Is 17 Unfulfilled Campaigns Too Many for One Creator?: New Comics on Kickstarter for January 28-31

Talking the Current State of Comics Self-Publishing with Martin Pierro

Deep Space Lovecraft launches on Kickstarter February 17! Turbocharged Teenager launches on Kickstarter March 3! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecomicscrowd.substack.com/subscribe [https://thecomicscrowd.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

A Self-Publisher's Wish List for the New Kickstarter Comics Lead + New Comics on Kickstarter for February 1-2

This is Kevin, back to talk about comics that launched on Kickstarter on the dates of February 1-2. There were 35 launches between Sunday and Monday last week. The first of the month always sees a huge spike in launches for some reason, no matter what day of the week it’s on, and usually Sunday doesn’t have very many launches at all, even during busy weeks, usually less than 10, sometimes zero. You saw the usual spread of NSFW comics, including a number that weren’t actually comics at all and don’t belong in the Comics category. There are other places for that. There are also several just empty campaigns with only text blocks instead of any actual comic art, any sequential art, any cover art, and any story information. I always call those empty campaigns. There’s just no evidence that they know how to make a comic, have the actual gumption to make a comic, or have the resources to make a comic. Out of 35 campaigns I did find four that are awesome, that I wanna share with you as ‘Comics I Like, and we’ll talk about that here shortly. Comics by Me But first, lemme talk about a couple things I’ve got going on. As always, The Comic$ Crowd is brought to you by the only sponsor of this program, which is my comics. So, from Flatline Comics, I have a launch coming up on Tuesday, February 17th, a book called Deep Space Lovecraft. This is a project I’ve been working on for some time now. I’ve been working it up, formulating it and, and producing it for almost a year and a half, in terms of when the concept actually struck me. The idea is that I’m taking all of the first-person Lovecraft stories and converting them into a retrofuturistic style of comic book using Lovecraft’s words, whether that be narrative or dialogue. Then, I’m taking my knowledge of how to make a comic and building a really interesting, different way of seeing these, where all of the first-person stories are presented in terms of one character and then serialized into adventures featuring that one character, but without changing any of Lovecraft’s words or content. I think you’ll be surprised at what you see. These books turned out beautifully. Also, I just so happen to have two projects launching in the next few weeks, because I’m collaborating with Martin Piero of Cosmic Times on another comic called Turbocharged Teenager, which is a lot of fun, been a blast to work on. This is a parody of a 1980’s cartoon in which a teenager could turn into a car. That’s correct. Not a Transformer where a robot turns into a car or vice versa. This is where an actual high school teenager could turn into an actual car. The idea is so preposterous, but sticks out in our collective memories because we were children in those days around the time this cartoon came out. You could probably find snippets of it on YouTube. We wanted to take that concept and evolve it, have some fun with it, and kind of twist it into more of a comedy-horror type of vein. We’re just a few pages and one cover from finishing the first issue. and our tentative launch date is March 3rd. Please check those out. I do The Comic$ Crowd because I love comics, because I love Kickstarter comics, because I love being able to support other people who make comics through Kickstarter. So I would ask that you give some consideration to supporting me and my comics on Kickstarter, so that I can keep doing this and making comics as well. We support each other. A Wish List for the Incoming Kickstarter Comics Lead So one quick topic I want to discuss, something of importance to anybody who funds on Kickstarter. There’s a change happening in the lead Kickstarter staffer for the Comics category. If you’re aware of who Sam Kusek is, he was the Comics lead for about the past, probably a couple of years, if I remember correctly. I think he started in March of 24, somewhere around there, but he’s moved back into the publishing arena and good luck to him. hope it goes well. I think that’s the been the passion of a number of the Comics leads, and the past couple actually jumped back into that arena when they had an opportunity. More power to ‘em. I understand. I have that bug, too. I can’t get rid of it. I love making comics, and I’m sure they do as well, but that leaves a void for the rest of us that are still here funding on Kickstarter. I gave some thought to this. and there are a lot of conclusions I came to that I’ve shared with all of you over the past year and a half, ways to improve what’s going on with the Comics category. Some things have remained very stagnant for the past few years, if not longer, despite the vast number of improvements Kickstarter has made in their product. But there are still other ways that I believe we can improve the experience for backers as well as for publishers, and I wanna go over some of those, in terms of a wishlist for the incoming Comics lead. I’d like to just put these ideas out there in the interest of productivity and making things better for everybody involved. Improve the Shopability of the Comics Category First and foremost, it’s imperative that Kickstarter, that they make the category more shopability for backers. Right now, as I record this at 10:30 PM Central on Sunday night, February 8th, there are 236 projects in the Kickstarter Comics category. That’s a lot. That’s a lot for anyone to wade through. Anybody that comes to the platform who is a comics fan, a comics reader, a comics collector, whatever the case may be, is faced with the daunting task of wading through 200 plus campaigns at any given moment, then making a decision about which ones are interesting to them, affordable to them, attractive enough to consider making a pledge, and then safe enough in terms of ensuring that the creator is actually going to deliver the rewards that the backer is paying for. That’s a lot of decision making points when you have to touch hundreds of campaigns for products and creators that you’ve never heard of before, learn about them and then make value judgements as to whether you want to. and feel secure enough to. support them with your dollars, something we all have to be very careful about these days. It’s a lot to ask. It’s really difficult. It’s a time investment, and it’s frustrating. I can tell you it’s frustrating