[music] I atop the Rock of Infinity comes the comic book showdown of alternate destiny! Every week, three Kickstarter are chosen by the spin of fate. Your dedicated stewards of Destiny are Mr. Matt Kumbel and Smurf! Now prepare yourself for there can be only one victor! The comic book showdown of alternate destiny! [music] Making comics is hard. Getting people to buy your comic is even harder. On today's show, we're going to discuss something that creators need to do before launching their campaign, but a lot of people are neglecting and... Today, Destiny will choose three indie comic campaigns for us to look at and review. By the end of the show, we will choose one who will give our money to. And based on that pitch, we will let you know what catches our eye and what doesn't. And see if you agree, so stay to the end, but for now, let's spin that wheel! There can be only one! [laughter] Ah, good morning, everyone. Good morning, Ruth. Good morning. How are you? I think we need some more coffee, John. I think we need so many, so many coffee, so many coffees. [laughter] Welcome, welcome one at all. Welcome to the show. Sit down, buckle in, because we guarantee this will be the ride of your life. Too radio-ish? We can almost guarantee some sort of technical difficulty will happen. Well, you know, let's not put that horse before the cart, shall we? [laughter] Just the same, Brian, so simple. So, just so people are aware, and I just love showing this off, because I can just see that little eyebrow in Mr. Matt Campbell's eye twitch. Yes, Liz, this is... This is the Virgin Destro cover, the San Diego Comic Con exclusive. That was at the Skybound booth. [sings] Going right, right, right over into that box over there. It's my birthday present. [laughter] Yes! That is exactly it. Exactly. Yes. So, so, yes. Yes, I have a ton of questions. Maybe we could do a separate show just where we talk about your adventures at San Diego Comic Con, because that would take up a whole show. I mean, my adventures in general could take up a whole show. I mean, this week, the end of this week, actually, we are going to be at RMC's Toy Show, Christmas in August, at the Embassy Suites, so that'll be fun, and excited to pop knob with some toy collectors and sling some toys. Right, I mean, that's it. I mean, thank God I have like a quiet... It's okay. That's a quiet weekend. [laughter] Well, I definitely... I'm looking forward to hearing all about the stuff from San Diego Comic Con, from your point of view. I mean, I've seen a bunch of stuff online. There's some interesting things. Have you put that on your show yet? No, actually, this coming week, I will be talking about the scandals that have rocked the various Comic Con's. This San Diego had quite the scandal that broke out. Actually, this year has been very interesting for scandals on a lot of cons, but San Diego by far has had one of the wildest and most unusual scandals. When do you plan on recording that? That will be up Tuesday. No, no, not when you're posting it, when you're recording it, or did you already? Oh, it's mostly recording. I haven't finished some final thoughts. I'm watching... I wanted to watch Umbrella Academy, which premiered on Netflix last night, so I wanted to get that watched, and then no spoilers, of course, but I wanted to get that in the show. Gotcha. The San Diego thing is not going anywhere, and maybe it'll actually give me some more information as time. See, time is the greatest weapon anouncer can have, because the story kind of finishes telling itself, so that's always helpful, and there's so much that goes with that story. Oh, my God, there's so much that goes with that story. Be sure and tag me in it for those of you that - oops, what is that? That was weird. Be sure and tag me in it when you do launch that, because I want to hear all about it. But, and if you guys don't know, the show is on 5280Geek, it's available on podcasts everywhere. I am Visa everywhere you want to be, and also, help us get to 1000 subscribers, so I can start paying some of these guys that are helping out, making this show, and maybe even get Smurf some reliable internet, but we can't do that till we get to 1000 subscribers, so, God love you, man, God love you. Also, congratulations to last week's winner, LCS, by John Westoff, who hit his goal, congratulations on that as well. Today, I did pick it, just because my internet went - I still, I had it, I had it picked. We knew that you picked it, because we saw you writing it before it ended, so we knew. So on to the show, this is our 17th episode, bringing you the best indie comics on the market, and showing the secrets of having a successful crowdfunding campaign. I also have a big announcement this week, I am launching my campaign, I'm going to actually share that screen real fast. Do, do, do, do, wait, oh, somehow - So are you nervous? I mean, I know this is kind of like, old hat for you, you know, doing another, doing another, you know, campaign, but are you nervous, do you get nervous still at this? I mean, it's like - I'll tell you what, the thing that I'm nervous about, I don't really get nervous about whether or not I'm on hit goal. I've never not hit goal. My nervousness now comes from all the people that have been watching this show, looking to my campaign to see if I've done everything that I've been talking about. I mean, the proof is in the pudding, wag in the finger, I know, oh God. And I got to tell you, I definitely, you