Joseph Duis, the writer/creator of the Bless the Children Kickstarter, faces the Seven Deadly Kickstarter Questions.
WS:: What is your Goal and Why That Goal amount?
My goal is $600. The amount is pretty much bare minimum to get the project done, and won’t even cover shipping, printing, and Kickstarter fees.
WS:: Why is this project important to you?
The project is important to me because I wanted to do something very different from everything else out there. And it touches on the dangers of religious extremism, an issue I think we should all be concerned about.
WS:: Why go through Kickstarter?
We went through Kickstarter for our last comic book, THE ORDER OF DRACULA, in March, and it got a lot of attention, and the project funded. I thought it was the best way to pay for the book.
WS:: What makes your Kickstarter Stand Out?
This thing is really different. There are no dialogue bubbles, panels are numbered, and it’s done in the art style of an early 19th century social satire comic book. It’s extremely minimalist, with only three characters who have dialogue. It’s a horror comic but there’s not a lot of violence or gore; almost the entire story is spending building tension without increasing body count (indeed, with so few characters we can’t afford to kill them off). It’s only 15 pages. It’s magazine-sized and landscape orientation. It’s a Western but it doesn’t have most of the characteristics of the genre. It also takes place decades prior to most Westerns. The artist, Greg Woronchak, has a style that’s adaptable to anything and he’s put a ton of original touches to it.
WS:: Will this be an ongoing series?
No. I got really intrigued with Niyol, the most minor character in the story, though, so I’m thinking about doing another story somewhere along the line exploring his background. But it won’t really be related.
WS: How are important are you Stretch Goals?
I don’t really like stretch goals that just add endless merchandise because I have no use for it, so my stretch goals are the eventual building up to a whole new comic, Cat & Mouse, another one-shot horror story that focuses on Japanese game shows. The stretch goals are important to backers because they could result in backers receiving two comics instead of one. And they’re important to me because I can get Cat & Mouse done much more quickly than I would otherwise.
WS: If you saw this project, pretending it wasn’t your what would do you think of it and how you would react to it and Why?
Well, I pretty much wrote this story to appeal to someone identical to me, so I would love it. It takes place in the past (northern California, January 1847), is a horror story, and is minimalist. And best of all, at only $2 for a PDF, it’s cheap.
WS Bonus Questions: Give em the Pitch Creator
What would you do to survive? When the sole survivor of a failed westward expedition wanders into a small town, he begins seeing completely silent children of whom no one else is aware. Is he losing his mind? Who are they? What do they want? Bless the Children is a 15-page horror Western one-shot comic book funding on Kickstarter through September 1st. Click the link to pledge.