because I go through these every day, and it gets frustrating to me to just see all the empty projects, all the projects that aren’t comics, that are just nude pin-up books, all the projects that are there from creators who have several campaigns running at once and several that haven’t been fulfilled yet. It’s a lot to consider, and it’s intimidating to new backers. and it’s intimidating even to regular backers to go in and shop around like you would at a comic shop. where you’re just checking a book out. Does it look good? Is it something I wanna pay for? Is it in a price range I can afford? Doing that on Kickstarter is nearly impossible the way things are configured right now. Allow me to make a suggestion based on my work over the past 18 months and based on interactions with many of you. The first item on the wishlist for the new Comics lead is to consider changing the subcategories in the comics category from book format, where we’ve got web comics, graphic novels, comic books, which just seems redundant with the overarching category name; and consider switching over to subcategories that are in the form of genres (science fiction, fantasy, NSFW, crime, horror, etc.). People look for comics in genres that they prefer, much more than they’re looking for a graphic novel versus a web comic. I’d much rather know that there’s a comic in science fiction, if that’s what I’m looking for, than if it’s a single issue comic or a graphic novel or a web comic. If it’s a good sci-fi comic, if it’s a good horror comic, depending on what I’m looking for, that’s gonna make it easier for me to zero in on the stories that I want to read. You know, there should be a superhero genre. There are a lot of superhero comics launched on Kickstarter, but as of now, there’s no way to filter those out to just see the superhero comics, to just see the horror comics. And that’s something that will make the category more shopable. And I hope the new Comics lead and the people at Kickstarter will consider that it will improve pledges because people are better capable of finding the ones they want to read. Overall, we have to do something to improve the project bloat, in which there are 200-300+ campaigns in the category at any given time, but so many of those campaigns aren’t credible. They’re either from empty campaigns; they’re from bots; they’re from super creators who are months, if not years behind on fulfillment for their campaigns. So, I have a few suggestions, very specific, very simple suggestions, for improving this shopability situation and decreasing the project bloat without affecting anyone who’s a legitimate comic creator, who legitimately fulfills their campaigns from the platform or from opportunities to crowdfund. The first step in that process is to not allow launch for campaigns that do not include sequential art, cover art, or story synopsis…evidence that a comic is being made. These campaigns typically do not fund. Kickstarter backers are savvy group. They’ve been doing this for a long time, but even novice Kickstarter backers can see that. Then, I have a couple that’ll probably be a little more controversial, but we have to reign in super creators who are running 4, 5, 6 campaigns at one time on different accounts, sometimes on the same account. To me, a good sound, high-end number for the number of campaigns you can be running at once, even with different account names is 3. If there are more than 3, they should be paused. They should not be approved until the ones that are currently running resolve successfully. Sure, we can keep a revolving number of maximum 3 campaigns at a time, so when one ends, you can launch another one. I still think that’s excessive. I still think it’s fairly abusive of the platform from just a principles standpoint, but I understand that there’s disagreement about this fact, but there have to be some limits to make it reasonable. Also, we should not allow launch for creators who have 3 or more outstanding fulfillments to complete. Look, that’s just common sense. I talked in the last video about someone who had 17+ campaigns that were either incompletely fulfilled or not fulfilled at all. It’s just absurd. It doesn’t take much pre-planning or work or patience to simply wait until your last campaign was fulfilled to launch the next campaign, but we can leave some leeway there by saying that anybody with 3+ unfulfilled campaigns is paused on launching until they get back within that range of unfilled campaigns to two or less. It’s not much to ask, and it will increase backer confidence in the fact that they’re going to get what they pay for, and they’re going to get it in a timely fashion, which is another huge factor with regard to confidence of backers in the platform. And, finally, in this vein of shopability, it’s long past due that there’s a filter that allows people to opt in or opt out of seeing NSFW content on Kickstarter. As it stands now, anybody of any age can just jump onto the platform regardless of their predilections or sensibilities or their age and see what is some pretty objectionable art to a lot of backers. It’s pushed people who are looking for mainstream types of comics away from Kickstarter, because they see it as just a smut factory, which it is not. And, of course, I’m not suggesting that all NSFW comics are smut, but that’s people’s first impression when they come to the platform, and there’s more NSFW content than there is of any other genre. It’s more highly funded, and it’s super expensive relative to the other genres in terms of individual issues. There there just needs to be a way to block that for people that don’t wanna see it or to enable that for people who do. It’s just that simple. That’s not censorship, that’s just allowing for customer choice. But I think it’s important for us to communicate these things up the chain in hopes that the shopability will improve, that will, so that people who are looking for comics that they’re interested in can find them without wading through campaigns that are never gonna be successful, that are never gonna be realized as actual comics. Let’s separate those campaigns that are NSFW from those that are, so that people can make informed choices about whether they want to shop there or not. Those suggestions from my wishlist are there for consideration by Kickstarter. We’ll see if any of them get taken up, Comics I Like Right now, lemme tell you about the four comics I like from February 1-2. Hex Euphoric #1 - Ongoing Comic Book Series First up in Comics I Like for February 1-2 is Hex Euphoric, an ongoing comic book series by Jason Bean. It’s his first Kickstarter Comics campaign. We’ve seen a lot of that in the last week or so, with first time Kickstarter creators actually putting out some really gorgeous work, very