Queen of Hell: Initium

Live stream giveaway! Comics are in! Tattoos done! Show coming up!
about 1 year ago – Thu, Feb 06, 2025 at 10:38:01 AM

HAIL, LEGION OF THUNDER!

Comics are finally here! Update below, but first...

MEET JUSTIN! LIVE STREAM GIVEAWAY and Q&A COMING UP ON MONDAY FEB. 10TH!

Join us for this Youtube live stream! Ask Justin anything! We'll be giving away signed drum heads and other goodies to folks who show up in the chat!

Click the event image below to set a reminder for yourself! 

Ok, let's go pick up some comics! 

There are only FOUR metal 1-of-1 comics remaining out of a total of twelve. (Each cover has only ONE metal edition.) You can grab one of the final four here: 

As Josh said in the video, the next task is autographing a TON of those comics, plus CDs, vinyl, cassettes, etc. We actually did a session with Chris already, but it was after our tattoo session, and we spent several hours just removing items from shrink wrap and didn't actually get to any signing!  Here's us after completing our tattoo blood pact!

And here's us at the intended first signing session! 

Currently we are awaiting only a few more of the main items: 

• t-shirts
• Demons bonus CDs
• metal trading cards (all backers get these)
• thank you cards/post cards (all backers get these)

Both cards are scheduled to be printed in the next few days, so we are very close to having some packages ready to ship. We're still not sure exactly when the bonus CDs and shirts will arrive, but not all backers get those items, so we can at least start on some shipping in the next 1-2 weeks. The next autograph session may be this weekend or next weekend depending on Chris' schedule. But the band will individually be taking the thank you cards home to sign as soon as they arrive, so packages with no other autographed items will be ready to ship sooner. 

Another job left to do is to bag and board all 3,600 comics. YIKES! Josh will be handling that, but honestly...doesn't that feel like it should be a bassist job? ;0) 

Finally for today, we are prepping for our next show on February 15th at Angel's Rock Bar in Baltimore! We are selling tickets to this one directly so do us a solid and grab your ticket from us by clicking on the image below:

We just made the setlist for this show and we will be debuting a new song from Initium!

We'll be back with another update soon. Huge thanks as always, Legion, for making our metal dreams come true and for bringing Queen of Hell to life!

Cheers,

Nina, Josh, Jesse & Chris

Merch is arriving! New shows! Queen of Hell Act II progress!
about 1 year ago – Fri, Jan 10, 2025 at 11:51:03 AM

HAIL, LEGION OF THUNDER!

Here's a little update from Josh followed by some concert info, pics of merch that has arrived, and a little fun in the snow!

NEXT SHOW: FEBRUARY 15TH IN BALTIMORE! 

Finally we're returning to Baltimore!  We're at Angel's Rock Bar on February 15th and we are selling tickets directly for this one! You'll save a few bucks on fees and we make a few more bucks on direct sales, so get your tickets from us here: https://asoundofthunderband.com/event/5893900/707450829/for-the-love-of-metal

MERCH IS ARRIVING!

Here's what's showed up so far! Comics should arrive soon.  Next we'll be ordering t-shirts,  trading cards and a few small items, and then we'll finally be ready for autographs and shipping! Huzzah! 

SNOW TRAINING

We've been doing some extreme winter band practice and will be sharper and harder than ever! You've been warned!

SURVEY STRAGGLERS

We've tried to give as much notice as possible, and then we gave you even more, but if you have not completed your survey (including checking out and paying your postage on the final page of the survey) your items will not appear in our tallies and your t-shirt(s) will not be ordered. All of the shirts on this campaign are exclusives, meaning we are not stocking extras for the website or live shows. Therefore we will have to lock your survey so that you can't complete it later after we order shirts. This is necessary to make sure that we don't ship out shirts that weren't accounted for in our order, which would cause us to run out of shirts at the end of the shipping process and potentially stiff backers who did complete their surveys on time. When you message us later asking "WTF guys?!" we're going to direct you here. If this is you, please message us directly and we'll take care of you!

QUEEN OF HELL ACT II UNDERWAY!

We can't share much yet but we have made some awesome progress on the next chapter of Queen of Hell this week! Things are looking and sounding very good right now!

That's it for this update. Until next time...stay warm and play it loud!

Cheers,

Nina, Josh, Jesse & Justin

HAPPY NEW YEAR! COMICS ORDERED! UNPUBLISHED DESIGNS!
over 1 year ago – Tue, Dec 31, 2024 at 11:21:52 AM

HAIL, LEGION OF THUNDER! 

This is a milestone day for us because ALL COMICS HAVE BEEN ORDERED FROM THE PRINTER! There was a lot of last minute tweaking to get everything just right, and a few cool additions (like a letters page is issue #4). The whole series was 99% done and laid out for print, but when we did our final proofread and quality check we found a number of files that had minor problems but problems that nonetheless needed to be fixed. Nina did a TON of extra work fixing those pages at the last minute, so let's hear it for the real Queen of Hell & Graphic Design! 

As part of those last minute changes and additions we incorporated some design images that we recently found in our archive. Many of you may not know just how long we've been working on the Queen of Hell comic. The very first work ever done towards the comic were the design images below by artist Paulina Ganucheau. These were done way back in 2014! Paulina was the third person ever to draw Udoroth and the Queen of Hell after Nina herself and our main cover artist Dusan Markovic. As you can see her designs are really awesome! 

Aren't those great?!  For those of you who are getting the rare Paulina Ganucheau design variant comics, you'll see some of those images printed on front and back covers of those issues. But we thought they were worth sharing with everyone!

We had a good band meeting today talking about how to do more for social media, including regular fun video updates, rehearsal videos, and live streams. We'll be testing some things out in January and hope to start posting regularly in February, which is also when we'll have our first promo photos of the new lineup and our next gig.

