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Virtuoso - Help Kickstart this Open Source Business/Comic/Universe!

Jake von Slatt — Mon, 09/27/2010 - 10:55

Nearly there with 3 days to go!

There are a lot of really neat things out there tagged with term 'Steampunk' but very few of them are as truly wonderful and unique as "Virtuoso," a Creative Commons licensed comic from friends Jon Munger and Krista Brennan. 

Jon and Krista are hoping to Kickstart Book One of the series, they have already completed the prologue and it is as engaging as it is beautiful. I'm in, and I hope you too will help them bring this marvelous project into the world!

The story: Jnembi Osse is an inventor in a world run by springs and ruthless expansion. She is the kept woman of the vast Mahanake Empire, held in a sequestered University to churn out military and civil inventions. But Jnembi has a secret.

Rather than endlessly revisit her old rifle designs, Jnembi builds a printing press a single person can carry on her back. It's small and simple, and violates the draconian laws of the Empire. Books are the purview of upper class, and copying them is ruthlessly suppressed.

Win a von Slatt original! To sweeten the deal and in addition to the offered rewards, the single largest contributor will receive an original Jake von Slatt creation! This will be a piece that is just staring to come together on my workbench as we speak.  I'm not sure what is is yet but it fits inside a #2 Bell Jar and will look great on your mantle! 

Details after the cut . . . 

Why it's even cooler: We believe that Virtuoso is more than a comic book. The comic itself is simply an artifact of this world Krista and I started. We have partnered with some of the most talented Makers working right now to bring more of the 

Photo Template 2

Lastwear Clothing and Improbable Cog have both contributed their considerable talents to Virtuoso. As a reward for your donations, they are giving away products that you simply can't find anywhere else. 

And this is just the beginning. We have plans for Role Playing Games, Board Games, short stories and yes, more comic books.   Join the Empire. Make it your own.

Win a von Slatt original! To sweeten the deal and in addition to the offered rewards, the single largest contributor will receive an original Jake von Slatt creation! This will be a piece that is just staring to come together on my workbench as we speak.  I'm not sure what is is yet but it fits inside a #2 Bell Jar and will look great on your mantle! Be sure to pad your big pledge by a few extra bucks, it would be a shame to miss out to someone who pledged just a tiny bit more!

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I read the comics they have

bbot — Wed, 09/08/2010 - 00:20

I read the comics they have up, and while it's good, it's not nearly good enough to pay for.

For a kickstarter project, you need one of two things:

1.) Something worth paying for.
2.) A very large, and very dedicated, fanbase.

They don't have number one, since the only item of interest to a non-fan in their set of pledge rewards is whatever you're making for the biggest contributor.

And they sure as hell don't have the second, because they've only posted 24 pages.

It's possible to fund a comic book through kickstarter, but the two laws still apply. You absolutely must have big names attached to the project so their fans show up and contribute money, and Virtuoso is made by a pair of unknowns.

Note the very existence of webcomics: You can't sell a print comic made by a nobody, so when nobodies make comics, they post them on the internet for free.

(Also: It is a really enormously huge pain in the ass to post comments on your site through openid. The point of openid is to enable logins without having to create an account. So imagine my surprise when I logged in with openid... and then had to create an account. Complete with e-mail verification and a CAPTCHA. What's the deal with that, Jake?)

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I for one am absolutely

Jake von Slatt — Mon, 09/20/2010 - 11:28

I for one am absolutely willing to pay for Virtuoso as well as pimp the living hell out of it because I think it's worthy. I don't agree that web comics are a necessary pre-requisite for print, they are different things and Kickstarter is too new a model for there to be "laws" about what can, should, or will be successful. That would kind of invalidate the model itself, wouldn't it?

(As far as the OpenID login process, you should post over at drupal.org; I agree it's annoying but I'm not a web developer, just a guy who builds stuff.)

Jake.

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