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Vanilla is a product of Lussumo:
Documentation and Support.
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CommentAuthorJuanNavarro
- CommentTimeApr 2nd 2012
CREATURE ENTERTAINMENT STUDIOS by Juan Navarro — Kickstarter.
I started my comic/film company in 2008, CREATURE ENTERAINMENT, and we're finally getting somewhere with it! We started a KickStarter to get the word out on our upcoming trip to SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON! Please read and contribute what you can, we are constantly trying to get our reward to be more awesome all the time! You can see various example o four work on the Board, and we're adding rewards all the time!
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CommentAuthorETChevalier
- CommentTimeMay 23rd 2012 edited
Earlier this year I started hacking together a modern day spy themed card game and after looking around at publishers decided I should just do it myself. Instead of launching a new publishing effort with my little known name and no experience I opted to convince some big names I knew who had a game dropped by a publisher at the 11th hour, now collecting dust on a shelf.
Enter: The Doom that Came to Atlantic City!
"Once people came to Atlantic City to seek their fortune, to construct fine hotels and establish powerful monopolies. But you’re not here to build, you’ve come to destroy!
You’re one of the Great Old Ones – beings of ancient and eldritch power. Cosmic forces have held you at bay for untold aeons, but at last the stars are right and your maniacal cult has called you to this benighted place. Once you regain your full powers, you will unleash your Doom upon the world!
There’s only one problem: you’re not alone. The other Great Old Ones are here as well, and your rivals are determined to steal your cultists and snatch victory from your flabby claws! It’s a race to the ultimate finish as you crush houses, smash holes in reality, and fight to call down The Doom That Came To Atlantic City!
The Doom is a labor of love and terror from three exceptional talents. It is the brainchild of artist Lee Moyer, inspired by his love of the Cthulhu Mythos and disdain for a certain board game that shall not be named. Game designer Keith Baker is best known for the Origins Award winning card game Gloom, and he brings the same dark sense of humor to the devastation of Atlantic City.
Keith and Lee have enlisted the help of their friend Paul Komoda to design some of the more eldritch visual elements of the game. His talents can be seen on-screen in the prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing and Cabin In The Woods. He brings that vision and long association with H. R. Giger to his designs of the Great Old Ones."
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Enter: The Doom that Came to Atlantic City!
Auntie Ariana endorses (and is backing) this project. So do our friends at Coilhouse. And, look, if you guys have never seen Paul Komoda's work, hit that link hit that link now. -
@ETChevalier
*pledges $75* SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! -
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CommentAuthorLea Hernandez
- CommentTimeMay 23rd 2012
My first Kickstarter and fifth graphic novel is going to be THE GARLICKS: Pandora Orange, Fail Vampire. I'm raising production and printing costs, I've love for you to be a backer--you'll get to be a part of a new book coming together over the course of a year.
More details, art and the requisite video are here:THE GARLICKS
Thanks for your support! Please share this like crazy! -
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CommentAuthorETChevalier
- CommentTimeMay 26th 2012
Hah, thanks guys! Glad you like. We've just announced our $100k stretch goal: The Colours Out Of Space, where we'll be opening up Lee Moyer's art archives full of Lovecraftian goodness and polling the people one what should be printed and sent to backers. Also trying to put together one more stretch goal for next week with Paul Komoda, but no promises as he's a busy man these days.
@Lea Hernandez: The Garlicks look wonderful, I'll share on my feeds and our kickstarter comments in the next couple days to see if we can get some crossover backers! -
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CommentAuthorLea Hernandez
- CommentTimeMay 27th 2012
@ETChevalier Thanks very much! Save your signal boost for after Monday. Everyone's at the beach! -
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CommentAuthorLea Hernandez
- CommentTimeJun 5th 2012
THE GARLICKS is trundling along at a measured pace...and it needs to RUN, already!
Please share the linkage far and wide and back the project AND share the link. (Please.)
