Kickstart the Week 73: The cat comes back! New Champions rise!

It's been awhile since we last checked in on Kickstarter. So it's time to check in on two current projects worth a look on the site!


Mike Grell has been producing great comics for four decades now. From Legion of Super-Heroes to Warlord to Jon Sable to Green Arrow and beyond, he's given the world tons of great comics (and even one really great novel.) Yet he left one series unfinished when comics plummeted into the abyss in the middle of the nineties. While meant to be an ongoing series, the empty market caused Maggie the Cat's cancellation after issue two in the middle of the first arc.Fast forward more than twenty years and Mike has moved to Kickstarter to finally bring Maggie the Cat.


Maggie's origins lay in the Jon Sable series and her own book followed events in that series and Shaman's Tears. The new book on Kickstarter will feature remastered versions of the two already published issues with extra remastered pages to streamline the story for new readers. It will be followed by a new issue sometime down the line where the arc finally comes to its finish!

Fans of great old school adventure should definitely check out Maggie the Cat on Kickstarter.

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I'm always excited to see new superhero prose make its way onto Kickstarter. Blake Michael Nelson has been slowly building his own superhero universe over the last few years. The Signalverse takes its name from its main setting: Signal City. Nelson is now on Kickstarter looking to fund his sixth novel, Champions Weekly.

The new book revolves around a reporter for a news magazine of the same name. She's set out to uncover what happened to a hero that disappeared over a year ago, but she quickly falls into more trouble than she ever expected!

Nelson has even made the first chapter of the novel available for free. Go check that out and get a feel for his solid prose. After that, be sure to go support Champions Weekly on Kickstarter.

Kickstart the Week 72: Flying the 1959 Hellride to Section Zero!

This time around I wanted to shine the light on a couple of Kickstarters that have both fully funded but that are excellent comic projects by some truly cool talents.


Jim Lawson has been a favorite artist of mine since the 90s when I first discovered him as a regular artist (and later writer/artist) on Mirage's original version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He's got a unique but shockingly deep art style that I will always enjoy whether it's in black and white or color. He's produced a couple different books on Kickstarter, but right now he's got two new projects I'm excited about in one great Kickstarter.

The first is the complete edition of Dragonfly, the first part of which he funded on Kickstarter several years ago. It's the tale of a turtle like being, a woman, a dog and some aliens on a strange island where everything is pretty much not quite right. The first volume was fun and now this edition will finally bring the story to completion.

Hellride is the second title, and while Lawson is a bit more vague on the subject matter, it sure looks like the description is in the title. Our protagonist in on his motorcycle for a ride straight through Hell!

Both books look superb and you can help fund one or both at the same Kickstarter.


The second project of the day is the long awaited second volume of Karl Kesel and Tom Grummett's Section Zero. After funding the completed version of the original six issues as a book, they've got the new book on the market both as a Kickstarter exclusive and as an upcoming series at Image. (I'm enough of a fan that I'm supporting both.) Now they're going back in time with the series to explore the early days of Section Zero in Section Zero: 1959.

If you're wondering what it's about, think Challengers of the Unknown meet Area 51. I'm not trying to spoil anything else for me with this book though, so anymore details you will have to find at Kickstarter.

Kesel and Grummett are two of the finest comic creators still going. They've both been at it since the 80s and together are probably best known for creating the Kon-El Superboy. They had two amazing runs with the character in his original series and Section Zero is the continuance of one of the best creative pairs in comics. Head over to Kickstarter to support it!

Kickstart the Week 71: the Thrilling Adventures of Zorro and zombies!

It's been a couple months since the last Kickstart the Week feature on this blog. It's been a long-standing mainstay that I like to focus attention on great new works over at that site. So I'm bringing it back as a part of a rotating set of features on Monday designed to bring attention to super powered fiction of all varieties. With this change, we're also be focusing on multiple Kickstarters, all of which I think are worth a look.


