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

Brainstorm Mind Map image

Now that our Kickstarter campaign has been successful it is time to get into the writing process. When starting the campaign I already had a script for the first comic book, but I am considering doing a rewrite for a variety of reasons.  The main ones being:

1- I am considering not giving away the political elements of the story away in the beginning, but reveal them later.

2- Might want to introduce more secondary characters.

3- Could use more action scenes.

The problem now is that I have to create a script that makes the reader want more, yet feel like a full story in under 24 pages. I am finding the process difficult as I am juggling all the aspects of the main character with his environment and story in my head. I have 30 – 40 pages of notes scattered throughout my notebooks, evernote, and notepad files on my laptop.

Now that I need to get more organized, I have decided to use a technique utilized by several internet marketers; that is mind mapping.

What is a Brainstorm Mind Map?

Image of Madman of Magic Video from KickstarterWe reveal what the Madman of Magic Comic Book project means to us, our Kickstarter funding Statistics, and how you can help spread the word about our project in this post.  If you have any questions while reading, please leave them in the comment section below and we will answer it for you.

And now, to the post!

Today is September 14, 2012 and we have less than 17 days before the Madman of Magic Kickstarter campaign ends. This is very exciting as Leah and I will be getting back to producing the

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”?

I got an interesting comment on the 1 or 3 rough draft video and my other motion comics (Video Below) and it talked about how they felt the music overpowered the images. This is a very interesting idea as I felt that animation on its own would feel dull with no sound. With the music, however, it complements the animation while creating an opportunity where no sound effects or voiceovers are needed since the music works as the audio track.

If you want to post your comic book on YouTube my recommendation is to go ahead and use video editing software to show each panel in sequence and have background music to enhance the experience (making motion comics).  If you have the skill or can afford to hire someone voice overs are always nice, but need to be top quality or else they distract more than improve the video.  I feel

Categories: Graphic Novel Madman of Magic KickStarter Tags:
July 10, 2012 by Jason Love

I sent a message to Image Comics submissions asking what format is best for them.  This is the response I got:

Thank you for submitting to Image Comics. Due to the extraordinary number of submissions we receive, it is impossible for us to respond to each and every one. We do look at every submission, but in the interest of time, we can only respond to those submissions we are actually considering for publication.

Thanks,

Image Comics

—————————————–

The thing that bothers me is if they can’t take 20 seconds to answer my simple one sentence question how do I know they are going to actually look at my comic book proposal.  I would hate to waste two days putting together a perfect proposal in return not having them read it.  Are image comics submissions looked at?

I better get working on that proposal.

This was in my inbox from Kickstarter:

Dear Jason Love,

Unfortunately, your project, MADMAN OF MAGIC: Chapter 1 Comic Book, was not successfully funded. Because funding on Kickstarter is all or nothing, all pledges have been automatically canceled.

We understand the hard work that goes into running a project, and we hope it helped to build connections with your community.

Best,
Kickstarter Staff

http://kck.st/HD7Wjs