Crowdfunding – SMASH PAGES

Mat Groom + Kelly McMahon crowdfund a 1920s speakeasy-themed ‘Bad Blood’ card game

The campaign, which includes a comic by Groom and artist Nicoletta Baldari, launches on Kickstarter today.

When I spoke with Mat Groom a few weeks ago about the Kickstarter campaign for the second volume of Inferno Girl Red, he mentioned he was working with designer Kelly McMahon on a 1920s-themed murder mystery card game called Bad Blood. The crowdfunding campaign for the game is now live, and not only did Groom write the game, but he also wrote a tie-in comic for it.

The comic features artwork by Nicoletta Baldari and is available via one of the many tiers being offered to backers of the campaign. The comic provides some of the back story for the game, showing what life was like for Dee Dumas, the murder victim, and Joseph Field, the journalist who would wind up investigating her death (and who you play as in the card game), before the murder.

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve been enthralled by the mystery genre, be it film, television, literature or a good old fashion internet stalk, I love to be the detective!” said McMahon, a graphic designer and illustrator based in Los Angeles by way of Melbourne, Australia. “The romanticized glamor of the 1920s masquerades for the realities of the era. A ritzy elegant design, lavish lifestyles and devious underground happenings. There is a similar romance in moving your life to the otherside of the world, the dream sparkles but the reality is much less polished. All of this led to Bad Blood, my idea for a card game and murder mystery experience that harkens back to my love of the 1920s and my love for a good whodunnit.”

Smash Pages Q&A | Mat Groom returns to discuss the second ‘Inferno Girl Red’

The writer returns to the Massive-Verse for the second volume of the graphic novel series, which is currently up on Kickstarter.

Following a very successful campaign on Kickstarter for the first book back in 2021, Mat Groom, Erica D’Urso and the rest of the team have returned to crowdfund Inferno Girl Red Book Two. The new campaign is currently live.

If you aren’t familiar with Inferno Girl Red, it’s one of the many titles that make up the Massive-Verse, the collection of titles overseen by Kyle Higgins that include Radiant Black, The Dead Lucky and Rogue Sun, among others. It combines Groom’s love of tokusatsu superheroes and boarding school dramas, and it looks great thanks to D’Urso, colorist Igor Monti, letterer Becca Carey and design group For The People.

At press time, the campaign has brought in just over $45,000, which is more than halfway to its $85,000 goal. I spoke with groom about the new campaign, what he learned from the first one, how Inferno Girl Red fits into the Massive-Verse and more. He also shares a few details on his involvement with the upcoming Bad Blood playing cards/murder mystery game.

Check out Chrissie Zullo’s variant cover for ‘Armored’ #2 [Exclusive]

The Kickstarter for the five-issue miniseries from Clover Press is now live.

Screenwriter Michael Schwartz is making his comic book writing debut with a five-issue miniseries called Armored, which is about a boy and his new best friend, a haunted suit of armor. Schwartz has teamed up with artist Ismael Hernandez and letterer Ferran Delgado on the project, which publisher Clover Press is currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter.

“A few years ago, my entire comic book collection was stolen,” said Schwartz, who penned the screenplay for Gnome Alone. “After that I started to re-collect and revisit the thousands of books I loved — from Silver Age classics to modern era epics — and realized the potential comic books offered me for telling this ambitious and personal tale. Working with Clover has been a real pleasure as they truly understood the scope of the story and how Ismael Hernandez and I wanted this narrative to unfold for the reader.”

Each issue will feature covers and variants by different artists, and we’re pleased to debut Chrissie Zullo‘s variant cover for Armored #2, which you can see below. Her trademark whimsical style has been featured on covers for Archie Comics, the various Fables titles, Star Wars and many more, and it’s great to see it here:

Jeff Smith will collect his college paper comic strip ‘Thorn’

A Kickstarter campaign for the strips that serve as the precursor to ‘Bone’ will launch in October.