Robert Greenberger is a name recognizable to long-time comics fans for his work as an editor for many years at DC Comics. He parlayed that success into a run as a Star Trek prose author and has since teamed with several alums of both comics and Trek to form Crazy 8 Press. Now he's producing a new anthology from that press that should make fans of superheroes and pulp adventure excited! It's called Thrilling Adventure Yarns.

The project looks to tell stories in the tradition of the pulps, although it seems to have its major focus on the heroic side of things. It features several names that should be familiar to comic and pulp fans like Paul Kupperberg, Michael Jan Friedman, Robert T. Jeschonek and Jim Beard. It apparently even will feature an unearthed tale from the legendary Shadow creator Lester Dent never published before this book. That's an impressive line-up and is only about half the contents!

Give it a look and get ready for some great adventure yarns in the future.

Speaking of pulp heroes with a superhero flair, the folks at Gallant Knight have set out to finally create the first full-fledged role playing game based around the hundred year old hero Zorro!

2019 is the character's anniversary, so it's great to see old Los Angeles being brought to life in all its glory using the classic West End D6 system well known to a lot of gamers.

The company has been sharing bits and pieces of the rules online for the last few weeks, so be sure to check out the Kickstarter for more details!


William Tucci most famously created Shi, one of my favorite all time characters. Now he's making a big comic comeback. First, he has a new series with Axe Cop creator Ethan Nicolle called Appalachian Apocalypse. Now he's mounting the finished version of a story he started a decade ago, about a samurai fighting the undead: Zombie-Sama!

I'm all for Tucci branching out to producer more great work. I'm equally excited to see the talented John Broglia continue to produce stupendous art for the series. But I'm probably most excited that the project offers an ashcan of the upcoming return of Shi, a character I've waited for decades to see more stories about.

Head over to the Kickstarter and check out all the fun of Zombie-Sama and throw some support to a talented creative team!

Cullen Bunn takes you down... a Passage in Black! (Kickstart the Week)

If there's one thing modern comics misses more than anything, it's successful anthology books. The format built modern comics as we know them, but they rarely appear on the market anymore. When they do, they're lucky to last a year.

Cullen Bunn has written dozens of great comics over the years, both mainstream at Marvel and DC (Deadpool, Sinestro, etc.) and creator owned and often creepy (The Sixth Gun, Helheim.) He also loves classic horror comic anthologies from Tales of the Crypt to DC's House of Mystery and beyond. Those books often defined the supernatural in comics and modern comics owe a lot to them. Bunn wished to revive the format, through Kickstarter of course.

A Passage in Black will be a 120 page graphic novel that adapts short horror tales Bunn wrote for a prose anthology of the same name. Adapted by a variety of comic creators, the first book is chock full of up and coming names in comics. Of a more interesting note to folks like me that want to see anthologies continue and excel, Bunn wants to make the series an annual tradition going forward!


If you like your comics quick and creepy (and this time of year, who doesn't) give the book a look at its Kickstarter page. And remember to help  more great stories and comics find new readers by sharing and supporting!

Dodge the Werebear! (Kickstart the Week)

Sure sounds like a really weird mobile game from that title, but this edition of Kickstart the Week is actually about a new comic from writer Matt Nixon and artist Mike Rooth. Dodge! serves as a prequel to Nixon's recent Retcon series over at Image. Set in the height of the Cold War and military action films, this tells the tale of one of Retcon's cast, Chris Dodge. While Chris could easily be played by Arnold at his mid-80s height, he also just happens to be a werebear. Dodge! tells the tale of how exactly he became the giant furry ass-kicker from the first tale!

I've read a few of Matt Nixon's comics, dating back to his random issues of Conan and Wolverine in Marvel around the turn of the century. Rooth is a recent cover artist find for several publishers, now doing his first interior work on this title. From the page previews at the Kickstarter, he looks to be a real find.

Check out the video below, then head over to the Kickstarter page to help make Dodge! a reality!

An impossibly awesome Kickstarter! (Kickstart the Week 68)

I have never tried to pretend I'm anything but a huge fan of the writing of Karl Kesel. Ever since his days of co-writing Hawk & Dove, I've followed his career from DC to Image to Marvel and on and on. His two runs on Superboy probably will always rank as favorites of mine, but I'm so glad to see he's back making comics. I recently received my Section Zero reward from him. Just as he wraps that project, he's already got a new one ready and waiting to release.

