Bryan Q Miller Heads Earthward

Published Mon, 04 Feb 2013 15:00:58 -0600

Last updated Mon, 04 Feb 2013 16:40:06 -0600

And just after we've looked at what can go wrong on Kickstarter, Bryan Q Miller writes about something that's going very very right…

So, what IS "Earthward"?

It's a story about a family, or, rather, a collection of families. Parents and children, some related, some not, all exploring space aboard a science ship — THE MERCURY. We aren't alone in the cosmos; we haven't been, for a very long time. Humanity was forcibly evicted from Earth (not too long from the here and now) by a vicious alien race. We fled to the stars, doomed to never return home — THE HIDDEN "moved the stars themselves" to keep us from ever finding our way back. Generations have passed. No human alive has ever seen Earth. It's a legend. A Fairy Tale.

The MERCURY SIX (the children on the ship), go on a supply run, and return home to find Mercury adrift — their respective sets of parents and guardians, nowhere to be found. As they begin their quest to reunite their family, they find themselves crossing swords with the MILITARY (led by Alien general Vaelyn), dodging attacks from SPACE PIRATES, and doing their best to stay three steps ahead of the SCIENCE COUNCIL, whom their parents never trusted in the first place. And just WHY is everyone after the children? Why are their parents so very valuable?

Because Earth is REAL… and their parents know exactly where it is!

"Earthward" is my love letter to Goonies, Explorers, Last Starfighter, Space Ace, Wing Commander, Star Wars… ANYTHING by Don Bluth… a celebration of all the wonderful, all-ages Space stuff I grew up on. And by "all-ages," I don't mean "dumbed down for kids." I mean literally, ALL-AGES – a shared reading experience, nothing played down to the kiddos in the reading audience, and nothing played too far up to their adult counterparts. Some comics and graphic novels do this, but certainly not ENOUGH.

If comics as a medium is going to endure, we have to keep readers of ALL ages interested in them. And the younger ones, they always want to read "older stuff". So why not play to that by meeting them in the middle? And if there's always something for them to read/want/buy as they move through school, then, by the time they have jobs and disposable income, "COMICS!" will still be something they want, nay, NEED to spend money on. Right?

Marcio Takara on art has done (and continues to do) a fabulous job capturing the tone and feel of that 1982-1986 genre explosion. Couldn't be happier about having lucked onto his work via Tumblr. The Internet truly can be an amazing way to discover talent!

We're close to reaching our funding, but far from done. We want to give you a longer book (the set length now is 110, but we can do SO much more). We want to give you a better book, crammed with extras. The goal is deliver as professional a product as possible – in order to deliver on that, everyone involved (excepting myself) is set to get on or near what their normal rates would be. That's why we have the goal that we have. Making comics isn't cheap, and everyone has mouths to feed. We know every one of our backers works just as hard to earn their spending money, so that's why we've swung for the fences with our incentives.

Most (if not all) of our commission slots are taken, but we've got a bunch of other levels aimed to help those of us who want/need craft improvement to have a safe place to get critiques. Workshop sessions. Portfolio reviews. We've even got a level for aspiring writers (feature AND television) to get critiques from a living, breathing, working executive.

Kickstarting is great and humbling and wonderful and stressful and amazing, and we can't get any of it done without you, the reader – so, in advance THANK YOU for taking the time to give "Earthward" a look!

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