Ground to a Pulp card set on Kickstarter

I don't usually talk about other people's Kickstarter campaigns on this blog, but it's not because I have anything against doing that. I just don't typically think to blog about them. But Evan Driscoll of Studio Hades has a unique project that deserves some extra attention even though he's blown past his goal.

I'm embedding the Kickstarter video below, but basically Driscoll is creating a set of retro, '30s-inspired bubble gum cards featuring pulp heroes and sports stars from the era. As he hits stretch goals, he's adding cards to the base set, so a C'thulhu card has already been unlocked and with just under a week left in the campaign, there's a Phantom card on the line if additional backers pledge less than $300.

Anyway, check out the video and the Kickstarter page. There are some great reward levels and I'm sure this is right in the wheelhouse of a lot of people who read this blog.

New Kill All Monsters art and other updates

Got a fragrant potpourri of Kill All Monsters news for you this morning, starting with a look at some of the cards Jason made for Kickstarter levels that include sketches. Rather than try to sketch directly in books, Jason went all out and had special cards printed so that he could do something a little nicer.

Speaking of Kickstarter, now that it's open to Canadian projects, Jason's got the itch to run one on his own, which means you'll be seeing another Kill All Monsters comic sooner than expected. Before we release Volume 2, we're going to put together a one-shot single issue (probably around 40 story pages) that expands on the world a little while also tying into the story we're telling in the graphic novels. I don't want to give too much away except that it's inspired by this:



That's a piece that Jason drew for the Monstrosity anthology and it's not the only giant robot pinup he's done lately. He also did this one for this year's Baltimore Comic-Con yearbook, which has a Usagi Yojimbo theme. Mike Spicer did the colors. Really wish I was going to Baltimore this year.



Finally, Jeff Bouchard from Comic Spectrum wrote a very nice review of Kill All Monsters, Volume 1, giving it 4 out of 5 stars, saying that he got a Kamandi feel from it (very cool), and writing that it "provides a visceral experience from the over-the-top battles between monster and mech at the same time weaving deeper plot points that leave you thinking and wondering where the story will go." Thanks, Jeff!

More reviews and fan art of Kill All Monsters

Well, the Kickstarter is all done. Or, the pledging part is anyway. Now's the part where Jason and I go to work fulfilling rewards, which we're thrilled to do. People chipped in $11,910, which is 476% of our goal. Absolutely amazing, so one last massive THANK YOU to everyone who pledged and helped spread the word.

Got a couple of more Kill All Monsters-related bits this week, starting with the awesome Skullbot drawing above by Vincent Kukua. Vincent is a talented production artist at Image Comics and you can check out more of his stuff on his DeviantArt page. Thanks, Vincent!

Next, a couple of cool sites mentioned us last week. Lonnie Nadler from Bloody Disgusting gave the Kickstarter a nice push and Greg Burgas at the Comics Should Be Good! blog wrote an amazing, really insightful review. He picks up on a lot of stuff I wasn't sure if people would get (the significance of the date when the giant monsters first appeared, for instance). Here's a taste of what he thought, but check out the whole review:

Kill All Monsters is an interesting comic, because it starts out as one thing and slowly changes into something better, and that’s always nice to see. It’s as if May thought “What if I made a comic with giant monsters fighting giant robots?” and once the “That’s AWESOME!” factor wore off, he realized he had to come up with something else. I’m sure he had it plotted out further than just the robots fighting the monsters, but for the first several pages, he just has Copland drawing that, and while it’s quite keen, you always need something more than that. So May settles into an interesting story that borrows liberally from plenty of sources, but still manages to be a compelling read.

Finally, I thought I'd point out that if you like art featuring giant monsters and robots, we've got a Pinterest gallery dedicated to that. I need to link to it from KillAllMonsters.com, so this is as much a reminder for me to do that as it is for you to go look at it. There's some really cool stuff on there.

Last week for the Kill All Monsters Kickstarter

The Kickstarter ends on Friday, but whatever the final total is, it's already far exceeded my and Jason's hopes for it. Everyone's been so supportive and encouraging, we'll never be able to express our gratitude appropriately.

Same goes for those who've helped spread the word. I've got a couple of more links to share from the past week.

