Musings on a Kickstarter

It's funny, as hard as I try, it is really difficult for me to send a message to my friends, both close and casual, asking for pledges to my Kickstarter.

It comes from the sense of empathy I have, knowing that I am imposing and bothering them in their everyday life and the beseeching or begging them to take a bit of their well earned money and invest it in something that I believe in.

The ego part of my brain says "Well if they are your friends they believe in you too!" and then it says "And if they don't want to, then they can just say no."

The empathetic part of my brain usually wins these arguments... and to be honest I am glad it does. This is one of the reasons I was never able to thrive in sales or corporate environments, but did in artistic ones. My sense of empathy is so strong and so developed that I can't turn it off and just do "whatever it takes" to get the job done.

When I see a wrong, I don't put my head down and hope it doesn't effect me, I stand up and shout it down instead! Phoenix once said that when we were bouncers together that we were knights, and I said no we were sellswords... but I suspect, much like Han Solo, I am a sellsword who really should be a knight instead.

I dunno, I guess I am waxing poetic, but I haven't really written one of these in a long time and today is the day.

When I was young, I LOVED professional wrestling. Not only for the superheroic characters or the death defying stunts, but because of the basic morality play at hand. The bad guy always lost in the end. Evil might profit in the short term, but good always won in the long run.

That made it good thyroid theatre and I was a major fan.

Then all that changed and the "anti-hero" came into the forefront. Look, I won't lie and say that Ric Flair and Roddy Piper weren't my favs as a kid, but I always cheered when Hulk Hogan or Dusty Rhodes got the 1, 2, 3 in the middle of the ring over them. That was the point. They were SO good at being bad guys you had to admire their talents, but you also wanted them to lose.

With the advent of Stone Cold Steve Austin, the Rock and all the other "tweeners" that came along, wrestling changed from something I used to NEVER miss to something I never watch anymore.

The same can be said for comics. In my lifetime I have watched Superman give way to Batman. The noble ideal of the hero was replaced by the base motivation of revenge. I've watched civil wars, secret invasions and far too many crises. It would seem that with the recent success of Man of Steel, my heroes all have feet of clay.

So here I am, trying to make a comic book where instead of having the good heroes sink into darkness, I show a world where that is normal and instead will have true heroes rise out of it and change their world for the better.

You know, the way heroes are supposed to.

But, I have to raise a lot of money to do that and that means social networking. That means holding every person who told me they would back me and do "anything to help me" to that promise. It means reaching out and bothering everyone I know to ask them to spend $5 or more on this, perhaps, quixotic quest of mine.

A simple task that is blocked by one not so simple thing. The qualities I cherish make it hard for me to do that.

Oh I know as the clock ticks down I will eventually start writing those messages and emails. I know more than a couple of my friends will unfriend me on Facebook or ignore my emails until it is over. I know that for some this will change the relationship we have.

I will eventually be the black sheep that so many have termed me over the years... which is ironic... given how long I spent denying my individuality or being ashamed of it and wanting nothing more than to be part of the crowd.

What would my heroes do?

They would find a way.

They wouldn't give up. They wouldn't give in. They wouldn't give out.

They would do what is right, regardless of popular opinion or social pressures. They would do what they had to do to save the day. They would not compromise their principles and they would not cross over to the dark side.

They would find a way.

So will I.

In the meantime, I will saddle up my old nag and head back out on the road.

Anyone want to help me tilt some windmills?

Be heroic!

Heroic Kickstarter is GO!

Hey guys & dolls,

The Kickstarter for Heroic is now active!

Please go check it out and if you like, read the script there and if you REALLY like it, buy at least the $5 digital copy :)

Cheers!