The epic origin of the Queen of Hell and her battle with Udoroth told in a three-part heavy metal album and comic book series!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Shirts are here! Nina featured in rock opera!
12 months ago
– Mon, Apr 07, 2025 at 03:02:48 PM
HAIL, LEGION OF THUNDER!
Our main order of t-shirts has arrived! This includes all the purple, classic black, and 3/4-sleeve raglans from the main music campaign!
We're currently quality checking the order, making sure we received the correct quantity, etc., and interestingly we seem to have gotten some misprinted negative variants of the purple t-shirt!
L: correct image; R: negative misprint
The printer was aware of these before shipping so we believe that these are extra shirts in addition to what we ordered. We'll confirm that and make them available if they are indeed extra stock.
Next to arrive in 1-3 weeks will be the short-sleeve raglans from the comic campaign and finally the Demons bonus CDs. Then we'll officially be in shipping mode!
The above paragraph should have said "1-2 weeks" but unfortunately the completion date for Demons slipped at the factory again since last week. We'll start sharing screenshots to document this in case it slips again. Last Friday these dates were April 13-20, and now they have moved back to April 21-29. Hopefully they won't slip again! These are being manufactured in the US so once they ship they should reach us in ~2 days.
We are also waiting on the last t-shirt style, the short-sleeve raglans from the comic campaign. But those only affect about 30-40 people.
We'll also keep you posted on a digital release date and the date for the private listening party from the comics campaign. Those will both be coming up shortly. We have decided that - at least for now - Queen of Hell: Initium will remain a backer-exclusive!
The main thing is that regardless of when we actually receive these last shirts and CDs, we are setting up our assembly line and pre-packing some items and orders now! We'll be ready to start blasting out packages as soon as these final items arrive!
Demons: The Queen of Hell Demos
Speaking of the Demons CD, it is jam packed with 15 songs and a run time of 78+ minutes! Normally we leave our demos pretty rough and basic. After this many years we can use our imaginations and know if a song is going to be good before adding all the bells & whistles. But since we're sharing these with all of you we went the extra mile to polish them up. Even though they are just demos we think you all will really enjoy the CD. It's a peek into our creative process, and also happens to be the home of "Lord Shiteater" and "The Power of the Frog", two sure-fire Legion of Thunder favorites! ;)
Demons: The Queen of Hell Demos - Kickstarter-Exclusive Bonus CD - Print run: 1,000. (600 will be autographed.)
The concept behind this bonus CD was that we would share all of the Queen of Hell saga songs in progress with you now so you can give us your feedback before we record the next two chapters of the Queen of Hell saga!
Nina Featured in Lempira Rock Opera this May! Live stream May 30th!
Lempira is presented by the Baltimore Rock Opera Society and features Nina in one of the lead roles! And if that weren't awesome enough, the composer of this show is our long time friend and member of the Legion of Thunder, Sebastian Ochoa Arguijo!
Sebastian is a backer on this very campaign, so drop a comment and congratulate him on this massive achievement!
Performances of Lempira will take place in Baltimore every weekend from May 9th through May 31st. Nina has been informed by Baltimore Rock Opera Society veterans that their performances usually all sell out, so if you can make it to Baltimore be sure to grab your tickets A.S.A.P.! Get in-person tickets here: https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?ticketing=bros
Deep in the jungles of what is modern day Honduras and El Salvador, home of warring Lenca factions, Lempira's conquest is interrupted by an arrival of a dangerous new threat. Faced with the inevitability of colonial imperialism, Lempira must overcome his own pride, embrace a cause greater than himself, and unite the people he was once fighting against.
LEMPIRA is the massive mytho-historic tale of the invincible Lord of the Mountain, condensing a decades-long resistance against Spanish imperialism into one night of theatrical spectacle. Based on true events of Mesoamerican history & mythology, this heavily stylized retelling is filled with Latin-inspired metal music, epic storytelling, and arresting visuals that capture the rich, awe-inspiring spirit of indigenous Latin American culture.
