We Did It!
over 7 years ago – Tue, Dec 27, 2016 at 09:02:48 PM

Hooray! 

Thank you so much, everyone. Because your incredible support, we raised almost double our initial goal. 

That means I not only get to make these books, but also make them with a truly ludicrous quantity of awesome bonuses and enhancements (including one surprise bonus addition to Vol 5 and one to the Gilded Bonus Pack, both of which I will strive to make as cool as possible)! How great is that?

So, what happens next?

1) First, Kickstarter will collect your pledges. In fact, for most of you, they have already done so! As always, a handful of pledges were declined due to billing errors... if yours was one of them, Kickstarter will notify you when you log in and give you seven days to update your info before cancelling your pledge. (They'll also email you, but be careful it doesn't get caught in your spam filter.) I don't normally remind folks about this so immediately, but I know a lot of people are going to be heading off on holiday soon, so I figured I'd better mention it early this time!

2) I'll be sending the book files to the printers in January, once I've finished up all the new features secured by our stretch goals! Once we've approved the printer's prototypes, they'll get to work, and we'll have our books roughly 3 months later (depending on freighting times).

3) Once the books are being printed, I'll get back in touch with all of you to start collecting all your info! That's when we'll get your shipping addresses, and ask you to indicate which add-ons (if any) you intended to get. It's also when anyone who got an Artist Edition, avatar, and/or custom art commission will be able to say what they would like me to draw. I am going to be drawing a lot of things!

4) Once the books arrive at our warehouse, Make That Thing will start sending out all your rewards. Our estimated release month is May, but depending on how freighting goes, we may get them a bit earlier than that. I will keep you posted!

5) You will get to read some dang books, and it will be great!

Thank you, one more time, for all your incredible support. I can't wait to get these suckers in your hands!

-Sam

Commentary & Concept Art Achieved!
over 7 years ago – Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 05:16:14 AM

Team! Since our last update, another stretch goal has been conquered: a bonus chapter of author commentary and concept art has been added to both the softcover and hardcover editions of Volume 5! I'm pretty excited about it. There's a lot of fun stuff in this volume to dig into, from Roan to the Kattalogers to President Dog himself.

And guess what? I haven't talked about it much thus far, but... I'm also creating similar commentary chapters for Volume 1-3! Those three volumes didn't have commentary chapters in their original softcover print runs.  So, I'm assembling some now! They'll be included in the new physical hardcover editions of 1-3, and sent out as a digital bonus PDF to folks getting the original softcovers. As a little preview, here's some very early Hazel concept art that I dug up for Vol 1:

We're already well on our way to our next goal, too. President Dog may be gracing our books with his important thoughts, and our gilded packs with his campaign stickers! Can you believe it? CAN YOU?

As a last note today, I thought I'd mention a couple of other many, many fun projects I've found here on Kickstarter while I've been busy running my own. One is Paradox Girl! This comic was totally new to me, but they've already done the whole Kickstarter thing before... and there's a great interview with the creators on Comics Alliance, with a lot of fun preview art and info about the series' time-travel antics. 

And the other is Harriet Tubman: Demon Slayer! I haven't even had the chance to speak to the creators of this one... we just saw the project while browsing the Kickstarter site thought it looked cool as heck! 

There are a lot of neat comics projects out there. So thanks again for choosing to back mine! It means a lot to me to see so much support, and I'm going to use it to make the best dang books I can.

See you next update!

-Sam

40k goal hit, new stretch goals, and new art tier!
over 7 years ago – Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 10:12:51 PM

Hooray! We have crossed the 40k mark and unlocked our bonus e-artbook goal, and are creeping pretty close to our author commentary and concept art unlock, too. 

You guys work fast! I guess that means it's time to announce some new goals! How crazy is that?

Well, I just got off the phone with everyone's favourite fictional canine world leader, President Dog, and I have some exciting news. Dog has pledged that, should we hit 44k, he will not only write a special afterword to Volume 5, but also add an exclusive President Dog bumper-sticker to every Gilded Pack! Truly, he is a good boy. 