interesting work. “In another dimension, a witch prodigy named Valera seeks the fabled Demon Iron to unravel a 1,000 year old secret no one dares expose.” Looking for just $399 in funding initially, almost 10 times that much raised already. So great job guys, with $3,339 at this point. It ends on Tuesday, March 3rd, Really awesome. Very expressive black and whites here, Lettering looks good. Lots of perspective and scale changes on the sequentials. The Kickstarter page is nicely put together for a first time creator. It’s 36 pages, which is nice and beefy. A digital PDF of this 36 pages for Hex four will cost you $6 with delivery in April, right around the corner. And then a print copy of Hex Fork #1 includes shipping for $14 US, which is not something I see very often these days. Also delivered in April. So coming up soon, you see a lot of art samples here. The sequential aspect to the art is awesome, flows well, very dynamic, really pleasing to the eye, a lot to look at here. So go check it out. The Narrows 2 And then we have the Narrows 2 from Rob Hanson. “Simon's back story is revealed but danger still exists in this dark fantasy comic set in Nova Scotia.” That’s in Canada, so keep that in mind as you consider whether to pledge digital or physical. We’ll talk about the rewards in a moment. Initial funding goal of $2,922 has raised $1,366 so far on 39 backers. Still a few weeks to back this when it ends on Saturday, February 28th. And it’s really clean art, very good framing on this cover, just pleasing to the eye, “Issue 2 picks up right where issue 1 leaves off in 1904 with young Simon Tarrant and his new mentor. We’ll get a peek into Simon’s childhood as he is trained to become a protector of Canada’s Atlantic Coast, and we’ll meet two other trainees who will figure prominently in Simon’s future. The past has its own very dangerous and terrifying problems that will take all three of them to even hope to solve and survive.” I really love the Jason Pearson-esque art style: very clean, very simple cell shading on the colors, but it gives it almost a Mazzuchelli quality to the work. Lettering looks compelling. Digital copy is $4 US. Dirt Cheap, comes around in a month delivery in March. Print version’s $15, so consider that international shipping from Canada. The print version is estimate to be delivered in April, with 60 pages of story and concept art. That’s a lot of content for what you’re pledging there. Immortal Coil #1-3: Cosmic horror series Next, from a fellow Substacker, Gerald von Stoddard [https://substack.com/profile/20304987-gerald-von-stoddard], comes Mortal Coil 1-3, a cosmic horror series, a limited series of north mythology through the lens of Eldritch horror, set in a modern world teetering on the brink of cosmic oblivion. Sounds like my kind of book. Doing really well so far, with an initial funding goal of $2,700 that has already raised over $6,000 on 188 backers, ends in February on the 16th, which is a week from today. Gerald has a very detailed, very intricate, very cool, very pleasing to the eye art style. “Immortal Coil explores the hidden truths of Ragnarok, exposing it as a carefully orchestrated hoax to protect Odin’s family while dooming the other realms. Now, with Loki’s return and his alliance with the Eldrit god Nyarlathotep, this saga becomes a battle between divine legacies and unspeakable horrors, where the stakes of nothing less than the survival of existence itself.” Immortal Coil 3 introduces the third grandchild of Odin. While the faceless Gods in hell continue their quest for ancient artifacts that will awaken the elder gods and bring an end to all of existence as we know it. Humanity’s only hope rests in the hands of the newly awakened Norse Gods. I love the mashup of the cosmic horror monsters with the traditional Norse mythology. It’s a 24-page comic that you can get the digital edition for $5 with delivery scheduled for March. You can get a print copy for $10 plus shipping with a delivery scheduled for April. Definitely deserves your attention. This is one I’m considering backing myself. It’s so cool. THE LAUNDRYMEN Books One & Two The Laundrymen. Wade and Bryant are supernatural monster hunters returning for a second thrilling adventure as The Laundrymen. This one’s going for a initial funding goal of $3,295. It’s already passed that at 3,784 on 51 backers. This is a graphic novel series about two monster hunters who investigate supernatural mysteries out of their laundromat. Every volume serves as an episodic standalone story. This series is perfect for fans like Ghostbuster, Supernatural, and the X-Files, Interior art looks great. Nice cover, really great design there. Shows off the characters good and bad from a really cool perspective and look at the detail and dynamism in these sequentials. I mean, there’s a lot going on there. Really fun to look at. Very kinetic, very bright colors, but not oversaturated. It’s a style choice. I like it. Then, you see some shifts in the coloration and changes in the palette as you go from scene to scene. Don’t see a page count, so let’s look at the rewards. You can get a digital version of Book 2 for $9, with expected delivery in June. Of course, they have catch-up tiers where you can get issue 1 as well. A print copy of The Laundrymen book two will cost you $19 US plus shipping from Canada, and there are catch up tiers for that as well. Some exceptional art in the ‘Comics I Like’ designees for this period. Fun stuff, really great ideas, and it’s awesome to see this sort of diversity of thought and creativity in the Kickstarter comic space. I’ll be back in a day or two with a post about comics launched on February 3-5. In the meantime, let’s have a great start to the week. Happy Monday. Take care of yourself. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecomicscrowd.substack.com/subscribe [https://thecomicscrowd.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Is 17 Unfulfilled Campaigns Too Many for One Creator?: New Comics on Kickstarter for January 28-31

