PRESS RELEASE
ComiXology, Amazon’s premier digital comics shopping and reading service, the debuts the first issue of Delver, a 5-part comic book fantasy series co-written by Iron Circus Comics founder C. Spike Trotman and YA author MK Reed, with art by newcomer Clive Hawken. Delver examines modern social issues through the eyes and actions of a young and tenacious teen from a small village who must navigate the uncertain world around her.
“Delver is a fantasy adventure for folks who loved Terry Pratchett’s self-described ‘unimaginative’ approach to world-building; an insistence on asking questions, wanting to know why and how things worked the way they did,” says co-writer C. Spike Trotman. “In my case, Delver is my answer to ‘Where are all these abandoned, treasure-laden dungeons coming from, anyway? And what happens when you unload all that loot in the tiny hamlet down the road?’ It’s for fans of Critical Role, Ursula K. LeGuin novels, and The Adventure Zone. And it’s a story I’ve been wanting to tell for years, and comiXology Originals is the exact place where it would thrive.”
A new twist on the classic fantasy story, Trotman, Reed, and Hawken provide a modern-day allegory in an epic talewithDelver. When the door to a dungeon surfaces in the tiny village of Oddgoat and droves of newcomers arrive, the influx threatens the livelihoods of longtime residents including teen Temerity Aster and her family. As wild magic and gentrification increase, Temerity is forced to make a choice: abandon the only home she’s ever known to carpet baggers and sellswords, or delve into the new and dangerous dungeon below in the hopes of finding unclaimed gold and treasure to support her family.
“Spike and I are the specific kind of nerds who see epic fantasy settings and wonder about the local economy,” says co-writer MK Reed. “Temerity, our main character, is a teen girl stuck in the middle of sudden economic upheaval in her very small town, except that her town’s gold rush also involves giant monsters springing out of the ground. She has no idea how to help her family and neighbors with the man-made crisis above ground, and the adults around her aren’t any better at solving problems. Going into a hole to win riches seems like the most practical solution, even if she’s not really sure how to fight or what to expect inside.”
Announced last year during Comic-Con International San Diego, Delver is part of the comiXology Originals line of exclusive digital content. The first issue of the 5-part series arrives today with each subsequent issue arriving monthly, and is available for members of Prime Reading, Kindle Unlimited, and comiXology Unlimited at no additional cost, and is for sale on comiXology and Kindle for $2.99. The collected edition will be available digitally and on comiXology and Kindle as well as Print-on-Demand exclusively on Amazon.com upon release.
.In addition to being purchasable on comiXology and Amazon, all comiXology Originals titles are also available through Prime Reading, Kindle Unlimited, and comiXology Unlimited. Prime Reading offers Amazon Prime members a rotating selection of over a thousand top Kindle books, magazines, short works, comic books, children’s books, and more all at no additional cost. Kindle Unlimited offers over 1 million titles, thousands of audiobooks, and select current issues of popular magazines for just $9.99 a month with a 30-day free trial at amazon.com/kindleunlimited. ComiXology Unlimited offers over 20,000 comics, graphic novels and manga for just $5.99 a month with a 30-day free trial at comixology.com/unlimited.
For more updates on comiXology Originals, check out http://comixologyoriginals.com and follow comiXology on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
About the Delver Creative Team
C. Spike Trotman is a cartoonist and publisher who was born in DC, raised in MD, and currently resides in Chicago, IL. She likes anchovies, roughhousin’ dogs, and god games. She cohosts the podcast “Dirty Old Ladies.” Iron Circus Comics belongs to her, but she’ll let you hold it if you ask nicely. More: ironcircus.com
MK Reed is the author of the Eisner-nominated Science Comics: Dinosaurs, as well as the graphic novels The Cute Girl Network, NAIBA’s 2012 Carla Cohen Free Speech Award winner and 2011’s American Booksellers for Children’s New Voices title Americus (The first chapter was nominated for an Ignatz for Outstanding Story in 2008 after it appeared in Papercutter #7), and Palefire, and the series The Castoffs. She lives in Portland with her very tall husband. More: mkreed.com
Clive Hawken is a comic artist and illustrator, born and bred in the Pacific Northwest. With energetic mark-making and a distinct figurative style, he draws from his complicated personal narrative as a young, transgender man to create empathetic stories and images. Inspired by all things kitsch and camp, he looks to reinvigorate the aesthetics and ideas of pulp and genre fiction in his work. Clive graduated from the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon in 2017. If he’s not drawing a huge, buff dude right now, he probably will be soon. More: clivehawken.com
About comiXology
ComiXology, an Amazon.com, Inc. subsidiary (NASDAQ:AMZN), is a revolutionary, cloud-based digital comics service. With content from over 125 publishers as well as thousands of independent creators from around the world, comiXology provides an unrivaled library of comic books, graphic novels, manga and bandes dessinées. The company’s first-in-class innovations include the exclusive Guided View technology which provides an immersive and cinematic reading experience and a new monthly subscription service. ComiXology is based in New York City, with operations in Seattle and Los Angeles. For more information, visit comixology.com and follow the company on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr.
About Amazon
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services
pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.
