SPIRIT GUILD: Original Series Made by 'Dromers, Influenced by TMNT
 

Hello fellow TMNT fans,

I am posting in hopes that you have a spare moment to check out an original fantasy/historical fiction comic book miniseries called SPIRIT GUILD, created by myself (words), Pedro Lajud (art), and Eduardo Camacho (letters). Pedro (pl212 here) and I met on the Technodrome forums, and started our collaboration by writing TMNT fan fiction steeped in the original Mirage timeline - some of you might have read our DONATELLO: DARK ENERGY series. Well, in 2010, we decided to start work on an original series featuring our own anthropomorphic characters, and have tirelessly worked on this concept since then. We are finally ready to show our end-product to the public. While our title is certainly influenced by Eastman & Laird's TMNT on the surface, our real connection to the Turtles in SPIRIT GUILD is the exploration of the bonds of brotherhood, and what it takes to stand united in opposition to evil.

SPIRIT GUILD takes place on Long Island, New York in 1776 and follows four gifted spirit warriors from planet Rancientia—BLAKEN, MARSTON, ROWEN, and SEDDUS—against PAN, a powerful Rancientian spirit who possessed the body of a British officer on Earth. The cunning Pan plans to rule the planet by reaping its energies and controlling its inhabitants. The four warriors take long-tailed weasels as earthly hosts and develop grand powers in their new bodies to counter Pan and his apocalyptic vision for Earth.

The below image is taken from page 9 of Issue #1, and showcases our heroes in all their glory (top left: MARSTON, bottom left: ROWEN, top right: BLAKEN, bottom right: SEDDUS):


You can read the first nine pages of issue #1, along with in-depth historical/setting details and character biographies, directly on our website - http://www.spiritguildseries.com. We would love to get the opinions and support of fellow TMNT fans. After all, the Turtles spawned our love of reading and creating comics. Drop us a line and let us know what you think! Thank you for reading.

Sincerely,
Matthew

I love the period and the concept so I will let Rambo give the verdict.
http://justsomething.co/wp-content/u...umbs-up-20.jpg

Thanks, my friend! Rambo is hard to please, so this is good news. :D

Friendly bump, if anyone is interested.

Giving this a bump :)

Gave this a read this morning.

Neat concept! Story marries well with the art style as well.

Panel layouts were easy to follow and thoughtfully laid out.

The writing and dialogue definitely evokes the feeling of reading a bunch of 80s indy comics (the art also helps in this) I recall reading growing up.

If I had a gripe, it'd probably be it lacks a little heart. For 9 pages, you basically have a Devil saying "Hi, I'm the Devil", soldiers shooting each other, and then your four lead characters talking about how they plan to kill humans. It's a pretty cold place to begin with.

But all in all, I enjoyed what I read and it looks quite slick and polished :) Keep it up man!

Thanks a bunch, glad you enjoyed it!

Here's an image with heart :D Marston in a field of flowers:
http://i66.tinypic.com/sw71v9.jpg

Hi Krutch,

Thank you very much for reading our demo issue, and for your kind words. It is sincerely appreciated. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I grew up reading most likely those same 80s-90s indy comics, so I'm also pleased that my love for those books came across in the tale.

1776 Long Island was indeed a cold, dangerous place. I have my Master's in History and am a published historian on Long Island in the American Revolution (if interested, see: "Richard Floyd IV: Long Island Loyalist"), and so I did my best to establish our fantasy characters amid an accurate historical backdrop.

As for the heart - it's coming, as Pedro showed! If you're interested, PM me your email address and I will send you the PDF of our full eighteen page demo issue. We only released the first nine on the website.

Thanks again!

Hi everyone,

Pedro & I are working on a Spirit Guild short. We'll post it here when we're done.