Hey everybody. This is Kevin from The Comic$ Crowd coming at you from Flatline Comics headquarters here in coastal Alabama on February 4th, 2026, talking about comics that were launched on Kickstarter between January 28th and January 31st. I am behind by a few days, so apologies for that. The volume is steadily increasing in the Comics category to the point that it gets very cumbersome for me to keep up with, particularly since I switched to this video format. I’m getting used to the editing, trying to make it a more efficient process, trying to make sure that I get everything that needs to be included in these videos and then transcribing that to a written post for people that don’t want to watch the videos, and then working on the audio, because it also is going up as a podcast. Every time I produce one of these videos, it’s going out in three different formats. so I’m learning the new process, trying to get it right. So far, the reception seems very good, so I’m going to keep it up, and I’ll figure out how to keep up with these massive launch days, especially on Tuesdays in the first of the month. The Kickstarter Comics Category Got So Swole… February 1st was on a Sunday this year, and there were a lot of launches on Sunday compared to most Sundays. when there may be sometimes zero launches. But this time, this week, there were quite a few and, of course, yesterday. Tuesday’s always the biggest launch day, and the volume of the Kickstarter Comics category ballooned from somewhere in the 210’s to, as I record this on Wednesday evening, 245 projects. That’s a big swell for just a few days in one week. That progression is not going to stop. We see this every year. March and April are big months for comics on Kickstarter, and we will see them get into the 300-range pretty quickly here in the next few weeks. We’re already on that trajectory, and that’s both good and bad. I’m glad to see a healthy comics community. I’m glad to see lots of people making comics, lots of people consuming new comics. especially comics from creators who don’t have another platform for getting their comics to readers, unlike professionals who are contracted by big-time publishers and who have inroads into marketplaces that a lot of us don’t have. It’s good to see so many people having this opportunity on the flip side. It’s hard to stand out. There’s so much bloat in the category that it’s hard to filter out the things you don’t want to find, the good comics that you do want; to see the ones that you want to discover, the ones that you do want to find and be surprised at how good they are; to back them, to receive them, to have that exquisite moment of opening the cover of a great new comic and having your mind blown by the creativity of the people who made it. That’s really hard to do with 245 books in the category right now. It’s gonna be harder when that goes up by another probably 30-40 % over the next few weeks, but it’s our burden to bear. Kickstarter isn’t doing anything about it. They’re not filtering anything differently They’re not curating anything differently, so it’s up to us to make sure that our comics stand out. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to call out certain issues when I see them, and I found a particular one that launched during this window of January 28th to January 31st that I want to talk about. The Case of 17 Consecutive Unfulfilled Comics Kickstarters One thing I did notice during the launches between the 28th and the 31st was that there was a creator, who I followed for about a year and a half, who is, in my opinion, the most egregious abuser of the Kickstarter platform in terms of comics that I’ve seen. I’m not going to name this person. I’m not going to call them out individually. I posted about this many times via The Comic$ Crowd. I’ve reported the person to Kickstarter through their mechanisms. They said there was no wrongdoing, but let me explain exactly what’s going on here. This is somebody who, at this point in time, on the 4th of February, 2026, has 17 (seventeen!) outstanding Kickstarters that have not been fulfilled at all, dating back to October of 2024. That is over $238,000 worth of funding that this person has not provided rewards for. They’ve not made the rewards. They’ve not been shipped. These are completely unfulfilled campaigns dating back that far. This creator still launching monthly, being 17 campaigns behind. Kickstarter’s doing nothing about it, but this is the kind of problem that we’re seeing on the platform. This is the kind of bloat that is bad for the community, You’re talking about almost a quarter of a million dollars in funding from backers that’s tied up in campaigns that have not been realized, for which they’ve gotten nothing. How does that affect their perception when it comes to Kickstarter Comics creators when somebody they’ve put a lot of money into is still not producing the rewards that they pay for all this time later? Now, if you look At the little spreadsheet I put together above, this anonymous spreadsheet names noone. Eight of the unfulfilled campaigns are identified as in production. Eight are “in fulfillment” (not really), and one was just launched. These campaigns are as late as ten months past the promised fulfillment date, and tt just get goes from there. I really got tired of digging through it and seeing the same rhetorical information month after month with these campaigns. You can see almost 5,000 backers have supported this person since October of 2024, and not one of them has received a single reward. Now, to their credit, this creator does update frequently. It’s not really in the form of excuses. It’s more in the form of ignoring the promised delivery date that they included in their Kickstarter campaigns month to month, and, yet, they’re consistently this far behind. It makes no sense to me. It makes no sense to me how they’re getting away with it. This is pushing a year and a half now I think the last time that I looked at this person’s campaign history. They were 11 campaigns behind the last time I mentioned this. I just gave up on it as an issue when Kickstarter blatantly told me that this person violated no policies, even though, at that time, they had more than 10 unfulfilled Kickstarters and were still launching on a monthly basis. Now, we’re up to 17. They’re getting further and further behind. Nothing is being produced. Nothing is being done to prompt them to get on time, to get their rewards out to backers. It’s just really disheartening for me. You can look through the numbers yourself, and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. I debated whether to even talk about this topic again, but, in a week when we’re seeing an explosion in launches, so many people getting their comics on the Kickstarter platform, I think it’s important to note that there are bad actors. There are people who are inflating the number of campaigns, diluting the talent pool, diluting the ability of people actually making the comics that they get funded for, diluting their ability to get noticed. And something needs to be done about it, but nothing will be done. That’s been clear. If you wonder why funding has flattened out for a lot of us mid-level, self-published creators, this is one reason. This guy is not alone in conducting himself this way on the platform. There are a lot of other creators who just aren’t as good at it as he is, who are pumping out campaign after campaign after campaign and not producing in a timely manner. because they’ve got money rolling in. They’ve got direct