It’s a new year, and a new year brings … a short break from the rush of new crowdfunded projects! It’s a short one this round, folks, but I, for one, appreciate that creators took the chance to spend time and/or deal with their families … or, at the very least, to take a deep breath in preparation for the long, dark winter. All that said, the projects this month are sweet: from an activity book for hospitalized kids to a celebration of fat bodies, there’s always good stuff to be found.
SuperKids Activity & Coloring Book
Janina Scarlet, Lora Innes, Thom Zahler
Pop Culture Hero Coalition
Ends January 17
SuperKids is an interactive book meant to foster a sense of community, solidarity, and self-confidence in kids who have been hospitalized for physical illnesses. Being super sick is hard enough, but being a kid in a cavernous, isolated hospital presents a whole extra set of emotional challenges. SuperKids hopes to acknowledge that and make it clear to kids that they are seen—and to help them work through the feelings of anxiety, depression, and powerlessness that being hospitalized can bring. It’s worth noting that this book’s audience is meant to be specifically kids with physical illnesses … but, if the team manages to raise enough money, they plan to create more books in the series, each focusing on other psychological and physical challenges that kids experience.
Knights of Asherah Volume 1
Anadia
Ends January 19
Knights of Asherah is an episodic, infinite-scroll-style webcomic about magic, history, and monsters that started in February of 2018 (which is wild given that Anadia’s already got 34 chapters up). This first volume will collect the first several chapters (Anadia doesn’t say exactly how many) of the webcomic, reformatted to fit into 148 full-color pages. The Kickstarter is also crushing it: everyone who backs for a physical book will get a free enamel pin, and as of this writing the campaign just hit the stretch goal to upgrade all the books to hardcover!
The Pipers Graphic Novel
Paul du Coudray & Beth Haidle
Mascot Press
Ends January 25
Paul du Coudray and Beth Haidle are a comic-making sibling duo who have thought a lot about how to bring The Pipers into the world, and that endears them to me. The book is a 92-page, full-color, hardcover beast with beautifully illustrated pages; the story is based on one by Philip K. Dick (my guess is “Piper in the Woods,” though the page actually … doesn’t say), adapted into comic form. Apart from the genuinely arresting artwork, the reason this campaign caught my eye was the fact that du Coudray and Haidle are conducting this campaign with an eye towards financial accessibility and sustainability: backers can get the ebook for a pledge of just a dollar, and the siblings plan to donate the cost of planting a tree for each book they print.
Before You Go: The Graphic Novel
Denise Schroeder
Sparkler
Ends January 25
Before You Go is a soft, sweet story about two young women who meet on their commute and the relationship that blooms through that time together. Schroeder has been publishing Before You Go through Sparkler Monthly since Sparkler’s very first year, but this is the very first time the comic is coming to print! The book will include all three Sparkler stories, as well as print-exclusive material and (if the campaign hits its stretch goal) a brand new epilogue comic.
Babes with Bellies
Venus Libido
Unbound
Funding until complete
Babes with Bellies dives right on into what Paper magazine calls “existential feminine angst,” which is my new favorite string of words. The book is about existential feminine angst as experienced by women—or, at least, as experienced by Venus Libido, the book’s author and illustrator. Libido’s illustrations aren’t concerned with being pretty or socially self-serving but rather with building solidarity by showcasing the weird, gross, and goofy emotions associated with navigating a world that thinks you should be smaller than you are.