Prior to the release of Bone as a comic book — and it eventually becoming a worldwide phenomenon — Jeff Smith had a college comic strip called Thorn. It introduced several of the characters who would eventually evolve into the ones we know and love in the Bone series, including Thorn and Phone Bone. In fact, Smith would reference many of those early strips directly in the early issues of Bone.

Thorn has never been collected in its entirety, but that will change when Cartoon Books launches a Kickstarter later this year for Thorn: The Complete College Strips.

“Talking Jeff into this book wasn’t easy, but fans have been asking us for years,” said Cartoon Books Publisher Vijaya Iyer, Smith’s partner.

Kickstarter’s comics projects have increased by 14% this year

The crowdfunding platform shares some of their data for the first half of 2023, as comics projects continue to flourish on the site.

Crowdfunding continues to serve as a viable method for creators to fund their creative endeavors, as comic-related projects flourish on sites like Kickstarter. Even with the rough economic environment we’ve seen over the last six months, with rate hikes, inflation and layoffs, comics-related projects on Kickstarter have remained resilient — and have even grown compared to last year.

With Comic-Con on the horizon and the first half of the year complete, Kickstarter shared some of their recent data with us.

In the first half of the year:

Comic projects on the platform grew by 14% when compared to the first half of 2022. Comic projects in the first half of 2022 numbered 1,457 and increased to 1,666 in the first half of 2023.
Dollars pledged to comics campaigns also increased, from $14.4 million in 2022 to $17.6 million in 2023.
While the number of overall projects increased, so did the number of successful projects. 1,171 comics projects, or 78.1%, successfully met their funding goal this year. This is a 13.5% increase compared to the same time last year.

Oni Press teases a new ‘The Sixth Gun’ project from Bunn + Hurtt

“Sometimes what’s dead doesn’t stay gone.”

Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt’s The Sixth Gun may have ended in 2016, but “Sometimes what’s dead doesn’t stay gone.”

A new teaser released by Oni Press today hints that a new The Sixth Gun project is on the way via Kickstarter. While the supernatural western had a definitive end, Bunn and Hurtt always hinted that they had more stories to tell, and even launched a second series, Shadow Roads, that was set in the same world.

Gaiman + Pratchett’s ‘Good Omens’ is coming to comics, courtesy of Colleen Doran

The graphic novel will be funded through Kickstarter.

Colleen Doran has adapted several of Neil Gaiman’s prose stories into comics in recent years, including the Eisner-nominated Chivalry and the Eisner-winning Snow, Glass, Apples. But now she’s turning her attention to a Gaiman work of Biblical proportions.

Teased by both Doran and Gaiman on social media, Doran will next adapt Good Omens, the 1990 novel Gaiman co-wrote with Terry Pratchett about a young antichrist and the end of the world.

The Terry Pratchett will crowdfund the project via Kickstarter; you can check out the campaign page and sign up to be notified when it goes live.

Jason Copland’s ‘Full Tilt’ blasts through its crowdfunding goal

The campaign on Zoop tops $20,000 on its first day.

Kill All Monsters artist Jason Copland’s been working on his latest project, Full Tilt, for the past five years. Fueled by passion and Slurpees, Copland has created an “action-filled future noir epic,” loaded with love, grit and numerous two-page spreads.

The 300+ page black-and-white hardcover went live on Zoop yesterday, asking for a modest goal of $10,000. Full Tilt was well over $20,000 by the end of the day, and is approaching $30,000 as I type this.

“Full Tilt is a gritty, violent tale about a 23rd century crime family consigliere who must face the consequences of a choice he made between love and loyalty,” Copland said in his newsletter. “It’s an action filled future noir epic that touches on many eternal themes such as love and hate, family and power.”

Iron Circus launches a crowdfunding campaign for Sage Coffey’s ‘Wine Ghost Goes to Hell’

The campaign runs on BackerKit through June 1.

Glamor, the supernatural and disaster will all collide in Wine Ghost Goes to Hell, the new project by Bugsnax story editor Sage Coffey.

