#rosalynd

Would you do a Calbiorn!Rose please? He's my favorite Homestuck character TBH.

In which, Rosaborn is looking to ascend

It took Selena a few minutes to recognize Rose’s face staring back at her, and by then, the surprise of being in someone else’s body had worn off.  Rose was one of those people she knew, but hadn’t interacted with as much as she would have liked.  In fact, she could count on one hand the times they’d talked directly, with fingers to spare.  And two of those were during events where each of them were busy.

The black-haired, Canthan man that had been sharing Rose’s bed was someone Selena didn’t recognize at all, and she took care not to wake him.  Rose’s body was pretty normal, save for a pair of tattoos and some runes made up of scar tissue.  Those interested her, and a sketch was made for studying later. 

A note was pinned to the front door:  “Visiting sick relatives, call another time.”  Not realizing that Rose’s position had changed, Sel also sent off a letter to the Ministry indicating she’d have to take a brief, unexpected leave of absence. And with that, she headed to her - Selena’s - home.   

She knew she was going to receive flak for going to Beetletun with the ongoing crisis in Tyria. Those back at the Refuge would obviously worry once she didn’t make it home. But she didn’t mind. She’d just send assurances over the communicator when it came that she didn’t travel alone and wasn’t staying in town alone. No, it was thanks to Minister Havashem that she had a place to spend the night.

She sighed as she sipped the last of her lemon tea. She knew the position she was in. No matter what, someone would always say her choice was in the wrong or something along those lines. Staying in the Refuge meant people would call you out for abandoning your home. Going home meant people would call you out for jeopardizing your safety and the safety of your family.

Her mind jumped back to the thoughts of those at home. And she decided she would preempt the fears. So she grabbed her communicator and sent a simple message to those all the way out west:

Rosalynd Havashem has arrived in the Sims! - Christina Hendricks

For those not familiar with the series (like myself until I read it), it’s about a a vampire hunter (Rosalyn) who just happens to be a descendant of Professor Abraham Van Helsing, with the story taking place 30 years after Van Helsing visited Dracula’s castle with Rosalyn teaming up with some con-men to rob rich vampires in Europe.

More information as well as art is below courtesy of their press release.

The Russ Manning Award-nominated SILVER Graphic Novel Series Concludes

The Fourth and Final Volume of Stephan Franck’s Graphic Novel Caper About

The Search for Dracula’s Lost Treasure is Now on Kickstarter

Stephan Franck has worked on some of the most beloved animated films of all time, including The Iron Giant, How to Train Your Dragon and Despicable Me —and his passion for storytelling extends from the silver screen to comic books and graphic novels. Over the course of the last four years, Franck has been writing, illustrating and self publishing SILVER, a globe-trotting graphic novel series that mashes up the world of Bram Stoker’s classic novel Dracula with action, adventure, humor, pulp storytelling and modern sensibilities. Told over the course of 4 volumes (and a stand alone novella), Franck has created an unforgettable cast and a compelling caper that picks up 30 years after Professor Abraham Van Helsing visited Dracula’s castle. Now Van Helsing’s descendant, the mysterious vampire hunter Rosalyn, is teaming up with a ragtag group of con men for a high stakes heist to rob Europe’s richest vampires. Will they succeed, and live off their take from this one last job? All will be revealed in the fourth and final volume of SILVER, which Franck and his company Dark Planet Comics are funding via a Kickstarter campaign.

In SILVER, a group of criminals discover the late Jonathan Harker’s secret ledger, which discloses the existence of an exotic treasure of silver hidden in Dracula’s castle. Finnigan, the group’s leader, knows a retirement plan when he sees it, so he’s willing to do whatever it takes to pull off the biggest heist of the last ten centuries—even if that means allying himself with the mysterious, sword-wielding vampire hunter Sledge, aka Rosalind Van Helsing.

