Welcome to the Majestic Age!
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Majestic is a shared fantasy/science fiction universe composed of seven inter-connected series that tell a greatly-ambitious (yet consistent) saga through the course of a six year period. Separately, each series tells a unique story with a beginning, middle, and end, while, together, they paint a larger picture. This makes Majestic an endeavor unlike any ever attempted before by a comic book publisher.
Our series employ a three-tiered structure similar to the one Ronald Moore used in his reimagining of Battlestar Galactica (in turn inspired by the series Hill Street Blues), but never attempted in comic books. This structure allows us to tell a long-term continuing storyline while simultaneously allowing stand-alone stories to hook in readers who may have missed the previous issues.
The three-tiered structure (explained in detail in each series’ individual entries) breaks down as follows:
1. Series Arcs
2. Multi-Issue Arcs
3. Episodic Arcs
The series arcs run through the life of each title, dealing with long-term stories first established and alluded to in the graphic novels that serve as the introductions for each individual title, while the multi-issue arcs allow us to spend several issues dealing with a specific event. Lastly, the episodic arcs provide closed-ended narratives for each issue that give readers a chance to read that month’s issue. By employing this method, we gain the benefit of long-term-storytelling, thereby delivering a compelling experience to the dedicated reader, while at the same time making allowance for hooking the more casual reader who may not be familiar with the long-term tales but drawn into that month’s episodic storyline.
Mission Statement
Our goal is to tell a six year story in the form of a novel told across seven inter-connected comic book series. Our approach starts with introducing realism into what are two inherently unrealistic genres, science fiction and fantasy. The world our heroes inhabit is a verisimilar reality which rich history forms a complex tapestry that informs their environments, while the inclusion of fantastical situations in naturalistic terms permeates every aspect of our series.
Visual: Though we will continually strive to make our stories feel as if they take place in a realistic setting, the artwork will fit the unique genre, tone, and atmosphere each series strives to convey (i.e. horror will look like horror, comedy will look like comedy, science fiction will look like science fiction, etc).
Story: While each individual series in Majestic fit one specific genre, the storyline that links them together is a three-part drama. Each chapter of this drama appears in the form of crossovers between all six series that take place two years from one another starting in Year Two of the six year publishing plan.
Science: The mythical structure of our world is a blend of mythology, folklore, and scientific theory that offers a rational explanation for the ancient civilizations, mythological beings, alien races, magic, and super technology generally found within the pages of our stories.
Character: Our characters are ordinary multifaceted individuals who find themselves in extraordinary situations. Their moral ambiguity colors the human decisions they make, which have consequences that can change their world for better or worse. Our heroes are flawed men and women whose journey takes them from our mundane world to exotic lands of heroic knights and oppressive sorcerers, peace-seeking warriors and warmongering fanatics, blood-thirsty revenge and heart-wrenching redemption, excruciating afterlives and frail mortality, rampant science and fatal phenomena, and captivating tyranny and enlighten freedom. There, they must learn how to live up to a heroic legacy, carry the weight of the world on their shoulders, be normal in an increasingly strange world, live up to a father’s love, care for a race on the brink of extinction, and be parents as well as children.
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Michael Sacal is the president and founder of HEROIC TENDENCIES STUDIOS, and the Chief Creative Officer of Majestic. As an autodidact, he has spent the past two decades honing his proficiency in the English language and skills as a writer. In that time, he has also amassed multiple experiences in the comic book industry. From 2007 to 2014, he was a freelance archivist for Valiant Entertainment Inc, archiving and summarizing the comic books published by Voyager Communications and Acclaim Entertainment during the 1990s for The Book of Geomancers, a Wikipedia-style online resource. Since 2010, he has provided literary and/or artistic creative services to Valiant Entertainment Inc in connection to comic book and/or feature film scenarios based on X-O Manowar, Harbinger, Shadowman, Archer & Armstrong, Ninjak, Eternal Warrior. As President of Heroic Tendencies Studios, he is in charge of locating venues to publish the graphic novels and comic book series developed as part of Majestic, as well as generally finding ways to exploit these properties outside the printed medium. In 2017, he became the first-ever editor in chief of Golden Liberty Comics, the young adult and mature readers imprint of Golden Bell Studios.
