Fulfillment Begins & Cover Decisions

Feed Them to the Crows #1 is officially in-hand. I got a big delivery from Comic Impressions and the books look awesome. I’m so glad we upgraded the cover stock.

I started packing up the first batches of books. Unfortunately, I ran out of bags and boards so I was only able to get about 20 packages out today. More bags and boards are arriving tomorrow and I’ll get the rest of the books packed up and shipped out to backers.

Daniel has finished up the last pages of issue #2 so we’ll be wrapping that up soon. We’ll need to get some covers together, but we have some time. Just as with the first issue, this one will be 100% complete when we launch the next Kickstarter campaign. At this pace, that will likely be early next year. There’s a chance it happens at the very end of 2026, but I’m not sure of that coinciding with holiday shopping.

But first…we have Clean Up Crew #1! I approved the layouts for one of the variant covers, which will be revealed soon. This will be a special cover with some extra flash to it. I just haven’t decided what yet. Foil embossed? Holifoil? Metal? I’d love to figure out a die cut one. The weird thing about this process is that I don’t personally look out for variant covers. Sure, they’re nice to look at, but I don’t seek them out, so I’m a little lost as to what people actually care about when it comes to them. I have to remind myself that I’m not my customer.

To prepare for this Kickstarter launch, I joined the ComixLaunch Mastermind group. We had one meeting already and I’m really pumped about it. This is a group of fellow creators who are all going through the same thing so we cheer each other on and help each other out where possible. I did this once before when preparing for the campaign for A Real Slobberknocker #2. I want this to be my biggest campaign yet so I’m taking the steps to prepare as best I can. The next thing I have to prepare is a video, which is something I dreaded for the last campaign.

To ensure you’re up to speed on Clean Up Crew, be sure to click the button below and sign up to be notified when the campaign launches!

Clean Up Crew #1

My youngest son recently got really into anime. He’s breezed through all of Jujutsu Kaisen and Demon Slayer and he’s almost done with Naruto. He’s also been reading Dragon Ball and One Punch Man. Of those, I have only read Dragon Ball. I like anime and manga and I want to share this with him so with the news that the new Demon Slayer movie is coming to Crunchyroll later this month, I set out to catch up on the show before then. This past weekend, I finished up the Entertainment District arc and it was incredible.

On the surface, the setup for Demon Slayer is simple. Tanjiro is fighting demons. His sister is also a demon, but he’s searching for a cure. Each demon they encounter is stronger than the last, forcing Tanjiro to train harder and develop new moves to come out on top. Yes, it’s a similar formula to Dragon Ball Z in that regard. I will admit that I was just as pumped for the action scenes as I was when I was a kid watching DBZ on Sunday mornings.

I was literally yelling in excitement at the TV during the final battle in this season. It’s framed in such a way that I don’t see how the characters will get out of this. I know there are two more seasons, plus a movie following this with all the same characters, but I was so wrapped up in this that I wasn’t sure if they would make it.

Those stakes are so very important. It’s hard to make stakes that matter in writing. It is made abundantly clear that this is life and death in Demon Slayer. There is a very good chance they could die in every battle they enter. Just when you think Tanjiro and his friends get the upper hand, the demon pulls out some new trick to nullify the attack or heal from the damage in an instant. It’s a real nailbiter.

At this speed, I should be able to just catch up in time for the movie. I’m looking forward to watching it with my son. We’re going to Anime NYC at the end of August too.