Iron Circus Comics has launched a crowdfunding campaign for the graphic novel through BackerKit, their 38th crowdfunded project.

“Imagine if the magazine Hollywood Insider was a person,” said Coffey. “Now imagine that person is a dead alcoholic. That’s Wine Ghost! She is drama. She is fashion. She insists that wine counts as a fruit. And she may be her newly dead friend’s only hope of having a life after death.”

Smash Pages Q&A | ‘Boris Karloff’s Gold Key Mysteries’

Zane Barrow, Michael Conrad, Craig Hurd-McKenney and Jok discuss their work on the first title from the revived Gold Key Comics.

Gold Key Comics first began publishing comics in the 1960s, focusing heavily on licensed material from Disney, Warner Bros., King Features and Star Trek, among others. They also published some original material, including Solar, Turok and Magnus Robot Fighter. Their titles showcased a broad range of genres, from children’s titles to science fiction to superheroes to horror, through the 1970s and early 1980s.

It’s been almost 40 years since Gold Key was active, but one of 2023’s pleasant surprises has been the revival of the company. Entrepreneurs and comics fans Lance Linderman, Adam Brooks, Mike Dynes and Arnold Guerrero have not only relaunched the company, but also have revived one of its biggest titles from back in the day featuring iconic horror actor Boris Karloff.

The Kickstarter campaign for Boris Karloff Gold Key Mysteries, a new anthology title featuring new stories by Michael Conrad, Craig Hurd-McKenney, Jok, Steve Orlando, Kelly Williams and more, surpassed its funding goal very quickly. With three days to go, it’s just south of $40,000, so you still have time to get in on the ground floor.

I caught up with Hurd-McKenney, Jok, Conrad and editor Zane Barrow about the project, the draw of working on a Boris Karloff comic in 2023, their contributions to the anthology and more.

Mignola + Snicket’s ‘Pinocchio’ Kickstarter approaches $400K

Beehive Books has added another tier to the campaign featuring prints of three new Pinocchio paintings by Mignola.

Beehive Books‘ latest crowdfunding campaign is sitting at just under $400,000 as I write this, and no doubt it’ll pass that milestone soon. And it’s no surprise, since it involves the talents of both Lemony Snicket (A Series of Unfortunate Events) and Mike Mignola (Hellboy) putting their own unique spin on the story of Pinocchio.

This new edition of Carlo Collodi’s beloved novel is currently up on Kickstarter for the next six days.

“I’ve been in love with Pinocchio as long as I can remember,” said Mignola. “Probably starting with the Disney film and then really drilled into me when I finally read the Collodi novel. It’s just so brilliantly strange—very very funny and also heartbreakingly sad. It’s one of the two books (along with Dracula) that I think sort of make me do what I do the way I do them.When Beehive Books approached me about doing a book… Well, at the time, the last thing I wanted to do was take on another project, but once I started thinking about doing Pinocchio I just couldn’t say no. The challenge was to come up with MY version of Pinocchio—much harder than I thought that was going to be but in the end I think I got there.”

Not wanting to rest on their laurels, Beehive has added a new tier to their Kickstarter campaign featuring prints of three more pieces by Mignola.

The full-color paintings were created by the artist as part of a Society of Illustrators exhibition, live now in NYC, which features a full portfolio of yet-to-be-published Pinocchio illustrations, including all the drawings done for the book and additional art not included in it. The exhibit will be open to the public until July 8. Take a look:

Dean Haspiel puts out a warrant for ‘Covid Cop’

The creator of ‘Billy Dogma’ seeks to crowdfund a new comic book.

Emmy Award-winning cartoonist Dean Haspiel has announced Covid Cop, a new horror/romance comic he’s crowdfunding on Kickstarter about an antihero attempting to save what’s left of humanity — and his marriage.

“A cross between Judge Dredd, Toxic Avenger, Mad Max and Sin City, Covid Cop is my response to a pandemic that never found its cure and has wiped out 98% of mankind,” Haspiel said.

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