r/IndieComicBooks

Please give us a follow and support our project. We go live on june 2nd but prelaunch is already up! indiegogo prelaunch page

Another cover for Cabarka, The Sandshooter — an indie western comic series I've been working on.

This cover is a nod to a classic western film. Let's see if anyone here picks up on it.

Line art by Fer_Damasio, colors by Nekomancerz.

Even as a kid, I was always telling stories.

Back in the early 2000s, that meant dragging all my toys out and setting up these huge crossover “events” on my bedroom floor.
We’re talking Rescue Heroes teaming up with Buzz Lightyear and the Toa Nuva from Bionicle, all trying to save a random mix of Mighty Beanz, Nak Naks, and whatever else I could find. It was chaos, but to me, it was a full universe.

As I got older, the toys turned into notebooks.
Instead of Buzz Lightyear fighting a T-Rex, I was writing about swords, magic, and dragons in the middle of 7th grade language arts.

But the biggest shift came when I discovered the superhero genre.

Between the The Avengers and The Dark Knight Trilogy, something just clicked for me. I became obsessed with the idea of connected heroes, bigger worlds, and stories that felt like they mattered.

So I started creating my own.

In 2012, I came up with a character named Clint McGrath, a man imprisoned for a murder he didn’t commit who eventually seeks revenge on the people who framed him. A year later, I created Thunderbird, a character with control over wind and lightning.

I made a few others too, but I always came back to Clint.

Part of his story involved an older janitor named Charles Lambert, a war veteran who became a mentor figure in his life. That detail stuck with me more than anything else.

Then life happened, and I drifted away from it all for a while.

When the pandemic hit, I started thinking about those characters again.

I didn’t have my old notes anymore, so I rebuilt everything from memory. At first, it was just fun, revisiting old ideas and reconnecting with characters I hadn’t thought about in years.

But then something changed.

While rewriting Clint’s origin, I got to the part where he discovers Charles Lambert’s past. Originally, it was medals and war stories.

This time, I wrote something different.

Instead of medals, Clint finds an old photograph.

In that photo, Charles isn’t alone. He’s standing next to superheroes.

That was the moment everything shifted.

Suddenly, this wasn’t just one character’s story anymore.
It was a world. A history. A timeline full of heroes I hadn’t even created yet.

That was the day The Protector was born.

From there, things started to snowball.

I began building out the full history of this world, figuring out how superheroes could exist in a version of Earth that still felt grounded. I landed on a simple idea.

What if you dropped an alien invasion and a superpowered being into the middle of World War II?

From that point on, everything started connecting.

For a long time, though, it was all just in my head or sitting in a Word document.

Until April 6th, 2025.

That’s the day I decided I was done just thinking about it.

I created a Facebook page, made my first post, and committed to turning this into a real comic.

No artwork. No audience. Just the story.

Eventually, I found an artist named Geff Silva, who helped bring my characters to life visually for the first time.

Not long after that, I connected with Marcelo H. Santana, and that’s when things really took off.

I sent him my script, and what he delivered was better than anything I had imagined.

Over the past year, we’ve been building this book together while I’ve been sharing the process online and figuring out how to actually launch something like this.

This past Monday, April 6th, 2026, exactly one year after that first post, I launched my first Kickstarter.

In just over 48 hours, it fully funded.

A few days later, it passed its first stretch goal.

I honestly don’t know where this is all going yet.

But I do know this.

I spent years thinking about telling these stories, and now they’re finally real.

And I’m just getting started.

The Great Outdoors is a comic anthology all about celebrating our beautiful world while we still have the chance. We really need to pick up some more followers on our pre-launch page if we want the campaign itself to be a success. Maybe a showcase of our talent could convince you?

Follow The Great Outdoors on Kickstarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amberwarnockestrada/the-great-outdoors-a-comic-anthology-from-awe-entertainment

We’re nailing down the last of the production issues, so the Wave Collapse Issue 1 Kickstarter is knocking at the door! In the meantime, if you have any questions about the campaign or the world itself, leave a comment!