Hello, friends.
Joey Esposito and Sean Von Gorman here! Whether you’re new to our work or have been following along since the beginning, we can’t express how grateful we are for your support, and we’re excited to say that the future's looking bright!
It’s hard to believe it’s been TEN (10?!!!) years since we first launched our Kickstarter campaign for an original graphic novel called PAWN SHOP, an intimate slice-of-life story that follows four characters in New York City as their lives intertwine in unexpected ways.
It’s a simple story but hopefully a layered one, and it’s been, hands-down, the most positive feedback either of us have received in our careers so far.
Pawn Shop came together at a tumultuous time in each of our lives. The production of the book was lined with hurdle after hurdle as we continually struggled to get the comic together while also trying (and usually failing) to keep the plates spinning in our self-destructive personal lives.
For what it’s worth, our memories of those bad times have since receded into the shadow cast by our pride for this book we made.
Pawn Shop was primarily responsible for Joey getting accepted into the DC Comics Writers Workshop, which in turn has led to him being able to send Batman on some adventures (Batman: The Murder Club just kicked off in Batman: Urban Legends #20!).
Sean’s Pawn Shop art was put in the dang New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn, not to mention all the great work he’s done since, whether it’s creator-owned books like Toe Tag Riot and Ghost Planet or covers for IDW’s Star Trek.
After a successful Kickstarter campaign and a self-published edition, Pawn Shop was published by Z2 Comics in 2015 to critical acclaim but little else.
Unfortunately, we were released just before Z2 swerved hard into their successful niche of making music-focused comics and got lost in the shuffle.
Z2, for some reason, never bothered to put the book on Comixology—we had to do it ourselves after the rights reverted back to us.
And then Comixology Submit got blown to smithereens, and while it’s still available on Amazon, it is without the creator support that made Submit such a great program.
And so we’re here at Zestworld, a platform made for comics creators to share their work and increase the accessibility to their readers and vice versa, to celebrate ten years of Pawn Shop by releasing it chapter-by-chapter for the next month, free of charge.
And if you would be so kind as to subscribe to our page (for free!) so you don't miss any updates/new comics, we'd really appreciate you.
If you've ever read a webcomic, you're already ahead of the game.
All you've gotta do is go to the Pawn Shop page and start reading!
We’re excited to be involved—the Zestworld team has been nothing but accommodating and passionate about not only our work but all the creators joining the platform, and they’ve taken our feedback and suggestions to heart.
But the best part is, re-releasing Pawn Shop is only the beginning. If you follow us on social media or have bumped into us at a comic convention, you’ve probably seen us talking about something called THE PEDESTRIAN.
We’re not quite ready to reveal all our plans yet, but we can say if you dig Pawn Shop, you won’t want to miss what’s coming with The Pedestrian in 2023—right here on Zestworld.
So thanks for coming along for the ride, be sure to follow our page here at Zestworld so you get all the updates as they happen—including more info about The Pedestrian, which is going to be a really weird, wild ride.
Happy reading!
Read Pawn Shop for free on Zestworld!
-Joey and Sean