Hello lovers of the public domain!
For the last 5 years I've been working on a shared-universe comic series built on public domain and historical figures with a goal of releasing at least one comic per year. So far there are 7 instalments with the latest having been released just last week. While they are not being written in chronological order (the comic set latest was actually the first made) they do have continued story-threads throughout that will become increasingly clear.
I've wanted to share the comics on this subreddit for a pretty long time, but decided to wait until one story-thread was actually complete as there is nothing more frustrating than starting a series only to discover you'll have to wait a year for the conclusion. This completed thread consists of the first 4 comics in the series (chronologically) and runs from the first issue 'Doctor Frankenstein, the Monster' culminating in a crossover event in 'Count Dracula and Doctor Frankenstein, Abomination Against God'. These 4 comics add up to 206 pages, which were all drawn by hand, then scanned and cleaned up digitally.
Other comics within the shared universe but not strictly dependent on this first story thread are 'Akhenaten, Tomb of the Heretic King' (a living mummy story), Captain Nemo vs Cthulhu', and 'Jack the Ripper vs Sweeney Todd, a Sherlock Holmes Mystery'. I have plans for many, many more stories and to use many more characters.
The comics are extremely fun to make, and I enjoy every step from reading the original materials the characters are based on, to researching the time they're set, to figuring out how they might tie into the larger narrative that I'm building, to writing, to drawing, and publishing. The drawing stage is interesting as I'm not really an illustrator and it definitely doesn't come naturally to me -- but for anyone else in the same boat I encourage you to push through anyway because there's nothing more exciting than when (after your thousandth re-draw) the image comes out even remotely like you had imagined! If anyone else has a planned passion project using public domain figures, my advice is to just start trying now -- you'll only get better by doing, and no one else can enjoy your stories when they're only in your head!
I mostly sell the comics physically at local fairs and comic book stores down in South Australia (seeing them stocked on shelves or having people asking 'when's the next issue?' is very exciting), but have also made them available online through amazon kindle. They're free for anyone with kindle unlimited, and available to purchase at thee cheapest I could make them without reducing my revenue cut from 70% to 30%. Here is the link for anyone who wants a gander - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DLHKTFPW
The pictures I have posted are of the first 4 comics' covers, and of a few pages from each of the first 4 that I thought turned out kinda snazzy.
TLDR; I'm writing a comic series using public domain figures. It is a lot of fun. Feel free to check it out, and I encourage anyone else who has similar plans to create their own passion-projects with public domain characters to get out and do it!