The Hidden Emperor Pre-Order Store!

⏰ Final 72 hours to back Valiant Frontiers!
4 months ago – Tue, Dec 02, 2025 at 04:33:05 PM

Valiant Frontiers, my new sci-fi novel trilogy is almost done on FundMyComic! I know a lot of you have voiced how beautiful our leatherbound editions were and I don't want you to miss the exclusive Aryshan War leather books on here in addition to the great new series I've created.

This is everything I've ever wanted from science fiction and I hope you'll be along for the ride! 

👉 Back Now Before It's Too Late 👈

Help us finish strong!

JDA 

The Leatherbounds Look GORGEOUS!
5 months ago – Wed, Nov 05, 2025 at 02:55:34 PM

It's been a long journey, and the making of real leatherbound books and the process was one of the most excruciating learning curves I've ever had to deal with as an author. But it was well worth it. 

Readers are posting that they got them in, and they're absolutely gorgeous. Real Italian leathe,r like you'd get from only the highest end of booksellers, we really outdid ourselves with these:

Because they're so pricey to make, we had to make them to order, so unfortunately, there are not any extras for those who might want an upgrade. Given the nature of these, I can't run them every campaign either -- it takes two graphic novels' worth of content to make it worth it to get a good spine out of it so it looks pretty. So we can offer them on every other comic campaign. 

As of now, I am still banned on Kickstarter for nebulous reasons. I got mass reported over a year ago, and I can't get any response from the company. It's very unprofessional of them, but there's nothing I can do about it. 

So I've got my next sci-fi novel trilogy over on FundMyComic. It's called Valiant Frontiers and it's all about space exploration. You're going to love this if you enjoy my work. It's probably the most fun I've ever had writing.

I’m putting out a trilogy of some of the best science fiction in years, bringing back the sense of wonder and exploration to the genre. The crowdfund is open now, and if you miss what sci-fi used to be, this is the series for you. Back it today.

Leather Books Are DONE!
7 months ago – Wed, Aug 27, 2025 at 09:56:13 AM

Just got word from our bindery in Europe that the leatherbound Ayla Rin books are done! These are so gorgeous. They are being compiled in a shipment with other books to get shipped to the US at the same time as it's tricky now with imports/tariffs to do things properly, so they try to batch shipments, so I'm hoping those will be to my fulfilmment center in the next 2-3 weeks. 

I'm so pleased with these. While it took a lot longer than expected due to the hand-binding process to a lot of this, the bindery tells me that they've upgraded their processes and newer leatherbound editions will not take nearly the amount of time. 

Kickstarter still has me banned - so I cannot reply to comments, I cannot reply to messages, I cannot make new projects on here. So I'll be doing my next release on FundMyComic, but I've also done something a little out of my wheelhouse that launches tomorrow.

As you may know, I'm a devout Christian (probably why Kickstarter banned me), and I've been thinking about the corruption going on in modern churches over the last several years. Because of this, I've dipped my toe into non-fiction with my first book in the genre coming out tomorrow, Churchianity. You can pre-order it here and it goes live tomorrow: 

Can You Vote For The Hidden Emperor in The Ringo Awards?
10 months ago – Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 09:52:19 AM

The Ringo Awards are a fan contest where we can make a big wave as an indie comic.Though we need your help! It would be huge for us as creators and appreciated if you'd take a few minutes to put The Hidden Emperor in: 

https://ringoawards.com/

I just found The Ringo Awards. This will take a few minutes but if we all do this, we can secure a big nomination here:

Best Writer (Format: Name - Work(s) for which they are nominated)
Jon Del Arroz - The Hidden Emperor 
Best Artist or Penciller/Inker Team (Format: Name - Work(s) for which they are nominated)
Miz Krimzon - The Hidden Emperor 
Best Letterer (Format: Name - Work(s) for which they are nominated)
Phil Whittlessee - The Hidden Emperor
Best Colorist (Format: Name - Work(s) for which they are nominated)
Sunil Ghagre - The Hidden Emperor 
Best Cover Artist (Format: Name - Work(s) for which they are nominated)
Rod Espinosa - The Hidden Emperor 
Best Continuing or Limited Series
Ayla Rin

There's a ton of other categories fill in what you like but let's get this going!

Thanks so much!

JDA 

Leatherbound Books
about 1 year ago – Sat, Feb 22, 2025 at 10:35:46 AM

I just found out how to send out updates to certain backer groups! We talk about the leatherbound books on the livestreams / discord / and subscribe star quite a bit so figured everyone here was part of that group, sorry if I missed you on that! 

This is my first time with leatherbound books. They're not instant print and go like the rest of this because they're hand bound each one of them. One has to order the leather, get a special print run done (these are on premium quality paper that is superior to the main run for the special edition) and then they have to get hand-bound in Europe and stamped. 

It's a 6-12 month process to get all of them done and start shipping. The actual print run of the paper is there at the bindery, it's gorgeous and the quality of this is going to be beyond anything I've ever seen done with a comic book before. The books done by Easton Press that are super high-end collectors' books are comparable to these which is awesome.  

So it's in process! 

I wish I could reply to comments on here! Here's the gold foil stamp design that will be on the front once they'r'e all bound: