Kickstarter

As you all know, Occupy Comics #1 hits stores next week.

Our Kickstarter backers should already have received issues 1 & 2 (depending on your pledge level), but the retail edition has some new stuff in it from Joshua Hale Fialkov, Joe Infurnari, and Alan Moore.

So, for one thing, all our backers will receive this new "retail #1" digitally.

Also, if you've pledged at the level of a physical floppy comic or graphic novel, you can *also* have a free copy of the #1 retail edition. Woo hoo!

We're going to set up a page where you can request a retail #1 and provide us with all your current mailing info and we'll take care of you right away.

Also, a few updates:

- I know some of you may still be having problems receiving your physical issue 1s from the Kickstarter, so the page we'll be posting for you to submit mailing info for the Retail #1 will also be a place you can put in a request for us to double-check the whereabouts of your Kickstarter #1 and, if need be, re-ship to you. That will be way more efficient than just emailing me your new address etc.

- For a while now the work of completing Occupy Comics has fallen almost entirely on my shoulders and it's been a bit more than I could handle, so I recently recruited an editor and a production artist to help me finish the Alan Moore piece--which is the only thing that hasn't been finished for months. It's finally almost done, and that will be the final final piece to finishing this book and getting it out to you. I know it's taken a lot longer than anticipated, but I think the book will truly serve as a worthy time capsule about Occupy.

Thanks everybody for your support & patience!

There was a little bit of confusion yesterday that I want to quickly address.

Most of you will recall that around this time last year I was trying to figure out how to get Occupy Comics into comic shops, but all the offers coming in from traditional comics publishers were really lousy and would eat up most of the funds that we'd be hoping to raise for Occupy protesters.

So, rather than sign Occupy Comics to a lousy deal, I partnered up with Steve Niles (writer of 30 Days Of Night and original-team Occupy Comics organizer) and Brett Gurewitz (guitarist Bad Religion, founder Epitaph Records, backer of Occupy Comics Kickstarter) to build a pipeline for bringing Occupy Comics to broader audiences at a lower cost than going through a traditional publisher so more money could be donated.

Since we were going through the effort of building the pipeline anyway, we figured it would be a good way to support other outsider/transgressive/radical/non-traditional art so we called it Black Mask Studios and offered it as a new distribution mechanism for creators.

Yesterday when we announced that Occupy Comics #1 would be in comic shops through Black Mask on May Day, we also announced other books we're releasing through Black Mask in the Spring. Incidentally, every one of the books has at least one Occupy Comics contributor on the creative team: Darick Robertson on Ballistic, Matthew Rosenberg & Patrick Kindlon on 12 Reasons To Die, and Matt Miner on Liberator.

Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision comics blog covered the story, and most blogs picked up the way Heat Vision framed the story instead of picking it up from our official announcement. And, thus, confusion ensued.

Two main points of confusion:

1. Heat Vision is a Hollywood-centric comics blog, so they asked me if Black Mask intends to be in the business of developing intellectual property for Hollywood movies. I said no, we're not looking at comics as movie treatments, but we'll be doing transmedia worldbuilding. Now, "transmedia" is kind've an annoying buzzword, but if you're familiar with what I've done with my Godkiller series and what I'm working on with Hack/Slash you'll know that I just mean telling stories across multiple media platforms... which is basically what I do when I'm not volunteering on radical fundraising comics.

Anyhow, my comment there led some people to theorize that Occupy Comics is becoming a "transmedia" project and being used to launch some sort of transmedia company.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

There are no plans for "Grand Theft Auto: Zuccotti Park," and anyway I wasn't even talking about Occupy Comics when I answered that question. Occupy Comics is not "going transmedia," whatever that even means.

Also, the whole point behind forming Black Mask was to get Occupy Comics a better deal and raise more money to be donated, not to launch some new company. Believe me, volunteering for a year & a half on an anti-corporate-greed comic book is not a get rich quick scheme. I know it sounds like one, but it's not.

2. Heat Vision said "a portion" of the money from Occupy Comics is going to be donated.

Concern about that wording is totally valid, but it's still kind've weird that anyone would assume Heat Vision is revealing a secret plan of ours to siphon cash out of the project... especially when the official announcement and Black Mask homepage all make perfectly clear that nothing has changed, this is a volunteer effort, and the revenue past hard costs is being donated.

Heat Vision just didn't know the details so they said "a portion."

