My 2nd Book Launch : “Retrograde Volume 2”

The Cover!

So damn good to be home!

After over a week of travelling between Madrid (for a day-job related trade fair) and London (to visit my ever-studious and smarter-than-me baby sister), it’s kind of nice to be back. All the running around the giant exhibition grounds in Madrid was hectic as hell and while we enjoyed ourselves over the few days we had in London – and Birmingham – all that walking everywhere was starting to catch up with my lazy self.

But no rest for the wicked is there?

I’m off in about an hours time to Mumbai for the 2nd annual Mumbai Film & Comics Convention! It’s going to be a blast (I hope!) and not only should it be fun to see a lot of the friends I’ve got there, I GET TO LAUNCH MY BOOK TOO! 🙂

Yup, a year after the first part was quietly launched and received some pretty good feedback (enough so that my publisher is actually still willing to put out more volumes!) I finally get to close off the first chapter of this story of mine that has had a long and arduous journey.

“Almost” cover by star-artist Vivek Goel

Over 3 years in development hell, having gone through about half a dozen artists before I could get one to commit fully to at least these initial issues/volumes and shelved over other, more current projects, it not only finally saw the light, but seems to be getting on pretty darn well.

Gives me not just great joy, but a hell of a lot more relief than you could imagine! I even gave a couple of copies to some nice folks over at Mega City Comics in Camden Town while I was shopping there just a few days ago, they’ve been really nice the couple of times I’ve been there.

For your viewing pleasure here, I’ve taken the liberty of sharing the final cover art (I LOVE what he’s done with the backgrounds and the painted old-school movie feel we got in the final cut!) and as a bonus, here’s two of the covers we almost went with but elected not to, for varying reasons. Personally, they’re all amazing but I totally love what we ended up with here – what do you think?

Well anyway, before I sign off for a couple of days, here’s the skinny on the series via the back-cover text/blurb I wrote for this special edition which actually carries both volumes in one lovely new package – with a fantastic cover by an amazingly talented artist:

Retrograde (Vol 1&2) By Akshay Dhar

Publisher: Pop Culture Publishing

In the blink of an eye, humanity is set back centuries and the world itself is battered and torn.
What caused this catastrophe? Was it nature or the hubris of mankind?

In Retrograde, we follow Sheena, Prem, Razza and their small band of survivors as they struggle to stay alive from day to day and keep the hounds of chaos at bay. Facing terrible dangers and loss and not knowing friend from enemy, they must fight to not just live, but to retain their humanity.

This special edition release of the anticipated second volume also includes a bonus reprint of Volume One so you can have the whole story so far – at half the price! – and be you a new reader or a familiar, this is a great place to check out this new saga in the making. Witness in these pages, humanity being pushed to its edge and follow as the mystery of this global calamity starts to reveal itself and lay the ground for future story arcs.

If anyone reading this has either read it or plans to give it a shot, I’d love to hear your thoughts and hopefully the response will continue to be good from readers and I’ll get to keep on telling this story that is now quite dear to me actually.

A “Wanted” style cover (ala J.G. Jones) that I’d wanted, almost went with this one! By series’ artist Avik K. Maitra

Cheers all!