First things first, I was always going to make at the very least one Amazing /co/Ventures issue. No matter what, it’s going to happen. It just took its sweet ass time to gel into something readable and interesting to me. I never planned to make money off of it, and it’s foremost in my mind a free comicbook universe that anyone could expand on and work is owned primarily by the board.

At the same time, I’ve been immensely flattered and would be stupid to ignore the fact that that people are asking how they can can “throw money at me.” And as I’ve said then, “To be frank, that would probably help a great deal.” From the responses I’ve read, it seems like I could get any reasonable amount I could want. But this is something that deserves a lot more thought than just gobbling up your cash dollars.

I don’t consider this a commissioned story. What that means is, I’d like to retain a high degree of autonomy in making this one short book. And it’s harder to do that when people are putting in their own cash, and all that money comes with expectations on what kind of product they’d like to get back. “Why didn’t you put in this or that character? I gave you forty dollars!” That kind of possible reaction should be terrifying to anyone crowd-sourcing their projects.

Considering it’s a huge always growing universe, I already get enough about not including this or that character on a cover. (Just wait’ll they realize I don’t intend to directly involve Conrad in the first book.) I don’t mind people being maybe a little disappointed I wasn’t going to take their suggestions if I did it independently. But I would be disappointed in myself if I took their money and they were looking for something that I never intended to deliver.

I should make it clear about what it is I’d like to deliver anyway. I felt that as big and wacky a group created universe can be, any one story should always have a strong anchor. It was always going to be a Colette story, and right there I can already hear some parts of the board groaning. And then even worse, I’ve needed to make a number of new original characters to properly round out that one adventure. Imagine the reaction when people realize some new average kid is standing in a spot where a character like Conata could have been.

It’s actually a complaint I don’t mind so much, as I feel fairly strongly about the decisions I’m making to create a single readable story. There’s a small cabal of other /co/ regulars that are helping me edit the book, and I make sure to browse /co/ regularly for new ideas. I try my best to get a good read on the board’s general opinion and story directions, but if you were to take all of them at the same time you can get one big mess. So I’ve known that it’s always had to take someone with stupid amounts of time and determination to make something out of it, making decisions and putting them down in drawings instead of just putting out new ideas.

And that’s my worries in a nutshell. TL;DR, taking money to crowd-fund this one story is something I’d thought about and am hesitant on to say the least. Something like “Chip In” feels like it has long strings attached to that money, and that’s before people accuse me of making money off of “their” crowd-sourced work.

If you’d like to commission me directly for stories, /co/ related or other wise, that’s something I’m very open to do. And I’d like to work with you as a partner in that. But I’ve already got a couple of those, and it’s potentially a long wait. You can always try me at psuede AT gmail DOT com, though. I’d love to hear from you.

What I am actually comfortable with, is a simple Pay Pal tip jar. You can donate some cash, and leave me personal notes on what you’d like to see. But I wouldn’t feel beholden to making exactly what you expect. Instead, it’s a way of funding me to get more of me. I’d love to see a note like “Please make more Question Duck!” And though it wouldn’t be a explicit contract like Chip-in or Kickstarter, I’ll be paying attention to it all the same.

Thank you all, for reading and following this long.