Tag: THE MIDDLE AGE

Kickstarters You Should Be Backing – June 2022 Edition

Kickstarters You Should Be Backing – June 2022 Edition

This month we found another ten-pack of crowdfunded campaigns available to support on Kickstarter. This is a pretty interesting group of projects. They range from new comic material, to art books, to collections, to figurines? Yep. A lot of cool things.

Kickstarter is a platform available at Kickstarter.com where creative individuals have the ability to design and run a crowdfunding campaign. The concept is that individuals pledge to support the project, and if the project reaches the planned goal of pledge money in the time that campaign is running, then the project will get made. There are usually many various tiers of backer pledges, and different pledge levels come with different backer reward items. It is a fantastic way for creators to fund the projects that they love and want to create while getting new interesting things into the world.

The campaigns we highlighted for this month are in various states of funding. Some are fully funded and into the state of trying to hit stretch goals that come with even more cool stuff for backers and some are still in need of backers to hit their goal and get their project made.

The projects are listed below in chronological order of the end of the campaign. So, the ones that end soonest come first. Make sure you click on the Campaign Links for each campaign to get all the detailed info about the rewards and creators. We feel there is something for everyone on this list. Enjoy!


PLASTIC FARM: The 4th (and FINAL) Collection
Concluding Rafer Roberts’ epic underground fever-dream of a comic! Includes an exhaustive bonus section AND limited edition bookplate!

Campaign Link

Ending: Thursday June 23, 2022 7:00PM EDT

PCS Thoughts: This campaign is a true testament to the power of Kickstarter. This project fills a life long goal of a very talented creator, and that is a great thing. The backer rewards for this campaign are fantastic. Tons of indie, underground-style comic content by a master.

From the Campaign:

Written and (mostly) drawn by Rafer Roberts, PLASTIC FARM follows the life of a man named Chester, his slow descent into complete insanity, and how that madness reshapes the world around him. Chester had a rough childhood, has a magic cowboy that rides a dinosaur living inside his head, and is now, late in life, sitting in a nameless airport bar telling his life story to a group of people who really couldn’t care less.

I began drawing PLASTIC FARM in 1999 shortly after graduating college and with no real sense of what it would eventually balloon into. Over the following 15 years, I self-published 25 issues and one original graphic novel, which only represented HALF of what I had planned. Staring down another 15 years of work to finish the book, coupled with the fact that I was starting to get actual paying gigs meant that in 2016, PLASTIC FARM was put on indefinite hold.

In 2021, mid-pandemic, I decided to simply skip a thousand pages, go right to the end, and finish the damn thing.

And it turned into the best thing I’ve ever drawn.

Continue reading “Kickstarters You Should Be Backing – June 2022 Edition”

Spotlight SquadCast Interview with Steve Conley and His Astounding Space Thrills

Spotlight SquadCast Interview with Steve Conley and His Astounding Space Thrills

We got the chance to catch up with cartoonist Steve Conley recently. This is an interview we have been wanting to do for some time and the timing worked out great as Steve is in the middle of a fantastic Kickstarter campaign.

Steve is best known for his multi-award nominated webcomic The Middle Age, but this time around he is collecting and printing his turn of the century webcomic Astounding Space Thrills. The campaign is doing excellent and is something you definitely want to get in on.

Please enjoy this conversation where we talk about the Kickstarter for Astounding Space Thrills, Steve’s career, the history and future of The Middle Age, and we throw in a little pop culture etymology for good measure.


Check out the trailer for the Kickstarter campaign below:

 

What is Astounding Space Thrills about?

According to Steve:

Astounding Space Thrills is a fun, retro-futuristic, sci-fi adventure following hero Argosy Smith as he solves cosmic mysteries. Think of Argosy as 1/3 The Doctor, 1/3 Buckaroo Banzaii, and 1/3 every kid who grew up playing RPGs and video games.

There are very accessible backer reward tiers and so far the campaign is blowing by the stretch goals.

It is an amazing effort that Steve is undertaking by resurrecting and remastering a webcomic that was designed to be viewed on a monitor that used a VGA cable and a computer that required a hard wired cable to a dial-up modem to get to the internet. This is definitely a labor of love and we are looking forward to seeing the final results.

In our conversation, Steve mentioned that he is willing and excited to go back to the world of Argosy Smith if the people want more of it.  I say that sounds like a great idea.

What are the important things to know?

The campaign ends on May 26, 2021.

You can find the campaign page here.

Steve’s website is steveconley.com.

You can follow Steve on Twitter at thesteveconley.

Don’t forget to check out The Middle Age as well. You can find it at Webtoon, GoComics, Tapas, or even in Kindle or Print formats on Amazon.

Steve also has a Patreon page that we highly recommend.

Exploring Webcomics With the Pros – The Video SquadCast

Exploring Webcomics With the Pros – The Video SquadCast

Hey Everyone!!

Welcome to the Video SquadCast! This is the recording of the panel we hosted at Baltimore Comic-Con on October 20, 2019. The panelists are Steve Conley, Katie Cook, Dean Haspiel and Thom Zahler.  The video is hosted on our YouTube Channel and the audio version of the SquadCast can be found at the bottom of this post.

Be sure to check out this great conversation about webcomics and how these professionals work their craft. The will tell you the techniques they use for developing story and rendering it into art.


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Kickstarter You Should Be Backing: The Middle Age: Volume 2 – Hardcover Collection

Kickstarter You Should Be Backing: The Middle Age: Volume 2 – Hardcover Collection

Hey folks. It’s that time again. If it’s Friday, it must be time to tell you a about a Kickstarter that you should be backing. We search the current Kickstarter campaigns, and when we find one we feels needs a little boost, we let you know about it.

This week we are spotlighting The Middle Age: Volume 2 – Hardcover Collection.

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Webcomics: They Are Out There, Now Go Read Them!!!

Webcomics: They Are Out There, Now Go Read Them!!!

Comics are changing. You can’t find single issues of comics at the newsstand or in the convenience store anymore. On the plus side, there are multiple outlets for creative talent to deliver amazing comics to the public.

While traditional single issue comic books continue to be a great source of visual narrative no matter if the delivery platform is physical or digital, there are other formats that have evolved into some incredible comic material. With the advent of internet comic platforms, creative talent can deliver their stories in strip form without having to rely on newspaper syndication.

Webcomics have sprung up pretty much since the dawn of the internet. You can find comics in narrative form, slice of life strip form, individual single panels, and pretty much anything else you can think of. Most are even designed for mobile delivery and can be read on phones and tablets using apps.

There are many webcomics that we look forward to updates from on a regular basis. We want to bring you some of the most amazing webcomics that we have found and think people should be reading.

Click on the images or the website listings below to check out each of these wonderful comics. Also we recommend thenib.com for fantastic satire comics.

Continue reading “Webcomics: They Are Out There, Now Go Read Them!!!”