Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, entertainment, kickstarter

Out Of The Vacuum: Double Barrel Theatre Presents 2015

Published Sat, 16 Aug 2014 14:00:54 -0500

Matthew Kayal writes:

Hi! My name is Matthew Kayal and I am a comic book writer. I've been releasing my own webcomics once a week for the past year on my website and at comic conventions like New York Comic Con. I'm running my third ever kickstarter and hopefully my second successful kickstarter.

What I'm trying to do is raise funds for my next anthology of stories, Double Barrel Theatre Presents Volume 4, and possibly more. Each volume of stories I have all have a specific idea behind them. In volume one, my idea was "Rise above" and in stories like The Weakling, Jim and Lory's Wedding Gaiden, and That Punk Show I had stories about people overcoming their situations. In volume 2, the new anthology I've yet to show anyone, my idea was "monsters and jobs".

The first new story people will read is The Calendar Girl Ghost Story. I was speaking with an acquaintance (or so I remember it happening this way) about girls modeling in dilapidated houses and how that could be the start of a horror movie. I took that premise and made a ghost story out of it. The story is drawn by Brian Latimer, one great artist and one of the good Facebook connections I've made. The second story is Midnight Delivery Service. This story came out of a desire to read new stories about the apocalypse. I'm sorry, but I'm tired of the Walking Dead "we're all doomed" apocalypse story. So Midnight Delivery Service was about people living and working despite the end of the world. The final story in volume two is I:Weapon. I:Weapon is my love letter to video games and the stories that they told. I would love for readers to find all the references to games.

The anthology I'm trying to make will have three stories. Each of them are five pages long. Why five pages? Because Andy Diggle told me two panels was all it takes to tell a story so better off five. The first five page story is Kuruma Robohime. Grace is a sixteen year old girl about to get her driver's permit. Her aunt that's living on Mars gives her a key to a car that can turn into a giant robot. The second five page story is called Suburban Kunoichi. Set in a small town, there's criminal element that's being taken care of by a ninja woman in a soccer mom minivan. This story is spawned out of small town boredom. Anyone who's ever been living in a small town with nothing to do has had the thought of "what could happen here." Finally, there's my story about female wrestlers, Luchadoras. The rookie of an all-female wrestling federation realizes that she and all the other talent are being stolen from. So she takes it upon herself to challenge the president, the greatest champ ever turned owner.

If you haven't noticed the pattern, all three of those new stories have female protagonists. This is because the principle idea of volume 4 is "Women characters kicking ass". There's been a lot of discussion in the comic book community about gender and that conversation never hit me personally. Then I realized two things: I'm an uncle to a niece and I have no stories that I would be able to tell her "read this". These are the stories I'm going to show my niece so she knows that there's another option to the stories about female heroes doing what the male heroes do. That's what these stories are about.

My kickstarter goal is $500. It's a low goal, I know people I can work with that will make it manageable with the prizes and finished product. I'm offering print and digital versions of my past stories. I have some nice rewards that I'm offering. I hope to have your backing and thank you for your time.

Find me @mwkayal on Twitter.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!