It’s the LAST week that The Legend of Jamie Roberts, volume 1 is on KickStarter. The campaign ends March 27!
The Legend of Jamie Roberts, volume 1 collects the first 4 chapters, plus bonus content, in one volume. If you love genderqueer protagonists, pirates, dragons, magic, and adventure, this is the story for you!
Early Bird rewards may be all claimed, but there are still other rewards. Like…
$1 – you get a copy of Jamie and Friends’ map made as a desktop background.
$2 – you get the above PLUS the minicomic The Legend of Norsa mailed to you.
$10 – you get the digital background PLUS a PDF copy of The Legend of Jamie Roberts, volume 1.
$25 – get the above PLUS the copy of the book with a custom autograph
alternately, $25 – get the digital rewards PLUS two copies of the book are donated in your name to your local library.
Can you back the campaign? Then check it out BEFORE MARCH 27!
Broke? Share the link to the campaign (tinyurl.com/jamie-v1) far and wide with your friends!
(image of Jamie Roberts, a genderqueer young person with messy blonde hair climbing the side of a mud-brick building. They look out at the sea with a soft smile on their face. Text next to them reads The Legend of Jamie Roberts, volume 1 – Funded in the 1st 24 hours)
Jamie is neither boy or girl – they’re a PIRATE! The Legend is about Jamie and their two best friends, Thomas and Daniel, as they uncover an unfinished map to a land they’ve never seen.
So what do they do with this map?
(A picture of Jamie, a genderqueer human with messy blonde hair and green eyes, gesturing with excitement, saying, “Go treasure hunting, of course!”)
So they leave their life on the seas and go adventuring for treasure! Along the way they find magic, dragons, and an ancient history bubbling back to the surface once more.
Right now, the story is on KickStarter to get chapters 1 through 4 – plus bonus content – in one shiny paperback book.
If you back this campaign, you’ll get:
a custom-signed copy of the book,
the map Jamie, Thomas, and Daniel found, complete with their notes and doodles,
your very own orb (make sure it never breaks, or Ranki will escape his prison!)
and more!
Some rewards are ONLY available until March 12, so check out the campaign and back it if and while you can.
“Wait!” you might be thinking. “You’ve already reached your funding goal! So what’s in it for me if I support you?”
Well, we still have stretch goals!
If we can get to 30 backers, then everyone who supports the campaign will get a FREE sticker sheet included with their rewards.
And if we get to 40 backers? I’ll make a NEW minicomic for all backers, The Legend of Azu-Mi.
Plus, I have a NEW gift…
(a black and white line drawing of a dragon roaring into the void. The title, The Legend of Jamie Roberts, is printed along the top)
If 5 people color this page, and use the hashtag #thelegendofjamieroberts on Instagram or TikTok, then I’ll add a bookplate to each book! (Up to a maximum of 50 books.)
Broke? Share this link far and wide with your pirate-loving friends:
http://tinyurl.com/jamie-v1
Some rewards are ONLY available until March 12. The campaign as a whole wraps up on March 27.
It’s that time – time for a new KickStarter campaign. And this time, I’m hoping to get The Legend of Jamie Roberts, volume 1 in paperback.
The WHAT
The Legend of Jamie Roberts is a weekly webcomic I write and illustrate. It’s all about Jamie – neither man or woman, but a PIRATE. Jamie and their two best friends, Thomas and Daniel, find an unfinished map for a land they never explored. And so together, they go on a new adventure!
Volume 1 will collect the first 4 chapters of the webcomic. Yeah, I know I had chapters 1 and 2 in single-issue comics before. And those had their own KickStarter campaigns. But volume 1 will be the first time the first 4 chapters of the story will be in print together.
The WHEN
Mark your calendars – the KickStarter will launch before the end of February.
The HOW
If you want to be first in line to pre-order the book, you need to get on the email newsletter. My email peeps are the first to know when ANY KickStarter launches. That means they get to see the Early Access rewards, which are only available for a limited time.
Y’all. I wanted to make a blog post about my favorite comics by black creators. Until I realized I know so few of them.
First, I’ll say that C. Spike Trotman and Taneka Stotts are my favorite black creators who have edited for the Beyond anthologies and My Monster Boyfriend (among other works). And yes, both ladies have written and drawn great comics of their own!
But very few comics I read are written and illustrated by black creators.
That said, I can do better to support black comics creators working today. I will do my part to seek them out and read their work. (I think I’ll start with Prince of Cats by Ronald Wimberly, because I follow him on Instagram.) (And also this list from Book Riot.)
Part of the reason why I think it’s hard to find comics by black creators is because…well…
Here’s the Secret.
It’s an uphill battle to HAVE black creators working in comics, particularly “mainstream” comics. They want to work, but industry leaders and execs will not hire them. This prejudice in hiring practices is so intense that CB and I wrote about it in Validation a long while ago, and the topics discussed in that arc are STILL relevant today. (The strips at the top of this post are some highlights from that arc.)
There are more black creators in indie comics because until recently, no one in “mainstream” comics wanted to hire them. Often for not-great reasons.
But then, I’ve never been a big supporter of “mainstream” comics. It was an all-white-boys club in the 80s and 90s, and in so many ways, it still is. “Mainstream” comics regard minority groups as subject matter to highlight their “otherness,” not as a target audience to make comics for.
I know that opinion is contentious. But I’ve come to this conclusion after making comics and attending conventions over the last 7 years. I’ve seen and heard the arguments all around. And I could write a whole other blog post about “the industry,” but that’s for another day.
Long story short: “mainstream” comics has a representation problem with hiring black creators. So much so that many black creators go indie and have immense success on KickStarter.
Am I going to let “mainstream” comics’ allergies to hiring black creators get in the way of seeking them out? No. I will go find a creator on KickStarter, do my research, and if their story tickles my fancy, SUPPORT THEM. And I hope you do the same.
