Welcome to the inaugural LB Bulletin, the newsletter for Limit Break Comics. This month, we’re celebrating our 5th birthday! If you’re a new reader of our work, you might like to read up on our history as a collective/publisher. After all that time, and after three large anthology projects, we’re finally starting our monthly newsletter.

We began as a trio, and were joined by a fourth member last year. We are:

• Paul Carroll - writer, runs a lot of the operations for the group
• Gareth Luby - artist, cover designs and comic interiors
• Gary Moloney - writer, law-talking guy
• Seamus Kavanagh - writer, runs panels on making comics

Our doors are never quite shut, so who knows - maybe someday we’ll be introducing another full member of the team!

In the meantime, this issue of the LB Bulletin is going to look at upcoming events we’ll be attending, updates on existing projects, news on upcoming releases, and a wee look at the other stuff we’re doing and reading. Let’s dive in!

Upcoming Events

We keep a record of all the events we’ve been to and what’s coming up in the future on our website. The next one for us is Small Press Day in Forbidden Planet Dublin.

Paul will be repping the group at the event, with a mish-mash of our available titles on the table. This includes: Turning Roads, Down Below, Meouch #1 and #2, Old Game Plus #1 and Limit Break Presents #1. And a new release. (Keep reading below!)

Limit Break began at a Small Press Day event, officially in 2018 and socially in 2017. (Paul and Gareth met Gary for the first time, and kept him.) Since and including the 2018 event, Paul has worked with Forbidden Planet Dublin to organise its SPD event every year.

A week later, Seamus will be running a panel at Dublin Comic Con, interviewing Triona Farrell and Declan Shalvey about their journeys from small press comics to the big leagues.

The time is to be confirmed by the folks at DCC - keep an eye on our socials for exact details when we have them.

Paul will also be at Dublin Comic Con, representing Octocon, the National Irish Science Fiction Convention. Pop along and say hi, and feel free to ask about Octocon and/or Limit Break Comics while you’re there!

Book News!

Mr & Mrs Van Helsing

It wouldn’t be an inaugural newsletter without some big news, would it?

Late last year, the Kickstarter for Mr & Mrs Van Helsing ran short of its goal. Not ones to give up, we’re championing the book and bringing it into existence to launch at Small Press Day on August 5th.

The book is an all-ages action-adventure-horror, following Mr Bela and Mrs Erzabet Van Helsing on their journey across a fantastical land, seeking work as monster hunters! Their adventure leads them to the gruesome massacre of some locals, and a dreadful beast roaming the lands of a suspicious nobleman.

Fractured Realms

Work is nearing completion on the majority of the stories in Fractured Realms. Our Norse Horror anthology is the third in the myth-anthology series, and brings with it its own set of wondrous art separated by small obstacles to overcome. Here are some sneak previews from the comics we’ve received so far:

Meouch

Meouch #3 is officially underway! The script is with Gareth, tying up the story of The Nine Lives. When it’s all complete, the issue will have a limited print run. We’ll have more details on that when we get closer to the release, and some previews of the art along the way.

Intro to Comics Tip

We’ve been publishing comics since July 2018, and now find ourselves in the position of offering advice to new creators at conventions. Each month, one of the team will be giving an insight into the lessons they’ve learned along the way. To get us started, we have Gary and the craft of thumbnailing while writing.

The first tip I want to talk about is something I picked up from a course that PJ Holden (of 2000AD fame) gave a number of years ago on making comics. There were a mix of artists and writers in the group so he approached it by taking us through each stage of the comic creation process from script to layouts and all the way down to lettering. You may find in the weeks to come that we recall PJ's words of wisdom a lot around here. What can we say, the man knows his craft.

One of the key things he thought every writer should do before sending their script to an artist was to do very rough thumbnails to ensure that what they were asking was actually possible. This didn't need to be anything fancy, stick-figures and blank word balloons would suffice. Crucially, these thumbnails weren't to be done with an audience in mind or the idea that anyone other than the writer would see them. It was solely an exercise for the writer to be able to look at the page and to act as an aid in helping them assess whether they were asking too much of an artist. By essentially putting together draft layouts, a writer should be able to tell if they are overloading the page with dialogue or whether there is enough space for all the panels and action called for in the script.

As long as the story passes this test, then ultimately it doesn't matter if the artist comes back with a vision that's different than the writer's. In an ideal collaboration, that's exactly what should happen. But this practice trains writers to be contentious collaborators and can help them identify issues with their script at a point where they are most easily fixed. Sometimes, the one way to figure out why a page isn’t working is to draw it out yourself.

Try it out, you may find it helps to tighten up your writing and find the right rhythm. I certainly have.

Art Drop

Our collective is made up of writers and artists. Each month, we want to show you some of the artwork that the team are working on to give you an insight into the people behind the comics.

Gareth Luby’s ‘Captain Pike’

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What We’re Reading

Every month, we’ll give you an insight into what we’re reading in the great big world of comics. This month, Seamus tells us about Briar, from Boom! Studios.

This is a reimagining of Sleeping Beauty, with the angle that Briar Rose doesn’t wake up as intended but instead many, many years later to a completely changed world. It’s a dark tale for sure as the happy fairly-tale world expected becomes a broken and mean place.

Briar Rose begins the tale as expected, with her fairy-tale like innocence, but soon learns to adapt to the world and changes around. I’ll use the word “mean” again as that’s what shines through in each of the 4 issues; mean characters, mean situations and even the “hero” characters can be mean to one another. In a strange way however, it does work. There’s humour in places, a world worth exploring and characters you will care about. The artwork, colouring and lettering work together very well to make the fantasy world fit and all in, I enjoyed the 4 issues within this mini-series.

And that's it from us! We hope you've enjoyed our very first newsletter as a collective. Let us know what you've liked, and if you'll be popping along to Small Press Day to pick up a copy of Mr & Mrs Van Helsing!

Until next time!
The LB Team

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