Posted in: Comics | Tagged: kickstarter, Mike Wolfer, sean edgar

Kickstarter Policy Change Over Adult Content, Comic Creators Affected

Kickstarter makes major policy changes restricting mature or adult content from crowdfunders, specifying comics. Creators react...

Kickstarter has published a new "Mature Content Creator Guide" that lays out clearer rules for crowdfunded projects involving adult themes, including comics, art books, photography collections, and intimacy-related products and states that it is intended to help creators avoid having projects flagged or rejected during review. The document states that Kickstarter "has long supported bold, boundary-pushing creative work" while also attempting to draw firmer lines around what it considers acceptable mature content on the platform. For comics creators in particular, the guide states that "romance and spicy literature, including comics" and even "erotic comics" are still allowed on the platform, but only if all project page imagery complies with the new standards. It also warns against projects "where the primary value offered is access to explicit content." And that it will now generally prohibit pornographic or explicitly sexual content, projects created specifically for sexual gratification, explicit depictions of sex acts, violent, exploitative or non-consensual sexual material. The guide repeatedly stresses that censorship bars, blur effects or pixelation will not make otherwise prohibited imagery acceptable. Kickstarter states, "If the underlying image violates these guidelines, censoring it does not make it compliant." Kickstarter closes the document by emphasising that mature creative work still has a place on the platform, writing, "Creative expression deserves a place to find its audience." However, creators of that content seem far from convinced;

Mike Wolfer of Yuggoth Tales with Alan Moore, Strange Kiss/Gravel/Blackgas with Warren Ellis, Stitched/Street Of Glory with Garth Ennis, wrote an open letter to Kickstarter saying, "I was incredibly disheartened to read your email…regarding the ban on mature content on your platform. And let's be honest, here; it IS a ban. This is not only going to absolutely cripple my business, but it will affect countless other creators. It also goes without saying that this is going to create a loss to Kickstarter of millions of dollars in revenue annually. But your decision is your decision, and anyone paying attention knows the only reason this is happening is because of the puritanical demands of Stripe. I am simply beside myself. You have devastated my business with one email, a business that I have built since 2014, in partnership with Kickstarter." And he has some questions.

1. What does "spicy" mean? What does "erotic" mean? You state that fiction/comics projects that fall into those categories are allowable, yet you also state that depictions of sex are not allowed in any form. However, sex is EXACTLY what "erotic" and "spicy" material is. You cannot state that both are allowable while also saying that both are banned.
2. You state all of the things that are not allowed, yet in some cases, those explanations explicitly say they are not allowed on the PROJECT PAGE, which is not the same thing as the creation itself. Please be clear: Are you just trying to clean up the public-facing portion of Kickstarter (which is viewable by children) while allowing the actual mailed rewards to be explicit? Or are you saying that BOTH the campaign page AND the rewards that will only be seen by backers cannot be explicit? I completely agree that the public page should be safe for anyone to view.
3. As I'm sure you know, fans of comic books (my profession) absolutely love nude cover variants. Look at any campaign featuring NSFW comic covers, and you'll see a ton of them. They sell, and comics publishers survive by offering them. So if a comic book offers a nude cover variant, you're saying that it can't be offered at all. Why? Because: You say nudity is allowed on reward items as long as it is clinical/medical/non-sexual. Look at any pose on any nude comic cover; the full intent is sexualization…and that makes it unacceptable by Kickstarter/Stripe standards. Additionally, you say creators cannot post graphics that are censored; censoring itself is against the rules ("Not allowed: Censored or obscured versions of otherwise non-compliant content (blurred images, bars, black boxes, etc.)"). But if a creator offers a nude cover that IS clinical/medical/non-sexual, it STILL features nudity and must be censored on the campaign page…but censoring is NOT allowed, right? Therefore, YES or NO: Will ALL nude cover variants in ALL Kickstarter campaigns now be banned? According to your new rules, they MUST.
4.  I find it odd that Stripe apparently has no problem with extreme violence, gore, and language. Not one word was mentioned about any of those, except for violence associated with hate. Oh. And creators can't use the words "'slut,' 'whore,' 'MILF/DILF', etc." That's a quote from the guidelines.This is only scratching the surface, and believe me, this announcement is spreading on social media right now, and the backlash is SEVERE.
5. FINAL QUESTIONS: Why does Kickstarter not initiate an age verification process and work with a secondary funds processor, and if Kickstarter cares so much about mature content creators (that's what "Kickstarter After Dark" was all about, wasn't it?), why is there not a segregated adults-only section with separate payment processing that is NOT Stripe? Does Kickstarter have an exclusive agreement with Stripe? And why was the "Kickstarter After Dark" campaign even rolled out last year when you KNEW Stripe had issues with mature content?