With characters who use both English and Spanish, we invite the audience to look past the barrier of language and identify with characters through their actions and song. Rest assured, there will be projected translations in both languages during the show.
OK, Legion! That's it for today. We'll be back with another update soon. Until then, stay metal and don't take any shit from Udoroth!
Cheers,
Nina, Josh, Jesse & Justin
Comic signing done! Boring stuff this week!
about 1 year ago
– Mon, Mar 31, 2025 at 09:50:21 AM
HAIL, LEGION OF THUNDER!
Comic signing is officially done! After our 3+ hour live stream last weekend we did another ~2 hours of signing off camera and overall signed 2,000+ comics plus several hundred other items, but we still had more to do! Yesterday we signed the remaining ~650 comics plus 120 cassettes! We took a full-band video update so if you care to hang with us for 8+ minutes of signing and chatting, here ya go!
If you missed the previous week's live stream, the whole thing is up on Youtube:
We were pretty excited to finish the comic signing so we totally defaced the very last copy we signed:
And here are the fully signed cassettes!
CAMPAIGN FULFILLMENT UPDATE:
Autographs are completely done except for the Demons bonus CDs which have not yet arrived from the factory. (We need to sign about 600 of those and that will happen the first Sunday after they arrive.)
We are currently waiting on three separate orders to arrive before fulfillment can begin: 1) main t-shirt order (black, purple, and 3/4 sleeve raglans); 2) short sleeve raglans (coming from a different printer), and; 3) Demons bonus CDs.
The main t-shirt order should ship to us by tomorrow!
The short-sleeve raglans were on the printing press on Friday so those should be shipping to us in the next day or two. (We've e-mailed the printer for an update today.)
The only ETA we currently have for the bonus discs is sometime in mid-April. We have e-mailed the factory again today for a more specific ETA.
SHIPPING WILL BEGIN IN APRIL...come hell or high water!
WHAT'S HAPPENING THIS WEEK?
There's lots of very boring tasks to be done to prepare for shipping, and that's what Josh will be doing this week!
Ordering shipping supplies. Boxes, CD mailers, Gemini comic mailers, garment mailer bags, tape, shipping labels, etc. We'll break this up into several orders so they don't all arrive at once and take up our limited work space!
Bagging and boarding ~3,000 comics.
Putting all the signed cassettes and CD booklets back in their cases.
Bubble-wrapping shot glasses for "The Works" backers.
Setting up the shipping assembly line. There are so many items that this will be our longest assembly line ever requiring extra tables and some creative use of space!
Sending a test package or two to the EU to see if GPSR impacts us. (New rules for importing products into the EU seem very complicated and we have heard stories about packages being rejected and returned by local customs offices.)
The script for the first issue of Queen of Hell Act II is complete. Today Josh will be doing a final proof-read and putting together a reference file for our new artist Juan Jose Ryp! Juan is scheduled to start drawing any day now as soon as he finishes his current book.
Reference drawing by Rafer Roberts of a certain red dragon...
That's it for today, Legion! As always we thank you for your patience and support while we've gone through some significant changes and challenges! The Thunder-machine is lurching back to life like a metal monster. We'll send a new update with pictures of the t-shirts when they arrive!
Cheers,
Nina, Josh, Jesse & Justin
Live stream right now!
about 1 year ago
– Sun, Mar 23, 2025 at 10:20:30 AM
HAIL, LEGION OF THUNDER!
We're about to go live right now as we're sending out this update! We'll be signing 2500 comics, art prints, and more, hanging out, talking metal and telling band stories! Join us and send your questions and in the chat!
See you soon!
Autograph Mania! LIVE STREAM THIS SUNDAY! New stuff in the works!
about 1 year ago
– Thu, Mar 20, 2025 at 10:22:11 AM
HAIL, LEGION OF THUNDER!
Here's a video update from Josh. The pertinent info is covered very briefly up front and then there is a longer format chat about everything going on with the campaign and the band!
