Posted in: Boom, Comics | Tagged: boom, dark crystal, jim henson, kickstarter

Boom's Jim Henson's Dark Crystal Gets Kickstarter for 40th Anniversary

Publisher Boom Studios reset the landscape for comics Kickstarter when their first pre-order campaign for Keanu Reeves' BRZRKR shattered prior records at over $1.4 million , becoming the #1 comic and graphic novel campaign on the platform. BRZRKR, of course, went on to break other records in comic shops and bookstores. Two years later, it still reigns supreme on Kickstarter, but Boom has gone on to run multiple campaigns on Kickstarter, now under the Boom Deluxe Pre-Order label.

Their second campaign for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers established what's become a popular model for the publisher, producing complete sets of super deluxe hardcovers with price points well above what typically makes sense to carry in a retail store. Although any comic shop can order the deluxe editions at a wholesale discount through the campaigns, while standard versions of these books are made available to comic shops and bookstores through distributors.

That campaign, which also assembled 6 Power Ranger cast members from the original 3 Mighty Morphin seasons of the TV show for signatures and exclusive interviews, garnered over $800,000 in pre-orders and is the #1 campaign in the comics subcategory on Kickstarter. And based on updates on their first two campaign pages, it looks like customers will be receiving their copies of both the second volume of BRZRKR and their complete Mighty Morphin Power Rangers sets before the end of the year.

This year Boom has really ramped up on Kickstarter, a pretty clear sign that the Boom Deluxe Pre-Order program is here to stay. Just ahead of Comic-Con, they launched a Complete Irredeemable Deluxe Edition Library campaign as a vehicle to announce a new Irredeemable series by Mark Waid and Peter Krause (and take advantage of the heat generated by the Netflix film announcement, no doubt). Despite not having been actively published in 10 years, that campaign garnered over $345,000 in pre-orders placing it in the top 10 graphic novel campaigns on Kickstarter. And while the first of the products will start arriving to customers in December, you can still put in a late pre-order before October 31st on the BackerKit store.

Boom followed Irredeemable up with John Allison's Complete Giant Days Library, which had a unique charitable component to it – donating copies of Volume 1 to libraries in the U.S. The project, which was funded in just 20 minutes, went on to collect over $345,000 in pre-orders and is slated to donate 635 copies of Giant Days Library Edition Volume 1 to libraries. The Giant Days BackerKit store is open as well for fans who might have missed the initial campaign.

All this to say that Boom seems to have found quite a bit of success offering pre-order items on Kickstarter, and from what I'm hearing, some of their biggest campaigns are yet to come.

One of which could be the one they just set up a pre-launch page for… Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal. The beloved property has been a mainstay in comic shops and bookstores for well over a decade thanks to Boom (and Archaia prior to its acquisition by Boom). With this year being the 40th anniversary of the original film's release, Boom clearly saw an opportunity to celebrate and commemorate the occasion. The pre-launch page indicates the campaign will collect "seven deluxe hardcovers". And direct emails sent to past pre-order campaign customers describe the campaign as collecting the "complete corpus of The Dark Crystal comics and graphic novel in one stunning, seven-volume sequence… plus some truly fantastic limited edition merchandise" along with a "dangerously, adorable Launch Day bonus item available for the first 24 hours ONLY." If the past is any indication, we can expect some truly expansive and premium editions to be offered out to the faithful of Thra. Boom's previous licensed campaign for Power Rangers reached the rarified high six-figure air, will Dark Crystal reach similar heights?

I wouldn't be surprised if we'll have an idea at some point next week, when I predict the campaign will officially launch.

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