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New Year, New Horizons: Welcome to Clash Studios!

February 04, 2025

I know this is very late, but Happy New Year! With the new year come new plans—here’s what I’ve got lined up for you to enjoy.

This year, I’m committed to building the Clash brand. Our legal company name is Clash Digital Publishing LLC, but from here on out, we’ll be doing business as Clash Studios. Why the change? I believe that at the heart of our company is art—and that’s what studios do (at least, in my opinion).

Over the past four years of writing and producing Terminus Veil, I’ve discovered just how much I love this work. Whether it’s collaborating with artists and editors on the books, working with my talented wife on fresh t-shirt and jacket designs, or attending conventions and meeting comic book fans from all over, every experience has been a joy. I’ve always envisioned a Terminus Veil video game, and I definitely want to be hands-on with that project. This summer, I had the opportunity to work with my incredible art team to produce a captivating Terminus Veil animation accompanied by an amazing musical score. All of these experiences have reinforced my desire to create artwork across various mediums—and that’s what I plan for Clash Studios to do.

I’ve been quiet this January because I needed time to really understand what Clash Studios stands for as a company. For a while, I’ve held three core values:

High-quality artwork
Action-based stories
Diverse characters

These values remain important, but I wanted to dig deeper to truly resonate with you and others like you. This month, I immersed myself in learning about branding and how to set our company apart. I’ve developed a range of internal branding content—including our Brand Purpose, Mission, Vision, Values, and Story. I won’t share all of it just yet, as I’d like to step back and refine it with fresh eyes, but I’m very excited about what we’ve produced so far.

All of this means that the projects I mentioned in earlier emails are getting closer. Going forward, this newsletter will be Clash-focused rather than solely Terminus Veil-focused. Don’t worry—I’ll still cover Terminus Veil, but I’ll also introduce new titles. In pre-production right now are Phantom Rites and Gang Land, Demon Time; I plan to finish their scripts in February and March.

Kickstarter Update

Delio Diaz and Frank Alpizar have been hard at work. Issue 5 is complete and will be printed once Issue 6 and Badia’s Gambit are finished. Delio is nearly done with Issue 6’s line art—a significant milestone, since the coloring, lettering, and formatting processes usually move faster than the line art phase. Frank is about halfway through the line art for Badia’s Gambit, which makes sense given that it’s a 40-page story compared to Issue 6’s 22 pages. I expect that within the next week, we’ll begin the flat coloring process for Issue 6. That should keep us on track to have Issue 6 done by early March and Badia’s Gambit completed sometime in April.

Black History Month

In honor of Black History Month, I’ll be dedicating some time to reading works by the late comic book icon Dwayne McDuffie. I received the Milestone Compendium Volume 1 as a Christmas gift, and it feels like the perfect time to dive into it. I also hope to explore other historic black comics—if you have any suggestions, please let me know. Additionally, I recently watched a fantastic movie called The Banker, starring Anthony Mackie, Nia Long, and Samuel Jackson. The film follows Joe Morris (Jackson) and Bernard Garrett (Mackie), two of the first African-American bankers in the United States, and I highly recommend it. This year, it feels more important than ever to celebrate Black History—especially after witnessing some truly disturbing moments (like someone making a Nazi salute on MLK Day during the Presidential Inauguration). WTF!

Talk to you again soon!