Hot off the heels of the success of books like “Sullivan’s Sluggers” on Kickstarter, Dave Sim’s seminal work “Cerebus” is now being put on Kickstarter as well to help bring the 300-issue long epic graphic novel to a new and digital audience.
Oh, and it’s already fully funded. It was fully funded in less than 9 hours. (I saw this right before turning in last night with the plans to write about it in the morning. Funny how things change while you sleep!)
As John Scrudder writes,
The primary objective of this Kickstarter project is to introduce Cerebus to a new generation of comic book fans by turning the World’s Longest Graphic Novel into the World’s Longest Audio Book with (fingers crossed) the creation of digital versions of every page of each issue of Cerebus. Every digital issue will include front covers, editorials, essays, letters and back covers and be made available as a $0.99 digital download (If this project succeeds!)
With an initial goal of $6,000, the plan was simply to make “Cerebus” digital in a variety of formats for a new generation. The outpour of support on the project is fairly staggering, though, and while it’s not surprising (“Cerebus” is a critically acclaimed and celebrated series, after all) I can only guess how flattering it must be for Sim and Scrudder. It only speaks volumes to both the power of Kickstarter and the passion of fans. As long as fans start coming to the book in droves to the same extent that they do seminal books like “Sandman,” mission accomplished.
Plus, who doesn’t want a print of Cerebus as Spawn?
One can only imagine how high that number ($11,307 off of the $6,000 goal as of the time of this writing) will get.
UPDATE: The original article was posted at 9:09 AM EST. This update is being made at 12:01 PM EST. In those three hours, the Kickstarter has now doubled its goal and currently has $13,750 pledged with 31 days to go.
With that update, the Kickstarter has now changed a bit. From an update e-mailed to pledgers by Scrudder, he announced that every dollar beyond the initial $6,000 goal will be used towards mastering the “Cerebus” audiobook as well as adding special sounds and effects. Not only that, but Sim and Scrudder have announced that if they reach $200,000, they will do digital/audio versions of every single one of the 300 issues of “Cerebus” out there. Scrudder notes that this will take “years,” but for a book as important as “Cerebus,” it’s going to be worth the wait.
Oh, and if you’ve backed the project, Sims has promised that he is working on something special to thank everyone.
So. Have you pledged yet?