Alongside the equally talented David Hahn, he's created a new superhero character, Impossible Jones. Ms. Jones was a career criminal until the accident that gave her stretchy powers. Mistaken for a hero afterwards, she decided to run with it and a new hero was born! Of course, she's still going to plan any heist she can make happen, just with the police never suspecting their friendly neighborhood hero!

Hahn and Kesel have dubbed their work grin and gritty, an apt description for the beautiful art and the humorous tone of the preview pages. Head over to Kickstarter to help make this project a reality!

Poe and the Mysteriads take flight! (Kickstart the Week 68)

I've grown jaded with a lot of Kickstarter projects of late, as rarely do I see many comics that really look to do something a bit different. Telling a tale of a Robin-esque sidekick trying to solve her mentor's murder and have it be an all-ages book: now that is an impressive feat.

Yet that is exactly the premise of Poe & the Mysteriads. I'm not familiar with the work of Jim McClain and Paul E. Schultz before this Kickstarter, but they're bringing what looks like a great take on the classic Batman: The Animated Series style. Every preview page just ends up looking fantastic.

I'm always up for superhero mysteries, but when you make one an all ages book, I'm even more excited. Here's hoping you will be too.

Head over to Kickstarter to learn more about Poe & The Mysteriads.

Uncovering the S Factor! (Kickstart the Week 67)

I've been following The S Factor on Twitter for awhile, as the series shared a ton of promotional art to introduce all the characters for the series ahead of time. The premise is simple but cool: a Bachelor style program with a young hero seeking love.


It's the art by Chris Panda that drives the series, but writer / creator Samuel George London certainly developed an interesting (and international) group of heroines to take their chances with the young hero called The Symbol, a former sidekick looking to grow out of his former protege's shadow. If this wasn't already enough lairs for a great story, there's darker undertones of what's really going on in the background.

The S Factor has a pair of reasonably priced tiers for both digital and print formats. So go over there, look at more of Panda's gorgeous art and help make this one a reality.

Preview art of the introduction for all the female heroes featured in the title.

Ember Rewarded (Kickstart the Week 1A)

I've made dozens of posts about various Kickstarters over the year. But I feel it's time to look at some of the wild and weird projects I recommended over the years. That's what the Rewarded posts will be all about. (They will always be marked with an A after the original post number. )So let's head way back to the first title I featured on this iteration of Super Powered Fiction over three and a half years ago!

The Ember 0 Art Nouveau cover is the best to show off her *ahem* costume.
Character published by Boundless Comics. 

I expected adult themes and luscious art when I first introduced Ember on this site many moons ago. I never expected Boundless Comics to take things in a much more adult direction with their titles though. Don't get me wrong, as I expected some nudity. Christian Zanier has made a career on naked bodies ever since his runs on Buffy and Rising Stars ended many moons ago. So his creation of a new superhero seemed ripe for his kind of good girl art. And come on, that costume was a dead giveaway.

So Ember turned out to be a whole lot of crazy. And that crazy was just intensified by the "Beautified" edition released two years after the original Ember 0. This was meant to lead in to the characters return, as she teamed up with the Lookers, a pair of ultra-hot bounty hunters. The new edition took the adult content from the original edition and ramped it up to be closer to the standard fare of the Boundless line.

The book opens with a bit of back story, as our heroine wants to become a model. Her plane is destroyed mid-flight but she survives thanks to the emergence of her flame powers. We flash forward to a battle between the costumed hero, now an idol of millions, and a gigantic woman bent on killing her. Both have taken beatings from the other which means a broken costume on Ember's part and a burnt to nothing costume on the giantess part. This book is nothing if not gratuitous.

The book continues its time jumps by going back to earlier in the same day as the attack and getting even more gratuitous, with a two page spread of  Ember showing herself some love. She sets off the sprinklers when she gets a little too hot. We learn that this is part of her new found fame, that she's become a modern celebutante with millions of followers and a need to show some skin. She's filming herself in the build to her plans for a sex tape, but the conversation quickly turns to worries about normal life. She costumes up and her friend Beth and her head to a premiere.