  This year, Dark Planet Comics released a Free Comic Book Day Edition of the first issue of SILVER. “My hope is that fans who love old-fashioned storytelling that’s chock full of action and adventure, mystery and humor, discover SILVER in time to be a part of the epic finale.” The series has already attracted the notice of comic book creators including Tim Sale, Bill Sienkiewicz and Jim Lee, and has been widely praised with coverage from an array of outlets including NPR, THE NERDIST, HORROR NEWS NETWORK, NEWSARAMA and COMICON.

Fans who back the new Kickstarter can get digital editions, all four trade paperbacks individually, a signed slipcase featuring all four trade paperbacks, the acclaimed novella ROSALYND, an audiobook of ROSALYND and limited edition prints by or done in collaboration with three incredible artists: Marvel comics and Kickstarter sensation Takeshi Miyazawa (Ms.Marvel, Spiderman, Code Monkey Saves World), animator and bandes dessinées artist Rodolphe Guenoden (Kung Fu Panda, Ma Reverence), and superstar illustrator Mel Milton.

  When he’s not writing and drawing comics, Franck is an Executive Producer and the Head of Story for the PLAYMOBIL Movie for Lionsgate. Previously, he worked as a supervising animator on the cult classic film THE IRON GIANT and as a key story contributor to DESPICABLE ME. Franck also co-created the award-winning animated TV Series CORNEIL & BERNIE (Nicktoons, Hub Network), and received an Annie Award nomination for Best Director in a TV Program, for the special SMURFS: THE LEGEND OF SMURFY HOLLOW.

If funded through Kickstarter, pledges will be delivered to backers this fall. The SILVER Volume 4 Kickstarter campaign (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/darkplanetcomics/345093214?ref=492299&token=9308655b) is live as of May 22nd and runs for 30 days.

For updates, follow Dark Planet Comics on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

This is what people are saying about Stephan Franck’s SILVER:

“Writer/artist Stephan Franck is firing on all cylinders…. Stylish black-and-white art, and a smart, charmingly roguish point-of-view-character draw you in.” —  NPR

“With SILVER, Stephan Franck shows how much excitement can be packed into a fast-moving, thrill-filled story… a really, really fun ride.”—Tim Sale (Batman: The Long Halloween)

“Stunning.”—NEWSARAMA

“SILVER is so big, bold, and juicy! I absolutely love this book!” — Bill Sienkiewicz (Elektra: Assassin)

“Spun out of Bram Stoker’s literary classic Dracula, SILVER retains the original novel intact at its core, while extending its world in every possible direction.” — HORROR NEWS NETWORK

“Great book!”—Jim Lee (Batman)

“A beautifully drawn and masterfully told noir/heist story with a teasing side of the supernatural that constantly kept me surprised”—Takeshi Miyazawa (Ms. Marvel)

“Franck knows his customers, what they expect, and he gives it to them in spades.”—AIN’T IT COOL NEWS

“SILVER has all of the elements you crave and with a story that you’ll simply devour.”—David Gallaher (High Moon)

“May be the ultimate gothic noir comic saga.”—COMICON

“Impressive. A Mignola-esque reshuffling of history with a fanciful legerdemain that keeps the story light on its toes.—Samuel Sattin (Legend)

“You’ve seen adaptations and re-imaginings of author Bram Stoker’s seminal work Dracula, but never quite like this. Writer and artist Stephan Franck has taken the Dracula mythos and the foundation that Stoker built to create a unique yarn of horror and heist in his story Silver. The conceit sees an Ocean’s 11-esque caper that has con men and women eyeing the ultimate score: treasure from Dracula’s castle.”—FREAK SUGAR

“There may not be a better original vampire comic book in America than SILVER.”—COMIC BOOK BIN

ABOUT SILVER: VOLUME 1 (2014):

