The Millionaires' Magician

Exclusive backer reward
over 4 years ago – Fri, Aug 13, 2021 at 07:09:23 AM

Magicians!

Time flies when you're having fun. Hard to believe that we're already only a week away from the finale of the campaign for The Millionaires' Magician.  If you're paying attention at home, you've probably noticed that the campaign is currently about 86-87% funded, thanks to all of you!

To help fight the never-ending battle (that's what it feels like, at least) of reaching the funding goal, Creation.Ink has put together a limited edition, Millionaires' Magician t-shirt that is ONLY available to you guys, our existing backers, through these updates for the remainder of the campaign. These shirts will not be made available on the main campaign page, nor as part of the after-campaign if the project funds. They've been designed specifically for you.

Here, take a look:

There are only 26 of these shirts in existence. One for Steve Cohen himself and 25 for our backers. They're available first come, first serve, from small-2XL. If you'd like to add one to your package, all you need to do is adjust your pledge upwards by $25 of additional support and leave a comment either on this update or the campaign page with your size. Creation.Ink will verify and add a shirt to the back end of your account. 

Simple enough, right? They even whipped up an official campaign-style graphic to make it all legit. 

I don't like to look at campaigns like these in terms of dollars. Money is cold and impersonal and, as you may pick up on thematically when you read the graphic novel, kind of the root of all evil.  Instead, I prefer to view campaigns through the prism of BACKERS. The people behind their computer monitors or the glass of their phones that support independent publishing, that make great projects like these happen. Which is my long-winded way of saying what we need to find over the next week is about 45 new backers to bring The Millionaires' Magician to life. 

Forty five. That seems pretty doable, right? 

There are over seven billion people in the world. All we need are 45 of them to pick up a copy of the book. We'll be doing our best to find them over the next seven days; if you can help, please and thank you! 

A magician is nothing without his audience and this project is SO close to finding theirs.

Let's get there, guys.

Keith Champagne

Keith's Birthday Wish
over 4 years ago – Fri, Aug 06, 2021 at 12:09:01 AM

Magicians! 

It's my birthday today, sure to be an extravaganza of a day full of pony rides, balloons, cake and streamers. Who knows, I may even hire a magician. I happen to know a pretty good one, after all!

If you guys would like to get me a birthday present, what I want more than anything (even pony rides) is to have this campaign shared out to a friend. Predicable, right? I know, but...

If any of you follow Kickstarter campaigns closely, you may have recognized that we're in the middle of what's called "the lull" right now; that period of time about halfway through a campaign where we're not the new project on the block anymore, but before the final rush that usually occurs in the final few days.  However, if each one of you were to tell just one friend about this project, we could end up making some serious progress towards the funding goal.  

You're often asked to share these campaigns in sort of a vague "please help us out," way, I know. So our friends at Ominous Press put their heads together to give us something kind of cool and exciting to spread the word about: a new reward level called The Magician's Secret.

The Magician's Secret is only available to 20 backers, and only over the next 24 hours (noon today until noon tomorrow). This tier offers backers a chance to grab not only the hardcover edition of The Millionaires' Magician but also, the complete library of Ominous graphic novels in digital form. The Dreadstar Omnibus series is over a thousand pages of content alone, plus every other book they've published? It's an awful lot of comics. Normally, the OP digital bundle retails for... $500, I think they said? I'll have to look that up again. But for the next 24 hours, it's only $150, including the hardcover.  That's a legit incredible value! Plus, there are still a couple of sketch rewards, tickets to Steve's actual show, and more available on the campaign. There's a lot of goodness to share so please, make my birthday wish come true.

Before I stop blabbing today, I wanted to also direct your attention to my pal Tim Seeley's campaign for the second Omnibus collection of his series,  HACK/SLASH.

If you've never heard of Hack/Slash before, the premise is pretty fun and simple. At the end of every horror movie, one girl always survives... in this case, the titular Cassie Hack.  Not only does she survive, she flips the script by hunting and destroying the horrible slashers that would do harm to the innocent! Kind of like Batman without the dead parents and cool car, but with more nods to 80's slasher flicks. Cassie teams up with a gentle giant known as Vlad and together, the two cut a bloody path through those who deserve to be put down... hard!

Tim created Hack/Slash in 2004 and by this point, his series has corrupted the minds of thousands upon thousands of readers, horror fans, aspiring comic book creators, cosplayers, and people just looking for a good time. This is a great chance to not only pick up the second omni but also a copy of the first, which is now available as part of what he's calling the BIG HACK ENERGY editions.

Here's THE LINK if you'd like to check it out. It's great, fun stuff; I'm sure you'll like it.

Thanks for your time today, guys. Let's talk again soon.

