back pages

Crowdfunding has become an important part of how comics get made, allowing creators to pitch their work directly to readers, and providing opportunities for comics that traditional publishers may not consider. With Back Pages, ComicsAlliance hopes to provide a spotlight for some of the best comics crowdfunding projects we can find. North Bend, by Ryan Ellsworth, Robert Carey, and Dee Cunniffe and Thomas Mauer, is a crime drama with elements of political thriller, focusing on a DEA agent invited to contribute to a CIA program to experiment on small-time criminals against their knowledge with mind-control drugs. The agent has to decide where he stands. Should he keep quiet, out of loyalty to his government, or speak out and put himself at risk? It's a story that surprisingly has its roots in real life events. We spoke to Ellsworth to learn more.

The Cautionary Fables and FairyTales project has been running for several years now; an anthology series that tells stories based around the fairy tales, myths and legends of a different continent each time, starting with Europe, then Africa, and now Asia. The anthology is the work of editors and cartoonists Kel McDonald and Kate Ashwin, and features work from a number of creators both new and established --- including Gene Luen Yang, Meredith McClaren, Nilah Magruder and Carla Speed McNeil. As with the previous volumes, the team has to Kickstarter to fund the 200-page, black and white Asia anthology. Asia is a particularly wide topic to handle, so ComicsAlliance spoke to both Ashwin and McDonald about how the series has grown over time, what stories will be featured in their latest collection, and how Kickstarter has helped bring the whole thing together.

The Kill Screen is a comic that shows a world where computers have run rampant --- not on society, as you might expect, but rather within society. As a virus. Created by Mike Garley, Josh Sherwell and letterer Mike Stock, the series sees computers literally infecting people and places into digitised oblivion, glitched and broken. It's sci-fi horror as social commentary, but it puts characters before anything else --- which is what has made it such a success on the UK comics scene over the last few years. When the world goes to hell in the weirdest way imaginable, how would society try and move on? Having put out the entire story as single issues, the creative team has now come to Kickstarter to seek funding for the oversized hardcover collection of the story. As part of our ongoing spotlight series on Kickstarter projects worth your attention, ComicsAlliance spoke to writer Mike Garley about how the series came together, and what backers can expect from the completed comic.

Tech-witches living in the future. That's what comics are bringing us now. Hex11 is a series created by the HexComix team of writer Kelly Sue Milano, artist Lisa K. Weber, and editor Lynly Forrest. Set in a world where magic not only exists but has been commodified by giant corporations, the series focuses on Elanor Kent, an apprentice witch who accidentally gets herself wrapped up in a larger conspiracy that hurtles her into the dangerous world of black market magic. The series has already wrapped volume #1, and the team has headed to Kickstarter to fund a print collection. They're also looking to set up funding to help produce the second volume of their story as they seek to build up HexComix as a new studio publisher. Nominated for the inaugural Dwayne McDuffie Award for Divisity this year, Hex11 seems like a project well-worth taking a closer look at, so we spoke to the entire Hex11 team.

Sometimes you see a style of storytelling that is so distinct and different from anything else out there that you have to stop and just admire what's going on. In the case of Martin Simpson's Misc anthology, currently running on Kickstarter to fund a print edition, you'll need every moment possible to try and cram in every little detail of the work. Simpson's artistic style is inspired by everything from Bruce Timm to The Triplets of Belleville, and it offers a strikingly bold, sideways glance at a world that pulses with off-kilter energy. His colors stamp an electric atmosphere across the faces of his characters, while the worlds and lives they live feel unique, uneasy, and imposing. It all looks hugely impressive, and feels like a firm footstep into another dimension. To find out more about Misc, and the uneasy shimmer of neon nightmares that glimmer beneath each page, we spoke to Simpson about the project.

Cartozia Tales brings together a number of artists and writers, including Lucy Bellwood, Dylan Horrocks, Jen Vaughn, and Jon Lewis, to tell stories set within a huge map. Each artist starts off telling a story set in a specific part of the map --- so they could be in a jungle, up a mountain, in a lake, anywhere --- but then rotate at random, so each issue sees different writers and artists creating an interconnected world and telling all-new stories with the characters created in issue #1. It's a great idea, and recently the Cartozia team launched a Kickstarter to reprint that crucial first issue for anyone who may have missed it the first time round. To check in on how things are going, and to learn more about Cartozia itself, ComicsAlliance spoke to project editor Isaac Cates

Teachers are the greatest heroes in the world --- we all know it. From Indiana Jones to the person who taught you geography, teachers are some of the hardest-working, most important people in all of our lives. Writer Dino Caruso, artist Shawn Richison and colorist Dijjo pay tribute to just such a heroic teacher with their latest, Fisk: the S.U.B.S.T.I.T.U.T.E.. An agent of the secretive S.U.B.S.T.I.T.U.T.E. organisation, Fisk's job is to protect schools from supernatural risks like alien attacks, temporal rifts, supervillain plots --- all in the guise of a substitute teacher. It's a fun idea for a series, and one that the team has launched on Kickstarter to help fund a print edition of the story. To find out more about Fisk and the heroic world of substitute teaching, ComicsAlliance spoke to the team.

Like Father, Like Daughter is running a Kickstarter for its second issue. It tells the story of Casey, a young girl whose father is the most powerful and beloved superhero in the world. But he's also the man who walked out on her family when she was just a baby. While trying to reconcile her hatred for a man who everybody else loves, she finds that she's inherited his power set. That's when things start to get really complicated. It's a neat concept, and one that seems to be picking up a fanbase. ComicsAlliance spoke to Calamia about how the series came about, and her experiences with crowdfunding.

For the last two years, comics artist and writer Brian Shearer has been telling the grand tale of William the Last as a webcomic, the story of a young orphan boy who lives on a small island with only his grandfather for company. But when he finds himself all alone, William starts climbing the huge mountain right in the center of the island. He climbs, and he climbs.... and finds a strange new world where cities are in ruins and chaos has taken hold of the people. William the Last is a passion project for Shearer; each page is beautifully designed and illustrated. With the first few stories now told online, Shearer has brought the project to Kickstarter to raise funds for a print edition. ComicsAlliance spoke to him about the book, and how it came to life.

Kickstarter has really proven that the number of new, eager, ready comics writers and artists has been booming over the last few years. The number of anthologies and projects with a specific focus on those who don't usually get featured over at 'mainstream' publishers has been staggering, with each week bringing an array of fresh talent into the world of comics. One of the most recent is Oath, a queer comics anthology masterminded by Audrey Redpath. The anthology consists entirely of queer comics talent telling LGBT superhero stories. Featuring a host of new and established writers and artists, the book has already hit its funding target --- but it still has stretch goals to reach in its closing days.