Richard Morgan of Blam And Glam tells me "Just had the updated Kickstarter mature guidelines in and they've just flagged issue 14 despite being the same as the previous issues going back 5 years. They've tightened the guidance up and looks like Blam & Glam might be a challenge to run on their platform. I've just tweaked the write up, clarified there's no sexual acts in it (there never was), and so I'll see if that helps it get approved. They've now said you can't show any lingerie, fetish wear or clothing that accentuates the body parts. Nudity either. It would be interesting to see how Kickstarter creators like Brian Paulido, with his series of 'Lady Death' and 'Hellwitch', or Top Cow, who successfully funded Stjepan Seijic's 'Sunstone' art book and 'Sunstone After Hours' kickstarters on there recently. Given how the former you can argue the costume might fall under this scrutiny and the latter definitely falls four under sexual acts. And especially that both always receive 'Projects we love' badges from Kickstarter themselves"

• SE Ransdell writes "Looks like I've kickstarted my last project— I'll never use kickstarter again as a creator or a backer."
• ‪Autumn Wolff writes "Launching my own erotic crowdfunding platform called Lickstarter."
• ARCR-CRic‬ ‪posts, "With kickstarter no longer being an option I could explore for my book, hope one of the furry publishers out there will like it enough to publish it
• Ro Salarian writes, "Kickstarter officially banning adult content now. Knew this was coming, but it still sucks to have yet another part of the internet that I've been explicitly evicted from. Digital gentrification is exhausting. I truly truly believe that the only way we'll ever have a platform that will protect sexual expression is if it's created and run by queer trans sex workers of color who never ever sell the business to anyone no matter how much money they're offered. This is the billionth time I've been evicted from some corner of the internet for being a filthy degenerate. My world is shrinking rapidly. It's hard not to feel caged. But I keep going because I refuse to concede."

Mike Wolfer has more commentary, saying, "For the past year, I've been having a ton of trouble getting campaigns approved by Kickstarter. I submit them, they get red-flagged, and I'm told I have to make adjustments so that the censoring of nude cover images provides MORE coverage. I found that using words like "erotic horror" and "for adult readers" got me immediately flagged, along with the word "nude." If I removed those words from my campaign text, it would get approved, no problem. As long as I DIDN'T explicitly explain to backers what they were getting, the campaign was a go. But how can you appeal to a buyer by NOT fully describing the items you're selling?" And he includdes a recent Kickstarter response to a new campaign;

"Thanks for sharing "DAUGHTERS OF THE DARK ORACLE: RAGDOLL'S REVENGE" with us.IMPORTANT: We noticed that your project includes adult/NSFW content, such as mature horror imagery and pages with censored nudity. While your project has been approved on Kickstarter, all projects must also comply with our payment processor Stripe's rules: https://stripe.com/en-th/legal/restricted-businesses. Stripe will conduct its own review and may decide that it's unable to support your project. This can happen before your project launches, while it's live, or even after it successfully funds. If Stripe determines that it cannot support your campaign, our Trust & Safety team will let you know. In that situation, we will do our best to request that Stripe pay out any funds owed to you, but this is not guaranteed. Because of this, we encourage you to be transparent with your backers about the possibility that payment processing issues outside of Kickstarter's control could affect your project."

Mike Wolfer adds "As you can see, they said it was approved, BUT—absolutely unbelievably—I was told that I'd need to be transparent with my backers, to let them know Stripe might cancel the campaign before, during, or AFTER the campaign? Are you kidding me? I'm to run a campaign and destroy trust with my backers by telling them not to get their hopes up? Who's going to back THAT campaign, you know? By the way, the book is just "R" rated, with horror movie violence and minor nudity, nothing extreme. But to the Kickstarter system, it looked "adult" and "NSFW." Thank god I didn't use the word "MILF" anywhere on the campaign, because, yes, THAT'S not allowable, if you can believe that. On top of all that, Kickstarter ALSO said they'd try to coerce Stripe into paying out if they pull the plug on the campaign, but they can't guarantee they will. What kind of business practice is this? The owners of the site are agreeing to BEG their payment processor to fulfill the role they've been subcontracted to do? This is INSANITY. And I've been dealing with it for a YEAR. And now, it's gotten worse. MUCH worse. To my backers and followers of my comics work like WIDOW UNLEASHED and DAUGHTERS OF THE DARK ORACLE, I'm exploring other avenues to get my books into your hands. Kickstarter will still be the place to find WAR MONSTERS and BEAST HUNTER X, but not some of my other works. At least, for now."

Expect a lot more commentary to come down the pipe… Bleeding Cool scooped the news that Sean Edgar was the new  Director Of Comics & Collectibles at Kickstarter last month… might his inbox be getting a little fuller today?

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