Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Crowdsource Funding, Crystal Fractal Comics, Derrek Lennox, Dr. Twilight, indiegogo

Dr. Twilight And The Wonderful World Of Crowdfunding

Published Sun, 11 Aug 2013 19:00:18 -0500

Andrew Ardizzi writes for Bleeding Cool:

Crowdfunding campaigns mean everything to independent creators, and there are an incalculable number of great ideas, great stories and great comics waiting to be made.

Kickstarter-type campaigns are a wonderful, energizing and completely exhausting undertaking. From the outset you feel enthusiasm, excitement, confidence. Then you get your first couple of contributions and all of a sudden you're soaring upwards to cloud 9, maybe flying beyond in some sort of Icarian quest to take your project as far it can go. The sky's the limit.

And then the contributions dry up, and after a few days it's disheartening and energy-sapping. It's hard to push on and continue promoting your campaigns, but here's why we at Crystal Fractal Comics (CFC) do.

I've been working with the company as its Senior Editor since Sept. 2011, and from that point I fell in love with the universe CFC Publisher Derrek Lennox created. It's raw, but has a ton of potential. And that's why nearly two years later I'm still willing to put in all of the work necessary to push the books; for little pay at that. These are projects of passion, and that's something you can't calculate or quantify. From the outside it seems like lunacy, but when you're in the thick of it – and I imagine this to be the same with every other creator – it's creative perfection, because deep down you know each step of the journey is worth the effort. And then, despite the dry periods, all it takes is one campaign contribution to re-energize you.

A little over a week ago we launched our second Indiegogo campaign, having learned a few lessons from our first effort in winter 2012. This time around we wanted to focus on the title character, Doctor Twilight, a powerful, immortal practitioner of magic. I know what you're thinking: immortal? Really powerful? BORING. And maybe you're right, but that's just the dressing. Underneath is a story about a man who made a critical mistake in his past, one that granted him and his allies immortality, but also weakened the barriers of reality between our world and the other 150 "levels of hell." And while that sounds terrible on its own, nothing cuts deeper for him than losing his daughter, Angelita. Lost to the timestream, Doctor Twilight (Natanael de Velazquez) has spent the last 500+ years searching for a way to bring Angelita back from oblivion.

This is a story about guilt and redemption; the guilt of having made that critical mistake we'd all like to "have back," while having an indefinite amount of time to rectify that mistake, to redeem yourself. It's that compulsive sort of drive you feel when you've made a gross error, and you'll do anything to fix it. Whether you can or not is mostly dependent on you, but perhaps you don't quite deserve it. Maybe you can't redeem yourself. Yet, you try regardless, not knowing in the end whether it'll be worth it. You try because you feel compelled to, because in the end you feel it will be worth it.

We've all been there, personally and professionally. In any passion-based action, you never know what the result will be. But if you never try – if the greatest creators ever never tried – think of what you'll be missing. And so in success, or failure, you give everything you have in you.

I just wanted to thank Bleeding Cool for the opportunity to talk about our Indiegogo project, and we hope that you'll show your support for our Doctor Twilight graphic novel.

Thanks for reading!