Honestly, I feel like I’ve spent enough time and energy tonight on why the BOOM/BRSRKR/Kickstarter thing bugs me, but needless to say, I think it’s really gross to use a platform designed to help new, independent and small press creators make their dreams a reality & pull focus

Especially when you have a PR team. Especially when you have the budget for marketing. Especially when you can get attention from all kinds of outlets that most indie creators could only dream of. Especially when one of the creators has a net worth of $360million

And I’m sorry, when one of your creators is getting paid this much, if he really did feel the project is so important to him, then surely he could fund the creation and the special editions. BOOM has their own site, they could easily have set up a preorder page on their site

If I were to be that filthy rich and then crowdfund my work rather than just paying for it with my own deep pockets, I’d be getting the dirtiest of looks

But then, BOOM have also admitted that this isn’t about funding the book: it’s already paid for!

This is just about using the platform to draw attention to themselves and their already huge book, and pulling attention away from small press creators who cannot afford ANY of the options available to BOOM or Keanu Reeves.

It’s tantamount to a busker on the street playing guitar for small change and to try and be noticed, only for Ed Sheeran to suddenly jump in their spot and start playing

He doesn’t need the money. He doesn’t need the attention. He has other avenues to get those things

But even if it is a case of just using Kickstarter as a preorder/distribution model (which is a very grey area in KS rules), it’s also a case of sheer exorbitant prices. A tier to get drawn into a panel of the book for $2500?! Shipping that costs this crazy amount?!

And I can’t be the only one feeling like this is circumventing the local comic shop model. Say what you will about digital being the threat to them, but this feels just as bad, if not worse. “Don’t buy from comic shops, buy directly from us! Special editions!”

Do you have any idea how hard indie creators have to work to get a fraction of the attention that this kind of project gets? Do you have any idea how few platforms and resources there are that help make it happen? Do you have any idea how hard we find it to get into Diamond?

I am a working class creator. I pay back a loan. I live at home as I cannot afford to get on the property ladder. And when I was making the single issues of The Pride, I funded those issues out of my own damn pocket.

Yes, people helped by giving mates rates, even a few people doing work for free. It took years to break even, if I even have yet, and despite the sacrifices to my financial security and social life, I still paid out of pocket to make my dream a reality

When I did my first KS to collect them into a hardcover, I was terrified. Thankfully it was wildly successful but I can’t help but wonder how it would have gone if projects like this littered the platform
I was asking for help then because I NEEDED it if I was going to make it

It wasn’t “just a preorder”, I NEEDED the help to make the project. Hell, the projects I launch now on the platform are the same: they will not exist without the help of backers who like the sound of the things I dream up

But if people who can afford and have the privilege of access to other means of marketing, preordering and managing their projects start sucking the air up on the platform, I don’t know where that will leave creators like me. Let alone new creators to the industry

All of which is to say, make of the BOOM Kickstarter what you will, but I think this sets a dangerous precedent that could further gatekeep the industry from new and marginalised creators (whether marginalised financially or in other ways)

And to end: if you are running a Kickstarter that now has to compete for air with Keanu bloody Reeves, please drop the info in a reply, and I will RT every one I see to try and bring you back some of that air you may be losing.