know, stalled a little bit on my campaign, triple checking some of that stuff, because I was like, oh, I didn't want to, like, leave the thing out that I said everybody should be doing that kind of stuff. So the number one thing, what do people need going into a campaign to start the campaign? Oh, you, you want to jump into that right now, right? Well, I figured that was a perfect segue, I thought you were just teeing it up for me. You sure? I love it. I love it. So here's the thing, the number one thing that people need to do on these campaigns for not just comics, but anyone, I had someone reach out to me, a friend of a friend said, Hey, talk to Matt Campbell about your campaign, he sent me his campaign. It was actually for a tabletop game. All right. But the rules still apply and I was like, look, did you want to raise $8,000 and you have no following? Good luck. Yeah. That is the thing that you have to be doing before you make a campaign. For those of you old enough to have remembered the show field of dreams or the movie, this is not field of dreams, right? You have to have a following have gotten people interested in what it is that you're making, whether it's a comic or a board game or whatever, and they're starting to get interest and they know that you're reliable and that you're going to follow through and you bring those people over to the Kickstarter. You might get some people who come across your campaign on the platform, whether it's Kickstarter and you go go, but not enough to just support your entire campaign. No. I mean, you need to get out there, you need to press the flash, you've got to get in front of people and raise social awareness, if not community awareness. And if it's something that catches the eye, it will spread. They will do a lot of the work for you and like, Hey, you need to help my buddy or, Hey, would you see this? And trust me, it helps that way you're not just screaming in the dark. Yeah, I mean, can you have a successful campaign without bringing a following in? Of course you can, but the chances are much, much, much lower. You have to have all your ducks in a row, a stellar video, a presentation, everything, right? My mind, yeah, yeah, smart doing a pitch, right? But in my mind, the number one thing that's going to help your success is to make sure that you build that following up before you launch. And a lot of people are like, you know, not wanting to spend the time that it takes to go on the social media and start spreading the word, but it's got to be done. In fact, for my upcoming campaign, which is launching next Thursday on August 15th, I'm still deciding on a time to launch. So if any of you guys, you know, have any insights about the best time to launch, but I'm also thinking about like doing a live show to like live launch and talk about that idea countdown. I would say 10 am our time because that's kind of really good, you know, for West coast and East coast are two hours ahead of us. So that's noon. So I'd say 10 am personally. Nice. Oh, look at this. This person says my project was fully fun today after one week of being launched. That's great. Congratulations. I want to see if I can hit go and like, you know, the first 24 hours, that'd be awesome. My goal is 300 backers and what we're doing is is we have rewards for the number of backers. So at the first hundred, oh, I thought you cut it up. At the first hundred backers, we're going to have or excuse me, the first 50 backers have a sticker, which I have right here. This is called the first, the first 50 sticker, just got these in and every the first 50 people that are getting a physical reward will get that then at a hundred backers. We reveal a secret cover, a secret cosplay cover and it is spicy. And so that one will be available then at a hundred backers to add into the add on section. And then at, I think it's like 150 or 200 backers, there's, it opens up t-shirts into the add on section. And so you can order t-shirts in different sizes and we go all the way up to like 2x. So lots of lots of different stuff as bonuses plus we've got stretch goals. So I'm excited looking forward to it finally getting back to the Kickstarter campaign world. Speaking of which, shall we get into this week's indie comics? Shall we? Are we breaking any kind of records with submissions this week? We had what? Twenty last week? It was ridiculous. We had a lot last week. Well, we didn't break the record, but we have a lot. And so let's go down the list. I mean. And we'll, we'll thank Emmy who does such a great job of organizing us because we're boys and we're awkward and we suck at this. Hey, speak for yourself. You're less organized than I am. Yeah, but I don't want people to know that. It's okay. Smurf. Everyone knows you're a wreck. It's okay. But me. I'm trying to, you know, retain some semblance of, of sanity that, you know, people really knew how messed up I was. They wouldn't take any advice for me. That'd be like me. All right. So going down the list here. Why does my share screen keep going away? I don't say I am not running your board. I have my own issues. There we go. Elmars with us. Hi. Hi. All right. Let's go down the list of entries this week. We've got mittens in space or mittens space. Now, are they sure Wolfbane, the eternal number one, Captain Nefkin. Heal victory number one, Wasteland, a dark sci-fi murder mystery, ADACS, Unbound Fury, Zombie Kid, Comic, Yulia the Slayer issue for Dragonfly graphic novel. I like this