THE GARLICKS has been well-spoken of by Neil Gaiman, Jim Lee, Kurt Busiek and Jill Thompson (who is writing the intro)! I'd venture they've got something on the ball, and you can back me with confidence.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/divalea/the-garlicks-pandora-orange-fail-vampire
Thanks, all! -
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Hi Whitechapel. It's been awhile.
I'm attempting to self-publish my graphic novel ORPHANS, and I'm using Kickstarter to raise money to pay my artist, Branko Jovanovic.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/epalicki/orphans-volume-1-a-digital-print-graphic-novel-pro
I'm offering some nifty rewards for backers, and cheap: Digital issue downloads for $1, digital collections for $5, custom flashdrives loaded with comics, trades, t-shirts, autographs, etc.
Adrianne Palicki, who starred on Friday Night Lights and NBC's attempted Wonder Woman revival, and who appears in the upcoming Red Dawn and G.I. Joe: Retaliation has agreed to write an introductionn. She will be signing a limited number of copies of the trade for use as backer rewards.
And help or spreading of the word would be very much appreciated. Thanks!
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CommentAuthorimaginarypeople
- CommentTimeJun 16th 2012
i am supplying some of the artwork to this kickstarter
Companions of the Firmament - Pathfinder RPG Compatible
if you pledge $70 or more you get a 20"x24" sign and numbered art print by me.
please take a look if you have time and maybe pledge something if you like what you see
thanks -
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CommentAuthorAlan Tyson
- CommentTimeJul 12th 2012 edited
Since the thread isn't quite a month old, I feel like it's probably okay to reboot it. If Si or Ariana feel differently, of course, that is fully within their rights to shut this one down.
The reason I'm resurrecting this thread is because it seems like maybe we should move the conversation currently happening in Newstrange to here, as it's more appropriate, and because at least one of the aspects of the conversation is about the nature and future of Kickstarter itself, beyond just what the Penny Arcade guys are doing with it.
Personally, I support Penny Arcade in just about everything they've done so far. I'm a big fan of what they've done, but even more so I'm a fan of how they've done it. As Oddbill pointed out in Newstrange, Robert Khoo has been a steady, prescient hand at the wheel pretty much since Mike and Jerry (or Gabe and Tycho, if you prefer) brought him on, and Tycho in particular has been a pretty consistent voice of reason in the sometimes tumultuous video games community. Child's Play is certainly among the coolest things nerds have ever done for the wider world, and Tycho has acquired the title of "Kickfather," the guy who, just by mentioning the name of a Kickstarter project he likes, can guarantee that project's success. With this last point in mind, I'm not actually all that surprised that they've decided to give Kickstarter a try for themselves.
Penny Arcade is part of the video games world. This world is, fairly or not, often seen as being split into two halves - the industry and the community. For a long time, PA has straddled the line between the two halves - they've commented on games while making their own, they form relationships with high-profile professionals in the industry while also speaking directly to the fans of those professionals, and, of course, they get their funding from both fans buying T-shirts and ads placed on their website by game publishers and indie developers. Now, I don't have access to Penny Arcade's annual income reports, so I don't know what percent of their income comes from where, but the point is, they are currently supported by both the fan community and the industry.
I'm going a bit out on a limb with this theory, but I feel like asking their fans to support them entirely, rather than getting some of their funding from professional gamemakers (be they Tripe-A, indie, or anything in between), is, in a way, declaring that Penny Arcade wishes to edge a little closer to the community, rather than the industry. They've already sort of done this with the Penny Arcade Report, which started because a bunch of people at Penny Arcade were sick of video games journalism that was really little more than a PR machine for the industry as a whole - they felt like there were no Citizen Journalists with much of a voice reporting on things that weren't the latest release (or the latest scandal). By asking the fans to fund them directly, Penny Arcade is, in a very real way, saying they want to work for the fan community, which is to say, not working for the industry.
