We're terribly excited to announce and launch our late spring/early summer publishing lineup. As you may know, we've been publishing quality independent comics since 2009, and in that time we've produced 26 comics, three prints, and a feature-length documentary.
Our goal is to help new(er) cartoonists reach a wider audience by ensuring their books stay in print, they get royalties in advance, and they get hooked up with new distribution paths. We tend to specialize in literary and humor comics, though anything that catches our eye is fair game.
Our comics have won Ignatz and DINKY Awards, been nominated for Eisner Awards, and been included in the "Best American Comics" series. We're extremely proud of the talented artists we work with, and we hope you'll give our new line a shot. If you do, here's what you'll get:
Reign of Crumbs - Glynnis Fawkes, 76 pages, perfect bound b/w w/color covers.
Glynnis' comics have been some of our favorites for many years now. Whether she's detailing the joys and hardships of parenting in Vermont or the Middle East, adventuring in Greece, or re-telling ancient myths, she is a joy to read, with strong and clear line. She has a unique and uncanny ability to pull the critical thread out of a story and show it to the world.
Unicorns of Planet Earth - Lauren Barnett, 28 pages, saddle stitched, full color throughout.
Donning her unicorn-expert cap, Lauren takes you on a hilarious trip through the lives of the common unicorn. Their dating rituals, their food, and some of the lies people would have you believe about them.
Kilgore Quarterly #7 - various, 64 pages, perfect bound, b/w with color covers
We're insanely proud of this issue, which focuses on longer short works from artists who have orphaned stories. Some of these appeared elsewhere, have gone out of print, and need to be read by more people, some are from forthcoming works, and some just needed a home. Included are:
Dappled Light by Summer Pierre - In this story, Summer delivers five pages of nostalgia that is touching and sad without getting overly sweet. If you are unfamiliar with her, please check her out. She makes autobiographical comics that are actually interesting, and her artwork will pull you in.
Steve McQueen has Vanished by Tim Lane. In this 18-page excerpt from his forthcoming book on McQueen, Tim shows that his book will not simply be an autobiography. Instead, he takes facts and fiction and melds them all with his own psyche, making this a semi-fictional, autobiographical, biography.
I Told You So by Joseph Remnant. This 16-page story originally appeared in a 2D Cloud collection, and is worth repeating. It's a story of obsession, of art, and of love, and not at all in the hackneyed way we're used to seeing those three elements woven together. As always, Joseph's drawing is warm and inviting and we're excited to put out another fine Remnant piece.
The Desk by Leslie Stein - This twelve pager originally appeared as an Oily $1 minicomic. It's a delightful story of a young girl playing, and the tension that comes about. It's not sappy, it's really funny, and we love it.
K. Trout Makes a Move - Ending this issue is this great four-pager from Sam Spina. We've worked with Sam a lot, and we've always said he's one of the nicest guys in comics. Well, he's also one of the funniest, and his time at the Cartoon Networks, 'The Regular Show' has really helped him fine-tune his gag writing ability.
Also included in this issue are two hand-written interviews conducted with the Norwegian cartoonist Jason, and the American rock star Grace Slick, who used to front Jefferson Airplane. Jason did the covers, which are based on a classic Margritte painting, and the incredible Herb Greene let us use one of his 1967 pictures of Grace for the interview, which we really appreciate.
Wrapping up our late spring releases are three books from Noah Van Sciver - one new comic, and two reprints.
Slow Graffiti #3 is a 20 page sketchbook diary comic Noah is putting out solely for his Patreon supporters, and backers of this Kickstarter. You will not be able to get this comic elsewhere. It's b/w throughout and is classic Noah. It is funny, sad, introspective, confident, under-confident and everything else you can fit into a 20-page mini comic.
We are reprinting Blammo #9 which won a DINKY Award, has been nominated for an Eisner Award, and which has been getting rave reviews since we released it in September of 2016. If you missed out, here's your chance to pick up what is one of the best comics of the last year. Everyone who reads this is blown away, and Noah has referred to as one of the best things he's ever made. It contains a number of short stand-alone stories, so if you haven't read Blammo 1-8.5, you're fine.
Lastly, we are reprinting the Ignatz-winning My Hot Date. This story recounts Noah's first date in the late 90's, which was set up in an AOL chat room. This book brilliantly shows that time in adolescence when the way you see yourself in the world, and the way the world sees you, crash head-on into each other.
In addition to these fine releases, we have set award levels to include the 16x20 print we did of our favorite page from Blammo #9. This is a giclee print which has been signed and numbered in an edition of 50. We're about 1/2 sold out, so these are the last of the bunch. And you can get a frame from IKEA that perfectly fits this print for $10, so it's a relatively economical way to class up your house, apartment, dorm room, car, hallway or closet.
We are also offering discounts on our back-stock, which includes more work from Noah, Sam Spina, Joseph Remnant, Amara Leipzig, Box Brown, Jake Roth, Matias San Juan, Alex Graham, Lauren Barnett, and many others.
And, we're doing more t-shirts! These are all hand screen printed by Dan and his 4-year old son. They're done to order (unless we have it in stock) and some even have glow in the dark ink! You can select from a Jeffrey Brown or Noah Van Sciver design.
We hope you'll back our work - we think it's solid, and we're proud to do it.
And, for those of you curious about the money breakdown, here you go!
$4600 - Printing (57.5%) $1300 - Shipping (16%) $1250 - Royalties (16%) $650 - Fees (8%) $200 - Wiggle Room (2.5%)
And, if you feel like those royalties should be higher, don't worry, they are! We give ~20% of every print run back to the artist, which they can sell and keep every penny of -- and in that way, Kilgore makes sure that all 'profits' are split equally. Thanks for your support.
Risks and challenges
Basically none. The files are in, and we've done other successful Kickstarers. All our rewards have been fulfilled. So, please, give! We're safe!
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