one. Sex, Spies and Rock and Roll. Oh, I'm so in for that one. And the Embrace 2. So those are our entries for the week. Remember that if you want to be entered on the show, we have a post each week on our Actionland Studios Facebook page where you can enter. Be sure and look at the date of the post because if the date has passed, then that was for the last show. Yep. Try to emphasize that every week and people still make post submissions to old posts. But that's how we keep track of what's what's what, right? And Destiny is going to choose three for us to review today. If you are not one of the chosen three and your campaign is still active next week, then you're welcome to submit again. As many times. Please submit again. Still active. But if we have picked you off of the wheel, unfortunately, Destiny answered. Has spoken. Has spoken. And has left you wanting. I'll just say it too much drama this morning. No. Never. All right. Let's do this. Turn this way. Who's first? We got. Oh, you lucky dog. Six spies and rocker rolls are fun. Good job. And I see the link already popping up, and he is on top of it. Nice. See, this just gives me love on a team. Yeah. I mean, that is just love that. All right. Next one. Is gonna be looks like Captain meth con. I don't know if I'm saying that right. Maybe we'll find out. All right. That leaves the last one chosen by destiny. Who's it gonna be? And there's the next link just popped up. That's gonna be the dragonfly graphic novel. All right. Congratulations to those three books have made it to the wheel of destiny. If you weren't picked, try again next week. So let me open up the first link here. Boom. Okay. I like that. I like that. That is, that is very efficient. It's very, very eclectic. We got some, we got some little lists, little of that. I'm all about everything today. Yeah. I have my internet holds in there. It's great. Yes. Yes. Everybody keep their fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. Instead of that. All right. So let's see what else we can learn today about making comics as we discover some brand new indie comics. Does any comics rock? And guess what guys? It's something else that I have had made. I am gonna start somehow giving these out, but check this out. Go full screen. Okay. Full screen. Ooh. Glittery, indie comic rock stickers, right? I like that. Yeah. So haven't figured out how yet, but we're gonna start giving those out and something else I'm thinking about doing. I know I'm getting off on a lot of tangents today, but that's how it goes. As you guys know, I do have a Patreon actually on studios, patreon slash actually on studios. And I've just opened up a tier that's specifically for supporting this show. And one of the things I want to do is offer those patrons a free indie comic. At least once a month, maybe even every week, which means they could be my indie comics. They could be the winners of this show, indie comics, the comics that we get in from backing. So we're gonna share those out with our Patreon audience so that you're getting to see some of the awesome indie comics that are being made, right? So it doesn't have to be a winner. If you guys want to submit your indie comics to that, you can as well. Well, and okay, if we get Patreon backers, I'll add to your sticker. I will add our 5280 geek decal. Look at that. Look at that. So multiple colors, but the let's not see me bleed red is a very popular color, but we also have the virgin white, which which sells quite well. So I will throw that in there too. So you get the sparkly indie comic and the 5280 geek. All right, now we're getting we're getting lots of stickers going. So yeah, I want to spread the love for any comics because that's where all the good stuff is at. I agreed. Yeah, we're doing all the merch today. Slinging it. I feel like QVC. Yes. Yes. Yeah, you can get two stickers. I almost did that. You have no idea how close I can because I got another sticker there that I could show just as a offering an offering up to the to the nerds nerds above. All right, guys, let's do this. Let's take a look at our very first indie comic of the week. Can I do it? Can I do it? Oh, I wanted to do the title here. You do spies and rock and roll. Yeah. All right. Let's take a look here. I'm going to zoom in on this one just a little bit here we go. It says after a successful start in 2021, the sex spies and rock and roll franchise is back with a soft relaunch and you plan going forward. It's a franchise franchise looks like their goal is $7,777, which is attainable but high for a comic. Is there some secret meaning between all of like the sevens is that like a tribute to 007 like for I don't know the spies. Usually when I see a goal that high, it means that the creator needs to pay his team. Yeah, as I have that advantage for many years where I have been, you know, the artist and so I didn't pay myself. So that was able to keep my goals lower, but some people don't have that luxury. However, it does make it harder to try and raise, you know, that big of a campaign. So it's it's challenging. Yep. I agree. Looks like they have 16 days to go. So that's definitely time to make it happen. So let's see what this video shares with us. Oh, 80 style music I like it, right? That wasn't enough time to read that. No, not really that either. That's beautiful art. