It's been a difficult year for Fantagraphics Books, the comics publisher behind cult favorite graphic novels like Ghost World and Love and Rockets. The company lost its co-founder and editor Kim Thompson earlier this year – a mere four and a half months after he was diagnosed with lung cancer – a blow that affected the company both personally and financially. The 13 books Thompson was editing were postponed, which accounted for nearly a third of the company's titles for spring and summer.
In the midst of what publisher Gary Groth called "a severe shortfall," the company did something largely unprecedented: It asked its readers for $150,000 on Kickstarter to make up the difference and fund its entire spring and summer season of books.
And the readers responded. The publisher hit its Kickstarter goal in almost exactly a week – surpassing the $150,000 the company needed to be able to publish the 39 titles in its April to August season, including The Love Bunglers from Love and Rockets co-creator Jaime Hernandez and several Peanuts collections. More than 2,300 backers have kicked in for the project so far, locking in rewards ranging from artist-signed books to an invitation to a "shooting party" with publisher Gary Groth. And the grand total is still climbing, at a rate that has left Groth "a little overwhelmed by the response."
Fantagraphics has been a stalwart of alternative comics since the 1980s, when it began publishing work by the likes of the Hernandez Bros and Ghost World creator Daniel Clowes. Ultimately, the company has come to exemplify a sort of art-house publisher: "They now have a niche, but it has been hard-fought," Groth said of Fantagraphics' creators. "And it’s still a rarefied one."
Groth says that the company's successful Kickstarter demonstrated that in a market where independent publishers struggle to get by, "crowdfunding can serve as an alternative mechanism to capitalize yourself," adding that while it's not a perfect model, it is a more direct line to readers. "Most people don’t — indeed, can’t — consider who or what they’re funding when they buy something at Walmart or fill their car up at the Chevron station. But crowdfunding makes people acutely aware of why they’re buying something and to whom they’re giving their money."
While the alt-comics publisher's monetary goal was fairly lofty and will likely rank in the top 20 most-funded comics campaigns in Kickstarter history, its publishing scope is what sets it apart. Most comics-publishing Kickstarters focus on a single comic, graphic novel or individual project. Greg Pak and musician Jonathan Coulton, for example, raised $340,270 for their graphic novel Code Monkey Save World based on one of Coulton's songs. But rarely has a publisher sought to fund an entire season worth of books the size of Fantagraphics' spring/summer catalogue.
"Fantagraphics' project is uniquely ambitious, both in terms of its funding goal and the sheer number of books in the season they intend to bring to life," Kickstarter's project specialist for comics, Jamie Tanner, told WIRED via email. "Over decades of outstanding work, Fantagraphics has built a reputation as an outspoken and groundbreaking publisher, and it's an inspiration to see their community of readers directly support them on Kickstarter on such a large scale."
It was an avenue the publisher pursued only after serious consideration of other more traditional options. Prior to launching the crowdfunding request, Groth looked at other options like bank loans, a second mortgage, and private investors, but eventually realized Kickstarter would be the best way to keep the company's early 2014 line on schedule.
Luckily for the fiercely independent publisher, fans were willing to buy in, showing up with cash and "happy to back the best book publisher in America, period" sentiments. All told, more than 2,300 people had contributed as of Tuesday, four of them even opting for the $2,000 pledge which snags them every Fantagraphics book put out in 2014.
"I am usually utterly preoccupied by getting the work done and keeping things humming; one rarely has time to step back and reflect on the achievement," Groth said. "It is customary here to say that the reaction is humbling, and it is, but it’s something more, too: It serves as a confirmation that what we spent a lifetime doing is worth doing."
