User:LukeStoneStudios

Luke Stone
Luke Stone (May 5, 1980) is a comic book artist, writer, and entrepreneur who has been actively working in the small press publisher sector of the independent comic book industry since 2015. After leaving vocational ministry in 2022, he founded a crowdfunding platform dedicated to comics and games called, FundMyComic. He works actively with Randy Zimmerman at Arrow Comics where he publishes work such as, Hybrids: The Sons of Gods and Rift Riders.

= Early Life = Stone was born in Kokomo, Indiana and lived there most of his youth with short stints in Texas and Florida. He grew up loving comics and music and won several national art awards for pencils and mixed media. He met his wife in 1998 and was married in 2000. They had their first child in 2002. Followed by their second in 2009.

Stone eventually went into vocational ministry where he eventually ended up in Jacksonville, Florida. While there, he began working in his spare time as a small press publisher and artist for various creators. In 2021, a near death experience with the COVID-19 virus drastically altered the future for Stone. After 5 months of hospitalization, the church that Stone pastored would dissolve and leave him at a crossroads of sorts. In 2023, Stone left vocational ministry and started working in comics full-time.

= Career in Comics = Tenacious Comics was Stone's first venture in small press and was in operation from 2016-2017. The era of crowdfunding publishers had begun and Stone was right there in the mix. Unfortunately, obligations with ministry required him to step away from publishing.

Within a few weeks of closing Tenacious Comics, Stone was approached by Joe Spicer of Star Cross Comics. Joe became the publisher of the Hybrids: The Sons of Gods title that Stone worked on slowly while fulfilling his obligations to his church. In 2020, Stone attempted a new publishing venture with several friends. The downtime due to the pandemic was a perfect time to try something new. Unfortunately, that was a short lived venture and stone wound up merging his efforts with Randy Zimmerman of Arrow Comics in 2021.

Starting FundMyComic, a crowdfunding platform dedicated to free speech and creativity for those producing comics and games in March of 2023, Stone has made great strides to help both new and established creators find crowdfunding success.

As an editor and contributor at Arrow Comics, Stone is best known for his primary title, Hybrids: The Sons of Gods. Additionally, he is the artist for Chrome-Dog by Justin K. Sweet and the co-creator of Rift Riders. Both published in 2023.

= Luke Stone in the Media = Stone has a successful YouTube channel where he does a weekly podcast with co-host Randy Zimmerman in which they cover industry news and interview creatives in the comic book space.

Stone was featured in several articles when he started the FundMyComic platform. Among those were an article by Christian Toto and an interview by Iron Age Marketing Podcast.