Today, site columnist and my friend/frequent collaborator (read: we make bad jokes together) Colin Bell reminded me of the John Cambell Kickstarter debacle from a couple months ago. Seeing as this had been a major news story, something pretty much everyone had covered and had something to say on (including us/me, as I wrote a pretty big piece on it), it seemed strange that no one followed up on the story.
And he’s right — especially because there’s been an update: if you’re a backer, you can get your books.
Posted on April 28th, an update was delivered to backer’s only entitled “If you’d like a book you can have one.” As this was backer’s only, you’d think that it would be difficult to find out what it said; since this is the internet, it is less difficult than you might think:
Hello everyone,
I would like to ship books to the people who want one. If you are interested in this, please pay for shipping here, and I will ship your book this week. I will close payments the night of Friday, May 2, and any backers’ payments received after I go to the post office Friday will have their books shipped Monday.
I’m not sure what to say about where I am in my life or what I’ve done to get here, but shipping these books seems like a step in the right direction to me.
I don’t have prints to ship with the books that were meant to come with prints, but I have original art and pages from my sketchbooks and notebooks that I will be shipping along with them.
I know some people will let me know that they have already given me money, and why should they give me more? I do not have a great answer to this question. If you’d like a book you can have one.
I have a private archive of my work available that I will share with anyone who pays for their shipping. Just let me know you would like this in a message with your payment or in a separate email or message, and I will send you the information.
If you are a backer and would like access to my archives or would like to know about new work I make, please send a message to this email address:
If I owe you anything else, please contact me if you would like to work something out.
Thank you.
I should note that the veracity of this write-up is a bit difficult to verify. I’ve done quite a few searches and come up empty-handed for the most part, and this seems to be the only account of the update (with Campbell’s contact information removed).
However, one line — “I’m not sure what to say about where I am in my life or what I’ve done to get here, but shipping these books seems like a step in the right direction to me.” — seems particularly important here, as it confirms one of the things I had originally written about, which was related to concern over John’s mental health.
Hopefully he is getting better — although he’s still nigh impossible to reach out to.
So if you’re a backer of the Kickstarter and looking to get a copy of the book, you should be able to by accessing the backer’s only Kickstarter update.
If you’re like us, did not back it, had no stake in this but still found it fascinating enough to report on, then at least this current update shows some culpability and accountability, and that nothing particularly bad happened to Campbell in between when he lashed out in the Kickstarter blog and claimed that he was going away.
I don’t imagine this story is necessarily over, but at least this is a somewhat happier semi-ending.
