Vicious Circus Goes Trick or Treating on Kickstarter

Tonight, I launched my newest Halloween horror comic on Kickstarter!

Just 3.5 hours before I began writing this Substack post, I pushed the launch button on my latest foray into the Kickstarter Comics category I’ve been observing and discussing on a daily basis for the past couple of months. On top of learning so much about the Comics category and the projects and creators that populate it, I learned a lot about how I should be doing things differently to adjust to the current Kickstarter environment.

So far, early into this launch, it’s going pretty well. My partner in Flatline Comics and Vicious Circus (and in life), Amanda Rachels, is generously offering a free Vicious Circus-themed sketch card for each Halloween Horror Box reward pledged in the first 24 hours of the campaign. Just a few hours in, and the response has been modest but adequate. We’ve got good momentum, as we hit our likewise modest initial funding goal by hour three of the campaign. This funding goal of $1000 represents only about 20% of the funding needed to break even on this project, considering production and projected printing costs, but one thing I’ve learned is to set that initial funding goal at a point that is quickly and realistically attainable.

A quick glimpse at our Kickstarter dashboard and our nice upward trajectory to kick off the campaign

Traffic to the Kickstarter page is moving well, too, as evidenced by our quick rise up the Kicktraq Hot List in the Comic Books category, where we’ve been vacillating between the 2nd and 3rd place slots for the last little while behind a comic called…Murder Bukkake. If that’s not an apt statement on the current Kickstarter Comics environment, I don’t know what is. Regardless, I’m grateful and optimistic about the start to the Vicious Circus Halloween Horror Box Kickstarter.

So, that’s a couple of critical goals achieved for the evening. I’ve got posts and emails scheduled going forward, and I’ll begin updating previous Vicious Circus Kickstarter campaigns in the morning. In the meantime, allow me to share the first lettered pages from the brand new 2024 Vicious Circus Halloween Special, and I hope you’ll consider supporting these comics with a signal boost/share or a pledge.

Thanks for reading my posts and for any support you’ve been kind and generous enough to provide, regardless the form it took.

Here’s to an amazing and successful week for us all.

Best regards,

• Kevin