New Pain 2-In-1: NPC JUMP #1-2 and THE NEW PAIN HANDBOOK!.

The final week...almost!
4 months ago – Wed, Aug 14, 2024 at 09:27:14 AM

New Painiacs! How we all doing, everyone OK out there the past week?

Tomorrow will begin the final week of this roller coaster of a campaign. We seem to have emerged from SCAMMER-GATE (and if you're still reading these updates, Scammer, you're still an a-hole), things have been more or less stable the last six days; as stable as Kickstarters ever are, anyway. 

So knock on wood there are no more shenanigans ahead of us and we can start hitting some stretch goals in the final lap of this bad boy. All crowdfunding campaigns are stressful but this will be the first one that gives us a touch of PTSD. 

 As always, the best way to help us break more ground on this campaign is to share it out on your various social media platforms. We don't want you guys to have a touch of PTSD either, so we made it easy for you. If you're inclined to do so, just pop this QR code onto your timelines and who knows? Maybe a few people will click it and join the party!

We appreciate all the help, fellas, and will keep you posted on our progress this final week. 

IN OTHER NEWS...

"Tantalizing" Tom Nguyen and I will be appearing together at Terrificon at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, CT this weekend. Terrificon is a great show every year, it's CT's biggest and best comic con by miles. This year, for the first time ever, in addition to our artist alley tables, we'll have the first ever New Pain table sandwiched in between us. Our dedicated staff will have copies of every single book we've published to date, advance copies of stuff we haven't officially published yet, pop-up signings by some of the creators that have worked on our books, some NP Merch and more! If you're going to be at the show, by all means come by and say howdy. We consider all of our backers personal friends and always look forward to meeting in person. 

NEW ZODIAX ATTAXX!

One of those pop-up signings we just mentioned will feature our very good friend "Jocular" Joe St Pierre, who has launched a Kickstarter this morning for the next chapter of his AWESOME New Zodiax series, New Zodiax Pisces #1.

I love Joe's artwork (especially his coloring!) and New Pain has already backed his new project. If you guys want to support New Zodiax Pisces, backers of both our campaigns will be receiving digital downloads of New Pain's book, MICROSCOPIC #1 and Joe's last New Zodiax project, NEW ZODIAX AQUARIUS, as well as a special crossover print featuring characters from both books by Joe, myself and Rich Stahnke. To help us keep track of crossover backers, just leave the comment "New Painiax" on Joe's page if you back it and we'll make sure you get the extra goodies. Just click on that picture above and let the games begin!

TIME TO GO!

Back to the salt mines, guys. I gotta put fresh linens on "Tubular" Tom Nguyen's guest bed before he shows up on my doorstep tomorrow. But thanks as always for your time and support and hope to see some of you at Terrificon this weekend!

Your bestie,

"Kindly" Keith Champagne

(Everyone gets a nickname, Stan Lee-style from now on!)

CRISIS AVERTED!
4 months ago – Wed, Aug 07, 2024 at 07:25:33 AM

New Painiacs! 

Although we've had another $340 in cancels between last night's update and this morning, thanks to several new backers and a couple of heroes named Tommy and Josh, we're still safely funded and (hopefully) out of the danger zone. 

If the scammer is still getting these updates from other secret accounts still backing this project, YOU'RE AN ASSHOLE. Seriously. We're just trying to make some fun comic books. Who has the time and motivation to create (at this point) 14 or 15 different Kickstarter accounts just to mess with people? Get some therapy and get a life, you dickhead, and wait for karma to come around.

To the rest of you, thanks for everything. Your teamwork is helping our dream work. 

Back soon with more.

Your bestie,

Keith Champagne 

Emergency Broadcast!
4 months ago – Tue, Aug 06, 2024 at 03:34:36 PM

Guys, we've been scammed! 

As Rich Stahnke and I were recording the Comics Crusader podcast this afternoon, I was surprised to see our funding goal dropping every time we cut to the KS page. I did a little digging through the metrics while podcasting and it turns out one scammer backed the project under 9 different identities and then canceled those fake pledges in the span of about five minutes.

How shitty, right? It makes no sense to me how some people find joy in just outright trolling people like that. 

