It’s the Ko-fi Membership Campaign’s FINAL COUNTDOWN (queue “The Final Countdown” by Europe).
To celebrate, I’m running a YouTube livestream on the final day, Jan 31 at 6 pm ET. Feel free to tune in, watch me draw, and let me answer any questions you may have about Ko-fi.
As a reminder, we are at 10 members currently – we’re trying to get to 12 members by the end of Jan 31! By doing that, all members (new and current) will get a Little Caticorn mini-print, a Prince Odinon mini-print, and a Caticorns zine.
If you’re interested in becoming a member, head to my Ko-fi Memberships page and check the options that work best for you.
Broke? There are two free things you can do: Subscribe to my YouTube channel and spread the word about the Membership Drive! Sharing is caring and helps a lot.
Thank you for your support!
You. Are. Awesome.
P.S. I’m also available for Valentine’s Day commissions. More info is on my Commissions page.
We are one week into the Ko-fi Membership Drive and we have already unlocked a goal!
Now that we have 10 members on Ko-fi, everyone of these members are receiving a Little Caticorn 4×6-inch mini-print!
The next goal is 15 members – when we hit that, everyone will receive the Little Caticorn mini-print AND the Forest Spirit 4×6-inch mini-print!
For the folks who have joined recently, thank you for your patronage. Your rewards will mail out on/after February 1st, 2025. Also you can start receiving early access to The Legend of Jamie Roberts already!
There are more benefits to membership – like shop discounts, exclusive zines and mini-comics, exclusive art, first dibs on commissions, and more. To get these perks, head to my Ko-fi page and join!
Alternatively, you can give just once, and get access to shop discounts and first dibs when I’m available for commissions.
If you want to get your hands on some goodies, I now have some bundles for you to check out:
Keep in mind, you can ONLY get these bundles during this membership drive. So you have UNTIL JAN 31 to claim these. Once the drive closes, the 2024 bundles are gone forever.
So can we make it to 15 members? Who will claim the 2024 rewards? Stay tuned for more updates next week!
This is a drive to get more memberships on my Ko-fi page, whether you give just once, or you join with a monthly membership. (Though there are definitely more perks if you join the monthly membership, more info below).
As of right now, we have 8 active Ko-fi members. If we can make these following benchmarks, we can unlock the following goals:
At 10 active members, all members (one-off and monthly) will get a 4×6-inch Little Caticorn mini-print!
At 15 members, all members (one-off and monthly) will get that PLUS a 4×6-inch Forest Spirit mini-print!
At 20 members, all members (one-off and monthly) will get these PLUS a 4×6-inch Prince Odinon mini-print!
At 25 members, all members (one-off and monthly) will get these PLUS a 4×6-inch mini-print of The Two Sisters – a watercolor painting from the 2022 Columbus, OH show, Comics vs Art!
More rewards will be announced as more goals are unlocked!
WHY
2025 is going to be an uncertain year for a lot of folks for many different reasons. For me, 2025 will be risky because of book bans and their challenges (I’m a genderqueer comic artist who makes comics about LGBTQ+ characters). Plus, for 2025 I’m *only* going to zine fests and shows in the Toledo, OH area. For one, those shows are friendlier to comics like The Legend of Jamie Roberts. Also, the proposed tariffs are affecting many artists’ ability to afford merchandise stock like keychains and books. This isn’t even mentioning that comicons and pop culture cons are too expensive to go to as a vendor, even with splitting tables with friends.
Because of these impacts, that leaves us with a question: how can comics like The Legend of Jamie Roberts, Vanita and the Demon King, and so many zines and minicomics happen with these challenges ahead? How can we solve at least one part of this puzzle?
That’s where Ko-fi Memberships come in.
Ko-fi Memberships are an easy way to get cool and custom rewards *and* support to keep making comics like The Legend of Jamie Roberts. The more supporters there are, the more comics and art that can be made and shared with more and more readers!
I want comics like The Legend of Jamie Roberts to keep going. More importantly, *the readers* want comics like The Legend to keep going. This comic especially is written with teens and young adults in mind, who, like me, struggle with gender identity and their place in the world. Stories like this cannot exist in a vacuum, and need support from readers like you to continue.
HOW
Ko-fi Memberships come in two flavors – one-time donations and monthly memberships.
