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There And Back Again On Bill Willingham And Frank Cho's Kickstarter

So Bill Willingham and Frank Cho launched a Kickstarter to promote their new project together, an illustrated novel, Bifrost.

It included rewards such as "you'll receive everything listed above, plus a phone call from Bill Willingham. This will be a short call, no more than five minutes, and is limited to Canada and the Continental US" for $100 and for $1000 "You'll receive everything listed above, plus Special VIP seating to see Bill at the Fables panel at 2014's Emerald City Comic Convention, in Seattle. Note that you'll have to already be in attendance at the Emerald City Convention, and your transportation and lodging is not included in this reward."

What it didn't include was the book itself. A fact that a few of Willingham and Cho's peers began to mock.

And so, the deed was done. A $125 reward that gets you all the stuff plus a signed copy of the novel.

"You'll receive everything listed above, plus signed copy of the novel itself."

Okay, here's what I'm going to argue. Kickstarter is there to fund the creation of projects. The rewards are there to encourage increased donations. And while many are using it as a new form of distribution, it doesn't have to be that at all. What Willingham and Cho did initially was fine, it's just that we've been spoiled by other Kickstarter deals…

Though Willingham does get confused that the deal would a oblige a publisher to deliver all these copies – not true. The onus is on the funded to buy the copies from the publisher (probably at a decent discount) and then send them out themselves, the Kickstarter works as an advance in lieu of that from a publisher.

So, you know, stuff.

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