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to stop that because I don't think it's going to tell me anymore. I don't I don't think so, either, I mean, the nice, nice, there's a lot of like, tributes that I'm I'm digging on, like the Pulp Fiction, you know, tribute or Easter egg. And then, you know, I definitely got 80s off of it, it doesn't sell it. And I'm not missing the fact that there's not like dialogue or voiceover. This kind of works with this. I would still like to hear something because the pace of which the slides go through, it's it's very it's really quick, especially when there's there's words. And one of the things that we've tried to emphasize is if we need to read out of the gate, it's difficult to understand if I need to read this or this is quickly or how fast it's going to pace through. So having like an opening dialogue at the beginning, I wouldn't think it would be bad, but I'm I just I I'm with you. I mean, the visuals on this are are impressive, even like that storango tribute that they did, that's wowzers. I really like the art. I like the premise, I'm totally in for the 80s, but I again, I don't know anything about it and obviously this has been running for quite a while with is, you know, again, another, another slide that had nothing but text on it with all of the issues and all of that, I'd have to stop to like see what all of those were. So right, I want to like this more, but I need more. So yeah, this is to me, like a case of somebody who says, I want to have really great artists on my team to make this book look really professional. And that explains the high goal and you know, something to consider is like, if you have a high, you know, you're like, I need I need this much money to pay my team. All right. Well, maybe, you know, how much of that can you like maybe pay out of pocket and then knock that down off your goal because it's, you know, it's easier to hit a goal and get more than to have a high goal and try to hit it. Well, and I've known some creatives in the past that do this kind of like a profit sharing type of thing, you get a share or, you know, X amount of shares for dollar amounts. And I mean, and that's backside stuff. And I don't expect that people think of that ahead of time. But if you've got someone that believes in the dream, you know, when you're forming a band, you want the guy that's there to perform and loves the music, not because he's going to be in a rock and roll band. Same thing with some of the artists sometimes where they see a pro project that they love and they know it's going to be hit, but they're not willing to put their faith and their time behind it. And I know that's a slippery slope. Creatives need to be paid. Those are all different arguments that I can go into detail about, but long, long die tribes of that, however, if you have a share or kind of like an open kind of pool, a community pool, this is what we get. This is what it's based on. And they have as much buy in to see it succeed as you do. So that way, you know, everyone's working as a team. Just, just my humble two cents, one of the things, just making sure everything's made it one of the things that I also, and, you know, still curious about is like, what's, what's this about? Like the, the, the musical's nice, the artwork is beautiful, the genre and the vibe. It's all sinking up really nicely. It feels like it all fits well together. And when I scroll down, I see that this creator is Jeff Douglas Messer, an Eisner award nominated writer published an editor of Mike Grille's Master Stroke Studios award winning playwright, so on and so forth. So someone who has some experience writing as well. So the chances that this book is going to be good are pretty high. But again, like, is this, you know, what's this about at this point? At this point, I don't really know, is it following a single person, many people? What's it about? So let's scroll down just a little bit more and see if we can find out. We've got some artwork here, again, first launched in the summer of '21, Kickstarter's became runaway hits and planned many story back up. This is about talking to your, you know, previous audience, or after taking 2023 to get caught up and organized, so on and so forth, he's talking about his story. Yeah, talking about where they've been, how they've got here, and it's all great stuff, but you don't need to. I have no idea what the story is about yet. I got exactly. I mean, and I like it spans over generations because, you know, the throwback to the 70s and all of that, that's great. It spans generations. But again, we don't know anything. I hate to say it, the crutch phrase, don't bury the lead. I want to know about you as much as possible, but you have me here because of the comic, not because of you. I mean, don't take that wrong. Don't take that as an insult because you're a talented author. Obviously, Eisner nominated, do you know what it takes to even get nominated for an Eisner? Jesus Christ. Right. So this is great, but it needs to be further down. If you want in, you're relying on your previous fans, great. How do you get new fans? How do you get that new guy, me, who's coming across the aisle, like, ooh, I mean, I know a lot of comics, but I don't know this one. Yeah. And that's what this show is about. You notice, like, we're not really diving into, hey, this is a, you know, a review of a book or like this is, but now that's another show that I'm thinking about starting doing is reviewing some of these books that are coming in and giving some feedback on them. But this show is about what you're delivering on your campaign. And