1931, New York City. Meet Finnigan, ethically challenged master-thief, and his partners in crime Mullins and Brantley, as they rob the mysterious Harker foundation. What was supposed to be their last job turns into a narrow escape from the FBI, and Finn loses the team’s retirement money. However, Finn discovers a mysterious ancient silver bar, and the late Jonathan Harker’s secret ledger, which discloses the existence of a fabulous treasure made of silver, hidden away in Dracula’s castle. Finn assembles a crew of talented but broken misfits to pull off the heist of the last ten centuries. On top of Mullins and Brantley, the team includes Rosalynd “Sledge” Van Helsing, who continues the family tradition, but has fallen on hard times, Hamilton Morley, a washed out burlesque actor/con man, Maitre Moineaux, an old forger who may not live long enough to see the job through, and Tao, a ten year old boy with the gift of second sight.

ABOUT SILVER: VOLUME 2 (2015):

The team boards the Orient Express, which is filled with Vampires travelling to Dracula’s castle. Romantic tension builds between Finn and Sledge, but she may have an ulterior motive for being on the team. We also learn more about Finn’s broken past, as it quickly becomes clear that Tao needs a role-model in Finn…something that Finn is not equipped to provide. Nonetheless, the team succeeds in pulling off the first steps of the plan in spite of Hamilton having a panic attack at the worst possible time. The team reaches the castle, and we find a powerful, but broken Drac, who never got over the loss of Mina Harker. For years, Drac has been in a funk–caught between his morbid obsession for the Heart Of The Dragon (the missing silver bar stolen by Harker) and his feelings for Mina, which are still haunting him. To pacify his subjects and prove he’s moved on, Drac has agreed to take a bride. Lillian Duvalier, a cruel and ambitious vampire princess is scheming to become the one, adding even more intrigue and volatility to the situation. As volume 2 ends, Finn and crew have managed to infiltrate the court, passing themselves as vampires, and successfully baited Dracula with a chance to regain the coveted Heart Of The Dragon.

ABOUT SILVER: VOLUME 3 (2017)

Silver Vol 3: The con is now in full swing and James Finnigan’s uniquely talented band of grifters is deep undercover. But talent comes at a price. Secrets and agendas emerge, and characters are pushed past their breaking points. While Finnigan struggles to keep his team on track, thrilling action, suspense, and drama ensues in the most intense and gothic volume yet.

ABOUT SILVER: VOLUME 4 (2018)

Everything ends.

About ROSALYND:

Rosalynd is a one-shot 244-page hardcover novella which dives deeper into the Silver Universe, and explores the mysterious past of one of Silver’s most beloved characters: Rosalynd “Sledge” Van Helsing as a child. Secrets about her family will be revealed, as well as young Rosalynd’s first-person account of the events that put her on the road to becoming the acerbic vampire-hunter from Silver that we know and love. This earnestly moving story is great whether you are already fan of Silver, or new to Rosalynd as a character.

ABOUT STEPHAN FRANCK:

Stephan Franck was a supervising animator on the cult classic THE IRON GIANT, a key story contributor to DESPICABLE ME. He co-created the award-winning animated TV Series CORNEIL & BERNIE (Nicktoons, Hub Network), and received an Annie Award nomination for Best Director in a TV Program, for the special SMURFS: THE LEGEND OF SMURFY HOLLOW, the first ever hand-drawn version of the beloved characters done at a feature-animation quality level. Stephan has worked for all the major feature animation studios as a supervising animator, story artist, writer and director, and has closely collaborated with talents as diverse as George Lucas and Adam Sandler. In addition to being attached to several features in development, Franck is currently Head of Story for the PLAYMOBIL movie for Lionsgate and lives in Los Angeles.

In 2013, Stephan reconnected with his lifelong passion for comics by creating the graphic novel series SILVER. Three years later, with two collected editions out, and a third one on the way, SILVER has connected with a very diverse and devoted fan-base, garnered glowing reviews from blogs big and small, nabbed a nomination for the prestigious Russ Manning Award at SDCC 2014, a 2015 Geekie Awards nomination for Best Graphic Novel, landed on ComiXology Submit’s ESSENTIAL READS list.

