Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Cosmic Times, Juan Navarro, kickstarter, No Sleep Till

Nobody Wants To Know How The Kickstarters Get Made

Published Sun, 15 Sep 2013 08:00:26 -0500

Juan Navarro writes for Bleeding Cool:

I think not enough people are warned about Kickstarter.

So many people just see the massive successes out there, the big fat chunky dollar amounts thrown around every time Crowdfunding is talked about. It's like the Gold Rush of old, everybody and their mother is on Kickstarter trying to make a buck, saying and splaying all that they can to make it to the shiny gorgeous sweaty goal they set. That impossible greased up barb wired brass ring they set themselves on to reach, that only a mountain of capitalism can give them. Assholes!

I'm one of them.

It's simple though: you work your ass off on pieces of inked paper, trying to conjure a tale, to show some type of intelligence and wit to now bring it out, stick it into the internets – this Frankenstein's Monster with stitches and bolts pulsing out of it's skin – to show to the world and say "Give me 5 bucks and you get a comic about… this"

At least, in person, at a convention you can look them in the face and see either the exquisite excitement of someone finding something new, or that weird half face, when they are trying not to show you their eyes rolling in their head. That's not a problem, I've accepted it. Everyone thinks their comics are the best thing out there, but I know my stuff is not everyones cup of tea. I HAVE PUT MY SWEAT IN IT, but as an artist or creator, to think everyone is going to love your work means you're ignorant and ridiculous.

Oh well.

On Kickstarter you have to sit and look at the only responding bloody factor, that ticker, that MONEY RAISED thing. You just get to look at it. Eyes watering as you try not to blink. Refreshing the damn screen so much you think you're gonna blow the monitor. That damn ticker.

You feel every damn red cent (Or whatever the hell currency you have) that comes in… or doesn't.

So this weekend, while people peruse KICKSTARTER, loping around seeing this and that, just know on the other side of that screen is pile of quivering feverish flesh, biting its nails, burning its retinas on pixels hoping to make the goal it set forth. Know that as much as all that electricity and light is pulsating in front of you, it's a chunk of flesh from a creator who decided to put it on the chopping block and dared the world to take a swipe at it.

So give at least a dollar, damn it. Sure you won't get a fancy t-shirt to show your friends how different and "in" you are, or a book you can tell people you read BEFORE it was cool, but you can make the Creature on the other side of the monitor slap its hand together like a wind up toy monkey on PCP for a second or two before it goes back to it's sweaty reprobate ways of staring at the screen.

And I love every second of it.

Kickstarter Here