The Comics Crowd Podcast

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

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

Feb 900:24:38Tap to summarize

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 MeBut 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 LeadSo 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 CategoryFirst 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 ...

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

Feb 500:22:17Tap to summarize

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 KickstartersOne 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 LikeNow, 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 MemoirAnd we’ll start ...

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

Jan 3000:21:34Tap to summarize

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 ComicsAmong 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 ComicsWhat 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 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, 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 consis...

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Talking the Current Self-Publishing Comics Climate with Martin Pierro

Jan 2800:54:12Tap to summarize

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

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Video is the Future: New Comics on Kickstarter for January 23-25

Jan 2700:15:15Tap to summarize

Hey, it’s Kevin, here to update you on launches in the Kickstarter Comics category between Friday, January 23rd and Sunday, January 25th. I know I’ve been away for a couple weeks. I’ve been slacking, dealing with some, well, let’s just say seasonal related sinus and respiratory things, but I’m pretty much over all that. I took a little vacation that was much needed. Got down into what I thought would be warmer climates in Florida, but it was actually colder than it was at home while we were there in Orlando. We had a good time though, and I look forward to going back sometime in the near future, but it was nice to take a break. Gonna try to come back here in 2026 refreshed and stay on track a little more, stay on time with updates a little more. It’s been a little spottier, and the reason for that is that I’m working harder to make my own comics, which is the entire reason I’m dealing with comics on Kickstarter in the first place. I do make my own comics. I have a Kickstarter right now that ends TODAY at 8 p.m. Central, so I hope you take a look at Darkwoven.So, you can consider this Comics Crowd episode to be sponsored by my new comic Darkwoven, which I really do hope you’ll support and help me keep the Comics Crowd going. I’m here not just because I’m interested in crowdfunding, but because I’m a participant in crowdfunding, so please keep that in mind and do help me by subscribing to this channel on Substack.Project Volume is Up It looks like things are starting to ramp up again as of today, as of the recording of this on January 26th. The comics category is back up to 195 projects. It was down in the 110’s here right at the end of December, first of January. We’re seeing that annual rise in projects. By the end of January, and by March, you’ll be back probably in the high 200’s, low 300’s in terms of project volume.That’s a lot. It’s been nice to not have quite as much to cover, but I’m sure with Tuesday being today, it’s always the heaviest launch day of the week. We’re going to see a surge over 200 would be my guess, and that’s great.Hopefully, we’ll get a greater proportion of really good comics in that mix. There were some pretty interesting ones over the weekend between Friday and Sunday. I picked out three that I’ll go over here shortly with you and show you some of the art, talk about some of the particulars of those projects.And So Are Empty ProjectsThere was the usual mix of empty projects. Those are projects that I refer to as empty because they are missing essential elements of what it takes to make a comic. They’re missing either cover art, sequential art, or story synopsis, or multiple of those.I saw a couple released over the weekend that had none of those, that were just blocks of text for lack of a better word. There’s a cover image and blocks of text that just got auto-approved by Kickstarter. I know they’re being auto-approved because for the first time in years, my last two projects that I submitted to Kickstarter were auto-approved, which honestly shocked me. At this point, it’s probably been 10 or 12 years since I had auto-approval for one of my projects, despite having a squeaky clean 100% fulfillment record. Amanda and I pride ourselves on fulfilling our campaigns within four to six weeks at the end of the campaign. We hit that goal almost every time unless there’s an issue with the printer, because we do not go to Kickstarter. We do not prepare a campaign to go to Kickstarter unless our book is finished or within a page or two of being finished before we even launch. That’s how we handle our business. Right now, I’m finishing up Darkwoven, and I have a couple pages to letter, but all the final art is in. The covers are done. It ends tomorrow night, and I will place an order with our printer on Wednesday morning. So, we want to make sure that’s done.Now, in all of our campaigns, and I would say a majority of the campaigns on Kickstarter, there is evidence enough to consider that a comic will actually be made at the end of the whole process of crowdfunding and pre-press and creation and production and so forth. But some of these projects don’t have that guarantee, because there’s not proof. There’s either not a cover, or there’s not sequential artwork, which is what defines a comic book, or there’s not a story synopsis. And if you don’t have all of those three things, in my opinion, your project is not trustworthy enough for me to feel certain that there’s going to be a comic at the end of the road here. 100 FAQ On Making ComicsI do want to point out one interesting project that’s not technically a comic, but is worth your time. It is called 100 FAQ on Making Comics: Know the Basics, Avoid the Blunders. This is a how-to guide on entering the comic world as a creator from Shelley Bond, who is, of course, a legendary editor who worked for multiple decades, or most of two decades, at Vertigo for DC Comics, which of course is where Sandman from Neil Gaiman and The Invisibles and Doom Patrol and other works from Grant Morrison were produced, and she worked on some of those. And there’s just a wealth of knowledge there for something that’s not a comic. I don’t usually make recommendations about non-comic campaigns that end up in the comics category. Although this one does belong there, it’s still not a story. Most of my recommendations are going to be, or all of my recommendations are going to be for comics that actually involve stories. But this deserves your attention if you’re interested in being a comic creator on a different level, if you’re interested in getting into the mainstream world of publication distribution.Those are deep waters, shark-infested waters these days. Distribution is a hot mess, as people say. It’s unpredictable. It’s changing underfoot as we speak. I’m not going there right now, but if you decide to do that, this might be a good resource for doing that, and I do recommend that you check it out. I’ll go over some details of it in just a few.The Comic$ Crowd in 3DBut that kind of sets the stage for where we’re at right now. I’m going to try to do more of these videos. I feel like I’ve gotten behind on The Comic$ Crowd for a number of reasons, being busy making my own books. I’ve tried to up my production in terms of being a writer, in terms of being a designer of comics, and you’ll see more content from me this year than you have before. I’m going to try the video route, and you’ll still see the same information from me. But with Substack TV launching, I thought it’d be a good time to make the switch, and there will still be the text version of The Comic$ Crowd, but we’re also going to have this video version release at the same time. So, you’ll have the option of reading, or watching, and even listening, because I’ll be also using this same audio feed as a podcast.So, lots of options. I hope you’ll stick with me, support me by either subscribing to the Substack, or supporting my comics work on Kickstarter, so that I can keep doing this. I enjoy doing it.I enjoy being a resource. I enjoy knowing the landscape of Kickstarter in a different way, because I’ve spent these days over the past year and a half browsing through, pouring over all of these Kickstarter projects, every one that launches every day. Even if I’m not posting, I’m still seeing what’s there, and I do bring that information to my post later on.New Kickstarter Comics Lead IncomingI apologize for being away for a couple of weeks, but we’re back on track. I’m going to get this format worked out, so that there will be multiple options for you to consume this information, for you to be privy to what’s going on in the Kickstarter comics category. And we’ll talk more about that, because there has been a major change, a major shake-up, with the Kickstarter Comics lead leaving the company right after the strike that went on here just a month or two ago.So, they’re going to have to find a replacement for Sam Kusek, as he went back into the publishing world, and I’m wish him the best of luck there. But there’s going to be a shake-up, and we’ll talk more, possibly in the next post, about what that means for the category, and how that may impact some of the concerns that I have voiced, and that a lot of you have agreed with over the past year or two in the Kickstarter comics category. Hopefully we’ll see some changes and progress in making things better.So. with no further ado, let’s talk about comics I like, and get some recommendations in your hands. Comics I LikeWitchmazeStarting with Witchmaze. It’s described as a 144-page graphic novel.“The Wizard of Witchmaze does battle with the mysterious Starling Queen. Nothing is what it seems.“Looking for $2,732 in funding. This is a project from the UK. 64 backers so far, and it’s already surpassed its funding goal in just a couple of days, at $3,231 US. This is coming from Simon Jacob. It’s his first creative project for Kickstarter. Some nice thumbnails, kind of stylized art, little story synopsis. Actually pretty detailed.“When the island realm is threatened with invasion by the advancing hordes of the mysterious Starling Queen, the High King is obliged to seek the help of the reluctant Wizard of Witch Maze and the magical horses he’s able to ...

