Back This Book: ‘Strong Female Protagonist’ Launches Print Collection Kickstarter

If you've never read Brennan Lee Mulligan and Molly Ostertag's Strong Female Protagonist, you are missing out. Originally produced as a twice-weekly webcomic, the story focuses on Alison Green, a teenage superhero who retires from her life of crimefighting in order to go to college, only to find out that her old life isn't quite done with her.

It's one of my favorite webcomics, and now, Mulligan and Ostertag are making the jump to print with a collection of the first four issues, funded by Kickstarter.

With 28 days left in their campaign, Mulligan and Ostertag are already closing in on 200% of their initial goal, which means that smashing through their initial set of stretch goals is pretty much inevitable. Ostertag is already set to redraw the chapter breaks, with additional print-exclusive story pages set to be added in before too long. And that's a very good thing.

The world of Strong Female Protagonist relies a great deal on the standard superhero tropes -- there's even a hard-drinking, feral, oddly coiffed character with a healing factor that Alison teams up with and later becomes friends with -- but they're done with a take that's fresh, if only from the point of view that they're presenting it. Allison's retirement from being Mega Girl makes her an incredible viewpoint character, a superhero who's also an outsider in the world of superheroics, and it's really neat to see.

The PDF of the Strong Female Protagonist book starts at the $10 level, and the physical book is at $22, which isn't a bad price for over 200 pages of a genuinely fantastic comic, but higher reward tiers include prints, original art, and a pretty fantastic T-shirt, too. Check it out, and if you can't wait for the book, catch up on Strong Female Protagonist on the website.