Everyone that enjoys comics should have a special spot in their hearts for Kickstarter and other crowd funding sites, how could we not, the far reach of the internet and the generosity of true comic book fans gives the smaller creators a chance to flourish.
Of course Kickstarter’s are nothing without a good idea for a story, great art, and some cool rewards for the backer to get excited about. Kursk is based on a play by Sasha Janowicz about a Russian Nuclear Submarine with 118 crew members getting lost. This idea behind Kursk isn’t new and is proven already through a successful play and the fact that the Lucha team can adapt it to comics is pretty impressive. Not to mention the fact that the art does it justice. I can say for sure that the art is top shelf and looks wonderful. Everything on the inside has a grey tone to it and I suspect it’s so the art matches the grey tone of the story. I find historical comics fun to read because they combine real life with something I love. I feel like a lot of people are fairly uninterested in history but this is a way to get some education and have fun on the way.
I feel like Kickstarter is driven by the reward system and expectations of cool prizes. Nothing new here but people like getting cool stuff, especially comic book fans, and Lucha does a nice job at maintaining some of the status quo rewards at nice prices ranging from one dollar to three hundred dollars. Some of the prizes range from PDF versions to print and other stuff like Skype sessions with artists. Most of the lower price range pledges are more than just reasonable, they are completely worth it, most trade paperbacks are five dollars or more and that doesn’t include some of the other stuff like recognition on Lucha’s website. I feel like five or ten dollars is a reasonable pledge for just about anyone and the impact to the artists is immeasurable.
To find out more about Kursk and Lucha Comics check out Lucha’s Website or Facebook, the Kursk Facebook, and writer James Anthony Bretney’s Twitter, or just give any of these names a search and track them down!
