Tag: crowdfunding

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Witches: The Sketchbook Looking for KickStarter Funding

“Hold on a second,” you might be thinking. “You just had a KickStarter campaign, and you’re running another one so soon?”

Yes – the previous KickStarter was to get funding for Validation buttons, to have something for sale at conventions. That KickStarter ran in June for a week and raised just a little over $800 (holy banana pants!). Since that campaign was so short, the rewards were not super hard to fulfill. In fact, all the rewards for the backers are taken care of for that campaign.

I like to make sure loose ends are tied up before moving to the next KickStarter, thank you.

So, with previous campaigns taken care of, I’ve launched a new one: Witches: The Sketchbook is looking for $500 to get its first print-run going.

Witches: The Sketchbook is a compilation of sketches I made during Inktober, featuring nothing but witches. Why? Well, in promotional posts on KickStarter I say “because I love witches” and leave it at that. But there’s a little more to it than that.

The reason I drew witches is not just out of a fascination for them, but because as a Pagan person, I like seeing witches of all stripes and backgrounds. There’s not much representation of witches, Wiccas, neo-pagans, or the other branches of Paganism in art unless they’re super-sexy or the Macbeth variety of wrinkled cautionary witches.

I wanted to see something different – witches rooted in the old Gaelic traditions, witches of African descent, witches that could spring from old lore, modern-day witches, and witches of other backgrounds. And my method is usually, “Huh. I can’t seem to find anything like that. Time to draw it myself!”

There was also the desire to have a book of character designs and concept art, because I love those types of books and wanted to make one of my own. And a book of witch concepts is a good place to start, I think.

The KickStarter is still running – in fact, it has 11 days left in the campaign and ends on November 21st. Check it out and see what you would like. (Also there’s a ton of original sketches left to claim and they’re priced reasonably well, so be sure to get those before they run out).

If you can pledge, that’s fantastic! If you’re broke, please share the link with your friends. Every bit helps.

That’s all for now. Thank you for reading!

You. Are. Awesome.

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Rethinking How to Run a KickStarter

johnson and sir kickstarter art

One of the people I met at 3 Rivers Comic Con this year mentioned a podcast called ComixLaunch and recommended I give it a listen. So I did.

This is going to sound like product placement or a sponsorship, but let’s be clear, it isn’t. ComixLaunch is a podcast entirely about making comics and art, and running successful KickStarters to fund said comics and art, and how you can make a living as a working artist.

So I kinda’ got hooked after four episodes.

One episode in particular, Episode 95, is about why now is the best time for comickers to run KickStarters. It got my attention about halfway through the episode for one reason: Continue reading “Rethinking How to Run a KickStarter”

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Why I’m Going to Stick to Crowdfunding From Now On, Thanks

thoughtful dinosaur comic strip panel

Backstory:

I applied for a grant through my state, to possibly get some funding for comics and convention appearances so I don’t have to rely entirely on my day job income, Patreon, and KickStarter. I made it to the next to last round of judging, and saw that there was a panel happening the other day to determine the finalists.

So I requested the day off from the day job, drove to the city, and sat through the panel.

Now, I was expecting to be interviewed or to have to defend my case to the panelists.

Yeah, no. Guests weren’t even allowed to talk to the panelists. So the review process was sitting in a dark, cold room for three hours watching slides and three panelists take notes.

Now, the category I submitted to was Visual Design, because apparently that’s the category you put comics in. The problem? This category also covered furniture design, fashion design, and bookbinding.

That’s right: comics, as an art form, was being judged next to furniture and dresses.

Before I get into the tangent of comics as a medium having an entirely separate language and aesthetic from dresses and furniture, let’s talk about the panelists. There were three of them. One was a fashion instructor. One was a 3D artist specializing in (drumroll, please) furniture, and the third… I think she was there because she got a design degree from OSU. Her critiques were basically, and often literally, “I didn’t like it. It looked strange,” or “this looks nice to me.”

Let’s just say, half of the 16 submissions were comics and graphic novels, and only ONE made it to the top 5 (and it wasn’t me). The rest were costume designers or other 3D artist types.

And in the final elimination round, to the surprise of no one, the comic artist got the boot.

I was really hoping for better on that day. I was really hoping that somebody in the comics field would get this grant, even if it wasn’t me – hell, when I looked at my submission on the slides, it turned out that the system I submitted my work through warped my art and fucked up the dimensions of my comic strips. So I’m not surprised that I didn’t get the grant.

But there were artists who sent work better than me, who were not furniture and fashion designers, and they got the boot because the council could not recognize that comics have a different visual language, and different aesthetic values, than the unbalanced panelists could work with.

So, fuck it. I’m not applying for state grant funding again.

I’ll just stick to crowdfunding and convention sales from now on.

Did you have a better experience with arts councils or state-funded grants? Or was your experience just as awful? Share it in the comments below. I would love to read them.

Thanks for reading.

You. Are. Awesome.

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Johnson & Sir’s Campaign is Finished

johnson and sir fully funded kickstarter

Johnson & Sir is 100 pages and 2 years worth of silliness with elves, dinosaurs, mustaches, and anime cops. I had a blast making it, talking about it, and making prints and t-shirts for it.

I’m still blown away that the KickStarter to fund the book has not just reached the initial goal, but hit TWO stretch goals! Which means even more rewards for backers.

I want to say, thank you SO MUCH for reading the webcomic, and for all of your support. It’s readers like you that helped make Johnson & Sir be so popular and great.

So what’s next? Continue reading “Johnson & Sir’s Campaign is Finished”