Madman of Magic Christmas

For those backers that are suppose to get a .pdf copy of the comic, they were sent out last week. If you are suppose to get one and you didn’t please email me. No new news on the printer and the timeline on distribution, but I will have all that figured out by Monday.

“Thank you” section

For those backers of $5, $10, and $25 or above please check the last update to make sure your name is on the list, is spelled correctly, and is how you want it to appear in the comic book.

I will need any changes and/or corrections by January 1st.

Reviewers are in on the digital comic book (.pdf version) and people are digging the comic.
Here are the reaction I have received from backers so far.

Comic Book Riot Good News = We are only a few pages from completing the comic book.

Bad News = We are not going to be able to get the physical comic books to you before the end December.

The Good News Explained

The Good news is that we are almost done with the comic book and currently ahead of schedule on getting the final copy ready for printing. We have been working hard to make the changes from the original script to this new and improved one… We are very excited to hear what people think.

The Bad News Explained

We talked to the printers today and it turns out the company we had planned on using has several hidden costs they do not mention in their pricing list online and it turns out their standard turn around time for a order our size is 5 weeks.

We are currently looking for a new printer.

What does this mean to Backers?

I got some more questions via facebook message and YouTube Comments that I felt others might find interesting.  You can see my Last Q&A Session at

jasonloveslife.com/kickstarter-madman-of-magic

Question

How much would it cost to make the comic book in total.

Answer

It is a hard question to answer.
Easily $2,000. According to my research. A starting comic book writer would get paid $1800 and the artist around $2500 (I can find my references on this, but that is what I found online). So for a company hiring people to make the comic book it would be $4,300 (not including a colorist) plus publishing costs, marketing, fixed costs, etc. etc. For us to do it, the biggest cost is our time. For those using kickstarter you have to include Kickstarters 5%, Amazon’s 5%, cost to create rewards, postage, and other costs that pop up.

Not sure if this is what you meant, but I hope it helps.

Question

I love the project, but I am broke and can’t afford to back it.

I have received a lot of questions surrounding my choices with Kickstarter and the Madman of Magic Comic Book project. I figure instead of answering the same questions over and over again, I will share them here for everyone to read.
If you have a question of your own, leave it in the comment section and I will answer them too.

Question

What do you think of Kickstarter?

Answer

Kickstarter is ideal for projects like mine.  My wife and I don’t have any way to raise funding for investing in this project or, at least in our case, not to cover all of it.  With Kickstarter we can pre-sell and see if people are interested in our work.  It turns out they are interested in our project and in a big way.

Question

Isn’t Kickstarter a scam?

Answer

I guess it depends on how you define scam or who’s projects you fund.  I am not sure what happens if a user doesn’t fulfill his backer’s rewards.  Maybe someone could have a project, collect the money, and run.  I am not sure, but the 3 projects I have funded all seem to be fulfilling their rewards

Comic Book Flow Dissidence ImageWhen I was a child I collected comic books. These stories were great for my young mind.  I found them mimicking the fantasy life I lived in my own head. The writing was easy to understand, the plots were exciting, and the illustrations allowed me to see into another world. With all my love for them there was one thing that always turned me against comic books and that was confusing panel order or confusing imagery.

How are panels confusing?

Confusing panels happens when the reader is unsure of what panel to read next or is unable to understand what is happening in between the panel; this does not include bad drawings or where a person is unable to recognize objects in a panel.  When the reader is unable to make an easy decision on what panel, word bubble, etc to read next they are temporarily pulled from the story and causes what I call “flow dissidence”.

What is “Flow Dissidence”?

Our cat is judging us.

Yada says I need to fix it now!

We have hit 8% funded, which is awesome! There is a long way to go, but we are on our way with a great start! Thanks everyone for sharing links and telling friends the past few days!

By order of Yada, our producer, I posted the updated version of the trailer yesterday. It needs some music added and a few touch ups but I felt people would enjoy it more than the shorter version, but it still didn’t upload 100% correctly. I hope to get at least some of the problems fixed by tomorrow, but the music is going to take a few days.

The shorter trailer seems to be getting a good response. I have been responding to YouTube comments, most of the morning in fact. The current stats are 463 views, 38 “Likes”, 6 “dislikes, and 140 comments (with about 70 of them being my responses to other people’s comments) in 2 weeks. Now figuring out how to get those viewers to the Kickstarter page is the trick.

Since I said there would be an update today I did add a few photos I put together this morning. Thanks for following along and enjoy the updated video and the images.

thumbs up!

We are 16 hours into our Kickstarter campaign and currently at 5% completion! If we can do this every day Leah Love and I will have full funding in 19 days. Keep your fingers crossed, post on this project on facebook pages, and share it with others; this will help us to that goal. Remember, time is limited, so action needs to happen now!

 

Thanks again Chris and Josh for getting this party started!

 

Sincerely,

 

Jason Love