I get requests to start or support a Kickstarter campaign on a daily basis, and while there have been a lot of horror stories associated with those who are bit on the shady side, Rich Burlew has a Kickstarter runaway hit with his Order of the Stick Reprint Drive, which has passed one million dollars.
Burlew had originally planned to do a mass reprint of the third trade in the series, The Order of the Stick: War and XPs, and only needed $57,750 to do it. As of this morning, the total amount pledged has passed $1 million.
So what is Burlew going to do with all that money?
From now until the end of the pledge drive, all money raised (minus the cost of the shipping rewards pledged during that period and the related Kickstarter fees) will go into a new general operating fund for Giant in the Playground. What will I do with it? I don’t know yet. I think I’ll need to recover from the drive for a few days before I even consider it. Here are some possibilities, though:
- Paying for warehouse space for the increased stock levels.
- Paying for any surprise expenses associated with fulfilling these orders because I am bad at math.
- Funding the next new OOTS book, whenever that is (it is not now).
- Funding a new selection of screen-printed t-shirts for Ookoodook.
- Prototyping fees for potential OOTS products that couldn’t be developed quickly enough for this pledge drive.
- Paying for secret projects that may or may not pan out but would be totally awesome if they did.
- Paying for the IT time needed to make long-overdue improvements to the Giant in the Playground website.
- Buying the most recent version of Adobe Illustrator.
- Buying a computer capable of running the most recent version of Adobe
- Illustrator (mine topped out two versions ago).
- Buying a Cintaq to speed up drawing time.
- Buying new crayons and Sharpie markers.
Now here is the interesting part, to date there are 12,657 backers for the campaign, and according to ICv2 that is more copies than the number of copies of Dark Horse Comics’ Star Wars Agent of the Empire – Iron Eclipse #2 that ranks #138 on the Top 300 list.
I’ve said it before, if this is the reception a webcomic is receiving, I expect to see at least one major publisher turn to Kickstarter this year to get a title off the ground.
4 Comments
IIRC, the last time Major Spoilers did Order of the Stick was MSP #62, which was released in 2008.
I think another look at OOTS would make an excellent podcast issue. In the last 4 years and 300+ shows, so much has changed with the comic (Splitting the Party, Elan’s Father, More than $1 Million raised) and you guys (Stephen is a DnD player now, which would certainly alter his view of the comic) that it wouldn’t just be a boring retread.
Also you could maybe in bring Rob and DnD Brian to get their opinions.
Thank you for posting this. I don’t read OOTS often but do like it. Thanks to you, I now have a complete run of the books coming. Now it’s sheer magnitude and continuity shouldn’t kick my rear. :)
OOTS is one of the best webcomics out there
I agree with Chase that it would be cool to hear you guys tackle another OotS volume. And also that having one or both of the other Critical Hit guys chime in would be nice.