Matthew Meylikhov wrote a great Kickstarter Spotlight about us for Multiversity Comics, calling Kill All Monsters "essentially what all Godzilla books should be, but few are, focusing neither on one option [robots punch monsters!] or the other [humans talk about feelings!] and instead celebrating both, mixing it up in a style that flows seamlessly." It's a fun review and Meylikhov is a funny writer. You should check it out.

Meanwhile, Rick Hansen wrote up his reflections on C2E2 for Comic Impact and mentions picking up Kill All Monsters. He let us know on Facebook that he liked it so much he went ahead and chipped in a little Kickstarter money too.

Thanks so much to both Matt and Rick. Jason and I love hearing that people are enjoying the book. If you've written about Kill All Monsters and I haven't shared it here, please don't be shy about forwarding your links. I'd love to see and post about them.

Review (and Interview and Mention) All Monsters

Hartley Holmberg from Vancouver's The Hartley Show attended Vancouver Comicon and spent a lot of time with Jason talking about Kill All Monsters. It's a fun interview and Hartley seems to have liked the book.

A bunch of other reviews have been coming in too. My pal Ken hadn't read the entire first volume yet when he wrote this post for That F'ing Monkey about KAM's being in Previews, but he's one of our biggest supporters and says about the part that's appeared online: "The story is full of that fun team dynamic. For some reason it reminds me of the adventure groups in a good table top RPG. [...] Jason Copland’s art is beyond words. The organic design of the beasts is offset by the mechanical battle suits. His line work is so clean and precise that you’ll spend time just taking in all the details."

Kris at Deeply Dapper also likes the book and calls it "only the bestest comic book ever."

CT at Nerd Lunch has a super-nice review and writes, "While May has done a great job at setting that scope, fleshing out the characters, and delivering the dialog, Copland balances that with dynamic, two-tone art. It's got a grittiness to it that is needed, but still clean enough to be able to tell what's going on. The action scenes come across well and Copland is able to display the weight needed to show these are behemoths battling over the city." He also draws a comparison to Thundarr the Barbarian, an influence I hadn't consciously been thinking about, but absolutely affects the world. I loved that show so much as a kid and recently revisited it with my son, so there's no doubt that that's in there from a world-building perspective.

Comic Bastards has a nice, thoughtful review that's complimentary while not completely so (which is perfectly fair). Some of the fights ran a little long for their taste and I get the feeling they would have liked some added emphasis on the monsters, but they seem to like the human characters and the robots and the way that the Kill Team's machinery isn't perfect. And of course the art. Overall, it's a very positive review and I'm thrilled to get it. I do want to respond to the criticisms - not to defend against them, but just because acknowledging them in more detail will help solidify some of the lessons I learned from writing KAM - but this post is already long enough, so I'll do that later.

And finally (for now), the Great and Powerful Cal at the Canadian Cave of Cool wrote a fantastic review that proves he and I were separated at birth by praising the things I'm most proud of about the story. He loves the art too of course, but it thrills my heart to read his appreciation of the world-building, the mystery, and how the story doesn't explain every single thing.

While it's not technically a review, SF Signal was nice enough to mention the Kill All Monsters Kickstarter in their Crowd Funding Roundup and call KAM a "kickass webcomic." Ken also wrote another wonderful post about the Kickstarter for That F'ing Monkey.

As I'm writing this, the current Kickstarter total is a little over $5500, due to folks helping to spread the word like that. I'm in shock, to be perfectly honest. Thank you again so much to all of you who've shown support either through pledges or just by telling people. Jason and I are amazed and humbled.

And thank you to all the folks above who reviewed the book. I know of at least a couple of more reviews that will be going up this week, so I'll keep doing these roundup posts as long as people are willing to write about the book.

One last bit of KAM-related information: I noticed that the UK comics retailer Forbidden Planet has Kill All Monsters available for online order. I have no idea what that means exactly for our order numbers, but it's a great sign.

Kickstart All Monsters!

Yesterday, Jason and I launched the Kickstarter campaign for the print edition of Kill All Monsters, Volume 1: Ruins of Paris. It was a crazy, wonderful day and beyond our wildest expectations the support came through and we reached our goal in about twelve-and-a-half hours. We cannot possibly express our gratitude toward all who've pledged so far, but we hope that the books, T-shirts, and prints at the various pledge levels will help a little.

