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Life After Kickstarter Before Kickstarter

By Eric J Cockrell

The biggest allure of crowdfunding to me, was the idea that people who love comics (or maybe they just love me) are making it possible for me to make something I love, with people that I love. That's a powerful thought to me.

"Defective Comics reminds us that there is more than one way to tell a superhero story and sometimes heroes are just plain weird." – Mark Lester

In March of 2015, a few friends and I set out to produce a series of three comic books. The series was affectionately titled, "Defective Comics," an obvious homage to DC Comics' "Detective Comics." The characters in our books were parodies of the superheroes we loved as kids, and were in fact characters that we created as kids. Many of them came from our sophomore year high school brains. The likes of Adhesive Man and his Wimpy Sidekick, fighting Tefloman, leapt from the Crete-Monee High School student newspaper, as well as a series of photocopied 8.5" X 11" comic books.

Over twenty years later, the love for those characters was still there. High school best friends, Darren Fitzpatrick and myself were ready to conquer independent comics and self-publish our series. We meticulously plotted out our series and got to work on the artwork. We eventually pulled in another former CMHS classmate, Eric F Myers to help ink some of the book, and in a matter of a couple months we had a comic ready to go that was a sure hit, and no financial means to produce it.

I was a longtime visitor of comic book convention panels, so I had listened to many creators talk about the perils and pleasures of crowdfunding. So we took what we knew and set out to make it happen. Crowdfunding is not easy. I learned really quickly that it was going to be like a second job.

By day I'd work my 9-5, by evening I was marketing my comic, and pushing the campaign. To our great relief, that hard work paid off. We only sought out what we needed to print the book and no more, and ended up funding the project 200%. This allowed us to promote the book at conventions and on the web like we never expected.

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Defective Comics and Beyond

This weekend we are heading into the final week of our second Kickstarter. The purpose of this Kickstarter was to jump-start a subscription service for our books. The studio has grown to include writer, Ryan Heywood, as well as artist, Elliot Scott. Our team is committed to publishing six books throughout 2017, and we are offering it as a subscription package.

Joining Defective Comics is Eric F Myers' Rejected Hammer Thesis. RHT is an anthology series that is best compared to the old EC Comics series and The Twilight Zone. There are two other books included in the subscription; Adhesive Man 2.0 and Celestial Noise

After a number of parody releases, Adhesive Man is finally getting his day in the sun as a proper superhero, just in time for his 25th anniversary!

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What Separates Our Comic Book Kickstarter

Most Kickstarter campaigns are looking for thousands of dollars to produce one single comic book issue. We are seeking much less and want to send you six to thirteen books, depending on the level you choose. We have priced our packages in hopes that you will be encouraged to grab the subscription and allow us to entertain you throughout 2017.

We offer a huge thanks to those who have supported us, or considered supporting us so far. If you'd like to join those amazing ranks, please click here and don't miss out!

Better yet, if you're coming from Bleeding Cool, please send a message to me on Kickstarter, after supporting, and I'll make sure to sweeten the deal with some extra swag (stickers, buttons, etc.).


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Rich JohnstonAbout Rich Johnston

Founder of Bleeding Cool. The longest-serving digital news reporter in the world, since 1992. Author of The Flying Friar, Holed Up, The Avengefuls, Doctor Who: Room With A Deja Vu, The Many Murders Of Miss Cranbourne, Chase Variant. Lives in South-West London, works from Blacks on Dean Street, shops at Piranha Comics. Father of two. Political cartoonist.
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