One of my all-time favorite tropes in fantasy comics is when modern technology shows up and everyone's just fine with it. I'm not talking about steampunk airships and lightning trains or whatever, although those are pretty cool. I mean, like, smartphones. For some reason, dropping modern technology into a story where people are still hanging around in jerkins and fighting each other with magic swords is just delightful.

And it can also lead to some pretty great high concept stories. Case in point: Happily Ever Aftr, a new comic from Ricky Lima and Nicolas Londeix that launched on Kickstarter this week and blew through its initial goal of $3,095 within days, probably because of how interesting its story sounds: A kidnapped princess uses a dating app on her phone to summon knights to rescue her from the villainess who's in love with her.

 

 

Here's Lima's description of the project:

Happily Ever Aftr is a fantasy story that follows Gretchen, a member of the Grimhold royal family, as she comes to terms with what love means to her. For generations, the first born Grimhold child has kidnapped a bride for marriage. So naturally Gretchen follows tradition and kidnaps a bride for herself. This, unfortunately, does not sit well with her father who will not allow such a thing. Gretchen must now come to terms with her own sexuality as well as deal with the pressures put on her by her father.

Meanwhile, the captured bride, Princess Emily, tries to escape Castle Grimhold using the only tool she has, a smartphone! Emily uses a dating app to find Knights to rescue her but most of the Knights kinda suck. So it looks like she's going to be a prisoner for a couple of weeks.

Happily Ever Aftr's Kickstarter campaign runs through Friday, September 23, with digital copies of the book starting at two Canadian dollars (about $1.55 US), and physical copies at $10 CAD (around $8), including shipping.

More From ComicsAlliance