As mentioned on the blog last week, the past few years has seen an exciting development of “crowd funding” websites designed to help serious artists raise money for their creative projects. Sites like Kickstarter (www.kickstarter.com) and Indiegogo (www.indiegogo.com) have spawned a wave of activity that allows designers, filmmakers, and yes, comic book artists the opportunity to raise funds by attracting people in their communities and around the world (often in the form of video presentations or art portfolios) to pledge money in exchange for small rewards (i.e. a T-shirt or a limited addition comic book). By simply getting the satisfaction of helping talented artists complete their projects and realizing their creative visions pledgers have helped countless artists get their products out to the public. Now there are at least two Graphic Universe artists who’ve gotten into the action.

Dylan Meconis (illustrator of Twisted Journeys #19 The Fifth Musketeer) was triumphant in raising money for her recent project appropriately named The Dylan Meconis Library 2012 (Dylan Meconis Interview)—a three-volume series of clever and cheeky tales, including an Eisner–nominated story called Outfoxed. And Yuko Ota (Manga Math Mysteries #3 The Secret Ghost and Twisted Journeys #17 Detective Frankenstein), a Brooklyn-based artist, has found success raising funds for her two Benign Kingdom projects through crowd funding.


The Dylan Meconis Library 2012

It’s exciting to see this new fundraising model provide great opportunities for creative people to produce winning new works that compliment their traditional careers paths. Some of these endeavors may spark major breakthroughs.



Dylan Meconis (top) and Yuko Ota (bottom)