The Relentless Lie of AI: What's New in Kickstarter Comics for June 30, 2025
First-glance analysis of the Kickstarter comics market, all summarized in one place!
The mission of The Comic$ Crowd is to curate the crowdfunding campaigns in the Kickstarter Comics category in order to identify and spotlight those projects most likely to yield actual comics and to yield the most high quality comics in terms of story, design, and cover/interior artwork.
To visit the Kickstarter page for any of the projects below, simply click on its title.
By the Numbers
Total # Live Comics Projects on Kickstarter: 277
Total # Comics Launches for These Dates: 10
The View from the Gutter
Just a few days ago, I posted about the primary types of AI incursions into the Kickstarter Comics category, and, on Monday, yet another occurred. Tyler James of ComixLaunch first pointed out this particular variety last summer via his podcast, and Kickstarter has done exactly nada to shut them down. I’ve discussed this concern a few times before, but, because it’s allowed to keep happening, it bears being addressed again.
Frequency of Fire: Tale of Leon sports all the hallmarks of the fully AI-generated Comics campaign:
First-time creator with no history of backing other projects
Absurdly high initial funding goal
Obviously AI-generated art assets with no disclosure of AI usage
No sequential art samples
Identical text content structure to previous AI-generated launches
Interrogative page content structure featuring rhetorical questions as set-ups to project information
Overpriced, unrealistic rewards tiers
Why is this a problem?
Sure, the Kickstarter Comics backer community sniffs these out and does not support them, so does it really matter?
Yes, it really matters. Here’s why:
The mere fact that such obviously fraudulent campaigns are approved to launch after “review” by Trust & Safety exposes gaping holes in Kickstarter’s project curation system. While reliable, proven creators like you and I wait days or weeks for project approvals, this bullshit from faux first-time “creators” gets glad-handing through via auto-approval.
The Kickstarter Comics category is already overstuffed and unshoppable for casual buyers/backers/readers as it is. 250-300 projects are live at any given time, and these fake campaigns only worsen an existing population issue exacerbated by the unfiltered daily onslaught of NSFW projects and money-grubbing porn cover mills.
It’s a lie. It’s a fraud. It’s a money grab. There’s no comic being produced here, and it doesn’t deserve to exist adjacent real crowdfunding campaigns from real creators who produce real comics, like these excellent examples below:
Comics I Like
Frankenstein the Unconquered - Special Edition Hardcover by Stitched Comics
500 years in the future, Frankenstein's monster thaws from the ice to discover a world as violent and broken as him. All 132 pages!
500 years after the end of Mary Shelley's novel, the arctic thaws and the Beast awakens to a bombed out post-apocalypse as hideous and hostile as he is. Wanting a simple life, he attempts blend in--but when soldiers come to collect their due, The Beast answers with the violence he'd hoped to leave behind.
Awesome, expertly composed cover art & design
Terrific, detailed interior art, colors & composition
Goal: $3000
End Date: July 23, 2025
Estimated Delivery: October, 2025
No. Pages: 132
Lowest Digital Tier Price: $20
Lowest Print Tier Price: $30
Outbreaks Volume 1: An Ongoing Zombie Anthology Series by Will Robson
Like TALES FROM THE CRYPT but with zombies! Written by Marvel & DC Artist Will Robson, cover by Walking Dead co-creator Tony Moore!
Just like BLACK MIRROR changes characters and narratives with each completed story, so will OUTBREAKS. We here at Speech Comics believe there are plenty of new and unique zombie stories to tell and plenty of genres to mash them up with!
Amazing Tony Moore cover art & design
Killer, expressive interior art, color & composition
Goal: $10,309
End Date: July 31, 2025
Estimated Delivery: August, 2025
No. Pages: 120
Lowest Digital Tier Price: $21
Lowest Print Tier Price: $35
Ships from the UK
S.O.E. The Baker Street Irregulars by Corvus Press
Dee's Angel Volume One: On Feathered Wings. For the Irregulars, alien incursion and the paranormal are all in a day’s work.
The Special Operations Executive (S.O.E): Sanctioned by Winston Churchill to "set Europe ablaze" during the 2nd World War and headquartered at 64 Baker Street, London, they were nicknamed "the Baker Street Irregulars" after Sherlock Holmes's fictional group of spies.
Solid, nicely composed cover art & design
Classic, Vertigo-esque sequential interior art, colors & composition
Goal: $2749
End Date: July 30, 2025
Estimated Delivery: September, 2025
No. Pages: 80
Lowest Digital Tier Price: $9
Lowest Print Tier Price: $20
Ships from the UK
Why set the funding amount so high? If its just a money grab, wouldn't setting it low allow them to actually keep all the money raised?