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Kickstarter’s New ‘After Dark’ Newsletter

Sep 1000:31:11Tap to summarize

Martin T. Pierro & I discuss the recent, unannounced, apparently randomly targeted ‘Kickstarter After Dark’ newsletter and its implications for the future of NSFW comics and the rest of us who rely on crowdfunding access in the Comics category. 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

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Fallout for Self-Publishers from the Diamond Comics Distributors Bankruptcy

Aug 2800:45:46Tap to summarize

Thank you to everyone who tuned into our live video! Martin T. Pierro & I appreciate the participation. We plan to do this more often!Please share your thoughts on and experiences with the direct market in the comments section. 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

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Is It Harder to Fund Kickstarter Comics Now Versus 15 Years Ago?

Jun 22, 202500:31:52Tap to summarize

Find Kevin LaPorte at:thecomicscrowd.substack.comkevinlaporte.substack.comFind Amanda Rachels at:Flatline Comics on WhatNotAmanda on InstagramAmanda on PatreonLinks to recommended Kickstarter comics referenced in the podcast:Chainsaw Nosejob - A Rhinoceros Body HorrorArthur: The Legend Continues - Final Issue + Complete SagaVOLTESSA! A Gothic Sex Comedy in the Frankenstein UniverseSomeone's Died At Adventure Mountain (Issue 2 of 6)Planet Of 1000 MoonsLinks to The Comic$ Crowd posts referenced in the podcast:https://thecomicscrowd.substack.com/p/new-comics-creators-are-struggling?r=20hdnbhttps://thecomicscrowd.substack.com/p/why-are-some-kickstarter-comics-campaigns?r=20hdnb 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

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How Porn Cover Mills Exploit Kickstarter Comics Backers & Why You Should Care

Jun 15, 202500:25:44Tap to summarize

Find Kevin LaPorte at:thecomicscrowd.substack.comkevinlaporte.substack.comFind Amanda Rachels at:Flatline Comics on WhatNotAmanda on InstagramAmanda on PatreonLinks to recommended Kickstarter comics referenced in the podcast:Arthur: The Legend Continues - Final Issue + Complete SagaBeauty #2 The Flower of Imperial GracePRIVATE DANCE: LAS VEGAS #1 - a new spicy miniseriesLinks to The Comic$ Crowd posts referenced in the podcast:https://thecomicscrowd.substack.com/p/another-nsfw-kickstarter-deadbeat?r=20hdnbhttps://thecomicscrowd.substack.com/p/one-nsfw-porn-cover-mill-super-creator?r=20hdnb 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

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All episodes

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

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

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

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

Talking the Current Self-Publishing Comics Climate with Martin Pierro

Video is the Future: New Comics on Kickstarter for January 23-25

Kickstarter’s New ‘After Dark’ Newsletter

Fallout for Self-Publishers from the Diamond Comics Distributors Bankruptcy

Is It Harder to Fund Kickstarter Comics Now Versus 15 Years Ago?

How Porn Cover Mills Exploit Kickstarter Comics Backers & Why You Should Care