CHARACTERS
Weapons, machines and history are fascinating, but people are what survive in memory. Every story begins with someone worth following, especially when things start going wrong.
IRON FORGE STORYWORKS
VETERAN-LED. CREATOR-OWNED.
Iron Forge Storyworks grew out of men who went to war, came home and discovered that the stories never really left them. Some of those stories are brutal. Some are hilarious. They all are a part of us, some come from the generations who fought and died before us, and some require us to look thousands of years into the future to tell them properly.
the SANDBOX is where we started putting them down for you to see.
VETERAN FOUNDATION
FORGED BY MEN WHO WALKED THROUGH THE FIRES OF HELL
The men behind Iron Forge come from Army and Marine infantry, reconnaissance, special operations, intelligence and command backgrounds, and later carried that experience into writing, film, games, finance and business. We fought our Nation’s wars, led men through the pits of hell and back again, buried friends, watched ordinary people do extraordinary things and learned that some of the hardest moments in war can also be the funniest.
This is how we started.
ARMYInfantry perspective
USMCLAR perspective
HISTORYFrance + Gallipoli
FUTUREScience fantasy
HOW THE ANTHOLOGY WORKS
ONE BOOK. FIVE STORY WORLDS.
Each piece of the SANDBOX gets the world it deserves. Afghanistan and Iraq carry the dust, gear and hard edges of modern war. Marguerite lives in the bright lines and lighted personality of a European adventure. Gallipoli bends men and machines into broad caricature while retaining the history underneath it. Commander Vex opens the doors to a vast future Solar System full of strange worlds, old rivalries and things humanity was never supposed to find.
The artwork changes because the worlds are different. The people that live here remain the reason you’ll want to turn the page.
DETAIL
If a rifle, vehicle, uniform, radio or piece of history appears on the page, somebody on our side should understand why it is there. The reader does not need the lecture; the detail simply needs to feel right.
ACTION
Combat becomes noise when nobody knows where the people are or what they are trying to do. Whether it is an infantry firefight, a Resistance escape or a fight beneath Mars, the reader should always understand the danger and who is caught inside it.
HUMOR
War has always produced its own peculiar kind of stupidity, gallows humor and absurdity. We lived with enough of it to know that leaving it out would make the stories less truthful.
LAUNCH POSTURE
COMING OFF THE ANVIL
the SANDBOX is moving toward professional sequential production with the first edition targeted for summer 2027. As the work advances, Iron Forge will showcase the finished pages, artists, characters and pieces of each story world here before the first issue reaches readers.
We want people to watch the book become real.