What's worse? The 2-in-1 campaign is no longer funded. Thanks to these scammy shenanigans, we're $300 short of our funding goal right now.

The silver lining is the scammer didn't cancel at the last minute and we still have 16 days to make up the difference again, and hopefully still hit a stretch goal or two. Help us spread the word, New Painiacs. Or pick up an add-on, if you have the means. We need a little extra elbow grease to help us get back on track. 

What a day...

Back with more updates soon. Hopefully good news next time. 

Your (stressed) bestie,

Keith Champagne

Week 3!
4 months ago – Tue, Aug 06, 2024 at 08:47:41 AM

New Painiacs! 

We have rolled on into WEEK 3 of our 2-in-1 campaign and to celebrate making it this far, I thought I'd answer the burning question at least three of you seem to have: "Why do these 2-in-1 campaigns?"

Obviously, the real answer is because we have no idea what we're doing but the pretend answer is they're just about timing, really. Through Kickstarter, we can only really run 4 campaigns a year, one every 3 months. Even having the books finished before their campaigns, that's roughly the amount of time the cycle takes from start to fulfillment. So it's a way to sneak a 5th book into existence. Ideally, we'll see some growth and are able to rely less on KS over the next year; or you may start seeing 4-in-1 campaigns because we have a lot of comics, like P.U.N.C.H. #1, that are patiently waiting in line for their turn. 

Anyway...week 3! We're fully funded although some cancellations have kept us pretty close to the funding goal. We're hoping week 3 will help us build a little buffer to keep from dipping back under and also get us closer to unlocking our first stretch goal, which will add an 8-page back up story to NPC JUMP #2. Although actually, it'll be a front-up story because if its placed in the back of the book, it'll interrupt the usage of the inside back and back cover as story pages this issue. The back up is written by a young gun, Atomic Tommy Denesen and we're still looking for an artist. I may draw it myself depending on my schedule. 

You guys can help by just forwarding our social media posts if/when you see them. Click of a button, that's all it takes and maybe a few more people learn about this campaign and the fun comics we're making.

We're also adding a couple of new original art rewards to the campaign for week 3, the original NPC JUMP #1 variant cover art by Patrick Olliffe and Freddie Williams, as seen below...

As we often do, we like to give our existing backers first dibs before we open the rewards up to the general public. If any of you guys want to claim one of these pieces, they're $300 each through this update. They'll be $500 each when they're listed on the page tomorrow. All you need to do is navigate to "manage your pledge," add $300 of additional support and drop us a comment here. The art will be added to your pledge on the back end.

Tonight at 5:00 EST, Rich Stahnke and I will be popping up on the Comics Crusader Podcast with Al Mega, who is a lot of fun to chat with. I don't have a link yet but I'm sure if you're interested in tuning in, both Rich and I will post it to our socials before we go live. 

And finally, most excitingly (for me) is that because we reached our funding goal, I've started writing NPC JUMP #3. There's never been a guarantee that we'd make it this far so believe me, I'm so grateful to be able to write another chapter of this story. I owe it all to you guys so thanks!

We'll update you again soon, keep fighting the good fight!

Your bestie,

Keith Champagne

PS- don't forget to check out the incredibly charming children's book, THE LITTLEST GIRAFFE! What a treat this project is!

Saturday Surprise!
4 months ago – Sat, Aug 03, 2024 at 08:49:54 AM

New Painiacs! 

A funny thing happened last night. Thanks to our influx of new backers yesterday, our 2-in-1 campaign funded! Special thanks to KEVIN for putting us over the top and to every single one of you for continuing to support these projects. Whether it's your first campaign with us or your 10th, we appreciate each of you. 

Attention now turns to our Stretch Goals, the first of which will be an original 8-page story written by Atomic Tommy Denesen with an artist TBD at this time; our original choice won't be able to turn the work around in the window of time we need it drawn. Any of you guys want to draw it? I mean, first dibs before we start going through the rolodex. Just let me know and we'll see if we can work it out.

I'll be back at the start of week 3 with another update but absolutely had to take a minute to say thanks. It's a tumultuous, stressful time in the world today but you guys are a bright spot!

Your bestie,

Keith Champagne