I've been waiting a WHILE to announce this

The next Tart Kickstarter is a palling around with Miskatonic High... and that's not all that's unique about it...

Quite a while ago, I started to communicate with Mike Shea, the writer and co-creator of Miskatonic High.

As a comic creator who has found the most success for our book on Kickstarter, my eyes are always open for other creators who are killing it on the platform. What are they doing right that I am either doing wrong, or not thinking about doing at all? What do we have in common that I might not be emphasizing in our marketing? Basically: What can I steal from these dudes and dudettes that I haven’t thought about on my own?

Mike and his team at Miskatonic High were doing a whole lot right. So I backed the book, and I realized it wasn’t smoke and mirrors making them succeed. It was a great comic that did unique things that few others were doing. One of the things that stood out to me immediately is what stood out to me the first time I saw Scream. The teenagers in both properties are real, fun, shitty teenagers. Some are too prideful, some too ashamed. Some have no handle on what is important in life, some put too much focus on a thing that is important today, but won’t be next year. Some are oblivious, some are too intent on tiny details that shouldn’t matter. But they’re also (for the most part), good, caring people that want to do the right thing (note, I’m no longer talking about any characters from Scream in case you think I forgot how that movie went).

Mike and I chatted on and off about writing, running Kickstarter campaigns etc. And we both agreed that there was enough of a shared Vinn Diagram of our comic universes that it wouldn’t be insane for our books to crossover in the future if we found the right story.

But we actually didn’t find the right story. Instead Mike approached me with a unique, and kind of wild idea. Let’s write a story together with Tart and the kids at Miskatonic High, but only tell the story in a series of trading cards.

I was lost!

But dammit, I was intrigued.

How would that work, I asked.

I’m not really sure, but it might be fun, he answered.

Honestly, that was the challenge I wanted to be part of.

So we started out trying to find a story that we could tell on about 9 trading cards. We soon realized that if we wanted it to have any depth, for the characters to have any growth, and for the reader to get anything emotional out of it, we had to go longer.

We found a story that we felt treated both comics with the respect we had for it. We both got to push our favorite characters from the other property forward for a nice, powerful moment. And we also both got to sit down with our own characters dialogue and make sure it was their voices that can be heard in the story.

We reached out to an artist Mike knew a little, who did a wonderful job. But he quickly realized it was a job to obig for him at the time. Mike and I went out looking, and it was Mike who found our artist. If you backed the Tart 16 Kickstarter campaign, you know the name.

Benalki.

Benalki deftly illustrated our story and captured beauty and tone we hoped would be there. He also added energy and pop (as well as anime wisdom - he picked the cosplay the characters wear. Another way of me saying, I do not know who they are cosplaying, ask someone else).

We’re very excited. I am supposed to receive the Tart 16 books from Colorvision October 10th, so I’m going to work my butt off to have them all fulfilled by the week of October 21st. A goal I’ll pretty much have to achieve because we are launching this baby just before Halloween: October 29th.

Please visit our Prelaunch page and hit the notify my now link to be certain you won’t miss the launch:

MISKA-TOXIC KICKSTARTER!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tartcomic/miskatonic-high-meets-tart-a-trading-card-crossover

A LITTLE FICTION

Two weeks ago I shared an epic poem I wrote long ago with the paying subscribers to this substack. I told them, and am telling you now, that it is difficult (not impossible, but difficult) to get the new chapters of Tales of the Lost Toxics ready to go during a Kickstarter (my creative energy is stolen trying to figure out ways to find and entice new readers during those) campaign.

It is about a boy who thinks the way to win the hand of the girl he loves is to do the very obvious thing: slay a dragon.

I hope they enjoyed it (and if you go on to be a paid substack subscriber I hope you read it and like it too). This week, and in two weeks from now I’m sharing the two part prequel to this story. This one was written in prose, not verse, but I’m still very proud of it.

THE MYSTERIOUS MAN FROM THE PARK

Part I

When you are determined and prepared, nearly any situation can be turned to your advantage.

“DRAGON!”

The stunned townsfolk looked to the sky, as the scream echoed through the crowd. Was this a prank? A dragon had not been seen in these parts in generations.

An explosion less than two hundred yards away shook them from their stupor. Everyone in the clearing scattered, grabbing children as they ran toward the presumed safety of their homes.

The man selling tonics to the crowd ditched his cart and ran as fast as his corpulent legs could carry him to the edge of the clearing.  If he could get to his workshop in the park, and more importantly his magiks, he might be able to match her. Out here in the open, he was easy prey.

He caught a glimpse of the fierce dragon in the night sky. She was turning toward him and he dove under a bush. Under cover, he cast a rudimentary cloaking spell to fortify the camouflage. If she was truly hunting him, it would not be enough, but it was all he could do without supplies.

Fortunately for him the dragon was not looking for anyone in particular. This evening was her grand entrance. Her attacks were brutal, but indiscriminate.

From his hiding spot, the man watched her spread mayhem as she flew North. Judging by her wing span, she couldn’t have been more than two hundred years old. “Perfect,” he thought, “she’s young enough to be manipulated, but old enough to think she’s in charge.” And the man scurried off to his workshop to prepare his first move.