Kick It New School: a quick look at kickstarter for cartoonists

Once my darling ex-cartoonist friend Anders made a Kickstarter page to fund his first album I had to take a second look at this Kickstarter thing.  As I write this, his request has been up for one day and already he’s half-way to his goal.  That’s $400 just out of the blue, which completely blows my mind.  Could it be that Anders is very popular and has many rich friends?  Well, not exactly.

Kickstarter is an internet infant, having only been around since April 2009.  If its existence is news to you, I suggest that you read this excellent Publisher’s Weekly article from Terri Heard that illuminates some of the service’s history.  Most interesting to me was that its origins lay in the effort to keep Arrested Development on the air.  Oh, how I wish it had succeeded!

This month’s Wired Magazine also featured Kickstarter in its award-winning Start section.  It reminded me of specific Kickstarter success stories like the Calvin & Hobbes documentary Dear Mr. Watterson which is still openly accepting donations and generating mad cash.  In fact, it’s almost doubled its goal amount through Kickstarter donations.

I’ve lived a number of impulse purchase success stories, including the time I bought an orange coat I totally didn’t need but always receive compliments for wearing.  Basically, I’ve been a big fan of this model even before it existed.  The fact that it’s here now is so remarkable and unbelievable, I hardly appreciated it was real until someone I know well got involved.

Then I remembered an old friend from far away, Box Brown, had already made the Kickstarter system work for him.  Boxy makes the webcomic Bellen! and self-published minis until he won the Xeric to print his graphic novel Love is a Peculiar Type of Thing.  He recently ran a successful Kickstarter campaign that earned him $3,279 to print issues one and two of a new comic series Everything Dies.  We talked over email regarding his experience as a Kickstarter success story.

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Column: Box Brown’s Dear Pencil Pal #1

When written correspondence became “snail mail,” the letters section in the back of comics sort of fell out of favor. A few comic artists still do it. John Porcellino and Alec Longstreth come to mind. But, there was a time when it was standard practice to include a letters section in comics. In reading these comics I am often tickled to no end* when I recognize the names of the people who have sent in letters to my favorite comic artists.

When I saw Sandra Oh, actress of Arli$$ fame (also some pretentious wine movie called Sideways), in an issue of Adrian Tomine’s Optic Nerve, I thought it might be clear evidence of the moment Drawn and Quarterly made it to the mainstream. But, looking even further back in D & Q’s catalog I found a letter from famed doctor and Robin Williams’ eponymous movie character Patch Adams in a Chester Brown comic. But, these people aren’t celebrities to me. Comic creators are.

Creator of The Aviatrix and Kramer’s Ergot contributor, Eric Haven’s letter was featured in a Chester Brown comic, Yummy Fur #29. I came across this after reading a different Chester Brown comic, though. In Underwater #1, there is a letter from Eric Haven. But it turns out that it’s a completely different guy, says the comic artist Haven:

“I remember seeing that letter when the issue came out and being shocked that there was another Eric Haven in the world reading Chester Brown’s comics. I attempted to contact this other Eric, but was only able to reach yet a different Eric Haven in Rochester Hills, MI. I can only imagine what this third Eric thought when I tried to explain why I was calling him…”

These letters clearly serve a purpose for the creator. I know that fan mail (and alternately “hate” mail) can effect an artist profoundly. Haven says, “[He's] glad [he] wrote the letter. It’s nice to praise a creator if one is moved by their work… especially in a field where there is no monetary reward.” But as a fan of both Eric Haven and Chester Brown this letter serves another purpose for me and presumably other fledgling cartoonists. It serves to strengthen the connection of all cartoonists. And, a fan letter from another cartoonist is probably one of the highest honors a cartoonist can achieve.

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2009 Year in Review, With Heidi MacDonald

On this, the final day of the year, we bid the year a fond farewell to 2009 by sitting down with The Beat’s Heidi MacDonald to highlight some of the trends that came to define the year in comics, from iPhones to self-publishing to convention wars.

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The Best Damned Comics of the Decade Chosen by the Artists

Every year for the past three years, we’ve asked artists and other important industry folk to present a list of their top five books. Like clockwork, a number of participants issue the same complaint: it’s impossible to narrow the list down to five. We’re living in an era of unprecedented creativity for the sequential art medium, as as such, I can’t really take issue with those who are just flat out unable to produce a list by the deadline.

Now take that indecision and multiply it by ten. The decade is quickly coming to an end, so we decided to take a similar approach toward picking the best books of the aughts. We asked each artist to pick their ten favorite books of the past decade. Naturally, plenty simply couldn’t. As such, the following list is decidedly shorter than the Best of 2009 that we presented last week. Given the relative scope of the list, however, I hope you will find it equally illuminating.