Pertinent info will also be in bullet points below as usual. This update is a little overdue but for the story on that you'll need to watch the video:
CAMPAIGN UPDATES:
We are steadily making progress on autographing everything. It is taking a lot longer than expected. This is partially due to having a lot of backers (yay) and a lot more physical reward items than ever before (cool), but we also failed to account for everyone being a little older and having more responsibilities and less free time. On Monday night Nina came for the sixth separate autograph session since January. (We have had three full band autograph sessions, and, because schedules did not line up, three partial band sessions.)
This Sunday we will be live streaming as we attempt to autograph 2,100+ Queen of Hell comic books! Join us on Youtube to chat, ask us any questions, and for signed merch & memorabilia giveaways!
Physical Rewards Update: As of our last update we were waiting for all t-shirts, bonus CDs, and trading card sets to arrive. As of today we have now received the Executive Producer t-shirts, the short sleeve raglans are scheduled to ship to us by tomorrow, and the main t-shirt order (black, purple, and long sleeve raglans) is scheduled to ship next week or the week after. Trading cards are scheduled to arrive here on Monday. And we are still waiting for an update on the bonus CDs. We will keep you posted!
Other Rewards & Commitments: Digital rewards and other special rewards like the backers-only listening party, custom themes and private concerts will be figured out once we have all the autographs done and are ready to ship all physical rewards.
Dealing With Delays
Obviously this campaign is super late getting to fulfillment. There wasn't much we could do about Chris retiring or Jesse moving to Montana and back. Fortunately our lineup is solid again! However there are three main areas where we have hit delays. This is what they are and how we're dealing with them, so that these delays never happen again:
Artwork Delays: the #1 delay on this project was the comic art. Mike Ratera turned in his first page of comic art in April of 2019 and his last page in September of 2024. That is so far beyond the scope of how long we ever thought it would or could take that we're not even sure what to say. While the final artwork is AWESOME, we obviously cannot go through that again. With that in mind artist Juan Jose Ryp has officially come on board to draw Queen of Hell Act II! Juan is the perfect choice to continue the story. His style is extremely detailed similar to Mike's, he loves metal, he has experience drawing Hell (Nancy in Hell), and most importantly in the context of dealing with delays, he is fast. The artwork for Queen of Hell Act II will be completely done before we Kickstart that project!
Vinyl Delays: vinyl manufacturing delays have been an issue for us on the last several campaigns. In the past we have always used GZ Media in the Czech Republic. We expect to move production to Furnace Manufacturing in Virginia. Furnace is local to ASoT HQ, just happens to be owned by Metallica, and has a faster turnaround time than GZ. They are a little more expensive, but we've reached the point where we need that extra speed!
Autographs: we have always prided ourselves in offering free autographs, but we have reached the point where we need to reduce the number of autographs on each campaign. We will continue to offer at least one free autograph for every backer! However going forward we will limit additional autographs to Early Birds (first day backers) and/or backers of higher reward tiers like The Works, and for additional autographs we will probably add a small surcharge. We'll need to bring the total number of autographs down to about 1/3rd of what we are doing on this campaign, but everyone will still have the option to get everything signed.
Queen of Hell Act II
We have the full outline for issues #1-4 of Act II!
The music is already written and demoed, and the final drums have been recorded. Nina has already put down vocal melodies using placeholder lyrics. Now that the outline is done she can rework the lyrics to fit with the outline.
The full script for issue #1 is done and ready for Juan Jose Ryp who is scheduled to start drawing this month. He usually takes about 4-6 weeks for each 22-page issue, so he'll need 4 to 6 months to draw all four issues.
Dusan Markovic will return to create our the main cover art. He is scheduled for May!
We are leaning heavily towards bumping up one song from Act III to Act II so that Justin can play drums on at least one song on Act II. The drums for four planned songs on Act II have already been recorded by Chris, so this would mean bumping one of his songs back to Act III or bonus track status to get Justin on Act II.
Generally speaking we are planning to have Act II ready to show off and Kickstart by late summer/early fall.