The newly ordered rewards should start arriving at Thunder-Manor next week. Some shipping will start mid-January. We still have to order t-shirts (these were delayed by an unexpectedly high number of survey stragglers) and trading cards (these won't affect many backers and we wanted to put some extra effort into designing these). And of course we'll have a couple of very long autograph days since we're signing almost everything for you! We'll start shipping what we can as things arrive and are signed, and expect to have everything in stock and ready to ship by the end of January. 

Everyone, we just want to cap off this update with a huge THANK YOU & HAPPY NEW YEAR! We know this project has been extremely delayed, but we're coming out of it with a newly invigorated band and the first chapter of our massive dream project done! It's all thanks to you! So please accept a big pat on the back and virtual hug from the band, and go out there and have a great New Year's Eve and very happy new year!  You rule!

Cheers, 

Nina, Josh, Jesse & Justin

Original art arrives! Pins & patches ordered! Survey deadline!
over 1 year ago – Thu, Dec 19, 2024 at 12:59:53 PM

HAIL, LEGION OF THUNDER!

Today the original artwork from Queen of Hell: Initium has arrived from artist Mike Ratera in Catalonia! Spanish customs held the package hostage for several weeks and we were starting to fear the worst but after significant hassle they finally released the package and it is now in our hands!

Mike did such a beautiful job on the artwork that we wanted to show it off in an extended video below:

Surveys are now locked but if you decide you want a page of original art you can grab one at this private pre-order link: 

Also when we listed the items ordered in the previous update we forgot to mention that the pins and patches had been ordered! Yay!

 We went a little extra with the pins since they were the most popular add-on, so they will all be packaged on double-sided full-color printed cards featuring Queen of Hell and Udoroth! We approved the final proofs for those today.  (This was like the fourth round of proofs for these. If you sometimes wonder why things take so long, it's often because there are lots of revisions and proofing going on behind the scenes with our various suppliers to make sure things are just right!) 

We've been continuing to work on our printed comics quote today. We locked in all of our final quantities for every variant yesterday, and are updating that information with our printers today. We hope to have the order paid for tomorrow.  Nina will have to port the comic covers and pages onto our printer's templates, and then we'll finally be to the printing stage!

As we mentioned in the last update the next big item to order will then be the t-shirts, for which we need to have everyone's backer survey responses. With that in mind...

OFFICIAL SURVEY DEADLINE

For you survey stragglers, we can't keep everyone else waiting any longer.  Therefore MONDAY, DECEMBER 19TH IS THE OFFICIAL BACKER SURVEY DEADLINE!  We have tried to reach you through Kickstarter updates, BackerKit e-mails, e-mails from the band account, and today Josh even tried again from his personal e-mail address. There's nothing else we can do. IF YOU DON'T COMPLETE YOUR BACKER SURVEY BY THE DEADLINE YOU FORFEIT YOUR STUFF.   Of course we will try to accommodate you as much as possible, but we can pretty much guarantee you will not get a t-shirt, and when it comes to other limited items that may run out you will be the last in line! (Cue the riff, Ronnie!)  

(If you miss the deadline we are going to refer back to this update. This is our last attempt to notify you!) 

That's it for today, Legion!

Cheers,

Nina, Josh, Jesse & Justin

Survey stragglers & items arriving!
over 1 year ago – Tue, Dec 17, 2024 at 12:52:54 PM

HAIL, LEGION OF THUNDER!

After a short break for our big annual band Christmas party this past weekend, we're back on the job! 

Huge thanks to everyone for their support and patience! We have some survey stragglers who we need to reach, so let us get tough for a second. Grrr! 

Survey Stragglers

• For those who have not yet completed their surveys you are now officially delaying the project for everyone else. It's time to stop ignoring those reminder e-mails! We can't fix our quantities for our orders of some items until you respond! 
• Also, heads up, IF YOU ORDERED A T-SHIRT AND YOU DON'T RESPOND TO YOUR SURVEY BY DECEMBER 23rd YOU WILL NOT BE GETTING A SHIRT. (How can we order your shirt if we don't know your size or which design you want?)
• Reminder that we did not collect postage during the campaign. We are collecting postage now via the surveys. If you don't respond to your survey that means you didn't pay for postage and we can't ship ANY of your stuff. 
• You have to complete check-out of the survey in order for your items to show up in our tallies for orders. That means completing the final screen where you pay for postage.

Ok, taking the figurative brass knucks back off for the rest of you...

Rewards 

We've been ordering stuff and working on rewards and more items are now starting to arrive!

So far we have the following items in hand: vinyl, art prints, guitar picks, stickers and shot glasses.

CDs and cassettes have been ordered and are both expected to arrive between Christmas and New Year's. 

Today we'll be locking our final quantities of comics (people have been adding them in the surveys so the quantities were changing) and submitting our order to the printer. 

T-shirts will hopefully be the next big item we order next week. 

Trading cards will likely be the last item we order as Nina and Josh still have some creative and layout work to do on the full set. 

Rehearsal is a little spotty over the next few weeks as everyone has various holiday plans, but in general we're still getting together weekly to keep the new set sharp and work on new tunes. Surprisingly "Lord Shiteater" - conceived as a fun bonus track on the backer-exclusive Demons CD - may actually make it to the live set. It's a real earworm! We'll be discussing our musical plans for 2025, and whether we're going to squeeze out a separate new album before we get to Queen of Hell Act II. We're just starting to assemble our comic team for Queen of Hell Act II with Rafer. And we've just booked two more shows for 2025. Lots of exciting things are taking shape! 

That's it for today, Legion! Finish up those surveys, keep it metal, and whatever you're listening to PLAY IT LOUD!

Cheers,

Nina, Josh, Jesse & Justin