended for the KS anyway (because I'm excited to work on this and expand the game in this way), but I'll just do it in a different way. I see the KS as a way for others to get more involved; if they want to, great... but if not, it's okay. I'm okay. This mindset is part of the reason I think it will be successful - because I'm not holding on as tight as I have in the past. I'm ready to ride the wave; I guess we'll see if I need a paddle board or a surf board.
***
FYI, I think that for the duration of the campaign, I'll be cross posting both here and on the KS page. My regular blog entries will be on that stream as well, just to increase visibility and interactivity; but I don't want to ONLY post there and not here - so, I'll just do both. I probably won't get as personal as I did above. Going to be more business-oriented, but I thought I'd share some thoughts on KS Eve...
***
On to the Game...
While the purpose of the ruleset for Stalwart '85 is to organize, clarify and subtly tweak the existing rules, I can see two places where significant expansion is going to take place: Hero Points and the GM section. The two are closely intertwined as I'm thinking about it now...
With Stalwart Team Up #1, I introduced a concept that hero points can be earned as you go through the adventure; early encounters can give you opportunities through heroic action and role playing to earn hero points and add these to your bank; they become more of a dynamic currency throughout the adventure, and the GM will have more ways to award and manage hero points. I think that there will be suggestions for ways to spend more than one hero point at a time; I'm thinking of in X-Men '97 when Magneto 'turned off' all electricity in the world; he had to use all of his hero points to do this, set his hero points at 0 while it was off, and had to turn his power down to D16 while he was maintaining this effect. The book will give specific guidance for managing situations like this. I think that this becomes a special option that is only unlocked once you have D20 in a trait. I'm going to tinker with this a lot more, but I like the idea that the GM has a lot of specific guidance on awarding, managing, and ultimately encouraging you to spend your hero points in play. I think that this is tied very specifically to the ideas of "Series" (a campaign) and "Issues" (individual sessions).
I have a hook for this (from the backer's perspective) that is something akin to DC's aquisition of the Charleton characters in the mid-80s. Alan Moore ended up writing watchmen for them, even though he ended up having to craft all new characters (because Blue Beetle was going to get his own thing, and Nite Owl took his place in Watchmen). You just purchased this comic book company with these characters who appeared back in the day. What are you going to do with them, and how are they going to be the seeds of your new comic book universe? Or... if you have an existing comic book universe, how do you want to layer in these new aquisitions to your line? The KS is going to have some suggestions for how to emulate what I've done, launching a 'comic book company' that publishes the games that you run as the series (with the players at your table taking on roles as the comic book creators... so you're the editor as GM, but the others are the creative team working with you).
It's a whole vibe.

As I look back at comics, 1985 was probably my 'best year' for comic collecting. This was the peak of my interest in (read: obsession with) comics and superheroes and all of it. It's also the point I've progressed to in my creation of Doc Stalwart and his world, so it makes sense to pump the breaks there - specifically in April of that year - hence, Stalwart '85.
However, I really (really) wanted to roll it forward one more year and do the game as Stalwart '86, and have the game world frozen in time on April 7, 1986. That was the day that the British Bulldogs captured the WWF world tag team championships at Wrestlemania 2. On that day, I decided that it would be the first ever "Michael T. Desing Day", and I have (literally) celebrated it every year since. It was the greatest moment of my young life (not exaggerating). The British Bulldogs were like superheroes that came to life, and to see them win those championship belts was the most exciting thing I'd ever seen - it was as cool as a superbowl championship. Since my actual birthday is the day after Christmas, I always wanted another day during the year to celebrate (since I always felt like my birthday got lost in the shuffle). April 7, 1986 gave me as good a reason as any.
But by April of '86 I'd already at that point started to divide my loyalties between comics and wrestling (and gaming), and comics were starting to move into third place. I had also started to get the first inklings of being jaded with comics - I was starting to find some of the stories a bit repetitive, and some of the events a little disappointing. I mean, this was the year Secret Wars II was in full speed - that sort of was the hallmark to me that Marvel had jumped the shark a little bit. 
But in case you care, I have Stalwart '85 locked in time to exactly one year before Michael T. Desing day, which would be April 7, 1985.

Over the last few days, I've been in Iowa City with my daughter for a diving camp at the University of Iowa. It's been a  little tiring, but a lot of fun. I've enjoyed driving around the city, walking around, spending some time at the waterfront, and seeing part of America that I have no experience with. It is both very similar to, and quite a bit different from, the world of Western New York that I know.
But, everwhere I go, I have the same thought - this is how I always pictured Midvale. Granted, this is a city in 2024 and not 1984, but the feel of the city, its layout and landscape and topography, is very much what I envision when I think of Doc Stalwart's home town of Midvale.
It's got this inherent dissonance between modern and traditional; it is proud of its farming heritage, but there's a Starbucks on every corner. 
Nowhere was this inherent dissonance on greater display than in a street concert we walked through last night. As we moved through a crowd of white people sipping $6 smoothies and eating $10 ice cream sundaes, the band emoted about how the heartland is hurting and the coastal elites don't care... and people nodded and sipped their smoothies. 
In Buffalo, I can drive a few blocks and see HURTING. I see it. A lot of it. Go through my school district for ten minutes, and I see people hurting. It's pretty clear. I haven't seen the whole of Iowa City, but I've gone out of my way to go out of my way driving around, and I'm not seeing it. I'm seeing a lot of comfort and peace and stability. So, I'm not sure where this mindset comes from.
But I could see it wearing on Doc. Doc is a patient man - probably to a fault. He is able to see the other's side - also maybe to a fault. But I would think that being surrounded by some people who always feel like they deserve just a little bit more than they have, and that others are others are always unfairly taking from them, would wear him down. I would think that after another meeting where the mayor asks him if he could just 'help out a little bit more' than he does he would finally decide to go someplace where the needs are genuine. 
It is the birthplace of Doc Stalwart, but he just cannot live there. I love that his boyhood hero is heartland - this is something that is core to his character. He is rooted in the heartland. But, he also cannot stay here forever. Because there is genuine hurting out there.