More New Music
We finished the instrumental arrangements of two new songs last week. These would not be for the Queen of Hell saga but for a separate original album, Justin's first with the band!
We have more than an album's worth of songs demoed up already, but they are earmarked towards at least two separate future albums. One is a little darker and more sinister. The other is a little brighter and more inspiring, and this one is quite close to having a full albums worth of material ready. We expect to have this fully written by the end of the summer. Something a little brighter seems to make sense between chapters of Queen of Hell, and it feels good to stretch out musically in a slightly different direction.
Live Shows
We're chomping at the bit to play more live shows! Nina is tied up in April and May doing a rock opera (more news on that soon), but we're planning to play as much as possible starting in June!
We've just booked at show at Lucky 13 in Brooklyn, NY on Saturday July 26th! We're actively looking for another gig within 2-4 hours of NY on Friday, July 25th. Let us know if you're in that range, want to see us, and have any leads with local venues or promoters!
Alright, that was a long one! As always, thanks for your support and patience, Legion! The machine is moving and we're very close to shipping. Hang in there a little longer!
We'll be back soon with another update. Hope to see you at the live stream on Sunday!
Cheers,
Nina, Josh, Jesse & Justin
Baltimore tomorrow! Autographs underway! Foil cards are printed!
about 1 year ago
– Fri, Feb 14, 2025 at 01:30:44 PM
HAIL, LEGION OF THUNDER!
Here's the latest on the campaign fulfillment, but first...
WE'RE PLAYING LIVE IN BALTIMORE TOMORROW NIGHT! (Sat. Feb. 15th)
If you're nearby we hope you'll come join us for a night of metal and mayhem! We'll be playing some old stuff and some new stuff, including debuting "Legion of Thunder" from Queen of Hell: Initium! See you at ANGEL'S ROCK BAR! We're on around 11pm but show up early and don't miss local metal warriors Siegebreaker and Night's Edge!
Alright, let's get to Kickstarter stuff! First, here's the usual video update from Josh:
Queen of Hell and Udoroth foil trading cards have been printed and should reach us on Monday! Here's that uncut sheet of Udoroth trading cards that Josh mentioned. (Settle down, mega-collectors. We are not expecting to receive any uncut trading card sheets.)
Thank you cards/postcards are in and being signed! The full band signed a small batch of 50, and the other 700 cards are now being passed among us to sign at home. (We sign all the physical merch at the band house as a group, but we take the thank you cards home individually to save time!)
Here's the rundown on other things!
Chris is coming back this Sunday to do all of his autographs!
Packages not including Demons bonus CDs or t-shirts will start shipping next week! Yay!
We're still waiting on Demons bonus CDs and t-shirts to arrive. We'll keep you posted on those!
Rafer Roberts is going to sign all of the autographed comic scripts tomorrow at our show.
Rafer is also currently working on the script for Queen of Hell Act II.
We've just scheduled Dusan Markovic to paint the main cover for Queen of Hell Act II by May.
Our new comic book artist is scheduled to start drawing the interior of Queen of Hell Act II in March!
We realize that the schedule has continued to slip a bit as some of the final physical items have taken a little longer than planned to come in. Thank you for bearing with us. Hopefully you can tell we are chipping away at this mountain and are near the finish line! Josh, Jesse and Nina all had fairly severe colds and/or the flu in the last 4 weeks. And Nina who was working efficiently from home has been sent back to the office for no good reason, adding 7-8 hours of weekly commute time and taking it straight out of the free time that would otherwise have been dedicated to the band. So we know you're probably hearing more than enough about all that right now, but just know that it has already affected us negatively. The Krimson Kult strikes again, we guess. (P.S. potential sequel to that album in the works.)
Regardless, you can't keep us down and we are going to bring this project home with fulfillment starting next week!
Have a great weekend everyone! Enjoy Valentine's Day if you're partnered up. Love yourself vigorously if you're not. And come see us in Baltimore on Saturday if you're around!
