Epitaph Comic Reboot...

Change is on the way! In fact a sweeping change. Epitaph and all related books will be put on hold until after the film. Since the movie and film are so tightly integrated we our funneling all of our resources into the film. The film will act as an issue #0. But understand there's a method to the madness. Up until now the Epitaph story had been loosely held together based on the pretty random events in "Epitaph: Beginning of the End". The series was based around Victor Locke, but looking over future scripts and stories we've decided that there could be more character realization. Simply put that means better writing. Victor is supposed to have his own series which would relegate "Epitaph" to a book of tightly interwoven stories that effect the NPP Universe as a whole. 

The "Epitaph" comics will be written and move more like a novelized film. If the film is issue #0 the continuity should flow from issue #0. The characters will remain the same but the issues of continuity will have to be solved. The "Beginning of the End" story, (which was originally penned in 2007 or 2008) will serve as a basis for who the characters are and what they're about. But we're going to try to make this thing something long lasting.

If you want to lunch a universe (Marvel, DC, Image, ect) you have to work with full stories and that can be built on. The purpose of "Epitaph" series is to be able to build. Each character being rich in depth and having rooted motivations. Epitaph was never slated to be an ongoing series. It was a collection of mini-series that spun off of other books. We plan to continue down that path, but everything will be tighter in the future. Currently the "Beginning of the End" book, which the movie is actually based around in some ways, is still (loosely) in the continuity and will hopefully be a great collector's item someday.

Trailer for Bread and Salt

Check out the first teaser trailer for the "Epitaph: Bread and Salt" movie. See the HD Teaser here.

Epitaph: Bread and Salt Movie in Production

The wait is over. The Nathyn Brendan Masters film "Epitaph: Bread and Salt" based on our series is in full production. As of now the production is well into the first few scenes including a fight between Victor and a day roaming demon named Satsu.

Nathyn told me this was "the most fun film" he's ever made," He's moving into the next scenes this Friday as they shoot a scene with Victor and Cassie before she becomes Zombie Girl. By this time next week they should have another battle scene down. Nathyn wants to have a rough trailer by the end of the month.

Masters plans to use the Epitaph franchise to open the whole Night Phoenix Press Universe up via films. He said "It's kind of like what Marvel's doing but we're staying truer to the stories because the stories are actually connected to the comics, not just merchandising for the comics."

So if all goes well the movie should be done with principal photography by the end of the year and finished by March of 2011. We're hoping for it and hoping to move forward with the actually books ASAP.

IndyPlanet Back in Business!!!!

Indy comic store IndyPlanet is back in business! As you know hackers got to their servers and took down all the sites for a whole week. Now IP is back with a slicker site and all new titles. Our store is also back up, but we will continues to give out freebies of the Epitaph "Abiding Lilith" and "Beginning of the End" titles considering the great response. We hop those that downloaded enjoyed those issues, the physical copy of "Abiding Lilith" should be out very soon. "Begining of the End" is available now in our NEW IndyPlanet Store. You may also click on the link to the left to get to the store.

FREE COPIES OF EPITAPH COMIC BOOKS!

In the wake of the IP store being hacked we are giving away free copies of our horror/action comics Epitaph: Beginning of the End #0 and Epitaph: Abiding Lilith. If you'd like a free copy, please feel free to download it. They will be available until one of our stores is up and functioning, so get it now.

These are good to have because they lead in to the "Darksiders" limited series. You'll want to read "Beginning of the End" first and then "Abiding Lilith". Could there be an Abiding Lilith #2 on the way? Only time will tell. Also a new Epitaph comic will be hitting the web next month. You'll know more about that one soon as well as see some advance full color art from "Epitaph: The Darksiders #1" via break out artist Joseph Canave and our beloved colorist Kayla Swain, so stay tuned.

Both stores should be up and available in a few days, giving you choice as to which vendor you'd prefer to buy from as well as acting as a back up in case something like this occurs in the future.

If you'd like to join us on Facebook click our link in the "NPP Style" section or to join our Facebook group for the upcoming movie click here. You may be Zombie Girl in the Epitaph prequel movie "Bread and Salt".

Ka-Blam: Rising Like a Phoenix...

As you know IndyPlanet and it's parent site Ka-Blam was hit by hackers a night ago. While IP is still down Ka-Blam is up and working. With this being the case "Epitaph: Abiding Lilith #1" has yet to be made available, but was in the system. The next Epitaph book should be out sometime next month. Current NPP titles should available in the next few days once this is cleared up.

Ka-Blam is keeping people abreast of what's happening via their website. According to their blog, "...some time in the early morning hours our sites were hacked. We’re not sure how they got in or what they were really trying to accomplish other than cause mischief.

Which they did in abundance.

Thankfully — and luckily for us –they also seem to have been somewhat inept. They left their mark on EVERY php and html file on more than a dozen domains, but they also left a pretty obvious trail behind and it doesn’t appear they did any irreparable harm. Still, Thomas and I have both spent the entire day combing through file after file, line by line, deleting the malicious additions made to our code.

We’re still checking, but it appears that we’ve got Ka-Blam.com clean once again. You may still, however, see a malicious site warning from your browser. My understanding is that those can linger until lifted by the third parties that impose them. We’re looking into that now.

In the meantime, we do believe that Ka-Blam is clean once again but if you should come across an sql error please let us know.

IndyPlanet and ComicsMonkey are both still down. We’ll be working on cleaning those all weekend I’m sure. We apologize for the inconvenience and beg your patience."

Apparently it was also discovered that the hacking attack came from Chinese hackers (or at least someone in China) and the attack seems to be very random. In a blog response Ka-Blam's Barry Gregory strongly advises to "stay away" from IndyPlanet and Comics Monkey until further notice.

Night Phoenix Press IP Store Hacked

Hackers! At some point last night hackers got the best of IndyPlanet. For those who don't know IP is where our online store is housed. The site has been down now for more than twelve hours and is being blocked by google as an attack site.

It seems hackers have been trying to put malicious software on IP and left the number #1 seller of indy comics fighting to get back online again. This attack took out "Ka-blam" their printing site and "Comicsmonkey" their distribution site set up for comic brick and mortar comic stores to order titles sold through them.

This sucks extra hard because it's comic-con season and they've been working hard to get various people's books out to them in time for the cons. The good thing is I don't think this is affecting their actual printing, just their site.

But stay tuned for more information. Hopefully we will be back up and running soon. We have a back up store at ComiXpress but it has yet to go online.