If you give just a one-time donation during this Membership Drive, you get…
Ko-fi shop discount codes,
First dibs when I’m available for commissions,
If you join any of my monthly memberships – the Digital Club, the Zine + Sticker Club, the Art Club, you get all of that PLUS…
Webcomic updates two days earlier than the rest of the internet,
Sneak peeks at how comic pages are made,
Access to comic scripts,
Shout-outs on YouTube,
Member-exclusive zines and stickers (for Zine + Sticker Club and Art Club members),
Exclusive 4 x 6 inch mini-prints (Art Club members),
AND members-only rewards if you back a KickStarter or Crowdfundr campaign.
To get these rewards, head to my Ko-fi page and click “Memberships” to join monthly, or “Shop” to get some goodies. Spending $3 or more in the shop gets you the one-time rewards. You can also get one-time rewards by leaving a tip of $3 or more on the main Ko-fi page.
Keep in mind, too, that you can cancel monthly memberships anytime, no questions asked.
These are options IF you have the budget for it. If you are broke or struggling, absolutely *do not* feel pressured to join. Like I mentioned up top, I understand that 2025 will be a tough year for all of us. So if you are broke, share this campaign with other folks who love genderqueer pirates, trans girls, demon kings, dragons, fantasy malarkey, and supporting queer creators. Sharing is caring and helps spread the word that this campaign and these comics are even happening.
WHEN
This Ko-fi Membership Drive will run UNTIL JAN 31, 2025. I will be updating you once a week on Tuesdays to let you know how the campaign is going. Rewards will ship out after Feb 1.
That’s all for now. If you have any questions or anything, please let me know!
In case you didn’t see it, I had a chat with comics buddy Jade, creator of Ask the Werewolves and Fox Me Gently. In the video (now on YouTube), we discussed why we left Patreon and alternatives to the platform we found.
I highly recommend giving it a watch! It’s less than an hour and a half long. But if you need cliff notes, here are some highlights.
Jade and I Both Left for Security Reasons
I left Patreon in 2018-ish, returned in 2021, and then left again last year. And I did that because Patreon had laid off their security team.
Jade left on March 1 (just over a week ago!) for the same reasons. On top of that, she found out that Patreon is outsourcing its security to an outside company. One that may sell the data of any NSFW creators at any time.
Not only that – Patreon requires creators who make NSFW content to post their IDs for face recognition software (already a YIKES). But patrons are not scrutinized to the same level. Any patron can check off a box saying, “Yes, I’m over 18,” even if they aren’t. If Patreon’s goal was to stop underage consumption of NSFW content, this policy is a failure.
What a Platform Deems as NSFW is Often Never Defined Until You’re Punished
Ko-Fi is a Patreon alternative, but it has its faults. The first of which is that yes, you can mark your page as NSFW. But you’re not allowed to post NSFW content on Ko-Fi.
This is already a “…What?” But don’t worry, it gets worse.
I’ve shared this story in multiple places, but I’ll repeat it here – back in August 2022, my Ko-Fi page got taken down by the platform. They did not email me about it. They did not tell me why they did it. I had to reach out to them and ask why. They only responded, “You’re posting content we disapprove of. Please remove it.”
No specifics. No details. Just that.
By process of elimination, I figured it had to be one of two posts I did shortly before the take-down. It was either this page of The Legend of Jamie Roberts that dared to show off male nipples. Or it was a product listing with the words “Fuck off” in the title.”
To be safe, I removed both. And my page was immediately up.
That scared the hell out of me. So I researched alternative platforms in earnest.
Alternatives DO Exist.
Thankfully, there are sites like Buy Me A Coffee, Stripe, and Big Cartel. Jade and I discuss other options in the video (which you really ought to watch). But we do hope that these are just the start. We both hope that there are innovators out there who want to build alternatives to Patreon and Ko-Fi.
(And now for the shameless plug.)
I chose to build my own alternative from scratch, using Stripe to process payments. I’m calling this Subscribe.
By going to Subscribe, you can choose a Club that works best for you and your budget! To check out the options, head over to Subscribe. Members get early webcomic updates, exclusive crowdfunding rewards, and discounts on commissions. The more you pledge, the more rewards you get.