And that's not all! If we hit 47k, we'll be able to add luxurious cloth bookmarks and silver ink to all our new hardcover books. These are ludicrously classy additions. I was astounded we got to do them with the prequel omnibus, and I'll be equally mind-blown if we get to do it again!

New Art Tier

As mentioned earlier, I've decided to go ahead and add one new one-off original art tier: The Saucy Hippo! This one's for fans of the pin-up book I did earlier this year, Headcanon II, which featured a series of short comics depicting the S&F cast performing a mix of comedic, racy, and at times extremely weird cartoon burlesque performances. (My personal favourite was Mr. Y's Sailor Moon act.) 

With this tier, I'll draw a brand new act, just like the ones in the book! The backer can weigh in as much (or as little) as they want about the character (new or repeat), theme, and style of performance, and will get all the original art that ensues. I'm really partial to these... I feel like they are something a little more unusual and personality driven than your average pin-up thing! If you're interested, just message me if you have any questions.

Wasted Talent

Last but not least, I couldn't possibly not mention the Wasted Talent Kickstarter, which ends on Tuesday! Wasted Talent is a Canadian webcomic institution, and these are the final two collections in the series. Good luck, Angela!

Onward, friends. And thanks again for all your support!

-Sam

VOTE DOG & Printable Cards!
over 7 years ago – Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 10:12:45 PM

Another stretch goal has been conquered, friends! VOTE DOG bumper stickers have been added to all our Gilded bonus packs (and all tiers than include it), and President Dog himself will be writing a special afterword in Volume 5. What an honour!

In other news, it's come to my attention that some of you are backing this project to give as a makeshift Christmas present to a S&F fan in your life. Which is delightful! So to help, I made these printable Christmas cards. This way, you can have something physical to give to that future book owner on the 25th to let them know what will be coming next year!

Just download the PDF that applies to you, print the front and back on either side of a normal 8.5x11" sheet of paper or cardstock, trim along the dotted lines, and fold in half, and you should have a normal-sized greeting card!

Softcover Volume 5 version
Hardcover Volume 5 version
Softcover V. 1-5 version
Hardcover V. 1-5 version
Softcover Completionist set version
Hardcover Completionist set version

Last but not least, a shoutout to the incomprable Evan Dahm and his own Kickstarter project, a beautiful illustrated version of Moby Dick. I have been a fan of Evan's work for a long time, and I can't wait to see this one!

9 days to go, friends... plenty of time to do more cool things. Are you excited? I'm excited!

-Sam

First Stretch Goal Hit!
over 7 years ago – Sat, Dec 03, 2016 at 03:40:51 PM

Well, that was fast! Who's got 630* thumbs and just hit our first stretch goal? We did!  (*Approximate thumb count, not legally binding.) 

That means our softcover Volume 5 and our three new hardcovers will now all be enhanced with beautiful, beautiful spot gloss. I love spot gloss. No gloss is fine, and full gloss has its place, but nothing is classier than gloss that has been selectively applied in a tasteful fashion.

Our next big physical addition stretch goal is at 42k: adding an extensive author commentary and concept art section to Volume 5! We're already well on our way to this one, too... but as a little bonus, I've added a free new e-artbook unlock at the halfway point. It just felt weird to me to not having anything happen at a big round number like 40k. So now, if and when we get there, everyone will get digital bonus book full of fun marker illustrations. Problem solved!

One last note of note: I would be remiss not to alert you that Damocles Thread Development (the designers of the Sam and Fuzzy Underground RPG) and Randy Milholland (of the Something Positive webcomic) just launched a kickstarter of their own for a new theater-inspired card game called Curtain Call! I watched DTD playtest this game at Gen Con earlier this year (while I diligently worked on a million cat commissions), and it looked like a blast.

Thanks again, team, for all your support. Until next time!

-Sam Logan