Welcome to The Beat‘s weekly Kickstarter round-up! Each week, we collect comics crowdfunding projects that we think are worth your time and money. If you see something you like and you have the funds to back it, go for it! Otherwise, sharing the link can be a huge help to these creators.
Nod #1
Goal: $3,000
Ends: Monday, May 13 at 4:12 p.m. ET
Creators: Ludie Sexton & Hunter Long
From author Ludie Sexton and artist Hunter Long, NOD #1 is the first issue in an all-new series that integrates the works of Lovecraftian lore and redirects them toward an epic journey of family, gods, monsters, and men. NOD is a fresh take on the works of H.P Lovecraft and fellow mythos writers. It is not a story of right and wrong, there’s no superheroes or mastermind villains with names like Doctor Vengeance or anything like that. It’s centered on the ties of family and Lovecraft’s idea of cosmicism or humanity’s cosmic insignificance and mankind’s final fight against the horrors of the cosmos.
Click here to back this project.
CHROMACON New Zealand Indie Arts Festival 2019
Goal: $7,890
Ends: Friday, May 24 at 6:00 a.m. ET
Creator: Allan Xia
We are Team Chroma, organisers of CHROMACON – a unique indie arts festival based in New Zealand that celebrates the coming together of creativity, artistry and community. We are seeking your support to keep Chromacon a FREE event for all art lovers. In return, you’ll have the chance to collect some of our very exclusive self-published festival merch, including a massive 200 page art book featuring a very diverse range of work from our 2019 exhibitors as well as limited edition prints, stickers, enamel pins, festival t-shirt and even some original art! At Chromacon, we connect all New Zealanders with a group of highly talented multi-disciplinary independent creators working across an ever-expanding range of mediums including illustration, comics, concept art, sculpture/ designer toys, animation, tabletop/ video games, and more!
Click here to back this project.
Liminal Rock Graphic Novel
Goal: $650
Ends: Saturday, May 25 at 12:00 p.m. ET
Creator: Linden Walker
Music has always been a big influence of mine and this work is based off of a poem I made trying to define the way music and the environment around it affects people. When I showed it to my peers they said it was like “when you want to be hardcore but still get nervous in crowds.” In this lyrical story, a young punk will enter the underground to join the beast and if he manages to get out, will he ever be the same again? For now Liminal Rock will act as a stand-alone piece but if it gathers enough traction it may just be the beginning. The readers will decide. For now the only rewards I have up for grabs are a copy of this beauty, but if we reach our goal I’ll be bringing in stretch goals like a hard cover, stickers, enamel pins, or prints.
Click here to back this project.
Raven Nevermore #3: Midnight Dreary
Goal: $1,484
Ends: Monday, May 27 at 12:37 p.m. ET
Creators: Nuno XEI, Emmanuel Xerx Javier, Axel Rator, Ed Brisson & Samuel Casal
RAVEN NEVERMORE is a 9-part limited comic series set in a bleak and dreary supernatural horror-fantasy setting that tells the origin story of the elite lawman, Corvan Moore, as he faces off against criminals, shifters, fiends, and spirits. This Kickstarter is for RAVEN NEVERMORE, CHAPTER 3: “MIDNIGHT DREARY”, a 30-page comic that follows Corvan Moore, who is coerced into clearing a shipment of dreamdust into Cog Town, if he wants to see his daughter again. What does the ship’s first mate, a celestial, know about Corvan, and how is he connected to Sheriff Gearwall? Corvan’s bloodline holds answers, but is he ready to accept them?
Click here to back this project.
Making Time Vol. 1 / The Sandwich Shuffle
Goal: $600
Ends: Tuesday, May 28 at 2:53 p.m. ET
Creator: Elise Dietrich
My name is Elise Dietrich. I’m running my first-ever Kickstarter to fund the printing of my two latest diary minicomics. The first is a 28-page booklet of four-panel diary comics that I wrote and drew between November 2018 and February 2019, titled Making Time (Volume 1). The second is a 20-page booklet that I wrote and drew during Hourly Comic Day 2019, titled The Sandwich Shuffle. Both feature slice of life comics about parenting and caring for my own parents, as well as my own explorations of my identity as an artist in middle age. Each booklet will be printed in black and white with a card stock cover.