Unfortunately, they're immediately attacked on arrival by a more clothed version of the giant from our opening. The villainess reveals she was on the same destroyed flight that gave Ember her powers, only she sees hers as a curse and not a gift. Ember tries to talk her into rehabilitation, but the villain continues the fight, only to be crushed under the weight of a building destroyed in their battle.

These first two panels of their fight are literally the only ones I can feature that don't go into R rated or higher territory.

Only she's too powerful for that. She breaks free and attacks the shocked Ember. The two beat on each other, with Ember turning the ground molten and the giantess attacking with all her strength. All hope seems lost for our hero when an attack helicopter appears to gun down her foe and save the day.

In the end, the girl is forced to stand down, but is still not beaten. As both women are flown away from the destruction, the attacker breaks down and admits she shouldn't have let her rage consume her.

The 0 issue ends with a promise to continue in Lookers: Ember, a follow up crossover limited series.

It's a pretty simple introductory piece, mostly designed to let you know what you've got to look forward to in later adventures. Unfortunately, I've yet to read the follow up series, so for now it's just a simple one and done with lots of good girl and bad girl art taking to an extreme. But if nothing else Ember stands as a fun character to show off the problems of fire powers with real world clothes. And for that, I can at least rank it as a lot of fun.

The book is now available from Boundless / Avatar in print or digital at Comic Cavalcade.

Jon Sable! Madman! Dragon! Nexus! A new line of Amazing Heroes! (Kickstart the Week 66)

It's been awhile since I focused on a Kickstarter over in these parts. I've cooled a bit on the platform as I've forced myself into a bit more financial frugality over the last year or so. But when I see something that's just really cool, I still want to share it with you.

I supported the previous incarnation of Amazing Heroes, where they produced several figures in the style of the old school Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars. They were fun figures, but they were limited with few joints and with a majority of the figures being classic public domain characters.

A swath of characters are available for the new line.

This time around, they're taking the opposite route. Proper 1/18 scale (a la G.I. Joe and classic Star Wars) figures featuring a variety of licensed properties with names like Savage Dragon, Madman, Jon Sable, Nexus, E-Man and Stray in the initial wave. If the Kickstarter proves wildly successful, they have several additional figures planned as stretch goals including the Red Hook, Jack Staff, Flaming Carrot and the Destroyer himself, Remo Williams. It's an impressive array of figures.

Unfortunately, it's currently in danger of missing its funding goal. This is a superb line of toys featuring a ton of indie favorites, so if you've ever loved superhero toys, now is the time to show some support with a few shekels. Check out the Kickstarter for full details on how to back.

Disruption is the key! (Kickstart the Week 65)

I usually try to keep the Kickstart the Week feature at least tangentially related to superheroes in some way, but this time I'm moving off into a more meta-aspect of things. For years, Glenn Fleischman presented a hugely influential podcast to yours truly called the New Disruptors. On it, he interviewed people that somehow disrupted the "natural order" of whatever field they were in. He covered everything from tech to music to comics to video games to pretty much every field you can imagine. It's the only show I can think of that featured everyone from Roman Mars to Greg Pak to Sir Mix-a-Lot. Anthony Conte talked about Patreon on the show when it was still just a fledgling few people ever heard of before. It was widely listened to and ultimately influential to a number of great creators over the years, myself included.


Now Glenn is funding a new season of the show on Kickstarter. And with just days to go, it still needs a lot of help. So go out and listen to the archives and realize what you've missed. Or just trust me that you're supporting a truly great piece of podcasting history. Whatever the case, go back the return of The New Disruptors already!

The Phantom Hawk Rises (Kickstart the Week 64)

It's been a great Memorial Day weekend, but it's Tuesday now, and late or not, it's time to Kickstart the Week.

I have to admit there's something about a caped, low-powered vigilante that just seems awesome. From The Shadow to Batman to Night Man to Moon Knight, they all tend to work very well in the comic form. Now upstart publisher Apogee Comics is out to debut their own such character and he looks to offer some new ideas to the archetype.

