"You two did a great job."
Hearing those words, Bruce wasn't able to control his already rampant emotions. He took a deep breath to calm himself down.
He was very emotional at that moment.
But Jim wasn't finished yet.
He also noticed that Bruce was having a moment but he needed to give him more surprises. There were special things to show.
"Well, with that, these come for you two."
Saying that, he pulled up a box that was filled with letters that seemed to be handwritten. Aiden understood what they were as soon as they saw them.
Even with the rise of digital comics where the readers could just leave a comment of appreciation, fan letters were still a thing and they felt much more sincere.
"These letters are for us?"
He asked, looking at Jim. Bruce's eyes also froze at him as he nodded.
"Yeah, people wrote them for you two. The company normally collects them every month for the artists. These came for you two yesterday. Go through them slowly."
As Jim completed his words, Bruce picked one of them up. His hand was shaking a little.
Opening it up, he read every word carefully and after reading it once, he read it again and again.
The letter was written by a female fan who appreciated the art style a lot and felt like it would become one of the best graphic novels.
Bruce rubbed his eyes as he was unable to believe it.
He was still in doubt whether it was a reality or not.
In the next moment, he broke down into tears.
Jim was a bit surprised as he hadn't expected this but he understood that it was because the young man in front of him had struggled a lot and these fan letters were proof that his struggle was over now.
'I feel like I did a good thing in my quest to get over my nightmares.'
Aiden thought, smiling at Bruce.
There were moments in one's life where you would unintentionally help someone and that's what had happened. Aiden just wanted a medium to jot down his thoughts and that turned out to be making comics.
As he didn't have any skill in drawing or illustrating, he naturally turned to Bruce who he had accidentally met. He did all this for his reasons but while doing that, Bruce reached the position he always wanted to reach.
It was accidental but Aiden was glad Bruce got his due.
"Thank you. Really thank you."
Bruce turned to Aiden and said. One of his hands was wiping up at his eyes, trying to control the tears.
"You deserved it."
"Still, if you hadn't come to my home that day, I wouldn't have gotten here. I'm really grateful to you."
"If you are really that grateful, then let's make <Morpheus> a big hit."
Aiden said and Bruce rigorously nodded his head.
At that moment, Aiden opened up his system to look at Bruce's status. Surprisingly, he noticed that he had just gotten a skill level.
[Bruce Morse] [27 years]
[Drawing level: Level 7]
[Special skill: None.]
Bruce's skill was on Level 6 till now but right now, it had levelled up out of nowhere.
Aiden could only think that he reached a breakthrough after seeing the letters from the fans of <Morpheus>.
After realising that his work was good enough to be liked by people, he had decided to give his everything and that had helped him level up.
Aiden felt like him levelling up would help the graphic novel more.
Anyway, he had a feeling that <Morpheus> was going to do better and better.
***
Like Aiden thought, the next few days were great for <Morpheus>. The sales kept on increasing. Although the hardcopy sales weren't something to brag about, the digital ones were exploding.
The graphic novel was blowing up on digital platforms and it attracted a lot of readers.
Surprisingly, a strange data came up related to <Morpheus>.
It was that more than 40 percent of the audience of <Morpheus> was female. A lot of women were taking an interest in it out of nowhere and it was hard to pinpoint a reason.
After all, women comic book readers were comparatively less than men.
After looking for it, one of the reasons was the appearance of the main character Volke. With long hair and a slim body, he was someone that a lot of women felt attracted to.
Moreover, the themes of the graphic novel were a lot universal and it was catering to any demographic. That surely helped the graphic novel.
Out of nowhere, Vikings publishing had a winner and one that was breaking a lot of tropes.
They had never targeted the female populace but they surely liked the female readership.
Unlike initial thoughts like the mature theme would hinder the graphic novel to reach its potential, it had all been proven incorrect.
Adults liked what they saw and it was the only thing that mattered.
Critics were also showering praises on the work as a lot of them felt like it was a breath of fresh air.
A major comic book website did a review of the first issue and wrote, "<Morpheus> is great in its art style and that's always a plus point but it has the heart too as the story takes its time to settle in but when it does, you connect with the main character and the ending of the first issue gives one enough reason to keep reading."
Another review came from a MeTuber who normally made comic and movie reviews.
He wrote, "This is a new character, someone not in a shared universe, meaning that he's trying to create his own universe but we have not seen anything of it. Art is great but the book wasn't able to sell me in the first half as it takes a lot of time to get to the main thing. I could see why it does that and although admirable, it leaves a lot to be desired. Though, I won't drop it as the work surely needs more time to shine."
In his review, he was less positive about the graphic novel and seemed unsure of the next issue, pointing out the world building factor.
Aiden had actually taken it to account too when he was working on the first issue and the major reason why he hadn't given a lot to build the world was because he wanted to get a connection between the main character and the readers first.
There was enough time to build the world after that as in the second volume, the fantasy side of the comic was going to be explored more and in the third, the powers of the main character would be the main topic.
As <Morpheus> was working well, Aiden hadn't forgotten about [Sherlock of the Shadows].
The Zetflix series was going to be released in November and before that, Aiden had to promote it and follow a round of media interactions and other promotional activities.
It was a hindrance to the graphic novel work but Aiden had already completed the script for this one's issue, so he left everything to Bruce.
***
Phineas had been working on the post production of [Sherlock of the Shadows] since the day shooting had ended. He wasn't the type to take rest before getting into it and was someone who treated his work like the world until it was over.
The VFX of the series took a long time to correct and Zetflix didn't give tight deadlines to the VFX artist unlike other companies in the market.
It was mostly due to Ava who knew that not giving enough time would just ruin the series.
At the same time, she was also working with the marketing team to promote the series well. Posters of it were released one after another and aside from that, she used the media to thoroughly make interest in the project.
It was interesting to note that most of the promotion was done around Aiden.
This was done by promoting things that had happened during the shooting like Jeremy giving an interview about how Aiden surprised him and how he didn't think much of him before that.
There were also articles on how Aiden got too much into the role and needed to take psychological help to get out of it.
This type of tactic wasn't original at all.
A lot of movies were promoted like that, trying to create an image that the actor gave his all.
Although it was true most of the time, there had also been fake cases about it. Once, a movie was promoted like this but when it came out, critics bashed the acting and it was clear to everyone that it was just fake marketing.
Thankfully, it was true in the case of [Sherlock of the Shadows] and it did make headlines. Media was interested as Zetflix was making the supernatural detective series it's main project for the winter.
Ava had obviously asked Aiden before using it in marketing material, not wanting to do anything rash in their newly formed mutual relationship.
He had agreed with it after a little thought, being fine with it until it was helping the series.
He knew very well that making a good series was just basic. If it didn't reach the audience, it was going to become a forgotten work.
At a media event, the trailer of [Sherlock of the Shadows] was released with the press being present there and after that, a premiere was held to showcase the first episode of the series.
