Flying Sparks, the indie superhero series fifteen years in the making, is getting the omnibus treatment. The complete saga of Meta-Girl and Johnny Benvinutti is now live on IndieCrowdfund, collecting every issue into a single 450+ page volume packed with bonus material, much of it never published before.
The campaign is live now: https://indiecrowdfund.com/projects/jda/flying-sparks-omnibus
What is Flying Sparks?
The premise is simple and it works: Chloe Anderson is a physics student who moonlights as the superhero Meta-Girl, using her mad scientist professor’s inventions to fight crime. Johnny Benvinutti comes from an Italian crime family and recently discovered he can shoot lightning from his hands. He runs his criminal operation out of a coffee shop front business.
They meet. They fall for each other. Neither one knows the other’s secret.
It’s Romeo and Juliet with capes and laser gauntlets, and unlike the big two publishers, the story actually goes somewhere. Characters grow. Relationships develop consequences. The romance intensifies as the stakes climb across the full run, building to a finale that has a big payoff.
P. Alexander, the Hugo Award finalist editor of Cirsova Magazine, called it the best superhero graphic novel of the last decade. That kind of praise from a guy who reads more indie genre fiction than most publishers tells you something about the quality on the page.
The Art Team
Jethro Morales illustrated the bulk of the series. Morales came to the project with professional credits on Dynamite Entertainment’s Dejah Thoris and Green Hornet, plus Vampirella and Army of Darkness. He has since gone on to work for Marvel Comics. His classical line work and clean panel layouts gave Flying Sparks a visual polish that most indie comics never touch. Close-ups land because Morales draws faces that actually act.
Elias Martins closed out the series, finishing the story’s final arc. Martins is now working with Del Arroz on multiple upcoming projects, including a new Terran Imperium comic and the Adventures of Baron Von Monocle tie-in graphic novel, The Steam Knight. Readers who pick up the omnibus will be seeing Martins’ earliest collaboration with Del Arroz before his work on those future titles hits shelves.
The Origin Story Behind the Comic
Flying Sparks didn’t start with a Kickstarter or a publishing deal. I began the project by pulling money out of my regular work paycheck each month to pay Morales for four finished pages. There was no one to sell to and no guarantee anyone would read it. I stockpiled pages for years, building the comic in the background because he cared about the story and these characters.
The whole thing was born out of frustration with Marvel and DC. When DC launched the New 52 and canceled Batgirl, retconning years of character development in the process, Del Arroz walked away. The big two do this constantly. They undo storylines and reset continuity whenever it suits them. Character arcs that readers invested in for years get thrown out for the next relaunch. Nothing sticks. Nothing grows.
Flying Sparks was built to be the opposite. One writer, one vision, characters who become more heroic as the series progresses. The personal drama drives the superhero action rather than getting discarded for the next crossover event.
The Omnibus and the Leatherbound
The omnibus collects the entire run in one volume, 450+ pages with bonus content that has never been available before. For collectors, the campaign also features a leatherbound edition. Our previous leatherbound comic release for Ayla Rin set a high bar for production quality, and this one aims to surpass it. If you want the finest physical edition of the complete Flying Sparks saga, the leatherbound is the tier to look at.
The campaign is running on IndieCrowdfund, a free speech indie crowdfunding platform with strong fulfillment tools. Head to the campaign page for full tier details and pricing.
Back the Flying Sparks Omnibus here: https://indiecrowdfund.com/projects/jda/flying-sparks-omnibus
What do you think of the Flying Sparks omnibus? Are you backing it? Let us know.
Definitely backing!