It began as afailed fan quest and turned into a visionary plan for arts funding. Kickstarter.comis a social networking platform that uses the internet to raise money to fundcreative projects. Artists of all kinds--including a growing number of cartoonists--arestarting to take advantage of it.
Kickstarter CEOPerry Chen and co-founder Yancey Strickler were trying to save Arrested Development, the smartly funny,critically acclaimed and ratings-deprived Fox comedy series starring JasonBateman. As anyone with a TV knows, they failed. But the friendship flourishedas did the ongoing conversations on the challenge of living the creative lifeand how difficult it could be to make a living at it let alone fund a project.What would happen if there was a way for artists to use social networking mediato go directly to their audience to request donations to fund whatever projectthey were pursuing? What would it look like? How would it work? Could it bedone?
After threeyears the answers can be found at Kickstarter.com. The brainchild of Chen,Strickler and several others, Kickstarter uses the Internet to create theapparatus to help artists fund their projects by sidestepping the film and TV studios,and venture capital funds, to solicit donations from ordinary people.
It works likethis. Artists propose a project, come up with a fundraising goal and make theircase to Kickstarter via letter, video tape or web site. If Kickstarter acceptsthe proposal, they issue a formal invitation to the artist and they createspace on the website for artists to execute a fundraising campaign. The artistis responsible for soliciting donations. Kickstarter provides the web space andconnection with Amazon for the handling of pledges. Otherwise, it's theartist's project from start to finish.
"They get tocreate their own commodity and price everything. They set the parameters ontheir own," says Strickler.
Kickstarter's nota charity. If the campaign succeeds, Kickstarter gets 5% of the money raisedfor each project. And although "there's definitely an audience of Kickstarterbackers looking for cool things to pledge to," Strickler says, artists areresponsible for generating their own support.
Artists offer donorsa variety of incentives--from T-shirts, access to blog updates on the project'sprogress or their names mentioned in the acknowledgements of a book or filmcredits to a copy of the book or film, etc.--all based on the amount donorswilling to donate. People can donatefrom anywhere around the world although they must have a U.S. bank account in order to useAmazon. As with all campaigns, there is a deadline. Artists must meet their financial goal by adesignated date to keep the pledges. If they come up short, all pledges arecancelled and the artist goes empty-handed.
In other wordsit's sink or swim. But, with or without funding, the artists keeps control oftheir work and Kickstarter takes no ownership of the artistic work.
"I think it'sdraconian that you have to trade the rights of your work for the privilege ofits existence," says Strickler who's had a successful career as a journalistand editor. "I think it's incredibly strange. I knew I would never do that."
The concept hasseen tremendous growth since its inception in April 2009. They've recentlymarked 500 successful projects. According to Strickler, three Kickstarter-funded films will premiere atthe SXSW film fest and one of their artists managed to play music fest Lollapalooza.And cartoonists have also gotten the word. Such highly regarded cartoonists asTed Rall, James Kochalka, Josh Elder and Jamie Tanner are also currently usingKickstarter to attract funding for their own comics projects
Anothercartoonist who has turned to Kickstarter is Chicago-based comics artist CharlieSpike Trotmann. Trotmann, better known in the comics world as Spike, funded hercomics project Poorcraft: A Comic BookGuide to Frugal Urban and Suburban Living! through Kickstarter. Poorcraftis Spike's comics how-to manual for living frugally.
The book wasinspired by her own, now thankfully past, experience as a starving artist.These days Spike makes her living from sales of her award-winning web comic andthree volume graphic novel series, Templar,Az, the story of a quirky, alternate universe town called Templar, AZ; aswell as from web-advertising, sales of related merchandise and other artwork.She visits about 12 comics conventions a year to ply her comics andcomics-related wares. Before that,however, she was an art grad school drop-out marking time behind the art storecash register while scrambling to pay the rent.
This was a farcry from the Spelman graduate's childhood in the well appointed Washington D.C.suburbs with her physician father and homemaker mother. After switching herundergraduate major from pre-med to art--and freaking out her parents--shegraduated with a fine arts degree and enrolled in the Art Institute ofChicago's graduate art program where she lasted one year. Her graduate school instructorsdismissed her figurative artwork, so Spike left school and began working on Templar, Az., which ended the worst ofher financial problems. But the memory of her struggle stayed with her, especiallywhen she met folks at comics conventions.
She says fanswould come up to her and say, "Gosh I'dreally like to try that [making a living as an artist] but I could never make aliving on an artist's salary.' But Spike says, "I'm very skeptical of peoplewho are convinced they can never make a living doing what they want to do." Poorcraft aims to dispel themisconceptions about what constitutes a successful life. "You don't need creditcards, you don't need a car. Maybe you don't need to live in the suburbs. Maybeliving in a studio apartment with a futon is just fine," Spike says.
The funding shegot from Kickstarter is helping her get the word out. Typically, Spike drawsand writes her own comic but for Poorcraftshe hired artist Diana Nox to do the drawings. Since she wanted to pay Nox "aliving wage," she created a video to promote herself and present her case toKickstarter and they accepted her project.
"With her it's ano-brainer," Strickler says of Spike's proposal. "You just look at her work andyou can see her passion. She really put herself into it." Spike approachedKickstarter with a fundraising goal of $2,500. She wound up making $13,000. Currently,Spike has 1000 pre-orders for Poorcraft.She'd planned to do a minimal printing of 2000 copies. Now her first printingwill be closer to 3000 copies. Her first-run printings for Templar, AZ, which is up to volume 3, are usually 1500. Poorcraftwill have approximately 125 pages and is expected to retail for about $10. Thefundraising really made the price workable for her, she says. Production isexpected to be complete in time for a late summer or early fall release date.
Spike'svocational choices are something Strickler wants more people to be able tomake. "We've been moving from this consumer economy to a creative economy," hesays, "but there hasn't really been any infrastructure to support it. If you'rethe kid that makes really good YouTube videos where do you go?"
Now that kid hasthe answer. "We want more projects," Stickler continues. "We want people to useKickstarter creatively. It's been really great. We crossed 500 successful[projects] like a week and a half ago. When we first launched I think for mewhat I thought constituted success was even one project getting funded. To seeso many people able to find success is amazing."
