Welcome to Crowdpuncher, our new feature on cool comics crowdfunding campaigns. If you’re looking to support a creator directly, you’ve come to the right place. And that’s a good thing to do, now more than ever.
Joe Glass has been working on his LGBTQ+ superhero comic The Pride for a number of years now, going back to at least 2016. Now he’s back with a new series, The Pride: Agenda Dysphoria, which is up now on Kickstarter.
In his latest newsletter, he discussed why he still makes The Pride and comics featuring LGBTQ+ characters.
“You might wonder why I still make a comic all about LGBTQ+ superheroes. Certainly, since I started, queer characters are much more present and active than they were when I began,” he said, noting Marvel and DC both have Pride specials they do every year. But while things might have changed for the better in the world of mainstream comics, progress in the real world has come under threat in recent years.
“We’ve seen the effects and activity of the agenda of a multi-millionaire author, as she attacks and sends her legions of supporters and fans to pile on trans people,” Glass wrote. “Her agenda is both plainly clear and yet somewhat unclear – clear because we can see that harming the trans community is the agenda, but what’s unclear is why? That’s not the case of many politicians that jump on this issue and throw terms like ‘woke culture’ or ‘social justice warriors’ around – they’re clearly hopping onto the ‘culture war’ bandwagon to try and solidify a power base, no matter it harms to get there.”
So the idea of “agendas” plays central to the theme of the comic. According to the Kickstarter, this new story arc presents “a perfect jumping on point for new readers” while continuing the story for existing readers. It promises “new costumes, new allies, new enemies, new romances, new rivalries – all this plus BIG DAMN ACTION” in a story that sees The Pride step up for their community. Glass is working with artist Auguste Kanakis on this new volume, while Luciano Vecchio helped with the new character designs.
What’s the deal?
£3, or about $4 in American dollars, gets you a digital copy of the first issue of The Pride: Agenda Dysphoria, while £5, or about $7 will get you a print copy of this first issue. Other tiers let you add on other works by Glass, including The Pride Summer Special 2024 and his romance novel A Con Affair.
Creators: Joe Glass, Auguste Kanakis, Heather Breckel, Michael Stock, Chiara Mestieri
Platform: Kickstarter
Deadline + Goal: April 25, $6,338
Visit Kickstarter for more information or to make a pledge.
Who Killed Nessie?
Now this one sounds fun. Imagine that all the cryptids in the world — Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, the Jersey Devil and more — get together every year for a convention. Now imagine one of them gets murdered at said convention, and it’s up to Lindsay Grockle, who runs the hotel hosting the convention, to figure out whodunnit.
That’s the premise of this new graphic novel by writer Paul Cornell and artist Rachael Smith that’s currently up on Zoop.
What’s the deal?
A digital copy will cost you $15, while a print copy is $26. Higher tiers offer signed and remarque copies, original art and more.
Creators: Paul Cornell and Rachael Smith
Platform: Zoop
Deadline + Goal: April 25, $20,000
Visit Zoop for more information or to make a pledge.
SIGNA #1
Former Marvel Comics publisher John Nee, former IDW editor-in-chief John Barber and former IDW business manager Nate Murray have come together to form their own publishing company, Pan-Universal Galactic Worldwide, or PUG-W. And for their first project, Barber and Andrew Lee Griffith, who previously worked together on IDW’s Transformers comics, have teamed up on a new graphic novel titled Signa, which is currently up on Kickstarter.
Here’s how PUG-W describes the OGN: A hundred years after a war with renegade mining robots transformed the sun into a red giant, dooming the Earth, the grandchildren of that war struggle to survive off the ashes of the past. That is, until a scavenger named Ketna Vora and her crew find SIGNA—an old war mech that thinks it might know how to save the solar system. But the real question is: save it for who? Because after a century…the machines have returned.
“I’ve always loved science fiction—I was the kid that liked anything with lasers and spaceships. And if you’ve followed my work before, you know I like robots, and I really like using them to tell big-scale stories with my friend and collaborator Andrew Lee Griffith. That comes together in Signa,” Barber said. “We’re trying to pull in some of the energy of Star Wars, Transformers and Mechwarrior and mix with old school SF writers like Heinlien and Haldeman with contemporary influences like The Expanse, Martha Wells and Becky Chambers. Andrew and I like to push our characters to the limit and see what they’re really made out of, and that’s what we’re doing here.”
What’s the deal?
$15 gets you a PDF of the graphic novel, while a hardcover of the 48-page OGN will cost $35. Other tiers offer a 3D cover by Tom Scioli, commission sketches, portfolio reviews and more,
Creators: John Barber and Andrew Lee Griffith
Platform: Kickstarter
Deadline + Goal: May 3, $10,000 (fully funded)
Visit Kickstarter for more information or to make a pledge.
I am the Comic
Cecil Castellucci has worked on a lot of interesting projects in her career as an author, comics writer and musician, but this may be the most interesting one yet.
“In an effort to come up with a truly ephemeral sequential arts experience, I am going to become a walking comic book where the pieces of the story will temporarily live on my right arm as I walk through the world,” she said on Kickstarter. “It’s a conceptual art piece! That will last a year!”
Castellucci has enlisted more than 20 artists to draw a comic strip starring a character named Maxi:
which Castellucci will then turn into a temporary tattoo to wear for two weeks at a time. Some of the artists she’s recruited include Mari Naomi, Diana Tamblyn, Pia Guerra, Nate Powell, Chris Wisnia, Jose Pimienta, Nicole Goux, Hope Larson, Faith Erin Hicks, Dean Haspiel and more.
What’s the deal?
Since the comic being created here is going to be on Cecil’s arm, there’s not really a piece of collateral that’s being produced here. However, she is offering rewards like copies of her album, signed books from her backlist and even a hangout on Discord to watch a Disney movie. In keeping with the theme of the campaign, she’s also offering a blank comics panel template as a temporary tattoo, so you can easily draw your own comic on your arm if you so choose.
Creators: Cecil Castellucci, Mads Ellegard Skovbakke and many more
Platform: Kickstarter
Deadline + Goal: May 2, $8,000
Visit Kickstarter for more information or to make a pledge.
True Believers #2
I spoke with True Believers co-writer Joshua Viola last year when he was crowdfunding the first issue of the comic he’s writing with horror novelist Stephen Graham Jones. It’s about a fictional slasher icon called Killr™ who comes to life at The Colorado Festival of Horror — a real horror convention. And because of this unique setting artist Ben Matsuya gets the chance to draw a lot of horror icons into the series, including Jamie Lee Curtis, Gwar, R.L. Stone and more. So there’s a lot of meta references here to the horror genre; I wouldn’t be surprised if the creators themselves eventually show up in it.
This campaign is to raise funds for the second issue, which takes place a year after the first and sees someone new adopt the Killr™ persona—but is it just another obsessive fan or a new threat on the horizon?
What’s the deal?
You can get a digital copy of True Believers #2 for a $7 pledge, or a print copy for $12. To get the first issue as well will cost you $24. Other rewards include variant cover and signed editions, a soundtrack by Matthew Kiichi Heafy, a latex Killr™ mask and more.
Creators: Joshua Viola, Stephen Graham Jones, Ben Matsuya
Platform: Kickstarter
Deadline + Goal: April 26, $2,500 (fully funded)