Click here to back this project.
Lacey & Lily
Goal: $600
Ends: Wednesday, May 29 at 5:15 p.m. ET
Creators: David Dellecese & Andrew Cieslinski
Lacey & Lily is the story of Lacey Cunningham, who, along with her late grandmother’s dog, Lily, discover a pair of super suits and do what any middleschooler and her dog would do – keep their city safe from super-villainy, disaster, and bullies. This is an all-ages tale that blends the fun of silver-age silliness and pure heroics with modern storytelling in a format that is suitable for kids of all ages.
Click here to back this project.
The Life and Times of Butch Dykes
Goal: $4,000
Ends: Friday, May 31 at 7:30 p.m. ET
Creator: Eloisa Aquino
The Life & Times of Butch Dykes is a compilation of zines published by Eloisa over the past decade. With drawings, stories, and quotations showing the great contributions as well as little, human details about their lives, it’s perfect for people of all genders seeking role models or to learn or teach history through its unsung heroes.
Click here to back this project.
GEL – The Complete Series (Issues #1-9)
Goal: $2,598
Ends: Friday, May 31 at 12:00 p.m. ET
Creator: Andrew Sebastian Kwan
GEL is a manga inspired sci-fi/ fantasy, like Mad Max meets Lord of the Rings. GEL tells a brutal and kick ass tale of survival after the Earth suffers a cataclysm of biblical proportions. Humans are nearly extinct and are no longer at the top of the food chain. There are monsters around every corner- in the skies, underground, behind your back and in your nightmares! Sera is a bad ass, lone wolf that reunites with her long last friend Satoshi. They haven’t seen each other since before the apocalypse and Sera’s changed a lot… but Satoshi has remained the exact same age! Danger is everywhere on their journey to a city called The Rose- but more may await upon arrival as the city’s mysterious ruler known as The Armless doles out swift and deadly justice to all that oppose him. This Kickstarter is to help fund the publishing of first edition issues #7-9 and any back issue reprints.
Click here to back this project.
Tender: An Artbook by Choo
Goal: $23,428
Ends: Friday, May 31 at 12:15 p.m. ET
Creator: Choo
ShortBox is proud to present ‘Tender,’ a first, comprehensive artbook collection from Choo. One of the most superlative and popular contemporary artists, Choo’s distinctive linework and colour palettes are instantly recognisable and much emulated. From bloody boyfriends, sharp instruments, food anatomy, demon girls, fleshy and fresh vegetation, Choo’s art encompasses it all: it’s beautiful, horny, queer, contemplative, cute, fun, and much, much more. Choo’s use of space, layout, unexpected juxtapositions, and soft gore aesthetics have made them a singular and widely appreciated perspective within modern illustration. ‘Tender’ collects a range of illustrations created between 2014-2019, with over 100 pages, and a wrap-around, french-flap cover.
Click here to back this project.
Goal: $3,904
Ends: Saturday, June 1 at 12:46 p.m. ET
Creators: Cristina Roswell, Rafael “Fali” Ruiz-Dávila, Tomás Aira & Gonzalo Duarte
Available in English and Spanish! Calliope (Callie) Conway knows that her background would put any average killer to shame. She’s never felt any empathy towards the human being. Alaska is her homeland and life in its wild lands isn’t easy, but the worst part is facing her inner demons. To fight them she only has the help of Christopher and her amaroq, her animal soulmate, the oldest link between mankind and wolves. When Christopher left the US army for a job as a tour guide in the Alaskan woods, he never thought he’d end up falling in love with a sociopath whose murders he’d have to constantly avoid or cover up. He’d got his very own problems derived from years of blindly following orders that he didn’t always agree with. All he wanted now was to privately and peacefully deal with the nightmares while trying to move on.
However, a meeting in Manhattan with an old army colleague will force them to leave their personal issues behind while they join forces to prevent the approval of a plan that would endanger thousands of innocent lives for the interests of a few.
Click here to back this project.