deposits through Stripe that are funding them. whether they make the comics or not, because nobody’s policing anybody. I don’t like being negative all the time. but this is a real problem. Hopefully, someone at Kickstarter, now that we’re seeing a change in the comics lead, will do something to address this issue, even if it’s just preventing further launches from this person until they catch up to a certain point. Look, I launched almost every month, too. I am behind on zero campaigns. I, just today, fulfilled all digital rewards for a campaign that ended a week ago yesterday. The books for that campaign have gone to print. They’ll be here on February 17th, and they’ll be shipped out within three or four business days of arriving to us. That’s how you have to do business if you want to retain backers, but also if you just want to be a positive constructive member of the Kickstarter Comics community. What I do reflects on you as a comics creator and as a purveyor of comics on the Kickstarter platform I want to have a good reputation. I want it to be a safe and encouraging place for people to come and get their comics, but it can’t be when you’ve got people like this who are taking advantage of the system to just roll up checks, to just roll up direct deposits while backers sit around twiddling their thumbs wondering, “Hmm, am I ever going to get that comic? Well, I’ll tell you what I’m never going to do again is back a comic on Kickstarter. because this is how the Kickstarter creators conduct themselves.” That perception gets generalized to all of us when there’s one, two, three, ten…fifty creators like this, “super-creators”, who pump out content on a constant basis and don’t fulfill, or they fulfill years late, which is what’s happening here. Let’s all take care of each other, look out for each other and create and fund and fulfill with integrity and concern, not just for the backers, but for each other as a consolidated front of people who love comics. Comics I Like Now, let’s talk about comics I like from people who are making comics who actually fulfill their campaigns and who want to make this a better place for everybody involved, backers and creators alike, Beyond the Road – A Graphic Memoir And we’ll start with Beyond the Road - A Graphic Memoir. “A true story, 110-page full-color comic about rediscovering adventure with chronic illness through a four-day camper van trip.” This looks like a great project from Theresa Chen Arzola | thispapercloud [https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/thispapercloud/created?ref=project_creator_tab] for her first campaign on Kickstarter, with an initial funding goal of $1,500. So far, within just a few days, it has raised $2,358 on 48 backers. Very nice. congratulations on hitting your funding goal! Very tiny cover image, but please make those cover images big and bold, so we can see them and appreciate them and allow them to work their magic and make us want to pledge a campaign. “Beyond the Road takes you through an RV adventure down California’s Big Sur coast. I set out with my partner and our Pomeranian (Titan), navigating the winding Pacific coastline alongside the challenges of my health. Years ago, travel was a core part of who I was, until chronic illness forced me to slow down and trade my spontaneity for control. This trip shares my journey back to adventure one cautious mile at a time.” Now, I’ll tell you what caught my eye on this is the artwork. This is somebody who knows how to make a comic. Very attractive lettering. A very unusual lettering style, but it it just it seems like such an organic part of the page. This almost watercolor style of art that she’s using here is very appealing. You can see the changes in perspective, the changes in scale, just beautiful work and very different in terms of the types of artwork you see on Kickstarter, so really caught my attention. I like the fact that we’ve got a first-time creator on Kickstarter making such a gorgeous book and being successful right off the bat. Look at the rewards: a digital version of the book for $10, very fair. And then a physical book for $22, plus shipping, estimated delivery in April of 2026, March, 2026, for the digital. Highly recommended. Go check this out and support a first-time creator is doing it right. Ones & Zeroes #1 – a Sci-Fi / Horror Ones & Zeroes #1 from fellow Substacker Michael Dolce [https://substack.com/profile/54768190-michael-dolce]. “An AI has overtaken humanity in secret. When a team of hacktivists discover it in the code, it leads them to Area 51.” Good, fun area 51 story, asking for $1,000 and has already doubled that amount. Congratulations! 110 backers. 6 days to go, so still plenty of time to support this one. “What if AI wasn’t created by humans but crash-landed here at Roswell in 1947? And what if that crash was no accident? Did the aliens send it here on purpose to destroy us, and what happens when they return? It’s aliens versus AI with the fate of humanity hanging in the balance in this Matrix meets Independence Day sci-fi horror tale.” This is not Michael’s first rodeo. You’re gonna get the comic you pledged for. You’re gonna get it on time, and it’s gonna look amazing, just as it does in the art samples. Big bold cover. Easy-to-see image that just blows your mind with the complexity of it and with the sci-fi appeal of it. Look at the detail in the artwork above. Very nice work. Let’s look at the rewards Digital (PDF) for $8 estimated delivery in March of 2026, so we’re talking about next month. Physical edition at $15 plus shipping, with estimated delivery in April of 2026, so just a couple of months away. That’s very fair, fast service reliable service. THE DEATH POEM OF SENSEI OTORO by Jonathan Maberry And third, from another first-time creator, The Death Poem of Sensei Otoro. “Jonathan Mayberry’s spellbinding story about an aging samurai and a zombie infested feudal Japan,” Seeking $15,618 but off to a little bit of a slow start at $1,750 on 43 backers. But I’m telling you this project deserves our support. First time Kickstarter creator, Christopher Sequeira [https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/770987786/created?ref=project_creator_tab] is bringing you this book, a 40-plus page graphic novel based on a story by Jonathan Mayberry, who’s written for Marvel Comics. Check out that cover up there. I mean brutal, no holds barred. Reminds me of a 70’s movie poster, and I was even more impressed with the interior art. Look at the dynamism that’s inherent in this work, the fight scenes. The motion from panel 1 to panel 4 on this page just flows beautifully, horribly violently. Just remarkable comics work that deserves your attention, deserves your support. At 40-plus pages, let’s look at the rewards. This is coming from Australia, so keep that in mind when you’re thinking about shipping. But there’s a PDF version for $7 US. So, you don’t have to ship it. You can just put it right on your tablet or phone. Print edition is $21, which for a 40-page book may seem a lot, but, in the Kickstarter comics economy, that’s probably right on the money. You’re gonna be shipping from Australia, and international shipping is wild right now, so you have to factor that in. