Seriously, someone find that old Benb book for me.

So I’ve been a little Kickstarter-crazy over the last several months, despite the fact that I have a to-read and to-watch pile already teetering over my head and the last thing I needed was…well, more things. But people keep putting out (or not putting out, as I’ll get to) good things I want to enjoy, and thus here we are.

I talked about several of these items back in April, but I thought I’d at least update you on what’s going on with them.

Starting with the items that I either already have in my hand or have experienced:

The Megaton Man Microbus:

This is a very nicely made softcover book reprinting the Megaton Man webcomic that ran in the mid-1990s through the early 2000s, featuring the wild superhero universe Don Simpson built around his Man of Molecules as seen in Bizarre Heroes and other publications.

The book is in black and white, with new scans of all the art. Simpson also provided a PDF to backers that features the strips (at their original web-ready resolution) in color. Also in the book are reproductions of all the sketches he included in folks’ books who paid for that level in the campaign. (I didn’t since I already got a character sketch from him in a previous campaign, though now I kinda wish I’d splurged for one this time.) Anyway, good book, glad to have it.

Here’s something that’s not comics:

…Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Rifftrax Experiments, picking up where the original TV show left off when it was cancelled by the Sci-Fi Channel. Rifftrax is of course the movie riffing/commentary track endeavor created by the main cast of MST3K when it went off the air, so those folks returning to play those parts is a real “full circle” kind of thing. Now, I supported the campaign at the “gimmie that Blu-ray set” level, which won’t ship ’til December, but I did go see the premiere of the first of the new episodes (Sting of Death) in a theater, so I’m pretty sure I’ll see fulfillment of this particular campaign.

Here’s a campaign that’s still active as I write this:

…Nexus: Triplets, a graphic novel written by Nexus’s co-creator Mike Baron. I’ve written about my love of Nexus many times before, and while I’m sad the other co-creator, Steve Rude, won’t be doing any more stories with the character, I have enjoyed Baron’s recent work on it (with some caveats). Splurged for the signed hardcover with the digital download, in case my eyes aren’t up to the print edition.

One I just supported and is ending the same day I’m posting this:

…well, it’s technically Steve Lafler’s campaign for his 1956 graphic novel, but one of the add-ons, which can also be purchased separately, is Benb #1. I don’t know quite how to explain the enigmatic Benb, who often appeared in Lafler’s Dog Boy comics, but he’s endlessly endearing and boy, just look at the Kirby-riffic cover.

By the way, I’m still looking for a copy of Benb and Gerald from 1980, if any of you happen to see it.

And here are a couple I mentioned last time that are still pending:

…Steve Bissette’s Complete Tyrant, collecting his sadly-curtailed indie book along with plenty of extra material. I went for the trade with the signed bookplate. Not shipped yet, but getting plenty of updates as to its progress. Estimated delivery this month, so we’ll see if they make it!

Roy from Space is a remastered Blu-ray edition of a lost Mexican animated sci-fi film, that I admit I mostly supported on a whim. It sounded interesting, and I like having oddball movies in my collection. Plus, the Gilbert Hernandez-covered edition that was available didn’t hurt. Supposed to ship in July, but I’ve been getting plenty of progress updates so I’m not terribly worried.

E. Nelson Bridwell: First Fan is a graphic novel retelling of the life of this prolific if still somewhat mysterious writer and editor for DC Comics. I always enjoyed Bridwell’s contributions to comics, so this was a no-brainer for me to support. I just went for the physical hardcover and the digital download, though I probably could have pitched in the extra 10 bucks for a signed and numbered copy. Ah well. And speaking of the digital content, I forgot it’s available now, and I just spent a few minutes reading the book instead of writing this post. Book’s good, hope it makes it to store shelves. The actual hardcover was supposed to ship in August, but again, still getting regular updates, and the digital material is here, so no worries.

And now, the campaign I pledged for and have been receiving no updates:

…the Dreadstar Vs. Dreadstar book, the campaign for which ended in April, and was supposed to ship in June, but the updates from the campaign creator ended in mid-May. A look at the comments reveals a lot of unhappy people, including me, with ain’t no response from nobody. I even reached out to a couple of folks who are listed as being associated with the campaign, and they were all like “yeah, I don’t know.” They both revealed that there were…personal reasons why things were delayed, which I don’t feel like I can share here. If this is indeed the case, the reasons are legitimate, but the extreme lack of communication is not. Even a simple “sorry, there’s been a delay” message would be nice, but nuthin’ doin’. All it looks like now is that the folks running the campaign took everyone’s (in my case) eighty bucks and split town.

I’m obviously not saying that is what happened, particularly with what I’ve been told is the actual reason for the hold-up, but boy it seems like every crowdfunding thing Jim Starlin’s had ends up with some kind of problem. Big Jim needs to rethink future efforts along these lines, I think.

Anyway, those folks I contacted said they’d try to let the person in charge here know that the comment section on their campaign page has gone feral, and hopefully that’ll goose things along? I don’t know. And I was really looking forward to this one, too.