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The Vi Empire

Created by Ron Marz

A mysterious child. A grizzled veteran. A desperate hunt. A vampire enemy. A galactic war. The collected edition of THE VI EMPIRE!

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Digital reward en route!
over 2 years ago – Thu, Aug 19, 2021 at 09:59:07 PM

Citizens of The Vi Empire!


Just wanted to send a quick note to let you know that the download link for the digital VI EMPIRE will be arriving in your email boxes today. It might even be there before you read this update, who knows?


Enjoy! Thank you for your support and we'll update you when physical fulfillment begins. 


Your pals at Ominous Press/Creation.Ink

August update
over 2 years ago – Fri, Aug 06, 2021 at 12:08:05 AM

Warriors Of The Vi Empire!


We wanted to drop you a quick update and let you know the latest news from the depths of The Vi Empire.


Production of the book is on pace to be finished shortly. Val Semeiks unearthed a treasure trove of original sketches from his archive and those have been beautifully integrated into the back half of the book. We've gone through a proofreading round and our designer is currently implementing several minor notes. We'll get final approval from Max Akbar and from there, the book will go to print.


We anticipate delivery of the digital reward tier next week, simultaneous with the book being sent to print. We should be on course to fulfill the campaign by the end of August if everything goes smoothly at the printer.  We'll keep you updated. 


Thanks for your support on this project. We're excited for everyone to join The Vi Empire!


Your pals at Ominous Press/Creation.Ink  

THANK YOU! Plus... the raffle winner!
almost 3 years ago – Fri, Jun 18, 2021 at 12:35:22 AM

Warriors Of The Vi Empire! 


On behalf of all of us here at Creation.Ink and our sister company, Ominous Press, as well at the creative team of The Vi Empire, allow us to say...


Thank you!


Kickstarter has become an amazing tool to connect creators directly with fans. Thanks to your support, we are absolutely thrilled to be able to bring you this incredible story by Max Akbar, Stuart Moore and Val Semeiks in deluxe hardcover format!


As you know, the artwork for the book is already fully produced.  In a couple of weeks, once Kickstarter transfers the funds to our account, we'll do some final design work and send the book to print. There should be no difficulty at all fulfilling this project in August as planned (but if there is, we'll let you know instantly).


For those of you that pledged for the Ron Marz custom script rewards, thank you! That support went a long way towards making this project happen. Ron will be in touch with you immediately after that same two week window mentioned above to work with you on your projects.  


But wait. Before your eyes gloss over and you move on to reading something besides this update, we've got to choose a winner at random for the raffle.  You remember the raffle, right? The winner receives this cover artwork to The Vi Empire (single issue #4).


The prize!

We went through twitter,  Facebook and Instagram this morning, searching the hashtag #theviempire, and really want to thank all of you that took the time to post and share this project out.  It really make a difference to these campaigns. We're happy to announce that the winner of the raffle is...


John Nacinovich!


Thank you, John. You can expect to receive the artwork along with your book in August. We appreciate your support and hope that playing along with the raffle made the campaign a little more fun for you guys throughout.


We'll be in touch soon to let you know when the book goes to print. 


Thanks again!


Ron Marz and his lackeys at Ominous Press/Creation.Ink

The final countdown
almost 3 years ago – Thu, Jun 17, 2021 at 01:35:20 PM

Warriors Of The Vi Empire!


We have entered the final twenty-four hours of the campaign and, real talk, we're nervous about this project. 


Although The Vi Empire is fully funded, there's a very small 'buffer' keeping us above water.  Several cancels this morning have made that window even smaller.  White knuckles, right? These campaigns can be nerve wracking, to say the least! Suffice to say, we'll be keeping a close eye on things and trying to round up a few more backers over this last stretch to give us some more breathing room. If you guys can help bring in some new blood, so much the better! 


After the hard work we've all put in together over the last month, let's put together one final sprint to the finish line, try not to trip over each other's feet,  and raise our hardcover graphic novels over our heads like Olympic medals as the dust clears and the crowd cheers our names!


Anyone into Dead Beats?

We came across this SUPER COOL project just this morning, while surfing the Kickstarter site, and wanted to give you guys a look too.  A Wave Blue World is one of our favorite indy publishers and their anthologies are always crammed full of talent and incredibly worthy of support.


Dead Beats 2: London Callingis a 160-page full-color anthology of music-themed horror comics centered around the curiosities for sale at one peculiar record store managed by the enigmatic Shoppe Keeper.  That's a pretty cool framing mechanism, right? 

This time around, you're in time for the grand opening of Dead Beats' new London location. The original editors of the first Dead Beats, Joe Corallo (Oh S#!t, It's Kim & Kim, Lost On Planet Earth) and Eric Palicki (All We Ever Wanted, Maybe Someday), are back for more Dead Beats  featuring over twenty new comics stories and more than forty creators. Lisa Sterle (Long Lost, Witchblood) also returns to provide the cover with our interstitial narrative illustrations by Val Halvorson (Finger Guns, The Sequels).

There are fifteen days to go in this campaign, Warriors. If you want to take a closer look and help them reach their goal, you can find Dead Beats 2 right HERE! 


And now back to Vi Empire

Home stretch, team! Let's do this thing. Tune in tomorrow for the last campaign update and let's all find out the winner of our raffle together!


Your pals at Ominous Press/Creation.Ink and that violent thug Ron Marz, who forces us to write these updates upon threat of bodily harm. 

FUNDED!! First stretch goal REVEALED!
almost 3 years ago – Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 02:00:52 PM

Warriors Of The Vi Empire!


We did it!

Thanks to all of you, The Vi Empire has reached its funding goal! As long as nothing goes awry between now and Thursday morning, we're very excited to be able to bring you the deluxe hardcover edition of this great story.  We realize that none of this happens without your support; please know that our gratitude is overwhelming.


We'd love nothing more than to get a little breathing room around that funding goal. Cancels aren't unusual over the final 48 hours of a campaign so we'd like to build a buffer into this campaign JUST IN CASE.  Luckily, that's why the Gods Of Kickstarter invented STRETCH GOALS.


We've had several stretch goals planned out. It seems like there's a good chance we can at least hit the first one so, at FOURTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS, all backers (physical reward tiers) will receive a free print of The Vi Empire's cover art SIGNED BY PAUL PELLETIER

I'll bet Paul signs it over the forehead in the bkgd

So let's put on our rally caps and unlock this goal, shall we? And who knows: if we catch a wave towards the end of this campaign, maybe we'll even unlock stretch goal #2!


Meet the raffle winner!

Thanks to everyone that participated in our raffle yesterday, your extra support went a long way towards getting us to our funding goal this morning.  We put the names of everyone that increased their pledge into a Mets cap, plucked one out at random and the lucky winner is...


Alex Segura.

Thanks for the extra help, Alex. You'll be receiving this Vi Empire splash page along with your hardcover in August!

If you didn't win, don't lose hope. We still have our final raffle on Thursday for those of you that have shared the campaign out on social media. It's not too late to join, by the way. Just pimp a link to the project (bit.ly/theviempire) out and include the hashtag #theviempire for a chance to win the original cover art to the single issue of The Vi Empire #4.


The final raffle prize!

We're almost to the finish line, guys. Thanks for all your help.


Your pals at Ominous Press/Creation.Ink and Ron Marz, who lords over us all.