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 ...