Phantom Hawk focuses on Max Malone, a man accused of treason and injected with experimental nanites. He fights to clear his name while also scouring his home city for evil. The book features stunning artwork by Dino Agor, a name I've never seen up until this point, but I suspect will start to gain some recognition after this is complete.


The book has some really great pledge levels, but what drew my interest was an excellent $5 digital level. In addition to the first issue of Phantom Hawk it also includes two previous Apogee Comics Universe titles, Crimson Guardians #1 and Bengali #1. That's a truly great way to drum up interest in a new super-universe and it certainly got me on board.

The campaign has just under two weeks left as I write this and has just barely passed its goal. Support is always important to projects like this, so be sure to go take a look and throw it a few dollars.

A game of Cat & Mouse (Kickstart the Week 63)

Art by Dean Zachary. 

It's been a very long time since I last posted a Kickstart the Week on this column. It's been a year since I last ran a Kickstarter and almost as long since I last backed one as I have worked hard to pull myself out of the hole I buried myself in in 2017. But that has changed as of now, with the first comic I couldn't resist backing upon its return.

Flashback to the early 90s. As a twelve or thirteen year old, I first learned about the wild world of indie comics and I really wanted in. Unfortunately, I couldn't get to a comic shop regularly in those days. Fortunately, I was able to find the early issues of Malibu's Protectors as the publisher made in-roads into newstand publishing. I quickly became a fan of a bunch of stuff from that line, but didn't learn of the precursors to it until years later.

One of those precursors was a series called Cat & Mouse, which was something of a crime and martial arts comic mixed with superhero tropes. It wasn't quite as all out superheroic as Protectors would be, but it certainly had similar traits. And the editor of Protectors happened to be the writer of Cat & Mouse.

Roland Mann proved to be a great writer in the early 90s, even if the death of Malibu cost him most of his avenues for comic writing work. Thankfully, the power of Kickstarter has changed that for him as he's launched a new version of Cat & Mouse right now on the site.


As a bonus to yours truly, one of my favorite artists of that Malibu era is back working in comics to draw Cat & Mouse. Dean Zachary has worked on books from The Ferret to Stargods to Hawk & Dove, but hasn't done a lot in the last few years. It's great to see his line work back as the artist to the new edition of Cat & Mouse.

Go check out the new series over at Kickstarter now. 

Dead rock star for the ages! (Kickstart the Week 62)

Great all ages books have flourished on the independents while "mainstream" comic publishing has fallen into a need to serve an ever shrinking, ever aging fanbase. That means for the first time in the history of comics, a lot of all ages books are coming from small presses.


Nicky Soh is an up and coming creator with one such comic. Rock Mary Rock is one such comic. Mary awakens the spirit of a dead rock star and in order to help him move on, she must live out his dream of becoming a mega star! It's a fun premise with beautiful art by Nicky.

It's always great to see sole creators really bringing their all to a great book and Rock Mary Rock looks like one of those works. Take a look at it on Kickstarter and help make it a reality.

Detectives, dark magic and quarterly fiction (Kickstart the Week 61)

After a nasty stomach bug, I'm getting off to my week a bit late, but I feel this project is worth a mention even if it is already Tuesday.

The occult and detective fiction have been linked pretty much since the origins of detectives in fiction. (Thanks, Edgar Allan Poe!) But it isn't as often that the concept of the occult detective gets played up in fiction the way it once was. Sure, Harry Dresden and Anita Blake technically fit the bill, but they never come with the sense of impending dread one usually thinks about when the two come together.

Occult Detective Quarterly Presents is a new outlet for the detectives of the supernatural. With several creators already lined up for the first issue, the book looks to clock in at a pretty decent page count as well. Plus, it will carry full illustrations for each story, always a fun way to raise the sense of foreboding horror!

Check it out on Kickstarter and help make this new series a reality!

