Comic creator Kate Ashwin is celebrating after her latest Kickstarter to raise £3500 to fund the newest volume of her Victorian-era adventure stories, Widdershins, reached that goal within 14 hours of going online – even though the campaign will run until 27th August!
All of the funding will be going towards print costs, shipping, and Kickstarter fees, but further pledges will be used to reprint the first volume, as well as unlocking other “stretch goals”, such as an A6 full-colour illustrated recipe card from Alexa.
You may recall I came across Kate’s fantastic strip quite by chance and, thoroughly impressed, subsequently interviewed her about her work and plans back in May.
In this latest volume collecting the web comic, the formerly prestigious Hotel Gula in Widdershins is this year’s host for the National Bakeoff competition, and gifted young baker Alexa King has every intention of winning. But unfortunately for her, the prize is not quite what she expected…
Flung into the past and faced with a foe with an endless appetite for the finer things in life, it’s down to her and a mismatched kitchen staff of maids, criminals, housewives and more to figure out how to escape the never-ending buffet.
Can Alexa uncover the Hotel’s mysteries before she and her fellow cooks end up on the menu?
Like the three volumes that came before it, Piece of Cake will be a full-colour A5 landscape book, softcover, perfect bound, just over 100 pages long. “All of the covers and spines have been designed with consistency in mind,” says Kate, “in the hopes that they’ll look neat on your bookshelf!”
Kate’s crowd funding success is testament to the quality and support she has built for Widdershins, and a great example of how crowd funding can help a determined comic creator publish their work.
• You can view or pledge to the Widdershins: Piece of Cake Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1403226937/widdershins-piece-of-cake
• Kate has had two successful Kickstarter projects so far, which you can check out here and here: and of course you can read the Widdershins strip online at www.widdershinscomic.com
The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.
He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: British Comics, Crowd Funding Projects, Digital Comics, downthetubes Comics News, Featured News