Stjepan Šejić Launches Sunstone Spin

Posted in: Comics, Image, Top Cow | Tagged: Stjepan Šejić, sunstone, Vampire Queen

Stjepan Šejić Launches Sunstone Spin-Off, Letters To The Vampire Queen

Stjepan Šejić launches Sunstone Spin-Off, Letters To The Vampire Queen, on Kickstarter with Top Cow and Rocketship

Article Summary

• Stjepan Šejić launches Letters To The Vampire Queen, a Sunstone spin-off Kickstarter with Top Cow and Rocketship.
• The illustrated novel began as a Patreon serial, expanding Stjepan Šejić’s dark fantasy world beyond comics.
• Lysandre, condemned for loving women, turns to the feared Vampire Queen as a killer targets those she loves.
• Šejić calls it a new storytelling challenge, with Top Cow’s Matt Hawkins praising its art, romance and blood.

Top Cow Productions has announcedLetters To The Vampire Queen, Book I: The Bloodsilver Collar, the first illustrated novel from writer-artist Stjepan Šejić of Sunstone, Death Vigil and Harlee, that he previously serialised on Patreon. The dark fantasy project, set in the world of Sunstone, will launch

The story follows Lysandre, a young woman condemned by her city for who she loves. Collared in mystic bloodsilver and shunned as a Lilian, a Nightblossom, a woman who loves other women, she is viewed as a potential threat capable of resurrecting Alyssa Dalkoff, the vanquished vampire queen of Dalkoffburg. Lysandre has no such plans. But when a monstrous killer begins targeting the people she cares about, her only remaining hope may lie with an even greater monster and she begins writing letters to the Vampire Queen…

The project marks a shift for Šejić after years of sequential storytelling. “I’ve spent most of my career telling stories through sequential art, so Letters to the Vampire Queen gave me a chance to approach storytelling from a completely different direction,” he said. “With prose, I can spend more time inside these characters’ heads and explore the world in ways that comics don’t always allow, while still illustrating the moments I most want readers to see. It’s still very much one of my stories, just told in a new way.”

Top Cow President and COO Matt Hawkins said, “I’ve worked with Stjepan for a long time, and one of the things that continues to impress me is that he never stops pushing himself creatively. Letters to the Vampire Queen is his first illustrated novel, but it is unmistakably Stjepan: gorgeous art, deep world-building, complicated characters, dark humor, romance and more than a little blood. I’m excited for people to see what he does with an entirely different storytelling format.” And vampires? Really? Well, it turns out that the journey here was a long and winding road... and will be out in October.

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