Paris, the kid in the picture, got an autographed copy of “THE i’S HAVE IT!” and a hand drawn sketch card featuring Peckinpaw. But that’s just part of the story. Paris is in the hospital waiting for a transplant.
Steve Barr, who is a cartoonist also, is the one who made the pledge on Kickstarter for a copy of the new ICECUBES comic book. I had no idea at the time, but it turns out that Steve Barr runs a really neat cartooning program for pediatric patients at hospitals. He gives kids free cartooning classes, art supplies and copies of his own great cartoon books. Little did I know that he was buying the ICECUBES book for Paris. In fact the way this Kickstarter was shaping up, I wasn’t even sure the book was going to get funded at all.
When I launched the Kickstarter last May I worked hard to make the project videos good and was really proud of the book and the poster, but I didn’t know what the response would be. I was hoping for a run away hit of course, but after the first week it looked like the whole thing was falling apart.
At that point I started feeling very sorry for myself. I was also a bit angry. I even wrote a concession speech, trying to explain why we had failed and what a shame it was to not get this book published. But in the middle of the night, I read an anonymous tweet that said something like:
‘Losers look for ways to deal with their feelings, winners look for ways to fix whats broken.’
Right then and there I decided I would at least do everything I knew to try to get the book funded so that in the end whether it made it or not I could feel good about myself. And so I started a media blitz. I am sure you all got the emails and updates! Some even unsubscribed, but not many. If you look at the graph, things started drastically turning around close to the end. In fact, we went from 40% to fully funded in three days! It was a wild ride.
On the last day, with two hours left to the Kickstarter, we still were not 100% funded but I needed to go to a meeting and couldn’t stay and watch the finale. When I got home that night my wife told me we had made it! The book was 100% funded! And the very last pledge came from Steve Barr!!
The great thing is that I had promised an original drawing to whomever had the pledge that put us over the top. Steve had no idea. So Steve got the special prize and it couldn’t have gone to a better person. Isn’t that a great story?
Thanks so much for being fans and letting ICECUBES be a part of other people’s lives. 🙂
Leroy Brown
