Hairy Steve

[jamie]

Hello good Comics UK folk!

My name is Jamie Smart. I draw Desperate Dan, as well as My Own Genie, PSPM, Fish-Head Steve, even Doctor Who these days.

A few years ago, I collaborated on a comic with one of my comic heroes, who forum-ers probably know already, Steve Bright (Bananaman among many, but biggest for me - Prambo). I wrote it, and he started drawing it.

It was called Hairy Steve, a tooth-and-fur grown-up comic about a hairy antihero, fighting evil (note - containing swearing and violence). We had a huge amount of fun but it kinda fell by the wayside, both me and Steve had to get on with rent-paying work and leave Hairy Steve as a whim, a couple of pages complete, just a nice idea we’d one day like to return to.

This year, the idea of internet funding occurred. Comic artists asking for contributions to help them finish their comic, in return offering incentives to everyone who contributes, seems to me like a really organic way of producing art (and, more than that, free art). Being someone who puts most of his work online for free (and by god there’s a lot of it on here now), I find this idea intriguing and want to see if it works.

So far it has, in the first half an hour we had a flurry of very generous contributions. All the money earned will go towards printing a limited-run of this comic (only available to contributors), the rest going to pay Steve a wage to work on the art. I take no profits. In return for contributing, you can get everything from signed comics to original sketches, even a zombie drawing of yourself.

And even if you can’t contribute, we would appreciate any help in promoting this, to help spread the word. Because when we hit a quarter of our total, Hairy Steve will come online as a webcomic. So you get to read it anyway! EVERYONE WINS!

If you're interested in our story, or seeing how funding works, please click here http://www.hairysteve.com, to visit our website front page and indiegogo campaign telling you all about the story, how to contribute, and over the coming weeks we’ll be posting up previews and sketches!

Thank you.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

Best of luck with this one, Jamie: it looks brill: sadly some of us are already trying to promote our own wares ......hopefully non-creators will queue up to fund your enterprize.

[Lew Stringer]

Best of luck with this one, Jamie: it looks brill: sadly some of us are already trying to promote our own wares ......hopefully non-creators will queue up to fund your enterprize.

I hope non-creators and creators will back it if they're able to. I've just chipped in, and promoted it on my blog. Good luck folks! Smart and Bright could be the greatest double act of the 21st Century.

[jamie]

Thank you both! And yeah, I think crowdsource fundraising is an incredibly intriguing model for any cartoonist putting their work on the web - you can reach a wider audience with your work and give extra to those who choose to help fund you. Myself and Steve were rather surprised with the response already, getting a project off the ground is never an easy feat but goodwill can push it further forward than one might initially think.

[Steve Henderson]

I donated, giving money's not a problem, now if they can figure out a way of people donating TIME I may get some of my own stuff done! I'm loving what I've seen of Hairy Steve so far and look forward to seeing it in print! Nice work.