Martial art comics done right! (Kickstart the Week 60)

Mike Baron has written some amazing comics over the decades from Nexus to Badger to the first days of the Wally West Flash to odder fair like his mid-90s Hawk & Dove reboot and his epic (yes, really) run on Mr. T and the T-Force. But he's always been an avid martial artist, a fact well known to Badger readers or those that read his little read Kato and Bruce Lee limited series. Now Baron is teaming with artist Barry McClain to introduce a new generation of martial arts hero and his name is Q-Ball.


The story revolves around a guy named Curtis Ball, an expert martial artist that happens to really like fighting with a stick. He's on the run and has to kick a whole lot of ass in the process, all expertly delineated by another martial artist in the form of penciller/inker Barry McClain.

This one looks like a wild ride but still needs some extra push to get it over the hump. Check it out on Kickstarter and lend your support!

Gandhi was like that! (Kickstart the Week 59)

What if Gandhi's peaceful facade was just his way of avoiding unleashing the monstrous rage beast inside him?

Welcome to the world of Gandhi: The Beast Within. The new graphic novel by Jason Michalski and Antonio Rojo looks to miss hilarity with hijinx as Gandhi goes head to head with none other than Hitler himself.

This looks like a great one for fans of Atomic Robo or just general fans of pure awesome. With six days left, it's just over 50% funded, so head on over to Kickstarter and give it your support.

Kickstart the Week: 7 days left for Dino Force!

We have just seven days left now to make Dino Force a reality through Kickstarter. I've added two new reward levels in the last day: one that allows everyone to get five books, either for themselves or as gifts for others. I've also added a level where your name can be added to one of the Dino Force stories. You will be a bit player in the adventure!

Head over to the Kickstarter before time runs out! 

A few words on the origins of Dino Force

Dino Force started as a concept among dozens of others I came up with as a teenager. I can trace that earliest incarnations' origins to my frustration with the kind of kids shows currently running on television right around my fifteenth birthday. I looked at shows like Power Rangers and Captain Planet, or even older fare at that time like Voltron and the Mighty Orbots with frustration. Here were great concepts at their heart that were filtered by awful children's television standards into claptrap that at best was mindless and at worst talked to its young viewers like morons. It always annoyed me as a child and it annoyed me even more as a teen. So I created a team of five young heroes with the idea they would fill the holes I saw in all those concepts.

I created a reason for their powers, a brief back history and even the saurid threat the initial team would face. But I never set out to really plot their adventures.

Fast forward twenty years. While going through old files and putting together some of the background material for Quadrant, I stumbled upon the old micro-plots I made for the "issues" of Dino Force I wanted to create. I dusted them off, and thought back to all the Godzilla, Ultraman and Super Sentai stuff I'd seen since, even later Power Rangers shows I enjoyed like Dino Thunder and In Space. I realized in those plot points, I had something that might be interesting to develop as a shared world anthology.

Super Kaiju Battle Squadron Dino Force was born. I recruited five other writers to help bring the concept of an international contingent of young heroes coming together to save the world. Two later dropped away from the project and I moved my prologues and epilogues into forming the tale of the team's leader rather than a sixth member. I then took up Dino Green's story in Brazil as well, setting up a full contingent of warriors by the book's end. Along with T. Mike McCurley, Don Gates and Travis Hiltz, we created a novel length anthology introducing our characters to the world.

That anthology is now funding on Kickstarter.

This is one of those weird ideas that came from a place of love and I hope you'll join me in helping making it a reality.

Kickstart the Week 57: The Box City Wallops are back!

Jim Lawson has been a favorite creator of mine since I first discovered the original Mirage Studios version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that he drew off and on for about two decades. He's a consummate professional and a great artist with his own unique style.

So I'm always glad when he has something new. Case in point: the third and fourth issues of The Box City Wallops.


I talked about the first two issues in a previous post and since receiving them have to say they are some fun, truly unique, superhero comics. New people wanting to back the project shouldn't worry however. The previous two issues are also available through the Kickstarter.

So if you love fun heroic adventures, strange characters or classic Ninja Turtles, it is hard to go wrong with this book. Check it out at Kickstarter and consider backing it!