Hey folks, Travis here with some stuff that you might want to spend money on. It is the holiday season, after all!
You all know that I dig Cerebus, and over on Kickstarter, there is another one of the Archive portfolios, this time from the Flight phonebook. It’s 10 interesting and different looking pages from that graphic novel, in “Artist Edition” form, along with the cover to issue 153.
You even get a Christmas card from Dave Sim, without necessarily getting the portfolio! (I was at a comic shop in the Boston area 10 or so years back and there was a Cerebus Christmas card on display. I offered to buy it, but they weren’t authorized to sell it, as the owner wasn’t there.)
Another Kickstarter that looks interesting, and that is also nearing the end of its time on Kickstarter, is this one from artist Ron Wimberly. It’s a magazine called LAAB, and it’s, according to the blurb, a “collective art newspaper dismantles the lethal stereotypes of black identity in sci-fi & pop culture”. It includes a bunch of interesting features, like James Romberger talking about Jean-Michel Basquiat, Wimberly’s tribute to Sun Ra, and an analysis of THX 1138. I wasn’t a huge fan of Wimberly’s She-Hulk issues, but his style is interesting and this magazine sounds cool. (And I swear I was going to write about this before I saw this!)
After I pledged for LAAB, I came across this one as well, Reverie, an anthology of Australian indie comics creators. I’ll have to look further into this one myself, as Fil Barlow is one of the contributors.
We’ve featured Drew Ford before on the site, and unfortunately, he’s going through a bad period, as the money he was trying to pay his printer (outside the US) with was “lost” by a bank. Now he’s trying to get some money back through a GoFundMe, to try to get Voyage to the Deep printed, as well as save his It’s Alive imprint. Some interesting stuff that you can get from various creators that have donated stuff for Drew to give for donations.
Finally, an interesting Indiegogo campaign trying to fund a film about gerrymandering in US politics. Rachel Millman (“Twitter gal”, according to the NY Post, a name she got after raising a lot of money for hurricane victims using pictures of her roommate’s cat Jerry) (hey, it’s Twitter, ok?) and her dad are working on a film examining the legal battle and activism involved in trying to change the way that political districts are drawn. It sounds like an interesting look at a serious problem, and I’m going to throw some cash their way too. Well, I kind of have to, because I offered a less-than ideal suggestion for fundraising, as I suggested that they use pictures of the cat again, with oranges. You know, Jerry-mandarin?
Yeah, they didn’t answer my email, so you know how they felt about that one. Now I feel obligated to donate (I did promise…).
Anyway, if you’ve got spare cash and are interested in any of these things, consider any of these to spend money on. If you’d like. Of course, if you’d rather order stuff through Amazon, make sure you use a link from here, ok? Thanks guys!
I’ve never heard of Reverie… and I call myself an Australian comics fan! (That’s an Australian who’s a fan of comics, not a fan of Australian comics per se.)
from the Kickstarter page:
“Titled ‘Trail’, the limited series follows in the footsteps of Marco Polo who himself is on the trail of the biblical Three Kings. Combining many years of academic research and study…”
This amuses me, juxtaposing “Three Kings” with “years of academic research”. If you actually read the Biblical account, it just says “Magi from the east came to Jerusalem” (Matt 2:1, their story continues from there) – no number is given. (I assume we think there are three because that’s the number of gifts described + that number has symbolic value.)