here you've got an award-winning nominated, you know, writer who's writing some very intriguing stuff. And yet I have no clue what this story is about with all this information being given to me. I still don't really know, like, what's at stake? Who's, what are they trying to achieve? You know, is this a story that is comical, serious? You know, I don't really know much information except for who it is and it's beautiful. And yeah, some people are going to back it from that, but you're going to have a whole much wider audience if you can give them a why. And that's, that's where I'm landing on this one right now. So I just don't know why. Well, and, I mean, 80s spy genre, it's, it's his own little thing. And you're right. Tongue and Cheek, is it serious or I mean, what are the stakes? It's a spy game. Okay. So world domination, you know, the nude bomb. I mean, you, you tell me which, which avenue are we going to go? And I really, I really want to like this a lot because this is, this is my jam right here. But yeah, Ian Fleming would be very disappointed. The artist great. So, like here's the thing, if, if Jeff Messer, if any of you guys know Jeff, be sure and, you know, tag him, have him watch this clip because there is still time. He's still got 16 days or so to make an addendum, put a paragraph at the top of this thing that people can see right away and give us a quick synopsis of who is this involved? Why should I care? What are they trying to, you know, do what's at stake, that kind of stuff? And I think you're going to get more intrigue. I mean, it'll get to that 7,000 because I mean, it's already carrying it a lot already without that. Even the femme fatale. I mean, I want to know more about that chick because it looks great. I mean, atomic blonde immediately came to mind when I was watching that. So I just, I just need a little, just a little blurb, just something, give me all the rest of the stuff, keep it where it's at, but just let me know what I'm in for. And all the other stuff. Great. I'll get there eventually, but I have not read any of that. And I don't want to be, and that's the number one gripe everyone ever in a comic book store has. I don't want to come into the middle of the story. I don't know where to get on. And this is, this is, this is a prime example of that. All right. All right. Next. Next. To summarize beautiful work needs, needs, we need to know the why. All right. On to the next one. This is Captain Nefan. That was, that was my fault. I could stop sharing that time. Uh, yep, there we go. Captain Nefcon. Yes. Hopefully I'm saying that right. I, I don't know how else I would pronounce that either. All right. It's pitched as AVP meets Star Wars with this brand new sci-fi superhero story from Fraser comics. All right. AVP versus Star Wars gives me something to work with. Okay. Uh, I know it's going to be, you know, sci-fi and some, some cool looking characters. Um, Ray says, it reminds me of cherry bum from the Jeremy Robinson books. Okay. I'm not familiar with that. That's a good reference. I got it. All right. There's a thousand dollar goal, which is a nice attainable goal. Uh, they need some more backers. So this, again, could be a case of what I was talking about at the beginning of the show that you have to have built an audience. It's really difficult to rely on just the Kickstarter audience. Now, if you are relying on just, you know, the, the audience that comes from the, the either kickstarter, indiegogo, whatever, then you are going to need all your ducks in a row. You're going to need a stellar video. You're going to need great rewards. You're going to need information that's clear and concise. You're going to have everything else that have to be great if you don't have, you know, a support that you're already bringing. So that being said, let's see what this one is going to deliver us going to the video. Welcome to a project of a brand new sci-fi superhero story from Fraser comments. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Well, since you were able to read some, what did you get that this story was about? Okay, so basically gladiatorial games and another race of kafu-zu. I don't know. And then there was the light cycle that the light cycle design that I saw in there. And one of the panels that flipped by so quickly. So, and then the Tron light discs, you know, obviously the weapons. So, and then there's these elders that are involved in this guy's life who's trying to retire, and they have other plans. It's all so jumbled in there. And yeah. Yeah. You got a lot more from that than I did. [Laughs] Yeah. After the first two, I was like, I'm not trying to do this anymore. Yeah. I was just waiting for the video to end. I mean, it's like running a marathon and that one like wowsers. So, interesting character design. Let me tell you that. There you go. What do you got? So, my positives for this is that I'm not sure if this person is writing and doing the art, but there seems to be a whole lot of world building. We've got different races. We've got all these different things. We've got cool costume designs, nice looking art. A lot of time has been spent into building the world. Whenever I explain a pitch to my students, one of the things that I tell them is that you don't want to rely too heavily on proper nouns when you're delivering a pitch because people don't know what those things mean. I'm throwing out of these strange terms and you don't know what an X-Wing is. The