Ramón Pérez, J. Bone, Tom Fowler, Faith Erin Hicks and Ron Salas are all comic book artists whose work we've posted on ComicsAlliance in the past. Most of the time it's usually in the form of their routinely excellent work-for-hire stuff that we love to read or eye-catching fanart that we love to see. So when we heard that these artists and more of their fellow Canadian cartoonists had teamed up to raise money for an anthology of creator-owned work, we knew we weren't just going to tell you about it, we had to tell you about it.

Called True Patriot, the anthology features brand new superheroes representing the great North American nation whose contributions to cape comics began with Superman co-creator Joe Shuster and continue to this day. The group is hoping to raise $20,000 on Indiegogo to produce, print and distribute the book worldwide, and of this writing they're more than halfway there with seven days to go.

True Patriot art by Tom Fowler


Also featuring new work by Adrian Alphona (Runaways), Andy B. (Kill Shakespeare), Jack Briglio (Scooby Doo), Scott Chantler (Two Generals), Agnes Garbowska (Girl Comics), Tim Levins (Avengers: Earth's Mighiest Heroes), Jay Stephens (Secret Saturdays), J. Torres (Teen Titans Go) and Howard Wong (After the Cape), True Patriot is as much a Canadian pride project as it is a showcase for cool comic book art. The Indiegogo page reads, "Most of us working on this project grew up reading Alpha Flight, Captain Canuck, or Wolverine comics and we've always thought that there should be more Canadian superheroes out there."

As I said, the $20,000 goal is to pay for printing and shipping the books and paying the contributors a little for their trouble. What I like about True Patriot as a crowdfunded project is that the organizers are more than happy to dedicate any excess funds to paying the artists even more, rather than claiming the money for additional copies that may not be needed. Artists getting paid is a good thing.

Alpha Flight wallpaper by True Patriot contributor J. Bone


Being staffed up with some particularly good artists, the True Patriot crowdfunding campaign comes with some neat rewards. Ten bucks gets you an Alpha Flight postcard drawn by J. Bone with a note from J. Torres; 15 bucks comes with a PDF of the completed 100 page book; and 35 and 40 constitutes a pre-order of the hardcover volume in Canada and the U.S. respectively. For art collectors, the $65 tier is most important, as it gets you not just the book but also a bookplate sketch by one of the contributors. If you're a hardcore fan of the multiple Eisner winner, $300 will get you a coffee shop meeting with Ramón Pérez, who'll sketch you "a li'l sumptin sumptin'."



Learn more about True Patriot and rewards for its backers at the project's Indiegogo page.

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