WHAT IS ROSALYND?!

Rosalynd is a one-shot 244-page Hard cover which dives deeper into the Silver Universe, and explores the mysterious past of one of Silver’s most beloved characters: Rosalynd “Sledge” Van Helsing. Secrets about her family will be revealed, as well as Rosalynd’s first-person account of the events that put her on the road to becoming the  acerbic vampire-hunter from Silver that we know and love.

Whether you are already fan of Silver, or discovering Rosalynd as a brand new character, you will enjoy this story that is both earnestly moving, and Pulp to the max!

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DEEPER INTO THE SILVER UNIVERSE

Sometimes, a story just wants to be told. It doesn’t care if you have other plans or an already busy schedule. It burns its way through your psyche until you have no choice but to just let it out into the world. That’s what happened to me with ROSALYND.

One of my favorite sequences in Silver Vol. 3 is a flashback. Sledge gets into a trance and is taken back to her childhood’s defining moment—the moment that changed her life forever. Because I wanted to immerse the reader in her surreal experienced, I treated those pages in a style different from the rest of the book—a more deconstructed, stream of consciousness approach. By the time the sequence was completed, a door had been opened into the past, and into this character. And I wanted more.

After months of mental build-up, it all came out as a fever dream. Most of ROSALYND was created during one single business trip out of town, during which I ended up steealing every possible moment, and not leaving my hotel room for entire days of non-stop writing and drawing. I came back from that trip with almost a hundred pages of text and art. It was as if I—just like Sledge herself—had gone into a trance. And something really unexpected happened. Rosalynd became even more personal to me than I thought was ever possible.

THE META FICTION (I WAS NOT EXPECTING TO WRITE) 

My maternal family were “wandering Jews” from Bessarabia–the East just beyond the East that Bram Stoker writes about—who fled across Europe throughout the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th, and who practiced the dark arts of vodka-making, professional gambling, and dentistry. Theirs was a life perpetually lived as strangers, never knowing when the community they had just settled into would eventually turn on them. And it always did. Yet, they managed to find happiness in family life, during the brief moments that History would allow. And like Van Helsing, my grandfather’s name was Abraham—Abram, actually in the original spelling. He was a badass in his own right too, who escaped from Auschwitz TWICE.  And so just like that, the Van Helsings became a family like mine–only with one extra dark art  of vampire hunting. And maybe, over time, the hunter would have become the haunted and they would have found themselves a family on the run, hoping that if they didn’t attract attention from the living, maybe the dead would forget about them too.

Following my grandparents’ deportation (from which Abram returned but Sara never did), my mother (then 9) and her siblings became “hidden children,” and, often left to their own devices, lived many adventures, in which the evils of the world were processed through the eyes of children. My mother’s childhood accounts of her family being torn apart, a testimony to the whimsical yet unsentimental resilience of children, also somehow became the story of Rosalynd Van Helsing.

Lastly, on an even closer note, Rosalynd is about the special magic of sisterhood. I have three wonderful children, and two of them are daughters. Not only are they incredibly powerful young women, but they are SISTERS. So of course, Rosalynd and her sister Bernice are them. I mean, of course, they are not them. But they are THEM. You know what I mean. They’re them.

Also take a look at select preview pages from the current Kickstarter for Silver Volume 3:

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Support the Kickstarter HERE

A Haunting European History – ‘Rosalynd’ Is Added To Gothic Heist Story Silver’s Campaign

  Today, Comicon.com is happy to announce that the campaign for the vampire heist tale Silver has expanded in a surprising way, adding another original graphic novel to the project. The newly added book is not a stretch goal for the crowdfunded work of Silver Volume 3, but simply an extra based on the attention the project has received and the support from loyal fans of the series. The newly…