"See, lots of people love comics. Lots of people make comics. Most of us aren’t included in the mainstream. Now with our own books, we can reach a far broader audience than capes comics or art/autobiographical comics can." Comics creator Alex de Campi talks about digital comics, the realities of funding indie comics, and bypassing the mainstream - finding the Self-Publishing Holy Grail. De Campi is not new to digital comics, and has written at length about the nuts and bolts of publishing a story in a dizzying array of languages and formats. She is now using crowdfunding to publish Ashes, the follow-up to her Eisner nominated graphic novel Smoke.
posted by Artw on Nov 8, 2011 - 9 comments

Unbound - like Kickstarter but for books. The idea is simple, authors pitch their idea and interested readers then pay a specified amount to bring the idea to life. [more inside]
posted by Faintdreams on Jun 21, 2011 - 54 comments

Emphas.is is a site where photojournalists can pitch ideas to be funded by many small donations, i.e. crowdfund them. So far nine projects have been pitched, covering a range of subjects, from the Uyghur in western China to life in Greenwood, Mississippi. Each project has a short introductory video and all are interesting in their own right. So are the descriptions and photographs that accompany the projects. The blog is worth checking out as well, especially the interviews with journalists, such as the four women who want to document a mass rape that happened last year in the Congo and a project about communism in Laos. The FAQ explains Emphas.is and how crowdfunding works in greater detail.
posted by Kattullus on Mar 24, 2011 - 3 comments

Pioneer One is an original series from the writer and director of The Lionshare. In one sense, it is an experiment in crowdfunded "television", beginning with a $6000 KickStarter budget. In another sense, it is an experiment in using a peer-to-peer distribution model (i.e., VODO's "DISCO"). The show's pilot, released two weeks ago, which can be downloaded or streamed, has been a huge success; is currently the best-seeded show on BitTorrent, and already has had well over 1 million downloads. [more inside]
posted by tybeet on Jul 5, 2010 - 32 comments

Times Square > Art Square: "a very complex project with a simple goal: to turn all advertising on Times Square into art."
posted by divabat on Dec 29, 2009 - 39 comments

Crowd surf, crowd sourcing, crowd funding? Like being supported by an ocean of people, or collaboration from around the world, crowd funding gets projects financial backing from the people. It's not new, as it has been the method for funding charities and political campaigns for a very long time, but it is a novel attempt at getting funds for other projects. Some people have placed their hopes in crowdfunding as a way to save journalism, while other companies are looking to get micropayment-scale public investments in fashion by offering investors the potential for a cut of future profits. The more typical return is physical goods, like getting the t-shirt you help sponsor [via mefi projects], or a limited edition version of the album. There's another site long these lines, but more free-form in structure: Kickstarter, crowdfunding for people who make stuff. [via mefi projects] The fundees can set a fundraising goal, deadline, and a set of rewards for backers. If the goal's reached by the deadline, then everyone's charged and backers get their goodies. If not, nobody's charged. The previously discussed 8-bit tribute to Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, Kind of Bloop was funded this way.
posted by filthy light thief on May 20, 2009 - 7 comments