Keith

Sharing is caring and Happy Hill
over 4 years ago – Fri, Jul 30, 2021 at 01:39:20 AM

Magicians!

We wanted to check in towards the end of the week and see how everyone is doing out there. You guys good? We’re OK here, thanks for asking!

Once in a while, we come across other campaigns currently running on Kickstarter that we think are neat enough to share with our backers (and The Millionaires’ Magician campaign obviously has the finest, most discerning backers around). One campaign that caught our eye this week, and that we thought you also might enjoy, is HAPPY HILL. 

Straight from the horse’s mouth, here’s a glimpse of what HAPPY HILL is about…

“When a 6-year old child goes missing on the grounds of an exclusive vacation resort, the investigation uncovers dark secrets hidden for decades, in issue #1 of HAPPY HILL, an all new supernatural vacation horror comic from writer/artist Joe Mulvey (Scam, Wailing Blade), co-writer Rich Douek (Superman: Red and Blue, Sea of Sorrows, Road of Bones), colorist Chris Sotomayor, and letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou.

Happy Hill is a posh resort in the Catskill Mountains of New York that promises that its guests will leave truly happy – the only problem being that many of them never leave at all. Wyatt Willows is obsessed with the place, and its connection to The Wudsman – a horned, masked figure that most people think is an urban legend, but who he knows is both real and deadly.

When young Mackenzie MacIntyre goes missing, all signs point to her estranged father – but Wyatt’s instincts tell him The Wudsman, and the resort itself, are somehow involved. As he delves deeper into the mysteries surrounding Happy Hill, he uncovers horrifying truths about just how far some people will go to be happy.”

We like comics with a little edge around here and this book seems reminiscent of something like Locke And Key or The Shining, while still being completely its own beast. If you’re looking for something new and different to read, by all means check out the campaign HERE!  And let them know Creation.Ink and The Millionaires’ Magician campaign sent you!

In the meantime, don’t forget that sharing is caring. Twenty one days left in the campaign and we’re 50% funded. Let’s push this boulder the rest of the way up the hill, we can’t do it without you!

Your pals at Ominous Press/Creation.Ink

Week Two: Electric Boogaloo
over 4 years ago – Wed, Jul 28, 2021 at 01:37:45 AM

Magicians!

First of all, if you get the 80's reference in the title of this update, we just became best friends!

Secondly, week two of The Millionaires' Magician campaign has begun.  We came super close to reaching 50% of our funding goal by the end of week one, much like these charming fellows came close to plastering Steve Cohen... but not quite. 

Unlike those guys, we'll keep going for it.  They, however, get theirs very soon after (spoiler alert!).

Timing is a funny thing. Just an instant or two can make all the difference between having a few teeth knocked out or flashing those pearly whites at danger.  

For me, personally, it was timing that brought this graphic novel into my life. I had just quit writing a Superman project; there were too many editorial fingers in the pie and it had gotten very frustrating trying to keep the integrity of a story intact while fighting a never-ending battle against the tinkering of the powers-that-be. 

"Maybe I'll just focus on being an art robot for a while, " I remember thinking to myself.  "Who needs the migraines?"

But I knew I wouldn't be any happier turning off the writing side of my brain. I never am. I just needed to write something different; collaborative sure, but not micromanaged to death. 

And as timing would have it, that's when I met Steve Cohen, who had a mad idea about telling his own life story in graphic novel form. Timing, right? The Millionaires' Magician became one of the most rewarding creative experiences of my career and The Millionaires' Magician became one of my most interesting friends.

Timing is everything. Whether its the punchline to a joke, a missed punch, or a bit of sleight-of-hand, without proper timing things can go incredibly awry.

As we start week two of the campaign, it seems like time is on our side. We're pretty much halfway there with three weeks (and some change) to go, right? That's one way to look at this campaign, sure. The other is, man, that sure is a lot of time to waste.

Guys, please. Let's not waste a minute. Ominous Press is doing their part, Steve is doing his, I'm doing mine and if you all wouldn't mind continuing to try to share the project to your comic-loving friends, we'll get there.  This project is very special to me; I can't wait for everyone to read it.

Thanks for all your help and support.

Keith Champagne  

CORRECTION
over 4 years ago – Sun, Jul 25, 2021 at 02:49:25 AM

Magicians, 

Apologies but in the earlier update, a typo snuck its way into the hashtag we're using for our weekend raffle. Please use the CORRECT spelling, #millionairesmagician when you share the link out (bit.ly/millionairemagician). Otherwise, Ron Marz is going to claim these copies of Dreadstar Returns and The Dreadstar Guidebook for himself and we all know: Ron must be stopped at any cost!

Thanks for your help!

Your pals at Ominous Press/Creation.Ink