Crowdfunding Spotlight: Recovery Incorporated – Another Day At The Office

By John Freeman on January 23, 2021

First featured in Britain’s short-lived STRIP: The Adventure Comic Magazine, US comic creator Michael Penick is on course to bring us the complete first Recovery Incorporated action adventure into print for the first time. You do not want to miss it.

Already fully funded on Kickstarter, Recovery Incorporated – Another Day At The Office #1 properly introduces us to Mia Raven, the thief who became a detective, who became a thief – only this time she steals from crooks.

Her adventures cut short in STRIP, Mia Raven is a swarthy, strong-willed woman who cares less about the law than she does recovering stolen items. A gun-toting feminist icon with a troubled past, bad attitude and tattered psyche, she’s the CEO and founder of Recovery Incorporated, a company that will help you get your (valuable) stolen item back when the police can’t. Or won’t.

For a hefty price, of course…

Recovery Incorporated is the fantastic creation of Michael Penick, a professional artist and writer for over twenty years, a freelancer in the advertising, film, illustration, comic book, motion graphics, and interface design industries. A jack of all trades, really, but his first love has always been visual storytelling.

“At 51, I’m tired of letting all the stories I’ve been developing and writing languish alone in my imagination and on my computer,” he says.

“Recovery Incorporated – Another Day At The Office marks the beginning of my journey to bring those stories to you.”

Currently seeking funding, all the work on the first of a four issue mini-series is complete.

“In fact, it’s been finished since 2012!” says Michael, who has been busy working on Issue Two since the beginning of 2021.

“I was hired, at the time, to create a story for a British magazine,” he explains, outlining the project’s inclusion in STRIP. “I brought my long time friend and writing partner Dean Deckard along with me to help in the creation process. The story would unfold in eight page increments each month.

“Unfortunately, the financier of the magazine, who lived in Eastern Europe, had trouble getting funds to the UK, which meant the editor there couldn’t get funds to me!

“In light of that, I felt I had no choice but to stop my comic from running in the magazine. It was only a few months later that the entire magazine folded. It was a sad, but not uncommon affair, in the comics world.”

(Quite frankly, Michael is being far kinder in his explanation of the problems that beset STRIP than I have been in the pages of Baden James Mellonie’s Rejected anthology, but let’s move on).

“I ‘shelved’ the story at the time because, well, I really needed to find work and make up for the months I had just spent working for no pay,” Michael continues, “but I also felt it wasn’t really something American comic book readers would be into. In the time between then and now, however, the independent comic book market in the US has truly flourished, as has the Kickstarter platform. So here I am.

“Because I’ve been around. Ive seen what the publishing world looks like and what the contracts look like. I think, more and more, that Kickstarter is the future of comics and, potentially, publishing. I think this is the place to be. Even with an industry publisher I’d have to do my own marketing if i really wanted my book to be successful, so why not just do the rest of the work while I’m at it?

“And if I’m really, brutally honest with you, my ADD makes it easier for me to work for myself than under the deadlines imposed by the comic book industry most of the time. I’m a self-motivated guy – I don’t require artificial stimulation to motivate me. Kickstarter provides me with the one link that was missing in my ability to complete my own production chain.”

I’m delighted Michael has hit target for #1, which means further backing of this frankly stunning adventure comic will help ensure smooth release of future issues. I’m probably one of the few people who read the full synopsis for the original Recovery Incorporated story, which will most certainly be even more gripping as a longer four issue mini series, published in magazine-format size, more 2000AD than US comic size.

Michael fully outline his plans and production timeline for the first issue of Recovery Incorporated on the Kickstarter page – do give it a look and consider giving it much deserved support.

John Freeman

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.