best X-Wing pilot in the entire westerial system. I don't know what a westerial system is. I don't know what an X-Wing is. How can I be attached to that? So, no matter how big you build your world and how deep because this one does feel like he's really expanded it, it comes down to simple things. I got a guy who's trying to get revenge. I got a guy who's trying to save his girl. Whether she's an alien from a different race doesn't matter. Like, imagine guardians of the galaxy being described to us with the names of their races instead of, or even their names, you know, Drax did this and Gamora did this. You're like, "Who the hell?" So, I'm cheering for a guy named Drax the Destroyer and Gamora, the most deadliest woman in the galaxy. What? Wait, what did this poor Thanos guy do? It's about these group of misfits coming together to try and save the galaxy. Well, that we can understand. And that's what you have to think about when it comes to these pitches. Keep it simple, keep it down to its core. What is this really about? And that's going to make it much easier for people to understand. Because, like I said, there's a lot of good-looking work, good-looking world-building. And I feel like there's a lot. Now, something else I'm going to throw in here just because I have an amazing letter named Tim West from Danger Geek. If you guys are looking for a letter, look him up. But he would look at this letter and be like, "Oh, no!" You know? Lettering is the most overlooked part of the team, and it can make your break whether or not, you know, your book looks professional. And what I'm talking about here, guys, if you don't know, is these-- Make this a little bit bigger. Let's see, I'm going to switch this to-- Well, and it's obvious they've taken time, and this is a passion project. You can see the crafting and the energy that they have put into this project. I mean, the shading, the coloring, it's all really good. The character design is gorgeous, but you're right. The unsung hero is the letter's guy. Yeah, the letters can hold things together. So just a real quick lettering tip here. Like, if you look at this first word balloon, I see that my cursor doesn't show up on the screen. That's interesting. But you see, it says, "This guy, I'll tell you," and there's these big white gaps below and above. And then the same thing with the bottom, but it was just big white gaps. That's because you're not setting your word balloons up to be in a diamond shape. So that's-- you're having as few excess space as possible. And those little things can not only take up less space, but just make it look a whole lot more professional. So-- and a letter on the average is like $15 a page. So just include that into your budget, and it'll make a huge, huge difference, absolutely. Uh-huh. I mean, yeah, I-- again, I don't want to like this, but damn. Let's see real quickly if there's something in here that'll give us a brief synopsis before we move on to the last one. Yep, what's our final enticement? What's our takeaway, Mr. Matt Campbell? Yeah. So we've got-- introduce everyone to a brand new iconic superhero to being this full Captain Nefcon. Uh, okay. Um... So here we go. Captain Nefcon is a prophecy-fulfilling story of a rising cosmic hero and unites with-- wait, cosmic hero and unites with a sacred weapon to save the universe from an evil race taking it over. All right? That's a lot simpler to understand than a lot of the other stuff that we had. It's still a mouthful, and there's a few like, you know, grammatical adjustments I might make, but for the most part, this is much clearer. So a hero who's uniting with a sacred weapon to save the universe from an evil alien race, right? That's easy to understand. So let's, let's, you know, put that up into the video or a little bit higher or something like that. And then, you know, that's it. All right, so one of the things that I would add if I was putting this into context is, um, it looks like we lost-- lost him all of a sudden. Um, one of the things that I would add is to have a little bit about who the character is as a person. Um, are they, you know, a misfit who's trying to learn responsibility? Um, or are they, you know, what is it about them that's going to make this in an interesting journey? Um, what, what kind of threat are the alien race to just blanketly say an alien race wants to destroy the cosmos? That's so vague that it's hard for us to wrap our head around. So, you know, something specific about what kind of threat that they pose, uh, that can be helpful as well. Um, yes, yes, yes. [laughter] Again, remember, guys, this is a good opportunity to jump in and say, "Be sure and subscribe to our YouTube channel so that we can afford to get, uh, smurf a-- what we call a traveling Wi-Fi. It will collect all the signals from around and funnel them into one strong, uh, internet that he can use, because apparently we've lost him. Hopefully he'll be back, but the show must go on, so we're moving on. Let me get the next link, which is going to be Dragonfly, a graphic novel. Poor guy. [laughter] Right, the race says it doesn't work like Beale Juice. He was trying to, to get, to will him here with the power of saying his name three times. All right, let's go to share this tab instead. There we go. All right. That works better. No, that's a good one. All right. Uh, Dragonfly, graphic novel, volume one. Collecting issues one through four. Volume one of the Dragonfly is a sci-fi-- sci-fi spy graphic. I