This article concentrates specifically on comic books, but I see this trend in other sorts of publishing as well: gaming, video games, regular books, etc. What started out as a model for like-minded fans to come together to basically pre-buy content (thereby ensuring no loss on the part of the creators) has skyrocketed to a money grab by anyone and everyone. Should major publishers be crowd-funding their titles? What happens to the little guys who were using this to create fringe- and counter-culture?
Crowdfunding in comics arose as a way for comic creators to fund comic projects that wouldn’t necessarily fit within the traditional comic book publishing structure, but now more and more traditional comic book publishers (as well as A-list ‘Big Two’ publishing talent) have begun using Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and others to make their projects a reality.
For some, having established publishers and creators begin crowdfunding projects feels like the old guard horning in on territory for the next generation. But for others, it’s a new distribution model – similar to the widespread adoption to the Direct Market, and later digital comics – whose time has come.
Bookninja 