Campaigners and Crowdfunding

Here I am again, with my monthly, bi-monthly, however-the-hell-long-it's-been blog post! And no, I'm not going to talk movies, not even Civil War (though it was awesome, and yes, I loved Spider-Man in it). I'm here to talk about one of my projects, which I haven't done here in a very long time.

The project is Campaigners, and I know I've talked about it here before, for much the same reason as I'm going to today. I need your help.

As you might have noticed, the Kickstarter did not fund, which was not a surprise as it was for a much larger amount than I had any right to expect. It was just too big a project, so I decided to break it down in to pieces. Five issues, twelve pages each, digital-only. I was able to fund the first issue through indie gogo, and we've completed the first two issues now, with the third well on it's way.

(The first two issues can be found on the website, zeropresscomics.com, or on comiXology.)

The last two issues, however, require a bit more help. We have another indie gogo campaign running right now, this one is to fund issues 4 and 5 and complete the series.

For those not familiar with the story, it's set in 2076, where Presidential debates have been replaced with a no-holds-barred fight to the death. The event is hugely popular, it's like the Super Bowl, the Olympics and the Fourth of July all rolled into one.

Kydra Franks is a high-school girl who hates the debates, is convinced they're the source of all the country's problems, or at least a glaring symptom of them. When approached by a reporter and asked about the election, she lashes out against the debates and declares she's refusing to vote. When her rant goes viral, she gets caught in the middle of a huge social upheaval as more and more young people latch onto her movement.

I say this every time I talk about this book, and it gets more true each time. I am immensely proud of the work we've been doing. The story is turning out wonderfully, and MJ's art is phenomenal. Mey Rude has been consulting and editing the script, and her guidance has been crucial every step of the way. And Sean's letters, and logos, and all the designs he's done have really brought everything together.

I swear this book is turning out so much better than I could have hoped. Whenever I'm worried about a scene being dull and slowing down the book, MJ comes back with some of her strongest pages, taking a simple conversation between a father and daughter and injecting such powerful emotion into it.

This is why it's so important to see this book through to the end. There's so much great work being done here it would be a huge waste not to get all the way through it.

But we CAN NOT do it without your help. This is not posturing. This is not hyperbole. If this campaign doesn't get funded, these issues will not get made. The money simply will not be there.

This is the reality of indie comics. We need your support more than anything. We don't make money off these books, and for a lot of us, we're not even breaking even. We do this because we have passion for our projects, and for the craft. We do this because these stories are too important to us not to tell them.

So please, take a look at our campaign, take a look at the rewards we're offering, and if you can pledge, it would immensely helpful, and if not, even just sharing the project would help.

And thank you for listening!