About this project

The Premise

There are few uniquely female superheroes in comic books. Most of them are bland bimbos or copies of popular male characters in girl form. The Birth of Venus is an attempt to bring a character to the comic book world with an origin that stems from the most exclusive of female experiences, pregnancy. Our heroine, Mara Mercer is an ordinary young woman who develops superpowers when she becomes pregnant with a supervillain’s child. As the child grows and develops inside of her so do her powers. But these extraordinary abilities will only last for nine months as she carries the child to term. In that time she will struggle with the dilemma of using her powers for revenge against the supervillain who impregnated her or serving a greater purpose, using the time she has these gifts to help the world.

What do we want?

Greetings! My name is Andrew Makishima and I am the writer of this project. My collaborator is artist Matthew JLD Rice (artist on the recent miniseries HELEN KILLER for Arcana comics). We are both passionate about telling the story of Venus and hope to get it published as a miniseries with an independent publisher. The dream is to release the story in 9 issues, emulating the nine months that our heroine is pregnant and has her powers. After that, a graphic novel release would follow.

How do we plan to do it?

Right now, we are focused on completing the first issue and are nearly completed with the inking and lettering stages. We are currently looking to hire a colorist for the book. Once the issue is complete, we want to print a limited run (around 500 copies) that we can bring to Wondercon (the big annual comic book convention in San Franscisco) in April 2010. At Wondercon we plan on getting a table and promoting the book, selling copies, and showing it to publishers in hopes of securing a distributer for the series. From there we will continue to work on the series, moving on to issue #2 and #3 which complete the first story arc of our miniseries.

What is the money for?

The funds raised from Kickstarter will go towards paying the colorist that we hire to work on the book, the printing costs for the first issue and mini-comic, travel expenses to go to Wondercon, the costs of promotional materials (banner, posters, flyers, etc.) and renting table space at Wondercon.

What are we offering?

We will be posting regularly as we go through the process of making The Birth of Venus. We hope to create a participatory experience that takes our backers through the trials and tribulations of making indie comics. As for goodies, we are offering our backers signed copies of the book, posters, original artwork, an exclusive mini-comic, and we also have guest spots available for the first issue where our backers can literally be drawn into the story!

For more details about the project, check out the artist's website: www.matthewjldrice.com. We've also posted the first four pages of artwork at: www.thejld.deviantart.com/gallery.

Thank you for your interest in our book!

Andrew Makishima - Writer
Matthew JLD Rice - Artist

birthofvenuscomic@gmail.com