Comics on Kickstarter remain one of the most successful categories on the platform. In fact, according to recent statistics, comics are the most successfully funded category on the dominant crowdsourcing platform.

But book publishing is also surging on Kickstarter – and comics lead Oriana Leckert is moving on to run that part of the site, as a new comics lead is being hired.

“Some news, pals!” Leckert tweeted. “There’s been massive growth in the #KickstarterReads world the past few years. It’s been an absolute honor to preside over these categories—and an epic amount of work. So we’ll be hiring someone to help oversee comics, allowing me to shift my focus to publishing.

That said, I’m not done with comics! I’m still your point person on both categories until the new role is filled. I’m heading to Tokyo with @superfanpr & @AkiYanagi for 2wks of dedicated manga outreach, I’ll be at ECCC in March, and we’ve got big plans for San Diego this summer.

“If you want to come work with me on all this, or if you know someone who does, please apply or share! There’s so much good stuff ahead for our platform and the big beautiful literary world, and I can’t wait to help it all come to life.”

The job listing for Director, Comics Outreach is here – based on  past openings, this should be the most highly sought after job in comics for the next few weeks! 

According to Kickstarter’s own ongoing stats, the Comics category has a 64.84% success rate – much higher than the 40.35% average. Dance is next with 61.45% and Theater third with 59.97%.

The comics category is far from the lead in Total Dollars, however, with $198 million to Video Games $2.10 billion. All statistics are for all Kickstarter projects ever, not broken down by year. (BTW least successful category? Journalism, of course, at least in terms of smallest number of campaigns successfully funded.)

It’s no secret that crowdfunding is a key tool for cartoonists and, increasingly, publishers to bring their projects to readers. And 2022 was another record setting year for Kickstarter, according to a report at CBR. 

In total, 2,805 projects launched under Kickstarter’s comics category in 2022 and 2,205 of them were successful, which is approximately a 100 project increase compared to 2021’s number of successful projects. The overall success rate for comics projects came in at 78 percent and the overall funded amount was $30,984,765. The year also marked the sixth consecutive best year for projects launched on Kickstarter’s comics category.

According to Leckert, comics success rate in 2022 was 78%, a number she called “truly incredible.”

ICv2 has the list of the top 15 comics projects on Kickstarter for 2022:

  1. How to Think When You Draw, Book 5, + Reprinting Sold Out Books: $945,000
  2. Ava’s Demon Book Two: Aftermath: $648,198
  3. Coffin Comics’ All New Lady Death: Necrotic Genesis #1!!!: $532,722
  4. Joe Jusko’s Art of the 1992 Marvel Masterpieces: $516,919
  5. All New Lady Death: Diabolical Harvest #1: $500,138
  6. The Extra Fabulous Experience: $471,229
  7. Vampire Hunter D: Message from Mars – Graphic Novel: $445,205
  8. Digger Unearthed: The Complete 10th Anniversary Collection: $420,730
  9. The Complete Irredeemable Deluxe Edition Library: $345,873
  10. Let’s Play, Volume 3: $332,884
  11. Brian Pulido’s All New Hellwitch: Forbidden #1!!!: $323,553
  12. Stjepan Sejic’s Incredible Sunstone Statue: $285,032
  13. Stand Still. Stay Silent. – Book 4: $241,762
  14. The Dark Crystal 40th Anniversary Library: $240,328
  15. The Complete Giant Days Library: $236,677

The all time top comics project on Kickstarter is BRZRKR from Boom! and Keanu Reeves, which raised $1,447,212. 

Taken all together, despite a hiccup back in ’21 when they announced a move to the blockchain – a move that has been quietly forgotten – it appears that Kickstarter is still a huge resource comics crowdfunding, even as Zoop and Crowdfundr step in to offer other services, and Indiegogo is still going strong.  And due to the blockchain controversy, some publishers created their own bespoke platforms.

To bring this full circle, its certainly a hit topic, and whoever gets the Comics Outreach job will immediately become a key figure in the industry.