Answer to the call of The God Machine Vol 1 re:VISION
First published in 2010, The God Machine was the promising debut of a fierce storyteller, writer and illustrator Chandra Free. Fully and beautifully painted from front to back, the graphic novel published by Archaia sold out in full.
Rather than delivering Volume 2, the following years were full of publishing turmoil as Archaia merged with Boom and changed their publishing direction, and rights issues complicated things behind the scenes. Chandra kept busy doing comic book work for Jim Henson’s Fraggle Rock, John Carpenter’s Tales For A Halloween Night and others as well as illustration work for the likes of SyFy.
Free always continued work on The God Machine, a story with a planned 13 volumes, 3 of them fully written and the rest outlined. In 2019, Free created her own publishing entity, Machina Corpse, with her partner Stephen Emond. Free negotiated the rights to The God Machine back from Titan Publishing and is ready to finally move her heart project forward via a Kickstarter for the rerelease of Volume 1 – “The God Machine, Volume 1: Re:VISION.”
“This isn’t a revisit,” Free says regarding the project. “This isn’t closure, or nostalgia, but rather a way to finally move forward. This is a great entry point for a new audience and gives a fresh coat of paint and new content for my existing audience. With a successful campaign, I can finally finish the second volume and build from there.”
Speaking of new content, the rerelease is titled a “Re:VISION” for a reason. “I’ve updated some of the dialogue that hasn’t aged well,” Free says, “as well as adding new scenes, redoing art in places, expanding on characters, and making the full story feel fresh.” In addition to the new text, art, and packaging, there’s a new logo and the book has been relettered in full. In addition, Kickstarter allows her to do things she could never do via traditional publishing.
“This is going to be an event,” Free says. “We’re going to have not just the new hardcover book, but we can have prints, posters, pins, all kinds of fun goodies you can get in one stop. It’ll be a whole new package of God Machine. I hope to make every volume feel special like this.”
The God Machine kickstarter runs until Wednesday, April 7th and is currently half-funded. Visit www.thegodmachine.org for more information including a fun animated launch video starring voice actors James Urbaniak (The Venture Bros) and Dana Swanson (Cartoon Network’s Toonami.)