Last Week of the Undisputed #2 Campaign!

The Undisputed #2 Kickstarter campaign has hit a plateau. Which I guess happens to every campaign. But we’re stuck at about the $700, with 37 backers. There are seven days left to jump in and support the campaign. If you read my newsletter, or follow my notes, I have to assume you enjoy either comic books or pro wrestling. And I hope I’ve shared enough of myself, my process, and the Undisputed story to convince you that this comic book is worth a couple of your dollars.

The story is very straight forward. Good guy fighter retires as the Undisputed World Heavyweight Champion. Bad guy promoter wants his luchador to be the next Undisputed champion. Good guy wants to stay retired, bad guy wants him to come back to “do the honors” and drop the belt to his boy. How far is the bad guy willing to push? And how far is the good guy willing to get pushed, before he fights back?

We’re crowdfunding issue 2 of a 3-issue limited series. This issue is our “Empire Strikes Back”. We see just how bad things get for the hero, Hack Halloway. In wrestling terms, we’re setting up the “Spirit of ‘76 Comeback”.

If you’re new to the story, you can get both issues 1 & 2 during this campaign. You can also get DRM-free digital copies, or physical copies of both comics.

If you’re ready to support the campaign, you can go to the Kickstarter campaign page.

The other project I’m currently a part of, Sightings: A Bigfoot Comic Anthology, is about halfway to their $4,000 goal. Sightings is 10 stories from 15 creators, clocking in at 60 pages. Each story is about everyone’s favorite sasquatch, Bigfoot. My story also ties in another legend of the Pacific Northwest… D.B. Cooper.

Sightings is edited by Lonely Lemming, and you can see the campaign page here.

WWE announced that Wrestlemania 43 is going to be held in Saudi Arabia. And in the same week, TKO Group announced that they were going to be increasing ticket prices. Neither announcement is a big surprise, but both, I think, are disappointing.

I can’t think of a time when the divide between “upper” and “middle” classes were this wide. Plus, during a time when everything is viewed through a political lens, the choice to host the biggest event in pro wrestling in a hyper-conservative country, with ridiculous wealth. A country that has a horrendous human rights record, and literal “fuck you” money. It just feels incredibly tone deaf.

Add to the fact, that this is basically a bought show. A bought show, if you’re not familiar, is a show that a fan pays for, whole cloth. Like, if you bring in a wrestling school to do a birthday party, that’s a bought show. You get to tell the promoter who you want on the card, and what happens. And if you have enough money, that’s what you get. The Saudis are buying themselves a Wrestlemania. Meaning, that the six months leading up to Wrestlemania 43 we’ll see storylines that are created to justify whatever fantasy booking cockamamie card the Ministry of Sport puts together.

It all diminishes the importance of Wrestlemania to me.

The TKO Group statement piles. When discussing ticket pricing, TKO COO Mark Shapiro said:

"We know we have a lot of room there because Vince McMahon was primarily pricing tickets for families and wasn’t totally focused on maxing the opportunity there. We see what we can do with the UFC and we’re replicating that in terms of ticket yield and advance sales when it comes to On Location on the WWE side."

I get it, TKO Group is publicly traded, and beholden to their shareholders. But when was the last time you heard anyone, anywhere, particularly in WWE say “We’re doing this for the consumer”?

This drive to maximize revenue at all costs has to hit a tipping point. And it has to hit it soon, because I’m sick and fucking tired of “shareholders above all”.

That’s it. That’s all I’ve got.

Support indie comics & support indie wrestling.
Love you,
—pjc