Comic book writer Scott Snyder turned his attention back towards helming creator-owned titles through his new publishing imprint Best Jackett Press, with the line's inaugural title being crowdfunded through Kickstarter.
Launching the campaign this past summer, Snyder and co-creator Tony S. Daniel's upcoming series Nocterra was successfully funded and is slated for publication through Best Jackett and Image Comics this March. For Snyder, there were two reasons behind the decision to crowdfund the project, with one stemming directly from concerns from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic's impact on the comic book industry.
"One [reason] was pragmatic in that we really wanted to make sure that we had money in the bank to do the book, regardless of what happened with COVID — if there was another shutdown, if there was no vaccine — all of it, it was a very uncertain time back in February and March," Snyder told CBR. "And there was a sense not to lean on Image or strain any indie publisher to do books if we could get the money ourselves and to be able to do it in an honest way. Also, whatever surplus I could make from it would help the other books on Best Jackett. The extra money I made from the Kickstarter is going directly to Chain, the next book I'm doing at Image with Ariela Kristantina."
Nocterra takes place in a world that has plunged into eternal darkness, with humanity forced to band together lest they succumb to the corruptive effects of the insidious shadows engulfing the planet. With those themes of collectivism and collaboration in mind, Snyder also felt that crowdfunding the book would further bring readers into the experience and witness how the project was created firsthand.
"The more exciting reason to us was to be able to show people the real process by which we were making the book because the book is about finding each other in the dark and collaborating to overcome challenges. And the idea of making a book where you'd be able to get my scripts and see that it reads this way but, when you get the final product, it'd be wildly different," Snyder continued. "My hope is you can see the whole process of how creatively we built something like this and how collaborative it is, with how Tony's art changes from my scripts and then the way what you actually see changes from what's in the collected edition, is all part of the experience of how this is the way a comic is made in my opinion; a totally shared experience."
Written by Scott Snyder and illustrated by Tony S. Daniel, Nocterra #1 goes on sale March 3 from Image Comics.
0 Comments