Doing this on Kickstarter could be a statement in and of itself. Penny Arcade might be showing that they believe this is the way business should be conducted in the entertainment and commercial art world, that the old model that they used for a long time (and which did not always work in their favor, even with Robert Khoo in charge of things) is just that - the old model. They may be trying to set an example to similar companies, or they might just be moving in with what they consider to be the "winning side" in a battle that hasn't fully started yet, but only because the big publishers haven't quite decided how to react to it, yet.
Will it draw money from other projects? It's possible, but I feel like this is saying that if you put a Lamborghini Aventador on the same lot as an old, used AMC Gremlin, that the Lambo will draw customers from the Gremlin and people will be less willing to buy the Gremlin. It's not a perfect analogy, since no one's actually purchasing either Penny Arcade or a charming little startup vinyl stickers company (or whatever), but just because one is bigger and flashier doesn't mean it will outshine everything else. Even when Double Fine Adventure was going full steam ahead, plenty of other projects got funded as well - they just didn't get the same kind of press when they did. Heck, I could have donated to Double Fine, but I chose not to, and instead donated it to Shadowrun Returns (which was almost a direct competitor to DFA, in that it was another return-to-form game helmed by an old-school developer and driven by a mix of innovation, charm, and nostalgia), because that was the project that really spoke to me. If something speaks to a Kickstarter member more than the Penny Arcade thing does, then they'll go with that.
Do the donations sound wonky? Maybe, I think there are some good arguments to be made there (Though I have to wonder if "Gabe will follow you on Twitter" is more of an inside joke than anything). Is this going to attract more attention to Kickstarter than it's already getting? That I kinda doubt - Kickstarter's about as big as it can be, right now (I could be wrong about that, though). If I'm right about the whole "we're with the fans, now" thing, will that message come across to both the community and the industry? I don't know - that's gonna depend on how they handle this thing while it's up and running.
As a few people, both here and elsewhere on the net, have said, Kickstarter isn't just for the underdogs, or at least it isn't anymore. The fact that a juggernaut like Penny Arcade has chosen to throw their lot in with them all but proves that. If nothing else, if they meet their goal (and they almost surely will, though I suppose anything could happen between now and the deadline), it will only amplify the message Kickstarter has been broadcasting since even before the success of Double Fine Adventure: "people are willing to spend money this way. People want this to be the way they buy things. There is an alternative way of doing business to the way we've always done business." That is a message that I, as someone who wants to make a living off of things I create, would dearly like to see amplified. -
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I'm very much in opposition to the project. I think it's contrary to the entire point of Kickstarter, which is to fund creative projects. Getting rid of advertisement is a worthwhile business endeavour, but it is certainly not a creative one. PA has been around for a long time, they've had successful pledge drives before and they are financially secure with the ads.
The pro-arguments only engage with it as a good business strategy and rarely has anything to do with whether or not it's a legitimate creative project or even a good one. It's a corporate strategy, not a creative project, and thus it's contrary to Kickstarter's guidelines and requirements. It's not a project in any sense that is defined in the guidelines, it doesn't fit any of the Kickstarter categories, and even if we accept that it's a project, it's extremely close to being a "Fund My Life" project, which is explicitely prohibited by Kickstarter's requirements.
The only reason it's being allowed by Kickstarter is the dollar signs in their eyes and because of Penny Arcade's popularity. It's a corruption of the entire Kickstarter ethos.
A considerable amount of the rewards are laughable and the first couple of them are flat out jokes that aren't going to be fulfilled. Chasing a duck, while shouting your name? These are quick, obvious jokes, but in the long run they're detrimental to Kickstarter and its legitimacy. I don't mind jokes, but there's a reason there are explicit prohibitions against lying in your reward descriptions.
This is about corporate ease and removing a very minor inconvienience, not creating a sense of community or being creative. This is about a business endeavour.
I'm all for ditching the ads and switching to crowd funding, but given PA's size and reputation, I don't see why they need Kickstarter to do it. Other than to play an enormous joke on everyone and exploit the fact that Kickstarters are popular at the moment. It'll be detrimental to Kickstarter as a concept and to all future user, who need Kickstarter to fund their creative products.
