I Need Your Help
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Today, I'm mustering up the courage to do something I never thought I would. For the last few weeks, I've been promising some ambitious videos. A deep dive into the Ultimate Universe. Power Rankings for all the digital comics subscription services. A long-awaited Q&A video fielded from subscibers on social media. Then comes a bunch of silence and missed deadlines. What you don't see between uploads are all the struggles of trying to make things happen. For example, last week's Graphic Novels for Kids video was actually uploaded twice. The first time, I uploaded a truncated version after my computer failed the export without telling me. The timestamp on my PC said 40 minutes, but the YouTube video cut out after 13. I noticed the error only after tagging all the publishers, writers and artists who were covered in the video. I quickly made it private, then spent ALL NIGHT trying to export the video without errors. That was the last straw. For the past week, I've been building out a fundraising campaign to finally upgrade my technology stack so that computer, camera and storage issues won't prevent you from getting my best efforts. Today, it finally launches. If I'm honest, I'm super nervous about it. There are far more dire situations in the world than helping a YouTuber buy a camera, but I’d rather ask for help than suffer in silence. There are 3 ways to support (including buying comics from my personal collection). If everyone who watched last week's Pull List donated just $2, we'd actually CRUSH the goal! Our 5th anniversary is coming up, but I'm not sure how much farther we'll make it without these upgrades. The campaign page has all the info you need, as well as today's YouTube video. Whatever support you can offer is greatly appreciated. Future Static is Back! Back in October, I finally got to meet Static artist Nikolas Draper-Ivey. We'd been friendly online since the day he saw my excitement about the then-forthcoming return of Milestone Media's Dakota Universe; and he graced us with an appearance on the Comics Are Dope podcast -- our most viewed ever. When we met, I asked if he had anything exciting projects coming up. He swore me to secrecy, so I haven't told a single soul that... This November, DC is publishing Batman/Static: Beyond! It's a 6 issue miniseries penned by Evan Narcisse, with Nik kicking off art duties for the first 2 issues. If you read the Milestone 30th Annniversary Special, you've already seen a sneak peek at the world Nik has been building. I'm incredibly excited to revisit it! Issue #1 is in stores November 12th. You can bet I've got mine on pre-order already. Comics on Kickstarter are Dope This week, I'm shouting out three Kickstarter campaigns you should be backing. I've interviewed the creators, but export issues... you know the rest. Please check out the video, and back whichever campaigns sound interesting to you! Read Something Dope Today, BJ KICKS |
Comics Are Dope
Celebrating everything Dope about comics. Curated by BJ KICKS.
I remember the first time I heard "Livin' on a Prayer." I was couch surfing the summer before my senior year of college with two close friends -- one of whom was a theater major (is it theater or theatre? anyways...) Before the fall semester started, my friend decided to invite all her theater homies over for a kickback to start the school year. That was my first 'white' party. As a black kid in the suburbs, you don't really see white people in their natural habitat. You get to play outside,...
This week, we crossed the 20,000 subscriber mark on the Comics Are Dope YouTube channel. As I said on Threads, I don't think I've met 20 thousand people over my lifetime. The idea of that many people clicking the subscribe button after seeing me talk about fictional heroes in capes and tights is crazy to me. While I think every YouTuber (including me) dreams at least a tiny bit about having one of those 100,000 subscriber plaques; every subscriber on this journey feels like a gift I couldn't...
One of my heroes is the late Congressman John Lewis. As one of the co-founders of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, he was on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement at an age when most kids are trying to decide which super easy elective they're going to take to boost their Freshman GPA. He often talked about the days of sit-ins and marches, recalling all his arrests during those demonstrations as getting into "Good trouble. Necessary trouble." Car trouble is neither of...