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it to support this creator, but it’s just something to keep in mind. Thankfully, there’s a digital version. Aglow Season 2: Anime Dark Fantasy Graphic Novel Finale And last for the ‘Comics I Like’ for January 28-31, from another Substacker comes A Glow Season 2: Anime Dark Fantasy Graphic Novel Finale. “A Gothic fantasy of duty, forbidden love, and the thin line between man and monster. Howl’s Moving Castle x Castlevania,” Now, this project is asking for $3429 American and has blown that away at more than seven times at this point at $22,502 on 264 backers, and you’ll see why in a second. This is from Amrit Birdi [https://substack.com/profile/27252766-amrit-birdi], coming from the UK, so keep that in mind as we talk about rewards. “Anime-inspired dark fantasy graphic novel duology spanning 180-plus pages across two seasons. A Glow is a gothic fantasy anime graphic novel series about legacy, where love and betrayal awaken, not just the monsters outside, but the ones within.” Look at the use of light on that cover. I mean, it just blows you away, the dark cobalt blue in the background with the cinders and the hair and the glow on the skin, Really beautiful work, hard to resis.t Gorgeous work, and that translates to the interior art as well. Really great figure work, really great sequentials from panel to panel. This team knows how to make a comic. Let’s look at rewards: a digital edition of A Glow season 2 for $14 American and then a print edition for $29 US plus shipping from the UK, so gonna be a little pricey, but, at 180-plus pages, well worth it. That’s a lot of reading content, and I’m just gonna guess it’s gonna have a lot of re-read value given the beauty of the artwork and the level of storytelling that’s going on here. So, that’s four great ‘Comics I Like’ from among 25 entries from January 28th to January 31st and I will get caught up over the next few days. So, I’ll see you again in a couple of days. Enjoy the end of your week, everybody. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecomicscrowd.substack.com/subscribe [https://thecomicscrowd.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Truth in Generative AI in Comics: New Comics on Kickstarter for January 23-25

Kevin here, coming to you with the new comics launched on Kickstarter for Monday and Tuesday, January 26th and 27th, 2026. So, a little more robust Tuesday than I expected for even in January. Between Monday and Tuesday, we had 26 launches in the comics category. That’s more than I thought we would have. There are definitely some worthy choices in there. I found four that I want to share with you as ‘Comics I Like’, and I’ll talk about those in just a few minutes. Disney Comes to Kickstarter Comics Among all the releases from Monday and Tuesday, there was one giant corporate release from Dynamite Entertainment featuring Disney villains. I’m trying to remember if there was another Disney property launch that wasn’t a Marvel art book or something like that. So this is kind of a first, at least by my recollection. I don’t recall any other Disney properties making a big splash on Kickstarter from even a third-party publisher like Dynamite. You would think Marvel would be doing this since they’re part of Disney, but I know they outsourced some of their Disney publishing rights to other publishers, and here we are with Dynamite. It looks like a good project. It’s not one that I chose as a /Comic I Like’. There’s just not a lot of interior artwork there to make a decision about. You’re pretty much relying on the intellectual property or Disney fandom to make that decision. They’re not crazy expensive, but they’re expensive, and this is a corporate campaign, so the pricing of the tiers is pretty high. Self-Disclosure of Generative AI Use in Kickstarter Comics What I want to talk about today was generative AI in comics. Now, I know this is a hot-button topic. The term ‘AI slop’ gets thrown around left and right, regardless of how the AI is being used, but, here, we’re going to talk about things objectively. We’re going to look at what’s actually happening with generative AI in comics. I recently made a post where I revealed that, based on my daily reviews of comic launches on Kickstarter for the past year and a half, only one campaign has actually resulted in a comic book featuring interior sequential art generated using AI technology. As I mentioned at that time, there was another campaign around the same time as the one that was successful in producing a book that still hasn’t been fulfilled, and it was not as carefully laid out, nor as meticulously planned. You could tell from the campaign page it just wasn’t at the same level as the one that not only funded, but produced three comics in a year, three actual books produced from that in a year. There’s only one property that did that. Now, that doesn’t mean that generative AI isn’t used in comics on Kickstarter all the time. It is, and as you should know, you’re required to self-disclose if you’re using generative AI in your comics on Kickstarter. It’s the honor system. In my opinion, the more important factor here is, are people using generative AI being honest about it, self-disclosing as Kickstarter requires, in order for backers to make informed choices? If you don’t want comics with generative AI involved in the artwork or the imaging, you should be able to know that, so you can make a choice. If you’re curious about it, you should be able to know that it’s generative AI that’s involved in the art and how it’s involved in the art. So, down at the bottom of every campaign page, there’s a self-disclosure aspect if you used AI. Now, I’m fairly confident that there are a lot of creators who are using it in some capacity that aren’t disclosing it, who are obscuring the fact that they’re using generative AI. And I have to tell you, I’m surprised that there are as many who honestly disclose it as there are. It would be easy not to, because nobody’s checking, nobody’s policing this at Kickstarter. So, I respect the people who admit that they’re using generative AI, even in little bits and pieces, parts of covers, things like that. But the vast majority of the usage now, at this point in time, is for covers. And the vast majority of that usage is in the not-safe-for-work (NSFW) category. So, let’s