the vynsane asylum

Okay, I'm so Kickstarter illiterate, I'm going to have to spill my guts here and ask for some advice. And in an open forum, so maybe a year from now someone can Google a similar situation, and this will come up.

A while back, a good friend of mine posted on Facebook that a friend was doing a Kickstarter for the second volume of a graphic novel he'd won all sorts of awards for. I'd never used Kickstarter, and was pretty wary of it, but everything about them seemed on the up-and-up. The book looked quite good from what I could see, a fun all-ages book I could share with my kids, and our mutual friend has several other friends who have worked on well-received comics like the Flight anthologies. And the personal recommendation from someone I know and trust cemented it. So I pledged at a level that would get me printed copies of both Volume 1 and the forthcoming Volume 2, which was slightly more than they'd probably go for at retail, but, hey, you get to help a brother out, right?

And my card is charged. No big deal; it's what I expected. There are a few updates, then the updates get fewer and further between. I figure he's sort of a Rob Liefeld when it comes to deadlines, but the stuff looked good, and, again, personal endorsement (from someone, I'm going to just come out and say right now, I absolutely don't hold any of this mess against). I've paid, I'll get my books, right?

The updates eventually dry up. Every so often, I'll hear something about Kickstarter, and think, "Hmmm, I should see what's up with those books." And don't. But earlier today, I was reminded of Kickstarter's existence reading a story about Levar Burton using it to resurrect Reading Rainbow, and actually logged in.

Funding ended May 29...
...2011!! So, totally by coincidence, I actually check up on the damned thing a day before it's three years.

Also, I see in the updates I'd half-ignored that he kept mentioning doing a second Kickstarter to cover printing, because the first was supposedly now just for production, which is a definite abuse of the system. And he keeps claiming that lettering the book is going to take three or four months, which keeps extending until the updates stop. I'm not a professional letterer and I could letter a fucking comic book in less than a week if I only could spend a half-hour a day doing it.

Oh, and poking around a bit, the guy has built quite the reputation as a Kickstarter d-bag. I participated in funding his first Kickstarter project to be funded (the first being a failed earlier attempt at the same book), The New Brighton Academy Vol. 2.

In the time since this project was funded, he did a Kickstarter for Sullivan's Sluggers, which caused quite a massive stink and got a lot of press on various sites. It made over $97,000 with a $6,000 goal (about 1,600% of the goal, with almost a hundred grand extra, if you're doing the math), but, after long delays, he started a second Kickstarter for the same book with a $1 goal, supposedly to pay for international shipping that went beyond expectations (and supposedly wouldn't be covered by the $91,000 extra). This one was shut down by Kickstarter, and it's his last to date.

The Sullivan's Sluggers was promised as an exclusive for Kickstarter backers, but he started getting complaints when backers hadn't received their books but were seeing them on Amazon and in comic shops. The artist is apparently highly regarded (I'm not familiar with him), and objected to this shit so badly he asked for his name to be removed from anything to do with the project. (The writer responded with a weird public tirade about how the artist had broken up his marriage because he was unreliable.)

Further searching indicates this Mark Andrew Smith guy also has a reputation for soliciting work from designers and artists and either not paying them or upfront asking them to do it for free (without promise of future rewards).

Supposedly, the books I ordered are going to be printed "in a few months," but that's what I've been hearing for three years now. And, while it's not a lot of money, I'd rather have it than just give it to a guy who's essentially a con artist, from what I'm seeing; it could be the power bill one month.

There's a small part of me that wants to give the dude the benefit of the doubt, but a much larger part is screaming, "What the hell is wrong with you? Do what you need to do to get this shit resolved." Anyone here have any experience with this sort of thing? I'm not sure what the next step is.

I assume this isn't typical of legit Kickstarter projects. I mean, Levar Burton's not going to fuck me out of a few bucks if I were to support him, right?

I kinda thought it was "buyer beware", that every $ you spent was basically giving them the money in hopes that you'd one day get the item.... but no promises made, and no return of funds if it never got over the hump. Could be wrong, maybe they're all different?

They say they hold project starters accountable, but I can't find any way they do aside from telling them up front they have to do everything ethically.

If the project doesn't meet the pledge goal, no one's charged. If it does, everyone's charged, and the starter's supposed to fulfill the promises. They've actually added a requirement to provide an expected delivery date for rewards, but since this project was funded, so it doesn't apply.

Some of the complaints about this dude indicated that, when contacted directly, he did offer and issue refunds. I'm probably going to have to do that. I just wanted to see if anyone had any input first.

Starting out, I was trying to give the guy the benefit of the doubt; maybe it's his first self-publishing gig and he legitimately got in over his head. But to start another project in the meantime, make shit-tons of money, then break promises right and left on that one, violate Kickstarter's TOS (the general consensus as to why his last project was canceled), and publicly attack people asking for information as to why he wasn't living up to his promises, and, mostly, the whole three years thing on a book that was supposedly almost done... yeah, I think he's being kind of a dick. He might be the nicest person on Earth aside from Kickstarter and comic books, but I'm not particularly interested in that. Even DeepDiscount and Walmart site-to-store are faster than this.

I've always thought Kickstarter was a dumb idea and shady as hell. I got really turned off from it (well, mostly the people) when they got in that big stink over Oculus when all of the people that gave to the kickstarter got mad because they company mad a product that worked...and sold it for $2,000,000,000 to Facebook. Apparently a lot of people seem to think that donating to the Kickstarter is like buying a portion of the company and they got mad.

I've only donated once via Kickstarter.
It was for a small project that didn't get much press - the Veronica Mars Movie.
This was a movie I really wanted to see and the rewards were awesome, so I chipped in.
The project was massively successful and every reward was delivered as promised.
Not only did the flick get made (and I was very happy with it), but I got a digital download of the flick on opening day, a t-shirt, stickers and a copy on DVD on the release date.
I'm happy with how everything turned out.


Now if only Joss Whedon would do this for an occasional (lower-budgeted) Firefly series of movies...

i think the platform as a whole is a good idea, but it has its flaws. i have no idea how they can hold the project creators accountable, or how long they give them to actually follow through.