It's gross that a corporation that is already making so much money decided to exploit a well-intended indie crowd funding instrument. If Double Fine had asked to fund their entire operation for a year without any actual creative project that they weren't developing already I'd have felt the same way. -
As for the argument that the PA kickstarter is drawing attention away from other worthwhile kickstarters, I don't think so. I also think it's untrue that people are donating to PA what they would be donating to other causes. Maybe it's true that they could be donating elsewhere instead, but it's like that they're not. If people want to fund this, then let them fund it, I am fine with that. But as I've said in the Informus thread, the rewards just look like they're making fun of their audience. Why not give people a sketch? A sketch with color? A sketch of the donator?
I do agree that kickstarter is for everyone and not just the underdogs. Thing is, I think there is a sliding scale as to what "underdog" is. Sure, Double Fine is already established, but compared to the AAA games that get released, it's still an underdog. Firely may have been a Joss Whedon show on Syfy, but compared to other shows that get extra seasons like it's nothing, it's still an underdog. Imagine how quickly people would be throwing money at Firefly to get another season going (though that'd be unfeasible given the amount of money they would need, but people would be willing).Kickstarter is intended to fund creative products - removing ads cannot be considered creative in the slightest.
I do agree with this, though. If PA were launching some sort of project that they needed funds for, I think it'd me a more legitimate kickstarter. -
As I touched on in the other thread, I've got to agree with Solario on this one. I don't think Kickstarter was ever intended to be used as fuel. Rather, it's the engine. It's even right there in the name.
On another note, I posted this already in Around the Net but here it is again:
Charlie Kaufman's Anomalisa -
Yeah, see that's a good example of someone who can be considered a big fish using kickstarter in a great way. He could probably get the funding elsewhere, but he'd be getting it from people who would want to change the film to suit their tastes rather than leaving the creative process to the team. And for only $20 you get to download the film when it's done! It's basically a pre-order but you also get to fund something cool while you're at it.
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There's been an update on the PA kickstarter:
Something that might not have been clear is that when we say no advertising that also means no PA Presents. I love working on comics for publishers but we spend a huge chunk of time every year on stuff that isn’t ours. Working on things like comics to promote games and pre-sell bonuses fill in all the cracks between our Mon, Wed, Fri strips. I’ve been honored to work with some of these properties but I’d love to devote that time to our own projects. I feel like we have all these cool worlds that we’re neglecting because we just don’t have the time. This KS would change all that.
Solario's point about it not being a creative project felt like a good point to me, and it's nice to see that PA is actually doing something creative with it if they manage to meet the goal. -
They probably should have advertised it that way from the start. They clearly wrote the kickstarter proposal to look like a "Hey look you can fund us to get rid of those annoying ads you all hate!" rather than "Oh hey, if you help us go ad free, we can spend more time on our own creative projects instead of working for other companies." They chose not to go with the creativity spin from the get go. However, kickstarter is meant to fund specific projects, and not just creativity in the general sense. You don't see kickstarters from artists going "Hey, give me money to live off of for a month so that I can work on my art projects." Instead you see them asking to fund specific projects for which they have a plan of action ready.
That being said, I am also glad to see that this isn't purely a business move. If their fans really will be getting more original content from them as a result of this kickstarter, that's awesome. -
Gabe made an attempt to answer some questions, but I think the closest he ever got to a good reason for it was by saying that certain things that they want to do can be freed up if they stop getting their money from ads. He didn't go in to detail and as I understand there's a very "wait and see" thing going on in regards to the unlockables. But still as I said in the News thread, they really do seem to be taking a piss by coming up with crap rewards.
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I dunno...as everyone here is so fond of saying, if you like the art, pay for it. Everyone has gotten a free ride on PA for 16 years or whatever, it's not like they aren't offering anything. This would ostensibly free up two artists, both of whom people clearly love, to make their living directly from their fanbase instead of taking time to do projects that aren't their own. After years and years of reading PA I don't mind giving them a few bucks to help further them along their careers.
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@steevo
Do they, or do they not, have a Paypal donation button?
