Empire of Blood* is an ambitious comic book project that’s been cooling on the famous ice lately. We have the artwork for the first issue finished and we’ve basically shown the project to every decent publisher out there. Historical stuff is too tough a sell, they say, and Jelena’s unconventional b/w style is apparently also a tough sell in the mainstream market. Let’s agree to disagree, then. We have plans for Empire of Blood, yet haven’t nailed all the details down. The empire will come, in the near future, in the future or in the further away future.

What we have decided, and are extremely happy will come true, is for Gaspar to finish hand-lettering (!) that first issue. In case you don’t know who Gaspar Saladino is, go wiki! We were so fortunate to be able to work with Gaspar for our pitch package, where he hand-lettered (again!) the first 12 pages of our massive 36-page initial issue. His lettering and Jelena’s artwork are a match made in some graphic art heaven.

Now we’ll soon have the rest of the issue “lettered up” and the next piece for world dominion will fall into place. We’d love some help from a publisher, of course – but we aren’t afraid of doing it ourselves.

Here are a couple of double-spreads lettered by the legend himself.

If you want to read our initial issue once we have it lettered and ready, e-mail me and I’ll send you a PDF.

*Empire of Blood is created by me, Michael DeShane and Jelena Djordjevic.