First, a quick word on The Black Coat: Or Give Me Death. As many of you saw, last month we made the tough call to cancel that campaign as we weren’t on track to hit our goal. To our dedicated supporters: Thank you. Your generosity hasn’t gone unnoticed. We aren’t giving up on the book—we’re retooling for a relaunch later this year. CLICK HERE to read the full official update.

The Big Announcement: Hero of Alexandria is LIVE on Kickstarter!

While one door closed, another swung wide open. 14 years ago, I created a series for Ape Entertainment called Hero of Alexandria. I wrote 4 issues and it was filled to the brim with incredible, groundbreaking artwork by Roberto Ali, a backstory drawn by the amazing Dean Kotz, and all topped off with the mesmerizing color work of Diego Rodriguez. It was magnificent! A dream project. 

However, due to some unfortunate circumstances, only the first issue saw print. And even then it was a very limited run. (I don’t even have a copy!) For years, the rest of this story—over 75 pages of stunning, never-before-seen artwork—has been locked away.

Until now.

The wait is finally over. The Hero of Alexandria Kickstarter campaign is officially LIVE!

BACK THE CAMPAIGN NOW

High-Tier Highlights

We have some incredible rewards waiting for you, including:

• The 6″ Statuette and Pin reward tier
• The Creator Edition Variant – this digital version features the script and inked artwork for the first chapter of the book.
• Our “All-In” tier featuring every reward
• Add-On: Limited Edition 11×17 Prints featuring gallery-quality art by Roberto Ali.
• The Subscriber Bonus: If you’re on our mailing list, backing any physical tier automatically gets you the exclusive HOA embroidered patch for free!

Let’s Make History!

This story has been “lost” for over a decade. Today, with your help, we finally bring it to life.

Head over to the page, check out the rewards, share the link with 2 friends, and let’s hit our goal together!

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE KICKSTARTER PAGE

See you in Alexandria,

-Ben

The Black Coat: To Die But Once #2

Now that the campaign for “To Die But Once” #1 was successful and has been completed, it’s time to talk about TDBO #2! On that front, we have good news, some “just news,” and then more good news. The good news is that the scripts are written and the team is in place. Dean is set to pencil and ink and Juan is on board for colors. That’s half the battle. So we’re excited to announce that we will be doing a campaign for issue 2 as soon as possible. 

The “just news” part is that, for several reasons, including tax stuff and conflicting schedules and what-not, “as soon as possible” won’t be until Jan. 2026. We don’t mean to disappoint anyone and we hate to continue begging your patience, but that’s the nature of this self-publishing world we’re living in. We’d love to do it right away, but y’know… life and stuff. That said, January will be here before we know it.

The more good news part is that, so you don’t lose track of us between now and then, you can go to the campaign pre-launch page RIGHT NOW and sign up to get notified the minute it goes live! Go ahead. Click the link and sign up. We’ll wait…

www.the-black-coat.com/kickstarter2026

Did you sign up? Great! It’s going to be a banger of an issue full of sword fights, betrayals, and dire consequences for Ursula and the Knights of Liberty as they wrestle with the question: “How far are you willing to go to fight for freedom?”

In addition to a great book, we’re planning a number of upgrades for the campaign that will incorporate some of the feedback we got regarding what kind of rewards to offer and how you can participate in the creation of the book. We can’t wait. It’s going to be an exciting ride!

Once again, THANK YOU for supporting the Black Coat! And be sure to visit www.the-black-coat.com/kickstarter2026 to sign up for notifications regarding the new campaign. 

Don’t miss out!!

The Kickstarter campaign for the new Black Coat series, “To Die But Once,” is now LIVE and accepting pledges. Head over to www.the-black-coat.com/kickstarter2024 to check out the rewards and support the new book. Don’t miss out!

A Kickstarter campaign aimed at developing and publishing a new Black Coat series will launch this August. If successful, the new series, entitled “To Die But Once,” will be written by Ben Lichius and illustrated by Dean Kotz. Both creators are excited to return to the book and continue telling Black Coat stories. “It’s been 10 years since the last Black Coat book was published,” says Lichius. “That’s too long.”

That previous book, “The Blackest Dye,” was a 66-page original graphic novel and was published after a 2013 Kickstarter raised over $17,000. This new book is intended to be the first issue in a 3-part series. According to Lichius, “We’re going to do what we can to reach out to our fans and hopefully create some new ones. But it’s been long enough that one of the goals with this Kickstarter is to see if there’s still a market for the Black Coat out there. If we can raise enough funds to continue publishing Black Coat stories incrementally through the Kickstarter platform, we plan to do that.”

The campaign will offer plenty of rewards including exclusive extras and, in a Black Coat first, 3 variant covers.

The campaign plans to launch on August 12th and run for 30 days. The landing page can be found by going to: www.the-black-coat.com/kickstarter2024. Check back here for updates!