Kickstart(er) my heart
Hello folks and welcome to a new, hopefully regular feature here on FANdemoniumNetwork. Me waffling about comics!
Those of you who know me relatively well are probably familiar with my penchant for promoting indie projects and while in the past that’s most been movies I have recently discovered the wonderful world of small press comics. These gems are often funded via kickstarter which means not only do you get the satisfaction of helping the comic get out into the world but you often get a bunch of goodies for doing so.
The first project I backed was for a comic called Brethren Born, a superhero revenge story that I encountered at MCM Comic Con in Birmingham last year. I was hooked by issue 1 and wanted more, so when the kickstarter launched earlier this year I jumped on board and backed issue 2.
Credit: Jon Laight/Level 8 Comics
Brethren Born comes from Jon Laight, aka Level 8 Comics, a part of the Close 2 Immortality collective and these guys are great. Not only are the comics they are producing awesome but they are a really nice group of guys to be friends with.
Another member of C2I is Yeah Write Jay, aka Jason Martin, who has a kickstarter running right now to fund issue 2 of his book ALV which you can check out here. ALV aka Adele Leigh Voss is the world’s only superhero and currently a very wanted woman.
ALV Issue 1 Cover
Credit: Jason Martin
Issue 1 is available online or in some of the perk tiers for the kickstarter. There are only 4 days left on this one to get it funded, and it’s a little short of £300 off target. Today is also Jay’s birthday so I’d like to wish him a happy birthday and hope this gets him a little closer to his goal.
Several members of Close 2 Immortality are involved in another massive project running on kickstarter called Comichaus.
Issue 2 cover art Credit: John McCrea/Comichaus
This 6 issue anthology features new stories from a whole load of British comics talent and cover art by some serious heavy hitters of the industry. The art for the issue 1 cover will be from none other than the legendary Glenn Fabry, he of Preacher and Hellblazer fame. Also, these guys have gone to the trouble of naming each perk tier after a David Bowie album, which is just awesome. The Comichaus kickstarter has just over a week left to go and still over £1000 needed so please give it a look and see if it whets your appetite. I backed this one as a birthday present to myself!
Searching around for suggestions for others I was pointed in the direction of another project and the title alone was enough to make me giggle and my credit card start whimpering. The magnificently monikered Victorian Bareknuckle League is a steampunk-y vibed romp that describes itself as Pride and Prejudice meets Kill Bill. Now I don’t know about you guys but between that and some of the stunning art included in the pitch I’ve got to say I am finding it hard to resist this one. I’m definitely be keeping a close eye on it as it draws nearer to its funding date in just under 2 weeks. There’s also a brilliant cosplay contest for this one that will get your photo in the front of the first issue, details are on the kickstarter page!
So that’s it for our first issue of my comics catalogue. I hope looking at these projects has sparked your interest and convinced you to get your wallets out, back them and get yourself some goodies! I’m off to dig through the recently unearthed crate of Transformers comics from my boyfriend’s parents’ attic!
