Fund Me Monday | ‘Cupid’s Arrow,’ ‘Dagger Dagger’ and more

Check out new crowdfunding projects by Thom Zahler, Ron Marz, Matthew Dow Smith, Vincent Fiorello and more.

Crowdfunding continues to serve as a viable method for creators to fund their creative endeavors, as comic-related projects flourish on sites like Kickstarter, Patreon and IndieGoGo. If you’re looking to buy something from or support a creator directly, you’ve come to the right place. And that’s a good thing to do, now more than ever.

Send any suggestions of your own to jkparkin@yahoo.com.

Dagger Dagger

Creators involved: Matt Emmons, Al Gofa
Platform: Kickstarter
Deadline: Aug. 28

What to know: Dagger Dagger is an anthology of dark sci-fi and fantasy stories by an impressive group of creators, including Simon Roy, Tyler Landry, Leslie Hung, Sloane Leong, Matt Lesniewski and many more. Each will write and draw a story for the anthology.

According to the Kickstarter page, each creator’s story will average 10-12 pages, with a few stories winding up around 20 pages. The final product will be a “pulpy magazine” size (8″x10″) book.

What’s the deal? $10 will get you a digital copy, while the print copy if $20. In higher tiers, they’re offering T-shirts and commissions.

Holy West

Creators involved: Seth Jacob, Daniel Irizarri
Platform: Kickstarter
Deadline: Aug. 24

What to know: This a mash-up of the King Arthur legend with the Old West, as a disgraced gunslinger searches for the Holy Grail.

In the wilderness of the Old West, a surreal castle appears to saints and madmen before melting away like a mirage. As a young deputy, Percy walked its halls, he saw the mysterious Fisher King within whose mystical wound makes the West a Wasteland…and he saw the Grail. It changed him forever.

Now: it’s 1886. A deadly winter that went down in history as “The Big Die Up” ravages the country. Percy is no longer a lawman, but a disgraced gunslinger who has hunted the castle for decades. He longs to return there, to see the Grail again, to heal the Fisher King where he once failed. And to restore the West from the wintry Wasteland it has become.

This campaign is for the first issue of a planned five-issue miniseries.

What’s the deal? $5 will get you a digital copy of the first issue, while $10 gets you a print copy. They’re also offering a “premium” edition that has a cover by Simon Roy:

that also includes a back-up comic and a prose story. Other tiers offer T-shirts, original art and more.

The Inevitables

Creators involved: Vincent Fiorello, Obi Fernandez
Platform: Kickstarter
Deadline: Sept. 3

What to know: This project is not only for a 22-page comic, but also a full-length music album “based on a group of nobodies trying to save the world.” It’s spearheaded by Vincent Fiorello, one of the founders of the band Less Than Jake, and Obi Fernandez from the band Westbound Train. Jono Diener is writing the comic, while Liana Kangas and Fabian Lelay are drawing it.

Here’s a description of the story:

The Inevitables story takes place in the not-so-distant future when Big Pharma has been able to produce a “cure for death.” Of course there’s a big number on the price tag that reflects such a coveted item. Just like the bridge itself, it further divides the mega wealthy from the working class. It’s about time they get a reality check that playing God has consequences and death is inevitable.

One side of the bridge is the home of The Inevitables: an unlikely team of a punker, drug dealer, graffiti artist, mystic bodega owner, and middle-aged Christian couple who come together to take on the challenge that is Knight Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Tillerson Knight, owner of the massive corporation, is part of the mega wealthy living across the bridge. 

As tensions rise, so do the stakes. There are only 40 DAYS to save the world and this is only the beginning…

What’s the deal? $10 gets you a digital copy of the comic plus one of the singles from the album. $20 will get you a print copy, plus the full digital album. Other tiers offer the album on vinyl, band T-shirts, art prints, Zoom calls with the creators and more.

Beasts of The Black Hand vol 2: The Viking League

Creators involved: Paul Harding, Ron Marz, Matthew Dow Smith
Platform: Kickstarter
Deadline: Aug. 13

What to know: This is the follow-up to the 2018 graphic novel that came out from Ominous Press and had a successful Kickstarter of its own. It was about a group of secret agents who took on a cabal of supernatural baddies.

Unfortunately, it looks like the bad guys are back:

Now, in the spring of 1920, in a world rife with black magic, horrific monsters, and dieselpunk technology, creatures commanded by the Black Hand are rampaging across Eastern Europe, moving ever westward. Maria Rasputin still seeks vengeance for Rayner’s assassination of her father. Black Hand sorcerers Lihko and Koschei have allied themselves with the fascists of the Viking League, spreading terror. A mysterious Teutonic Knight has appeared, his goals and alliances unknown. And the great beast known only as The Baubus waits to be unleashed.

What’s the deal? $15 gets you a digital copy of the second volume, while $30 gets you both volume one and two digitally. A hardcover of volume two will cost you $30, while $60 gets you both volumes. They’re also offering T-shirts, prints and sketches from Smith.

Cupid’s Arrows Volume 1

Creators involved: Thom Zahler
Platform: Kickstarter
Deadline: Aug. 27

What to know: Cupid’s Arrows is a webcomic that appears on LINE Webtoon, and it’s about two colleagues who basically function as Cupid in the real world.

When Rick and Lora say they’ve been colleagues for a long time, they mean it. For over 200 years, these partners have roamed the mortal world as real-life cupids – magic-wielding foot soldiers on the battlefront of love. Now it’s the 21st century, and Rick and Lora are facing their most challenging case ever: bringing together a Type-A, career-driven woman and a former football player-cum-barista who couldn’t be more different. The pair is perfect for each other (even if they don’t know it yet) so the cupids will have to make sure their love arrows land and do it all while they face their own unrequited feelings for one another. Will love win the day? Read on and see!

Zahler’s looking to raise money to not only bring the story to print, but also to reformat it so it’ll work as a book.

What’s the deal? $24 gets you the print collection. Other tiers offer an artbook, prints and collections of Warning Label, Zahler’s other webcomic.

Mañana: Latinx Comics From the 25th Century

Creators involved: Joamette Gil
Platform: Kickstarter
Deadline: Aug. 21

What to know: This is an anthology featuring 27 young adult stories by more than 50 Latine creators from throughout the United States and Latin America.

The stories are science fiction and are set in various parts of Latin America in the 2490s, ranging from “post-apocalypse, to liberationist utopia, to slice-of-life magical realism.”

What’s the deal? $15 gets you a digital copy, while a print copy will cost you $30. Other tiers offer bookplates, pins and even an oil painting.

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