The Model

The Bearded Men (www.tbmcomics.com) started in college when artist Dave Przybysz and writer Jason Cassidy worked together as RAs and lived in the same dorm.  Time was in flux and it stretched out to allow them to create a website and a lot of funny drawings to put on it. Somehow both still graduated and moved to different states.

TBM Volume One production stopped just shy of 100 comic strips.  Jason and Dave had both managed to get jobs, leave them, get more jobs, and so on. They financed things. They got married (not to each other) and procreated (not with one another).

Dave and Jason both know they do things if they are paid to do them. They sometimes do things they aren't paid to do, but sometimes they don't do those things. Some money from donations and merch sales has been paid, but it's all spent. 

We will make you a year worth of TBM comic strips.  We will create full color, online, original jokes and art. Hal, Bowen, Ben and the crew will set off on multiple story arcs and one-shot gags, all for your amusement.  New comics will appear on the site every week for a year. 

This drive also works as a pre-sale for the TBM Volume One e-book, since everyone who pledges $25 gets a copy! 

How do you intend to do that?

For the amount you see on the right, at least 52 new comics will be made by Dave and Jason and posted on the internet over the course of one year.  Every Monday, before 9 AM ET, a new comic will be made available.

During the 30 days of the Kickstarter, new stuff will be uploaded to the site almost daily. Stuff like

• sketches
• lost scripts
• a month of new comics

Running a website is sort of expensive and making these comics takes many hours apiece.  If we were really smart we'd have started a comic featuring black and white stick figures, written by a Turing machine.  Or Dilbert.  Oh man, does he ever hate Mondays and love lasagna.  But these new comics will be as lovingly crafted as TBM Volume One.  They will be even better, thanks to the years of experience Dave has added with drawing and using new Adobe software and this great big Wacom Intuos 3 tablet he had no right in getting, and Jason's maturation as a satirist and the copy of The Super Silly Joke Book Dave got him for Christmas 2007. We've aged like a fine wine up in here.

These new comics will be TBM Volume 2, and will follow Hal and Bowen as they mess around at home, on campus, and probably find out what is up with the Jade Hand of Altan Nong.  Or maybe they will just play through every Zelda videogame. 

New characters will be introduced, possibly including, but by no means limited to:

• An anachronistic detective
• An offensively stereotypical Japanese schoolgirl sidekick
• some wives
• Shady Robots
• adorable children with laser eyes
• no cats

Old characters will be revisited and expanded, like:

• Ben (The Ginger)
• Shady Marc (The Bald One)
• MB (The Blonde)
• Dorian (aka Steelcoat)
• Chris (aka A-Train)
• Tiny Robot
• Tony Pshibish
• Steve (him with the hook)
• Lisa (Hal's wife)

We'll also produce new actual physical stuff, merch, like:

• T-shirts with new designs hand-screenprinted by Dave
• Etched glass tumblers and pint glasses
• Posters
• Frameable prints of strips

And new digital stuff like the TBM Volume One book with new creator commentary. 

We just need you. Two comic books worth of pages of new comic strips seems to us like a pretty good reason for you to reach into your pocket, but we've also come up with a smorgasbord of backer rewards.  Seriously, take a look at the sweet stuff you can get over there on the right.  And we've come up with a bunch of stretch goals in case we have a bigger base of support than we've ever dreamed.

Stretchgoals

#1: $30k Noir Mini-Arc
Descend into TBM's smoky underworld to get a Touch of Evil-style look at the Shady doings at the Gin Fizz.

#2: $40k New site and RSS feed

#3: $50k Double the comics!!
TBM will update Mondays and Fridays, with 104 new strips appearing over the course of a year. Wow!

#4: $75k New store with new shirts, books, and other merch

#5 $100k Triple comics!!!
TBM will update Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  156 new strips will be created by Dave and Jason.  That's more than a Trade Paperback!

#6 $125k Creator Podcast

#7  $150k TBM attends a comics convention of the community's choice

#8 $200k Mobile App

Why are you doing this now?

Everyone wants more TBM.  Our friends, family, and fans want it, and so do we.  If this works, it will be a great adventure and everyone will have fun.  If it doesn't, there will still be a new month's worth of comics on the internet.  It's win-win.

What happens in a year?

We'll run another fundraiser for TBM Volume III.

What if you raise more than you are asking for?

We'll try to add more stretchgoals once we hit low ones.  Anything in excess of the highest stretch goal will go toward TBM Volume III.

Will there be a four-comics-a-week stretch goal? Five-a-week? Daily?

We think three comics a week is how much we'd do if TBM was our day job.  The comics and site would presumably just get more awesome if we had more than 100k.  We'd be able to do things other webcomics do like go to conventions, and partner with other creative people to make great things.

Do you really think you can get Twenty Thousand Real Dollars for your little comic?

Sorta. Yeah. Dave and Jason have a lot of great people in their lives who support them.  On many occasions, they have discussed wanting to help out with their creative pursuits in general, and TBM in particular.  So we know there is an amount of latent financial potential in passing the hat around.