I got an idea to retcon Skye Stalwart a bit... my original thought was that she (at some point in the near future of Doc's timeline) traveled to the future and joined the Stalwart Legion of the 28th Century. I have since added a four-part appearance of the Stalwart Legion to the official list of Doc stories, in a battle against Synchronous (in the early 1970s). I figured that this version wouldn't have her in it yet, but then I thought it would be even better if I decided this was a twist; the Stalwart Legion 'always' had Skye Stalwart in it (so she is an existing character circa 1985), but Doc didn't know this was his daughter... maybe SHE didn't even know she was his daughter. So, he's already met an older version of her, thinking that this was a far future descendent, and only recently learned that she was actually his daughter who had been whisked to the future.
I like a lot about this idea, and it puts Skye into the more active continuity of other things, so I like that better, too. I like that her story is, in effect, told 'out of time', because we meet her a bit older than she ultimately ends up being in the primary continuity.
It might even be worth tying this all to Scooter James as a creative force; Skye Stalwart was his idea at maybe twelve years old, and he was the one who ultimately made the decision to add her to the current continuity as Doc's daughter. I like it that she is 'his' character.
I have decided that whatever ends up in print in Stalwart '85 is going to be the final, official word on what actually happened in the continuity of this world, and I'm going to have to build from it. Needless to say, I'll be spending some time really thinking through how all of the various pieces truly fit together before publishing that final book in a few months...

Scooter James may have had the strangest ascent in comics history. He started as ‘The First President of the Doc Stalwart Fan Club” in 1970 - at ten years old. He became a regular contributor to the letters’ column (starting with a letter published in issue #100), with a missive appearing in every column from that point forward. As of issue 150, he got a special spotlight in “Note from the Fan Club President”, that was set aside from the other letters each month. 

Scooter eventually became a creative voice as well. He sent in a story idea that served as the foundation for the “Return to the Future” storyline (Mighty Doc Stalwart #127-130), and at fifteen, started contributing story outlines (paid $3 per outline), that were adapted into backup features, almost always featuring his favorite characters, the Stalwart Legion of the 28th Century.

So, it was somewhat appropriate that as of Mighty Doc Stalwart #251, at age 24, he was hired full time as the editor-in-chief of New Stalwart Press; he was the one who was tasked with hiring the replacements for Byron John, the brothers Mike and Theo Pretzlaff, who took over the book going forward.

He had big ideas. He launched the Spectacular Stalwart Super Society. He started negotiating television and toy rights for the characters. He started to look at ways to merchandise Doc and his world, building the brand beyond its humble comic book origins.

But one of the biggest and most outlandish of his ideas was unveiled at the New Years’ Comic Con ’84, two weeks into his tenure as editor-in-chief. He organized the first ever ‘Independent Comics Company Summit’, where dozens of small publishers and independent creators met together in Ballroom B of the Grand Castle Hotel to share an idea he had.

The “Big Two” were doing huge crossover events, bringing together their major characters to battle a huge cosmic threat on a grand scale. He wanted to do something similar. He knew that New Stalwart Press, though a successful company, was nowhere near the size and scale of the Big Two, and wouldn’t be able to do such an event independently.

However… he suggested that everyone in the room, if they wanted to work together, could pull it off. His pitch was simple: The Mighty Doc Stalwart Annual #2 would be a collaborative story where dozens of creators, representing dozens of smaller companies, would come together to tell a story with each of their signature characters joining together against a huge cosmic threat. They would all continue to hold the copyrights to their own characters, granting one-time rights to publish them here.

Over the next twenty-four hours, what might be the greatest comic book jam session of all time took place, as dozens of creators worked together to build a story and crank out 64 pages. This was released to much fanfare; each creator received 100 ‘limited edition’ copies to sign and sell at conventions, and the book was released through newsstand distribution. Each creator kept a few original pages, and these were distributed in a lottery system. All proceeds were donated, and many of the creators who contributed suggested that this was a ‘launch point’ for their independent comic companies.

But, I mean, I don’t have to tell you all about this. You were there, after all.   

And the Kickstarter will reveal how it all went down.    

I've got a pre-launch page up for the Kickstarter... please go and sign up (even if you're not sure you'll be able to back the project)! Even if you cannot support it yourself, I'd appreciate it if you can let other people know about it.
I expect to launch middle of next week.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1706035146/stalwart-85