We mainly used Twitter and Facebook to get the word out in Day 1, but we were helped a lot by Kickstarter's making us a Staff Pick and I'm sure by getting mentioned on the MTV Geek blog. That was an amazing surprise and many thanks to Charles Webb for writing about us. I sent out press releases yesterday, so hopefully we'll see some other sites covering it soon as well.

As awesome as that is, we can still use more help. The more we raise, the bigger our print run can be and the better shape we'll be in as we head into production on Volume 2. We'd love for you to pledge if you can, but even if that's not possible right now, we'd love it so much if you could just help us continue to spread the word. I really believe in this book. I think it's a cool story, but if nothing else, Jason's art is absolutely gorgeous. I want as many people to know about it as possible.

Thanks!

The Kill All Monsters Kickstarter video

You guys want a sneak peek at the Kickstarter video?

The Kickstarter is coming soon! Working on building the page right now.

In the meantime, KAM now has an official page on the Alterna Comics website.

James Biggie's Kill All Monsters! print

Today would be where we talked about Scrooge's nephew in the Teen Titans #13 version of A Christmas Carol, if the comic actually included that character. Since it doesn't, I'll use the break to show you this awesome poster James Biggie made for Kill All Monsters!.

James writes Robot God Akamatsu, an awesome comic that also happens to feature giant robots slugging it out with giant monsters. Though Frankie B. Washington draws RGA, James is a talented artist and designer his own self as you can see. He's given us permission to use the poster as a Kickstarter reward once we get that up and running, so you'll soon have the opportunity to own one of these for yourself.

Thanks again, James!

Adventureblog slow-down (and Kill All Monsters! news)

Kickstarter

Now that we're out of October and Halloween, I need to slow things down around here a little. Life's been extremely hectic for the last six weeks or so (not just because of Countdown to Halloween) and my writing has suffered for it. I've got to figure out a way to cut some corners. For at least the month of November, I'm gonna cut back to three posts a week here.

In December, my plan is to continue the Christmas Carol series I started last year, so I'll probably need to ramp up temporarily then, but my hope is to cut back in general on the amount of time blogging requires from me. I have other writing commitments that I need to fulfill and slowing down here will help me do that.

One of the things I've got to dig into is work some more on Kickstarter. If you follow the Kill All Monsters! Facebook page, you know that Jason and I are planning a Kickstarter campaign. What we didn't mention there is that the campaign would fund the printing of the first volume of the complete Kill All Monsters! graphic novel. We've got the first half (over 120 pages of story) totally done, so rather than make people wait for the whole thing, we're going to print up what we have as we continue working on the second half.

But first we've got to fund it, and before we do that, I've got to finish getting it set up. I've been talking to some friends who've run successful Kickstarter campaigns (and will be talking to more), so I think I've got a good understanding of what we need to do. Now I have to actually get in and do it. Finalize rewards, make a video, all that stuff. If you'd like to suggest rewards for backer levels, we're collecting those on the Facebook page or you can mention them in the comments here.

So that's what's going on with me. What's going on with you?

Kickstart a Nikola Tesla docudrama

Nicola Tesla has some pretty cool connections with comics, from a starring role in Matt Fraction's Five Fists of Science to creating Atomic Robo. He also had a pretty great appearance in Dark Horse's Tarzan: Le Monstre. The world's greatest, real-life, mad scientist was an awesome, inspiring person and probably my favorite bits of The Prestige were the parts with him as played by David Bowie.

Though geeks everywhere know and appreciate Tesla and his many accomplishments, documentary TV producer Wil Cashen points out that the inventor has still never gotten his just, historical acclaim. To help correct that, Cashen has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the third phase of a docu-drama, Electricity: The Story and Life of Nikola Tesla.

A $30 pledge gets you a digital download of the movie when it's done, but there are a lot of other rewards at other levels, so check out the site and see what appeals to you. There's just a little over a week left though, so if you think you want to help out, don't dilly dally. It sounds like a cool project and I wish Cashen and his team success with getting it finished.