like to say that sci-fi spy thinks James Bond meets Men in Black. All right. So, they're coming up on their goal. They're doing well. 76 backers. Um, Hacks does says just met with you on Threads. Click on that subscribe. Hey, I just got on Threads yesterday. That's awesome. Uh-oh, I think we have a Smurf maybe. Oh, that's why. I was like, why is anyone showing up? [LAUGHS] And there's Smurf's hand. I told you, I guaranteed you there would be some sort of tactical malfunction today. Don't jinx it. Uh, jinx it. It's already happened. But while you were gone, we pleaded for everyone to subscribe to the channel so we could raise money to get you a traveling Wi-Fi box. I mean, that needs to happen now for sure. After my doctor's appointment, I'm going to go do that. It's a it's a must now. It's a must have. Well, we just opened up our third and final entry for the show called "Dragonfly" and Christopher Albright says I've heard nothing but good things about this. So I'm ready to jump in. Let's take a look. Let's dive in. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] All right. Well. What was your takeaway, sir? Uh, dramatic. Dramatic pause. Dramatic pause. I, uh, there's a lot going on in there. Like a lot. Move your mic closer. I can barely hear you. There's a lot going on in there. I don't know. I don't know. I'm kind of like-- I don't know if I need to watch that again. Because I'm just like so-- I was pulled in by the graphics and everything that's going on. But I still don't know, like, what's the story morning, Gloria? I love everything that's going on, but-- [MUSIC PLAYING] I don't know. I mean, wow. Visually, yeah, absolutely epic. Let me just put that out there. Visually, absolutely epic. I like the character designs. I just-- OK. And that's kind of where I'm at. OK. Well, yeah. I'm going to hit the positives again first. The video animation, I really-- if the person who made this Kickstarter or created the book isn't the person who made the video, I definitely feel like they should put the credit to the video at the end. Because whoever did that video did a stellar job of after effects animating the original comic book artwork. There was just-- I was like just watching it entertained by it. But at no point was I like clear about exactly who the hero was, what's at stake, what's-- they're trying to achieve, et cetera. But I was very entertained. I was just like, all right, it's good. I'd say about in the last 20 seconds, I started like losing it. I was like getting a little bit on board. I probably would have turned it off by then. But yeah, understand, guys, too, that when people watch your videos and you can see the statistic on your Kickstarter's, you guys, this isn't news. But you'll see how many people have watched it and how long they've watched it, the average. And most people 30 seconds, you know, to a minute. Like, I think maybe it's only like 20 to 30, maybe 40% of the people actually watch the entire thing all the way through. Meaning you got to really compact all your best, strongest, most informative stuff right out of the gate at the beginning, similar to most other kind of content. But the video was pretty cool, Raymond. It was really entertained to watch. Yes. It also had a good connection to the genre tone. Like they said, it was a sci-fi spy and it felt like sci-fi spy. I just don't know like, you know, what's at stake or who's who, but it felt like that. Right? Let's see if we can get any more information down below because so far it's been a common theme this week. It's like cool stuff that we don't know what's about. I'm the one left wanting because none of this has been revealing to me enough that I'm like, okay, absolutely. Because out of all three, we have like a very similar opportunity to try and like get more information. And then like you said, this video, holy Lord. Get that guy and raise whoever came up. Yeah, that's beautiful, beautiful video. All right. We've got a nice little graphic in here talking about it. The graphic novel, first test print, the story. Here we go. So let's see halfway down. I think that's referred to as bearing the leading lead. All right. In the vast expanse of the universe where galaxies collide and worlds fall to the might of advanced weaponry. One force reigns supreme. Beyond the lasers beyond the starship lies the most powerful weapon of all the spy. When war stretches across light years, it's the intelligence gathered in the shadows that can change the fate of the entire civilizations. Welcome to the world of dragonfly agent provocateur. All right, so then we have a cast. We have our main character. I go blah, blah, blah, back story. There's a bunch of stuff in here that could lead to an intriguing hook like the sentence right here. It says, Ben is the only known member of his alien species. He has spent his life uncovering secrets, but the biggest secret of his people and home planet still loot him. Continue that with like five more words. Will he find out the secret of his past? You know, now we have something intriguing. There's your opener. Then we have some armor here. Then we have another character, an alien AI, and then another character. I love the idea that they're putting character bios in there that does less, no little bit stuff, but gosh, this is way down at the bottom. And so I'm going to have to go through a lot before I get there. So did I even get that far after the video and the other stuff? That's going to be tough, right? So, you