Dear To My Heart
I want to take a moment to talk about a project that means a lot to me.
You guys have been so amazing about supporting the few crowd-funded projects that, for one reason or another, really felt important to me. You guys helped make my friend, mouth artist Larime’s book a huge success in its last few hours, you helped push Jamal Igle’s MOLLY DANGER book over its minimum in the last day of pledges, and you have supported my own book, LEAVING MEGALOPOLIS to a ridiculous level of success.
I try not to do this full-on endorsement thing often, I don’t want to flood people’s dashboards with this stuff. But there’s a project that is very meaningful to me that I hope people will take a look at in its last day and a half of pledging. And it’s got a ways to go, so I hope many of you will.
It’s Lea Hernandez’ vampire family ogn, THE GARLICKS.
Quick background, without Lea Hernandez, I might not even be in comics right now. She was the first pro to ask me to write something for her to draw.
I loved her work, her fabulous steampunk graphic novels, which are beautifully illustrated and written. We met in a chat room, and hit it off right away…eventually, she asked me to write something for her to draw.
This was astonishing to me…I didn’t even dream something like that could ever happen to a hairdresser in the boonies in Oregon.
What we came up with was the brutal, but funny, KILLER PRINCESSES, a book about the entitlement of the privileged, and how dangerous anti-intellectualism could get. It’s filthy and funny and I love it to this day. And Lea drew the HELL out of it. It was my first professional comics project and still one of my favorites.
I adore Lea’s art style, she was ages ahead of the manga boom, and never a slave to it in the first place—she found a way to make her own style, infused with an unfailingly perfect design sense. She does ‘charming’ like few artists can even approach, let alone master.
Her current project, THE GARLICKS, is the story of a family of vampires, where the older sister has none of the vampire powers, even though her baby sister is blessed with the whole gamut. Every piece of art I’ve seen is so adorable you just want to take it home and cuddle it, and Lea is a master at tugging on the heart strings.
It looks like it’s going to be a masterpiece…here’s a link to check out a bit about the book and the story:
I really want this book to happen. We all know how difficult it can be to think of a decent ogn that is appropriate for people who don’t follow comics. Well, THIS IS THAT BOOK, the kind of thing anyone can share and enjoy.
Lea is asking a very reasonable 19k as her minimum to print. She has less than two days to go and is not yet halfway there. She can make this, with enough help!
She also has some of the coolest reward bootie you will ever see. I have bought several pieces of Lea’s art, and I’m not kidding, I treasure them.
Lea is also the single mother of two wonderful, special needs children. The dedication it takes to make comics in her situation is remarkable, and she’s determined to do this without compromising on the quality of her vision.
This is a special book. I have reread every Lea Hernandez book I own many, many times and this would be her first major work in years. It needs to happen.
Kurt Busiek is so convinced that this book needs to happen that he is willing to literally eat a bug, and no, I’m not kidding.
So, please, go take a look. You will be glad you did, just for the art alone, but if you can, the ebook starts at just ten bucks. Ten bucks, and you help make this beautiful book a reality.
Even if you can’t pledge, I’m asking everyone, please spread the word. If you want charming comics, beautifully written and drawn comics, fun comics, comics created by strong women creators, comics with great female protagonists, or just plain great comics, you will love this book forever, honest.
Help if you can, spread the word if you can’t, okay? You will be making comics better!
Less than two days left!
