Continuing a month of shows about comic book creators who have used crowd funding to launch various titles on Britain’s only regularly radio broadcast comics show, Alex Fitch, with the help of guest presenter Nicola Streeten, discusses the crowd-funding campaign for the webcomic turned graphic novel My So-Called Secret Identity with its writer, Dr. Will Brooker.

Recorded at Cartoon County, Brighton, July 2014, Will explains the history of the project, which with Batgirl as inspiration looked to create a new super-heroine for the modern age who uses her wits rather than fists to solve problems; why Kickstarter was used to finish the first volume of the comic and fund the second, and how MSCSI is connected to his research as an academic writer on Batman and other pop culture texts.

My So-Called Secret Identity, created by Suze Shore, Will and Sarah Zaidan, launched online in February 2013. Issues 2 and 3, funded entirely by fan donations, followed later that year, with Issue 4 released in June 2014.

During that time, MSCSI has been acclaimed by the comics press and mainstream media, and featured in international publications like Ms Magazine, The Guardian, Times Higher Education, Femina and Stylist. Issues 1 and 2 were reprinted in a special issue of Geeked magazine, and in June 2014 the MSCSI creators joined the British Library’s prestigious Comics Unmasked event, with Grant Morrison and Warren Ellis.

After a successful Kickstarter campaign in July 2014, which raised over £10,000, the team produced Issue 5 – the final episode of this first volume – and published the complete story in February 2015 as a collected, full colour, high quality print edition.

MSCSI is stocked in a range of good comic stores, and also available through the official web site’s shop, along with signed copies, exclusive t-shirts and prints.