know, right now it's, uh, it's still a little bit of a mystery to me as to like what are these people all working together as part of a team? Are they trying to stop this guy? He looks pretty evil. You know, I haven't read all this. We don't know yet, right? So, um, what are they trying to accomplish? You know, in the last book that we looked at, we were told that there was an alien race trying to take over the galaxy or something to that effect, right? At least we were know what they were trying to achieve. It was vague, but we at least knew what they were trying to achieve, right? Here it's like, what's this about? And, you know, it could be that there's like a big overall, you know, all kind of arc, but certainly this particular episode or issue could be about them trying to hunt down this or find information about that. I mean, they're spies, right? So they're trying to do something spy related. What is it? And why is it going to be difficult, you know, because nobody wants to watch a story where everyone's like, so bad ass that nothing's a problem for them, right? Well, yeah, I mean, you know, a lot of this, like, dust themselves off. And what I like about this premise is it does give us, like, monster of the issue, you know, like every issue, there's a mission, every issue, there's something going on, but there's still an overarching story that kind of carries you through all of the issues. And I can see that as a potential, like, great thing about this, and our first one, sex spies and rock and roll. The second one, you know, we've got a lot of things crammed in there and we've got the stakes, but we're still missing a few things. And it went by so fast, like, blah. But yeah, this, if you have put that tagline up at the front or even in the dialogue at the beginning, the music is great, but it opened up with that and then cue the music. I mean, that saves time and people spawning the stick around. Yup. Yup. All right. So, and then going back up here, they do have quite a few backers and they're almost a goal with eight days to go. I think there's still a really good chance they could hit this goal. But again, if you're watching, take a few minutes to go right here at the very top. There's a reason that the word story is defaulted on Kickstarter so that you, you know, put the story at the top. And right here, before this image, let's put like a sentence or two about like what's going to happen in this story? What's it about? What's the key of it about and get to the chase? Because you got a cool video. You got a cool premise, but we don't really know enough to know whether or not, you know, it's just going to be our kind of thing, you know? So that brings us down to deciding on which one we're going to choose this week to back. It's going to be a tough call because these are all nicely done, but also not giving us a lot of information. So they're kind of equally across the board for me. So what I want you guys to do is in the comments below, let us know which ones you think while we decide which ones we're going to pick. And to remind you guys again, we've got Dragonfly, when we just looked at, we've got Captain Neftcon, and then Sex, Spies, and Rock and Roll. All right, so let's see. It's a tough call. And again, if we don't, if we don't pick the same one, we're going to have to pull out the Wheel of Destiny. Yeah, it's a tough call, but I think I'm going to get a good choice. This is hard because I want, I want to like one in particular, and I'm sure everyone kind of figured that one out. But if we have, if we go by our own rules that we have to staff list, I have to go with this one. Okay. So I have my choice, Merfest's choice. We're still under an hour even with all of our excess stuff. So this is awesome. We're still on target. So, yeah, all right, so drum roll, please. Hey, we picked the same one. Mine's not zooming in very well. Yeah, you even drew something. I did. Look at that. I mean, it looks like some mutant fairy, but I mean, it's a dragonfly. Yeah, I, I'm not sure what's growing between its legs there. Is that supposed to be a tail or? It's supposed to be a tail. Again, I'm a writer, not an artist. All right, guys. Hopefully this show is informative and that you got something out of it. Be sure and subscribe to the channel. You can also check out my previous comics at actionlinestudios.com. Be sure if you have a comic campaign or you know someone else who has a comic campaign that you go to our actionline studios Facebook page. Find the link that's pinned at the top that'll be there and put your show or put your campaign on there and see if we can get it on the show in the upcoming weeks. But that's all for me. Oh, and don't forget, I have a big giant campaign link launching next week. Don't forget about that. I'm still thinking about when I'm going to do a live show. I'm thinking, you know, in the morning might be good. I think in the morning might be good. So you're watching on Thursday, which means we could like see how you get out and hate it on a live show. Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. I'm excited to see you there. Ah, thank you, Exodus. All right, guys. That's it for me. Thank you for joining the show. We appreciate you tuning in. Uh, come over to my I-5280 gig. Our podcast is on all podcast platforms. Put at 5380g.com, Facebook, Facebook, or Instagram. Where you get your moments up. But until then, run fast, laugh hard, and always be kind. Good night! (Music)