look at a couple of examples of self-disclosure statements for AI in a couple of not-safe-for-work projects that were launched just in the past couple of days. And we’ll start with Nolan Hartsoe’s Pyromantic No. 2 [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nolanhartsoe/nolan-hartsoes-pyromantik-2-dark-fantasy-comic] dark fantasy comic, a NSFW book currently funding over $6,000. That’s pretty good for just a couple of days on the platform. The AI self-disclosure statement for this project: So, are you using it for the cover? Are you using it for character concept designs? Are you using it for interior sequential art? This is where you can answer that question. They want to know if you are using copyrighted materials from other artists that are being used by the AI generator, or if you’re using copyrighted elements of other artists’ work in the generative process. That’s how I interpret that. This campaign’s response is pretty vague, but this is a pretty vague area of the whole AI situation at this point in time. I do applaud this creator just for acknowledging the use of AI. It’s fairly obvious if you look at the cover art, simply because it’s just a little too symmetrical, a little too perfect, and it’s a very stereotypical style that you see with generative AI art. Beautiful covers, however, very obviously AI-generated covers. So, maybe the creator didn’t feel they had a choice but to acknowledge that they used generative AI to create these covers. Yet and all, they don’t have to admit it on Kickstarter, but they did. So, here we are, and at least the honesty should be acknowledged. And you can make your own decisions whether to back this campaign, given the use of AI art on the covers. Let’s look at another example from the same launch day. Okay, this one is called Valentine vs. the Man-Eater [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hotmouthmedia/valentine-vs-the-man-eater-3], number one through three, not safe for work, horror noir. It’s funding just slightly behind at $5,229 with 106 backers. So, roughly in the same echelon of funding, roughly just as successful. But let’s look at their answers to the questions: Okay, pause. You should know what medium your cover artists are using. Okay, and generative AI is its own medium at this point. It’s not going anywhere. Let’s not argue that. But you should know how your cover artists are generating their covers, how they’re making these images. Bottom line, that’s your responsibility as a publisher, even as a self-publisher. And I’m not sure that being confident about that means that it’s not happening. Most generative AI uses text-to-image generation with heavy editing on the backside. If you’ve actually used generative AI, if you’re speaking from a standpoint of understanding and knowledge about this technology, you know that 99.9% of the time, a text prompt is not going to give you a workable, professional-looking cover or panel because AI is not going to generate a page of sequential art. It just doesn’t work that way. Every panel is its own piece of art, if you’re using it in that fashion. You have to know that if you have somebody working with generative AI to create covers or any art for your project, that text-to-image generative AI is probably involved. I feel like they’re skirting the issue here, not necessarily being deceptive, but it’s such a sensitive subject. It’s such an explosive subject that creators are honestly hesitant to put themselves out there as actually using it when it’s fair game right now. I know that it’s frowned upon, but it’s here, it’s probably not going anywhere, and going after creators who use it in any little sense at all is not productive. If you’re looking at Kickstarter campaigns, scroll to the bottom of the Kickstarter page and see what their self-disclosure about AI. In fact, there’s a makeshift table of contents on every Kickstarter page based on how you put in your headers and how you answer the questions about AI that automatically includes ‘Use of AI’ in that table of contents at the upper left of the Kickstarter page. If you look there, you can just click that and see what they’re disclosing and make a decision on your own without the angst, without the bile, that normally comes with this topic. We’re in a position at this point that we can objectively assess whether AI is being used and decide whether to back that campaign, support that creator or not, and just go our happy way. My point here is to share with you the AI disclosure on Kickstarter so that you can find it and make your own determinations about whether to support or to not support a campaign. The general culture around generative AI right now, the general uproar around it, makes people afraid to confront it head on. I just don’t think we have to address things that way. We can have a constructive discussion and acknowledge that it’s being used widely in comics - and much more widely than anybody’s willing to acknowledge because they don’t want to get attacked. Do your own research. Look through these campaigns and see what people are doing with it. Arm yourself with knowledge about how generative AI is actually being used now. You’re going to see it’s a very narrow lane. There will be more. I’ve ventured into that arena myself just to see how it works. Can it be done? It can be done, but you have to know how to make comics. It can be very bad if you don’t know how to make comics and how to use digital editing software on the back end to actually make images look like they belong together and to generate some sort of visual consistency. Otherwise, you’re just going have a mess of three legs and six fingers on each hand and characters that don’t look the same from one panel to the next. But that doesn’t mean it’s not there. It doesn’t mean it’s not going to play a larger role in the industry going forward. This is the world we live in now. Not going away. Digital comics didn’t go away. Photoshop didn’t go away. Illustrator didn’t go away when the same types of uproars erupted around those around those tools. Comics I Like All right, let’s talk about the comics that I found that I think you will like from Monday and Tuesday. White Ash 1 to 10 (and a half) We’re going to start out with White Ash 1 to 10. “The long-running hit fantasy series about elves and dwarves in Pennsylvania returns with two all-new issues.” Of course, this is from Charlie Stickney [https://substack.com/profile/3648617-charlie-stickney], who’s been running White Ash Kickstarter campaigns for some time now. Obviously doing very well with a goal of $15,000. Already almost doubled that in just a couple of days at $29,339. 