Renderwrx Productions

Rift Raiders, written by Mark Sable and illustrated by Julian Tedesco and published by Kickstart Comics debuts in October. But it's already getting rave reviews from multiple sources.

"What does it take to travel through space and time? A lot of work and preparation for starters, but don’t tell that to a trio of orphaned teens who find out their parents have been abducted by a time traveling madman. To find their parents wherever – and whenever they are, these three partner with a strange man who’ll provide them information if they steal rare antiquities for him."

Newsarama.com has an interview with writer Mark Sable and some fresh preview art here

And Here's another preview

Mark Sable himself describes the series as...

"...GOONIES meets TIME BANDITS, Rift Raiders is the story of three orphaned teens who learn they're not orphans at all. Their parents have been hidden throughout time. A strange man offers to help them save his parents if they travel through to time retrieve mystical artifacts for him. But what is his REAL agenda?

In terms of tone, it's pretty close to GROUNDED. Meaning a smart, funny action adventure story accessible to a younger age group but equally as rewarding for older readers."

Plus publisher Kickstart has been churning up some news particularly about how they plan to market and distribute their books.

Again here's writer Mark Sable commenting on publisher Kickstart (quote taken from here)...

"That said, I'm pretty excited about Kickstart. For years I've been wondering why comic companies haven't been in big box stores like Walmart in a major way. I think there's a lot of good that can come of it.

Like many of you have mentioned, the primary benefit is getting comics in the hands of readers who haven't tried them before. Don't get me wrong, I love comic book stores, and given a choice I'll spend my money there.

I'm lucky enough to patronize stores like Meltdown or Collector's Paradise in LA, or Jim Hanley's in New York that make a real effort to reach out to others besides the weekly Wednesday crowd.

But whenever I have a book come out, and I tell my friends and relatives...they generally have a hell of a time finding it, especially if it's not Marvel or DC and they don't live in NY or LA. Hell...I can't even get copies of my own books sometimes when they are sold out of my local shop.

Something that should also be said about what Kickstart is doing is that...at least with Rift Raiders the book is and has been ready to go to press and Walmart. I thought it would be out by Comic-Con. But we deliberately waited so that retailers would have the book on the same day Walmart did. Again, as retailers have been good to me, that made me happy even though I'm sad I won't have the book to show at SDCC.

That said...I think it's also good to have another distributor to outside of Diamond. I think Diamond is and always will be a part of the marketplace (well, at least until we're all reading 3-D motion comics on ipad you can wear.) But I don't think monopolies are good for comics (or effective duopolies, as in the case of the Big Two).

Another smart thing is that, at least from my experience, Kickstart has been about making the books accessible. Not just physically, but as a reading experience. Most of my friends and family are not comic book professionals, and while I think comics are the greatest language in the world...most of them don't speak it, and have a hard time understanding it."

Here's Kickstarts official webpage (which is pretty vague on the new comics coming out)