Minnesota-based publisher 2dcloud has launched it’s quarterly crowdfunding campaign for it’s 2017 summer collection. 2dcloud has been using crowdfunding as a mechanism for pre-orders and to create curated book bundles. 2dcloud is a publisher from which you never know what to expect. They keep selecting new and innovative work to publish that always defy and satisfy your expectations. Their last curated season brought in two of my favourite graphic novels of the year so far, Maggie Umber’s Sound of Snow Falling and the Mirror Mirror II anthology curated by Julia Gfrörer and Sean T. Collins. They have once again created a very interesting line up of comics featuring the works of a host of incredible artists.

Among the line-up, there’s s really interesting graphic novel from Juliacks called Architecture of an Atom, an ambitious trans-media project that looks as intriguing and challenging. There’s also the latest instalment of Altcomic, the print quarterly magazine featuring interviews with alternative comics artists. This time issue features interviews and essays with/or by Michel Esselbrügge, Robin Vehrs, Helen Stefanie, Cynthia Alfonso, Óscar Raña, Julia Huete, Richard Short, and Anna Haifisch. There’s also a short abstract comic by Xia Gordon called Kindling that looks absolutely astonishing! 

2dcloud will also be publishing the debut graphic novel Lost in the Fun Zone by Leif Goldberg as well as Retreat by Finnish graphic novelist Jaakko Pallasvuo.

You can find tons of preview pages and longer description of each book over at their crowdfunding page. The crowfunding campaign allows people to pre-order the books at a discounted price (i.e.: cheaper than what you would pay at a bookstore). 2dcloud is a great publisher and I wish them the best of luck on this latest crowdfunding effort.

Another crowdfunder of note is for the second issue of Critical Chips, a collection of essays, comics and criticism of comic books shepherded from the indefatigable Zainab Akhtar (of Comics & Cola and Shortbox). The first issue was nominated for an Eisner-award and this one promises to be just as interesting as the first one.

Critical Chips is a mixture of essays and criticism on varying topics related to comics, each contributor decides to explore. This issue promises to explore the following: “Examining the parallels between magical girls and Black girl magic; Woodstock romance comics; Batman and body language; breaking down the comics page; a Milestone retrospective; moving beyond societal expectations of beauty and appearance; Punisher appreciation, Taiyo Matsumoto, and much more.” In addition to the essays, there’s also going to be new comics by Richie Pope, Molly Mendoza, Carta Monir, Carolyn Nowak, and Wren McDonald. All excellent cartoonists. Zainab Akhtar has this amazing eye for finding incredible work, both for her first issue of Critical Chips and in her other venture Shortbox.

I’m particularly looking forward to reading the essay on Taiyo Matsumoto and the Milestones retrospective, particularly in light of the recent Milestones development. You can contribute to the crowdfunding page for Critical Chips II and find more details and some more sample pages for the comics that will be featured in Critical Chips II. You can get a digital or print version of Critical Chips II

Sample page by Carolyn Nowak
sample page by Carta Monir