751 backers. “Welcome to White Ash, a small smudge of a mining community in western Pennsylvania where the secrets are buried even deeper than the coal under the mountain. If you’re a fan of Supernatural, Twin Peaks, or Lord of the Rings, you’re going to love getting to know our mysterious town.” Now, Charlie and his team always kick out just amazing covers. This is a 70 plus page supersized issue containing chapters 9 and 10, so you’re getting a lot of content here. The interior art sequentials match the sophistication and the beauty of the covers. Just really terrific stuff. Lots of interior art samples, lots of story information, everything to pull you in just really good. And then you can download all 52 pages of chapter one as a preview. So you can see what you’re getting into and it’s going to be good. So look at the rewards real quick. You can get the digital editions of issues 9 and 10, which are the new pieces of content for this campaign for 11 bucks. That’s really cheap by Kickstarter standards. Really nice. And you can get print copies of 9 and 10 for $22 shipped. And they’re looking at delivery in June of 2026. So very fair pricing for Kickstarter. When you’re talking about 70 pages of content for 22 bucks on Kickstarter, that is more than fair. That’s really beneath the average price per page in the Kickstarter comics economy right now. So highly recommend. The Complete GODS OF AAZURN! Lovecraft Style Horror And then we will go to The Complete Gods of Aazurn Lovecraft style horror, a printed creepy cosmic horror graphic novel available only on Kickstarter from a friend, longtime colleague in the self-publishing arena, published one of our first stories way back in the day, Gary Scott Beatty [https://substack.com/profile/20437683-gary-scott-beatty]. “Three gifted orphans are forced into an evil coven, aiding ancient gods who want to ravage our world. Will they gain their freedom and defeat the hideous eldritch gods before mankind is doomed?” Gary’s been carrying on this story and stories like it for well beyond a decade, probably more. And this is a big collection of his stories and he makes terrific stories. My partner Amanda has drawn for Gary several times. We collected some of those into one of her Amandatory collections in 2025. Terrific, just great horror writer, really off the wall story concepts. Look at this interior art: half-man, half-spider, really gorgeous Lovecraftian takes on monsters and situations. Awesome. Can’t recommend Gary’s work enough. Longtime comic creator who delivers. You will get what you back. He has a Complete Gods of Aazurn digital bundle for $22. You can get the complete printed book for $29 plus shipping with delivery in April of 2026. That’s right around the corner. I can attest we’ve worked with Gary for many years, either as colleagues, as creators in his books that he distributed direct to comic shops back in the day, and Amanda’s worked with him as a co-creator and you will get what you pay for. You will get it when he says you’re going to get it. Totally dependable. Really gorgeous work. Support Gary. Support great independent self-published comics. TATSUMI: The Serpent Mistress #1-2 A Swashbuckling Adventure And then, third, in no particular order, from our friends at Insymmetry Creations [https://substack.com/profile/43879147-insymmetry-creations] LLC, Tatsumi, The Serpent Mistress No. 1 and 2, A Swashbuckling Adventure. The Last Remaining Daughter of a Fallen Empire’s Hellbent on Retribution and Revenge, for fans of Pirates of the Caribbean, One Piece. With an initial funding goal of $3,900, they’ve raised $2,581 on 74 backers. This one ends on February 13th, so still plenty of time to support it. I know Matt and Steph and crew make terrific, gorgeous comics. Just look at the sample art with the characters, the crew, character introductions. “Deep in the heart of the port of Albassus sits one of its most popular establishments, the Sidequest Tavern. Weary travelers head there to take a load off while other raucous and cantankerous patrons are there to hear the finest music around. One of the bands that frequents their stage is the dread crew of Oddwood.” Cool stuff. Lots of options. Lots of different takes on the characters. Just terrific coloring and design on these sequential art samples, full-size sequential art samples. I can see with my eyes without squinting. Thank you. Look really great. Very pirate adventure themed. Let’s check out the rewards. You get the PDF for Tatsumi No. 2 for $5. Very fair. You can get the PDF catch up of 1 and 2 for $10. You can get a single print issue of No. 2 for $13 plus shipping. Scheduled to arrive in May. 32 pages for Tatsumi No. 2. That’s a lot of content. Looks great. Go support these guys. Dino Knights: The Complete Arc And lastly, but not leastly, Dino Knights: The Complete Arc. Issues 5 and 6 deliver an epic conclusion to the arc.” This is from fellow SubStacker Zach Chapman [https://substack.com/profile/176104681-zach-chapman]. Looking for $3,000 in initial funding. Almost there with $2,951 raised so far. 69 backers. Ends on February 26th. Almost a full month of fundraising left to go. They’re going to nail it. “Dino Knights is an ongoing epic science fiction, authority, and fantasy comic book series. Dinosaurs, knights, time travel, and evil robots. Issues 5 and 6 are the epic conclusion to the first arc.” Not to mention issue 6 is an extra long issue jam packed with 36 pages. Nice synopsis. Check out the sequentials here: Fun. Awesome artwork reminiscent of Saturday morning cartoons. Very action packed. Very expressive. Fun to just even look at. You can tell what’s going on in this comic just by following the panels. You almost don’t need the words. You can tell how bombastic a concept this is from the covers. The Arthurian dinosaur concept. Really cool. Really high concept. Really fun. Which is something that I really try to find when I’m looking for comics to support on Kickstarter. There’s often not a lot of fun. And these are definitely fun comics. Let’s look at the rewards. Issues 5 and 6 in digital for $11. That’s very consistent with what we’ve seen from other campaigns that we’ve reviewed today. And then likewise for the physical copies. Issues 5 and 6 main covers $22 plus shipping to be delivered in March 2026. Issue 6 is jam-packed with 36 pages. Extra long issue. All right. That wraps it up for comics launched on Kickstarter for Monday January 26th and Tuesday January 27th 2026. Please go take a look at these campaigns and support them. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecomicscrowd.substack.com/subscribe [https://thecomicscrowd.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Talking the Current Self-Publishing Comics Climate with Martin Pierro

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecomicscrowd.substack.com/subscribe [https://thecomicscrowd.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]