Today I have a couple of great Kickstarter campaigns to recommend. I’ve already kicked in on both of them, and I think a lot of my readers will be interested too.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Kickstarter Alert here in PopCult. There are a few reasons for that. The main reason has been that campaigns have been getting shorter, and with many of them, by the time I have room to fit them into the blog, they’ve ended.

Another reason is the growing use of BackerKit, a service that isn’t affiliated with Kickstarter, to charge shipping after the Kickstarter campaign ends and is ready to be fulfilled. I understand all of the reasons that folks running Kickstarter campaigns use BackerKit. It’s great for them. It apparently has all sorts of advantages in terms of organization and helps them manage their campaigns.  By not charging for shipping until the project is ready to go, the folks running the campaign don’t get surprised by any shipping rate hikes. It makes a lot of sense for folks to use BackerKit to manage their campaigns.

As a patron/customer, I despise BackerKit. I hate having to log into a separate service, and than have to provide my payment information to a third party, and deal with their clunky interface. Most of all, I hate that I have to enter that payment info and pay even more to get a project that I helped fund months (or years) earlier. It’d be a tiny bit less annoying if BackerKit accepted PayPal, like Kickstarter does.

What makes this worse is when projects get delayed. It’s only natural for Kickstarter deadlines to slip a little.  It’s to be expected. Life happens. I’m cool with that as long as there’s regular communication. But…when several projects get delayed, and others are on time and then they’re all ready to ship at the same time…and they all just happen to use BackerKit to charge shipping…then you wind up getting hit with nearly two hundred bucks in shipping charges over the span of a month, and your enthusiasm winds up a little sapped.

I am almost at a point where the use of BackerKit to charge shipping will be a dealbreaker for me. As it is, I have cut back my Kickstarter support to the point where I’m only supporting creators whose work I already really admire. I can’t afford to explore new talents, especially when, with shipping, they’re asking for twenty five bucks for a 32-page comic book. I’m an old guy who hates reading comics in a digital format, so some of this is on me, but I’m afraid that the current Kickstarter boom is going to turn into a bust if these trends continue.

Having said that…my first recommendation today uses BackerKit for shipping.

Craig Yoe’s Woman & Man+ Underground Comix

This is an underground comic that explores the Woman & Man relationship through art work of comic legend Craig Yoe! Actually, it’s hardcover book, and it’s a “loudly wordlesss” work that delves into Craig’s impressions of relationship adventures and misadventures in a deliciously surreal manner.

The creator’s first self-drawn solo comic, back in the 1970’s, was a spiritually infused contribution to the underground comix movement, with the cover colored by Yoe’s pal, legendary underground comix legend, Rick Griffin! Now, over fifty years later, Yoe’s second solo comic is unlike anything else in the graphic novel landscape.

Yoe’s passion for drawing comics was sidetracked for over a half a century by a career as a creative director for Jim Henson and the Muppets, Disney, Nickelodeon, and MTV. Coming back to his roots, he now dives deep into sex, horror, and drama, with a hint of humor and a whiff of hope.  Longtime PopCult readers may remember Craig’s name from the many times I’ve recommended his books devoted to comics history.

As Craig says in the campaign page…

I’m high as a kite from excitement that, thanks to my pals at Clover Press, Woman & Man+ is being offered to you. The humble-underground comix-slash-pretentious-art book is a psychedelic telling of my fleeing the U.S. to hook up with underground comix comrades in Berlin, then booted out of Germany to find solace—then devastating heartbreak—in the Canary Islands. Finally the Philippines have granted me asylum… and hope.

My story is all told through comics surrealism, IT’S A LOUD WORDLESS BOOK!!!

Thank you friends for your backing and support. It means the world to me!

Peace and love,
Craig Yoe!

There are a variety of rewards, starting at the $49 regular hardcover, and including tiers that include stickers, prints, a jigsaw puzzle, signed slipcover editions and original artwork. Be warned (and note that I am typing this with gritted teeth) that when the book is ready to ship (projected to be in August) you will be contacted to provide your address and will be charged an additional shipping fee.

It is a testament to how much I admire Craig’s work that I still kicked in on this campaign with the BackerKit shipping thing. You can find this campaign HERE for the next fourteen days. It’s already fully-funded.  Check out the video…

Nosferatu
An Illustrated Card Set And Book By Robert Jimenez

Also already fully-funded, and with thirteen days left in its campaign, is the latest project by Robert Jiménez.  It’s his take on the legend of Nosferatu.

Nosferatu is a 36 card set, based on the 1922 film by F. W. Murnau, illustrated by Robert Jiménez. This set features 36 illustrated cards in a tuck box. Included with the trading cards set is a lenticular card, a sticker and a promo card.

There is also a 6×9 hardcover book available which collects the entire 36 card set (front and back) along with bonus sketches.

Add-On rewards include original sketches, the Nosferatu’s Christmas In New York coloring book, metal signs, past Zerostreet trading card sets and more. I think I’ve plugged at least seven of the previous eight Zerostreet trading cards in this blog, so it’s not exactly a shock that I’m recommending this project. Check out the video…

Robert’s work has appeared on album covers, in publications such as THE THING: ARTBOOK, Tiki Magazine and Pinstriping & Kustom Graphics Magazine, and has shown in galleries including Disneyland’s Wonderground, Harold Golen, M Modern, Creature Features, and Bear & Bird among others. You can also see Robert’s work in trading card sets for Topps, Cryptozoic, and Upper Deck on licenses such as Garbage Pail Kids, Wacky Packages, Mars Attacks, Star Wars, Ghostbusters and more. You can kick in on this already fully-funded campaign and get the trading cards and/or book (plus other goodies) HERE.