UPDATE: FINAL WEEK AND FINAL STRETCH GOAL
We're into the final week of the drive! Jeff and I spent some time discussing what we could offer for a final stretch goal. We decided that the best kind of bonus would be an addition to the strip itself, for everyone to enjoy for years to come.
So here's the deal: If the drive passes $25,000, in 2014 we will start serializing a Jonah Yu side story on Sundays. If you read my previous strip, Narbonic, it'll be roughly equivalent to the Victorian Sunday serial. Only, you know, with a time-displaced teenager and his hacker girlfriend tracking down monsters.
And that's it! One week left! Thanks, everybody!
UPDATE: SECOND STRETCH GOAL REACHED!
We've passed our $20,000 stretch goal! That means that, in addition to other goodies, everyone who pledges will receive:
-- A complete library of Skin Horse desktop wallpapers
-- A Skin Horse prose story by me, Shaenon
-- A podcast of Jeff performing a dramatic reading of said story
Thank you all so much! Stay tuned for further updates.
UPDATE: STRETCH GOAL POT-SWEETENING!
Shaenon here. With two weeks left on this Kickstarter drive, I have secured permission from Jeff to sweeten the pot on our $20,000 stretch goal. Now, if we make the stretch goal, every backer will receive a complete library of Skin Horse wallpapers... AND a podcast of Jeff reading my bonus prose story in his resonant baritone. Unlike myself, Jeff has a theater background, so he is up to the challenge.
I totally want to make Jeff do this, so spread the word!
UPDATE: STRETCH GOAL #1 REACHED!ı
Yes, we have passed $15,000! That means that, in addition to the other incentives, every backer to this project will receive a Skin Horse prose story by me, Shaenon! Thank you all so much for your support!
Meanwhile, here's a sample page-in-progress from the Skin Horse Volume 4 bonus story, "For Always," written by Seanan McGuire. I'm hard at work on this one right now.
UPDATE: TWO NEW BACKER LEVELS UNLOCKED!
We've passed $14,000! You know what that means? It means we're unlocking two new backer levels. Check out PROJECT DIRECTOR, which allows you to commission a story from Jeff and an illustration from me, and BLACK OPS FOSTER PARENT, which gets you a page of original art from this volume's bonus story, "For Always," written by Seanan McGuire and drawn by Shaenon. I know Seanan's been waiting for this one to go live.
Thanks again, everyone! Spread the word!
UPDATE: MANY THANKS + STRETCH GOALS
First, a million thanks to everyone who helped us reach our funding goal in record time. Second, we have revealed our first two stretch goals!
If we pass $15,000, everyone who pledges will receive an original, exclusive Skin Horse prose story by me, Shaenon. STRETCH GOAL REACHED!
If we pass $20,000, everyone who pledges will receive a complete library of the Skin Horse desktop wallpapers, as seen here.
Thanks again!
You’re an agent for Project Skin Horse, the Black Ops Social Services agency that deals with the needs of America’s nonhuman citizenry. It’s another day at the office. Do you choose to investigate a terrorist attack on a transgenic rights meeting? Battle a funky mad scientist and her clockwork army? Rescue a pair of teenagers who have come unstuck in time? Finally get licensed as a notary public? Or just boink the most attractive humanoid in the general vicinity?
No matter what you choose, turn to page 1. Because this book contains these and many more incredibly daring experiences!
“I knew I was in trouble when the characters from Skin Horse started invading my dreams.”
-Mark Schuster, Small Press Reviews
Shaenon K. Garrity here. My co-creator, Jeffrey C. Wells, and I have been writing and drawing Skin Horse as a daily webcomic since 2008. In past years, with the generous help of Kickstarter backers, we published print collections of Skin Horse Volumes 2 and 3. Now we're back with the even more amazing Skin Horse Volume 4, covering the storylines "If I Ran the Zoo" through "A Wrinkle in Time."
Is there more? Well, yeah. Volume 4 will also include a bonus story scripted by Hugo and Campbell Award-winning writer Seanan McGuire. And an introduction by io9.com contributor Lauren Davis. And full-color bonus art by incredible guest artists, and it is seriously just a class act all around.
“One of the funniest webcomics out there.”
-Lauren Davis, io9
In case that's not awesome enough, we're offering what may be the best collection of Kickstarter incentives ever assembled. If you check out the pledge tiers, you'll see books, sketches, original art, and access to an original Skin Horse choose-your-own adventure story. Looking for more? Pledge at the Funky Mad Genius level, and we'll draw you into an upcoming strip. At the Arbiter of Reality level, you can take over Jeff's job and co-script a week of strips. (Check out our previous guest-scripted week, by the Volume 3 Arbiter of Reality, here.)
And if you go all-out and pledge at the Inner Circle Luau or Innermost Circle Luau levels, you will be joining me, Shaenon, in August for a tiki-themed party in my house and adjoining tiki office! (I have a tiki office. Really.)
Enjoy barbecue with artists, writers, scientists, and assorted Berkeley-area nerds! You get yourself out here; I will put you up for two nights at the Rose Garden Inn and do my utmost to show you a good time. Yes, I can accommodate special dietary needs. No, I cannot give piggyback rides.
Throughout the campaign, we'll unlock additional bonus levels with new rewards. So keep watching this space!
“I absolutely love every bit of Skin Horse from beginning to end!”
-Sheena McNeil, Sequential Tart
Finally, a million billion thanks to the Phenomenauts for providing the soundtrack to our Kickstarter video. I'm a huge fan, and I'm thrilled to no end that they've let me share their sci-fi rock with the universe. The song is "I Am Robot," from their album Re-Entry. Find this and other incredible music, including the band's tribute to astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, at their website, www.phenomenauts.com.
Thanks also to designer Pancha Diaz, who makes the Skin Horse collections look so good. And thanks in advance to everyone who helps us make Skin Horse Volume 4 possible.
Risks and challenges
We've previously published three volumes of Skin Horse, two of them through Kickstarter. We foresee no problems in the publication of Volume 4. We plan to have the book out by September at the latest, and hopefully earlier.
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Funding period
- (42 days)