Support The Latest Shi Gatecrasher Campaign

Time To Dig In

Contributing writer Scott Braden talks about JC Vaughn and Billy Tucci’s Shi Kickstarter campaign…

As the tremendous success of its Kickstarter and Indiegogo projects suggested, why would readers and longtime comic book fans not want to crash this party?

I’m talking about SHI: GATECRASHER, and it’s got everything that those who love the four-color medium want in a book.  Both a stunning and striking comic book heroine?  Check.  Amazing script?  Check.  Gorgeous art?  Got it.

Multiversal sub-plot.

Multiversal sub-plot?

That’s right. This is not your average “bad grrrl” book.  SHI: GATECRASHER picks up after a long tradition of multiversal mayhem — from DC Comics’ infinite parallels cut down to a multiversity of 52, to Michael Moorcock’s 15 realms of the Eternal Champion.

Over the last few years, Billy Tucci has successfully crowdfunded omnibus editions of Shi: Way of the Warrior and Shi: Senryaku, but he’s also returned his title character the land of current comics with the powerful Shi: Return of the Warrior trilogy.

But in this one, Shi, Tucci’s lovely and lethal Sohei warrior, gets a history of all of comicdom, and an examination of ageless comic characters, genres, and tropes that we have not seen since Alan Moore gave us all a Comic Book 101 history lesson in Awesome Entertainment’s JUDGMENT DAY for Rob Liefeld.

And the exciting thing about that is thanks to writer and co-plotter (along with Billy & Deborah Tucci, as well as Steven Peros) J.C. Vaughn, it takes the fun and all-out action that was had by a precursor like that and expands on it.

From bringing back Golden Age heroes like The Black Terror, Captain Battle, and Bozo the Robot, to playing with genres like Jungle Queens, EC Horror, ARCHIE-like Teens,  and even the bad girl and superhero booms of the ‘90s, this book has it all.  It  even includes the first appearances of characters that have rattled around the brains of their creators for decades such as two of Vaughn’s Chimpions, Grorilla and Blimp Chimp.

And don’t forget Ran, Shi’s first iteration, who will make her solo debut in a 1990s-tinged, crowdfunded comic coming soon from Crusade Entertainment.

Besides that, there is so much fun to be had in this book that both new and old comic book fans are sure to love it like I did.  Whether you want to just have fun, learn about comics on a scholarly level, or watch the impressive Miss Fury and Brian Pulido’s Lady Death in action, there is so much to get out of this one-shot.

Readers who backed the campaigns already have their digital copies and the print version is at press as this is posted. Look for it in comic book shops in 2026. If you’ve already got it, dig in already, why don’t you?