But just to be perfectly clear, the revenue past hard costs is, was, and always shall be donated.

And, for further clarity, Black Mask will be *lessening* costs versus traditional publishers.

Cool?

I'm sure most of you don't read Hollywood Reporter and have no idea what I'm talking about, but, in our ongoing effort to remain as transparent as possible, I thought it best to err on the side of TMI.

As always, thank you for supporting Occupy Comics. -Matt

Hey everybody!

Ok, so first of all, this update has nothing (intentionally) to do with DC Comics' announcement last week that they're doing an Occupy-related comic that's not actually an Occupy-related comic… or whatever. Just weird coincidence that Occupy is returning to comics all at once.

So… if you haven't noticed, the collected Occupy Comics book is late. I updated a bit in the comments about why this occurred, but mainly the "projected release date" was really a pretty broad guesstimate a year out… we're managing a lot of moving parts here and a large coalition of volunteers, so it's been a bit of balancing when to close the book out and stop accepting late contributions.

I've literally still been receiving new pieces this week, and the book will really benefit from all these late inclusions.

Also, I've been really busy Instagramming pictures of my lunch. I mean, c'mon, gotta have priorities here.

BUT we're finishing up the book now and Punxsutawney Phil did NOT see his shadow so I'm confident the book WILL be done by… Good Friday. Why not? We're finishing it for Lent. Haha.

It's interesting how the timespan has affected the voice of the book. There are the pieces that came in right away that are really in the thick of Occupy and the events on the ground, expressing it and documenting it in real time. Those are a great and important time capsule… it can be easy to forget what it was like at the time, even now just 15 months later, amid the revisionary haze of bias and trolling--so going back and reading those early pieces today is actually kinda startling and refreshing.

The newer ones are more reflective in a really interesting way and also forward-looking at the ongoing Occupy-related initiatives… there's one written by Matt Miner (upcoming Liberator) a resident of Rockaway who was aided by Occupy Sandy when he and his whole community were let down by FEMA and LIPA and The Red Cross in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. That one in particular demonstrates the continued importance of Occupy, and I'm really glad it's going into the book. I'm hoping we'll have pieces about Strike Debt and Rolling Jubilee and other post-Zuccotti incarnations of Occupy as well.

In a weird way, it feels like the whole thing has come full circle.

Those of you who followed the project from the beginning will recall that we started this before any of the media hoopla. Originally this was about drawing attention to Occupy and its themes and goals before the media was giving it any attention.

Then it suddenly became a media sensation and our little project went along for the roller coaster ride.

Now the press has left, the camps are long cleared, and Occupy is generally being presented by the media as having fizzled or failed, which is completely wrong… it's just changed forms.

So, personally, I feel Occupy Comics is as relevant and urgent today as it was on Day One… maybe not Day One of the Kickstarter, but Day One of the project itself. After all, one of the points of this project was that there should be more forums for this conversation than just the encampments and the coverage by a media more interested in police brutality videos and snarky gossip than actual coverage of the issues inspiring the conflicts.

To that end, we are still planning to release the stories of Occupy Comics volume 1 more broadly beyond the Kickstarter, but we are also committed to making sure you, our faithful Kickstarter followers, receive all and more content than anyone else… and you receive it first.

The comic shop version will be re-organized from the comics you've received, but they will consist of mainly the same content.

We're slating issue 1 to be in comic shops on May 1 for May Day (coincidental that DC is also releasing it's own Occupy book the same day) and the issues will continue monthly from there.

We are committed to getting you the collected Occupy Comics book before that comic shop street date for the first retail issue, the only potential snafu is that hardcover book printers have really long turnarounds. But you'll certainly have all the content digitally before May 1.

Also, we are honoring our commitment to and deep appreciation for our Kickstarter pledgers by sending you all the comic shop versions of Occupy Comics volume 1 as free digital downloads.

Our top priority is to finish volume 1 and get it read by as many people as possible (and continue raising funds for Occupy-related initiatives), but if it goes well and everyone is happy with the experience and we feel it is beneficial to the movement in its own modest way, then I could see it continuing on as a politically-themed comics anthology like RAW or World War 3 Illustrated. I think something like that could be really cool and important, but that's a ways away.

So, as always, thank you so much for supporting this project and we hope you'll stick with us as we finish phase 1 and move on to new & exciting adventures bringing these stories inspired by Occupy Wall Street to you and more readers who aren't as cutting-edge and with-it as you.