Collaboration & Kickstarter Go Hand in Hand
Sometimes it's worth stopping to appreciate how cool we have it right now in the comics community!
It’s pretty amazing how much collaboration is happening right now in the indie comics community, facilitated in large part by the infrastructure of Kickstarter and crowdfunding.
Did you realize that here in 2024, the success rate for comic projects is a whopping 25 percentage points higher than the Kickstarter average and by far the highest category across the site?
I think a big part of that is that COMICS Kickstarter is a true community, and the creators don’t operate from a zero sum mentality. Rather, crosspromotion and collaborations are the norm, not the exception.
Growing up, nothing was cooler than an unexpected mash-up or collaboration. Whether we’re talking the Harlem Globe Trotters or Batman showing up in an episode of Scooby Doo, or that time most of the original Image creators swapped books for month, I’ve always been a fan talents combining.
Over the past decade, it’s become clear that Kickstarter has been a key catalyst for more of this kind of stuff. The “other creator’s project shout out in your Kickstarter updates” has become a near ubiquitous practice for veteran creators… who realize turning your own backers on to other projects and having other creators shout out yours is a win for you, a win for them, and a win for your audience who gets to discover even more great books they can pledge for.
It’s a common practice for some creators to offer up digital bundles of backlist comics from other indie creators in their launches, which is a great way to use the campaign to reward backers and get additional exposure for your books.
And sometimes creators take things up a notch. Artist Jayel Draco reached out to me about doing a crosspromo for our campaigns that were running at the same time. Jayel Draco of Oneshi Press has a series called PACK that is a grungy, gritty, dark, vigilante-justice, urban-drama-noir that features a vigilant in a dog mask. Of course, the Kickstarter ComixTribe has rolling right now is for SINK, which features a FOX-MASKED vigilante.
Jayel burned the midnight oil last week, and knocked out the above crossover piece… and made the very special bonus offer that everyone who is backing the SINK campaign and also heads over to support the latest PACK campaign, will get this 8x10 in art print of the two vigilantes teaming up added to their pledge FOR FREE!
Now, these kind of incentivized crossover promotions aren’t quite as common, and do take a little more work, but can also be a ton of fun.
For example, to get this FREE bonus print, all you need to do is:
1: Make sure you're a SINK Kickstarter backer at any pledge level ($1 and up.)
2: Then, Head over to the PACK #1-4 campaign on Kickstarter.
3: Be sure to back PACK at any Physical Level.
4: Leave a comment on the Pack Kickstarter saying why you love it, and be sure to use the hashtag #SINKPACK so you can be easily identified as coming over from SINK!
Crossover prints are among my favorite collabs that happen on Kickstarter. But some other things I see happening include…
Anthologies: Whether we’re talking big projects like Travis Gibb’s Cthulhu Invades… or Nightmare Theater or smaller team-ups like Phil Butehorn and the Four Horseman Press’s first launch Slice(s) of Life, anthology projects are alive and well on the platform and a great way to
Guest Writers: One cool thing Rob Multari does for his trade collection of his series Night Wolf is included bonus scenes not in the single issues that he invites guests writers to script for him. I was honored to write up a four-page for the last volume, and I’m excited about the writers he’s invited to play in his sandbox in the next one.
Crossover Launches: Another thing I’m seeing more often is actual indie comics crossovers being launched on Kickstarter. Mark O. Stack launched a project crossing over his creation The Relentless Lark with Randy Stone’s Bullet Adventures a few months back, which was a cool way for two growing creators to crosspollinate their audiences. Of course, more established creators seem to be having fun with this, as we saw Dan Mendoza’s Zombie Tramp cross swords with Lady Death in a massive launch recently.
Of course, these are just a handful of examples of the many, many ways comic creators are connecting, collaborating and crosspromoting on the Kickstarter platform.
WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE ALL-TIME COMICS COLLABORATIONS?
I’m excited to see things continue to evolve.
-Tyler James
P.S. Our latest launch for John Lees & Alex Cormack’s latest installment of SINK will be running for just 9 more days!
We’re trying to get to 400 backers by the end of the week and we’re SUPER close!