[Best of 2009][Best of 2008][Best of 2007]

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The Best Damned Comics of 2009 Chosen by the Artists

As 2009 winds to an end, it’s time once again to reflect on the year that was, by culling together a list of the year’s top books. Rather than generating a site-wide “definitive” list, however, we opted once again to survey a wide cross-section of the industry’s movers and shakers, including artists, writers, publishers, podcasters, scholars, and even lowly comic journalists.

It’s a testament, I think, to the medium’s so-called “golden age” that nearly ever respondent complained that it was just too damned hard to whittle their list down to five choices. In some cases, people bit the bullet and stopped at five—in others, there are all sorts of “honorable mentions.” We kept everything in. We felt their pain.

Also interesting is that, with a few exceptions, there aren’t really any universal choices across lists. Asterios Polyp, not surprisingly, made plenty of lists. The Book of Genesis, Pim & Francie, A Drifting Life, AD, George Sprott, and Ken Dahl’s Monsters all fared pretty well, too. And, while there were certainly some reprints on a number of lists, the number seems to have taken a dip since last year–a promising sign for new content, I suppose.

Thanks everyone who contributed to the list. If you’re an artist who would like to contribute your top five, drop us a line at dailycrosshatch@gmail.com. We’ll be adding to the list for the rest of the year.

With that in mind, we proudly present The Best Damned Comics of 2009.

–BH

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Happy Thanksgiving

Have a good day with you families, folks!  Or all alone.

Here’s my favorite Thanksgiving tune from ex-cartoonist Anders Carlson: thanksgivingsong.  For fun!

- Sarah Morean

King Con 2009: The Cross Hatch Rehash

Expectations, I think, were largely low in the lead up to the first ever King Con. I had told a number of people that I would be spending the better part of the weekend in Brooklyn, observing the event between the three rather spread out panels I had signed up to moderate. Reactions were generally guarded, with questions along the lines of, “does New York really need another comic convention?”

Fair enough. After all, this was the debut show, and as such, the maiden King Con seemed to have been plagued by a number of the trappings that tend to befall first-time events, not the least of which was the seemingly haphazard publicity push that didn’t really seem to hit critical mass until the final days leading up to the convention.

[More Photos]

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hey, bartender! with Brett Warnock

hey, bartender! with Brett Warnock from Sarah Morean on Vimeo.

Every story has its backstory, so they say. Take Lana Turner, who was just sipping a Coke before becoming a star. Or Abraham Lincoln, the simple rail splitter who grew to save the union. Why, even Brett Warnock was just a humble bartender before becoming an important comics publisher.

Warnock was mixing drinks for 12 years before Top Shelf took off, and it’s heartening to see that he hasn’t forgot his roots. His annual stint as bartender for the Isotope Award Ceremony is lucky indeed for the people who go, since it seems he hasn’t lost his touch. I’ll vouch for the margarita in this video — it was good.

Because we at the Cross Hatch want you to have an excellent liquor-filled weekend, here are a few variations on the trusty margarita from Warnock himself. Enjoy!

Margarita. (As per the video.)

• Salt rim of glass. Top with ice.
• In separate glass, add:
  • 1.5 oz tequila (i suggest Sauza Hornitos for mixing)
  • .5 oz triple sec
  • 1 oz. pure lime juice
  • splash of o.j.
  • 1 teaspoon superfine (bakers) sugar
• Shake vigorously in a cocktail shaker, pour, enjoy.

Margarita. (At home.)

• Same as above, but replace ingredients as follows:
• One half a ripe orange in place of o.j.
• One whole lime, cut in half, in place of lime juice
• Place ingredients in a mixing can and muddle before shaking

A toast!  To your health.

- Sarah Morean

APE 2009

Isotope Award 2009 from Sarah Morean on Vimeo.

I’ve often thought of independent comics as the great social equalizer. By this I mean that no indie cartoonist or fan walking alone into a room full of similar stock should be able to leave without a friend. My estimation of indie comics, it seems, was too naive. See, until last weekend, I’d never been further west than Denver. The indie shows I’d seen were packed with internet acquaintances, kind artists recalling my fan letters, and other Midwesterners. In other words, people that I already knew. I’d been biased, for sure.

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24-Hour Comics Day 2009 : Minneapolis

I made a little documentary for you readers about the 2009 24-Hour Comics Day festivities in Minneapolis.

24-Hour Comics Day in Minneapolis : October 3-4, 2009 from Sarah Morean on Vimeo.

Here are some other videos about the 2009 24-Hour Comics Day from around the world:
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Chicago, Illinois 1
Chicago, Illinois 2
Athens, Greece
El Paso, Texas
Anchorage, Alaska
Muhos, Finland
Los Angeles, California

- Sarah Morean