Coming in at the last minute, we've finally pulled through and crossed our funding goal! Echoes is happening! Woo! Anyone else need a drink?

In all seriousness, thank you all so much for being here and supporting this project, it was truly something we couldn't have pulled off even a year ago and it makes me really happy to see that we can successfully make stuff that's a little less mainstream and safe.

This book is going to be incredible, we've got 24 hours left, let's build a bit of buffer room and get some more folks involved, yeah!

Wells

We're down to the last full day of the campaign and less than 5% of the way to our goal. To say this is a nail biter is somewhat underselling it!

Either way, I wanted to say thank you all so much for being here and supporting this book, it means a lot to me and the entire team. I've been dying to tell Olga to start work on the rest of the pages, so let's spread the word as best we can! If you're still on Twitter or Facebook...why? But may as well share the campaign link, it really does help.

I'm really proud of what we've been able to accomplish and I appreciate every one of you for finding our niche little project interesting. Let's find 10 more people and call this a successful campaign, yeah?

Wells Thompson

We've got 5 days left and just under $1700 to hit our goal! This is gonna be a nail biter (I guess that's what we get for having the largest funding goal in Printopia), but I believe we can pull it out, we just need some good word of mouth and a little help from our fan base!

If you're able, please give the campaign a share on your preferred social media--we can't be everywhere all the time and having other people excited for your project says a lot more than if it's just me saying that I think the project is neat.

I'd also encourage you to take a look at some of the add-ons that we have available and see if there's anything else you'd like to pick up while you're here, every little bit is going to help get us across the line!

Thanks to everyone who's supported us so far and I can't wait to start working on the rest of the comic.

Lesbians in Space 2: The Sapphics Strike Back

"Space Wizard Science Fantasy is a queer science fiction and fantasy indie publishing company which opened its doors in 2021 to publishing outside authors.

"For the past 4 years, we've run successful campaigns each June running between $10,000 and $20,000, funding 12 or more books releasing that year!

"Last year, we ran the very successful campaign for Lesbians in Space: Where No Man Has Gone Before, including stories from 4 Hugo award-winning and nominated authors. This campaign raised over $10,000 and we had so many excellent submissions, we're publishing not one, but two anthologies!"

Lesbians in Space has a wonderful tongue in cheek attitude, a fantastic line up of talented, and a really cool publisher to cap it all off. It's everything I want in an anthology and I'm really excited to see the kinds of stories the contributors came up with. Check it out here!

-Wells Thompson

Got a few things to talk about during this update, but we'll start with the poll you guys voted on over the last week. Let's learn more about the Witch!




Though she's the first thing we see in Echoes, the witch is never given a name or voice. They called her Hester prior to Mariah being brought in from another village and wed to the reverend Thomas. She was mainly a medicine woman, working with the villagers to mend their illnesses and keep them from collapsing in their fields. Not formally a doctor, but acting as a nurse, midwife, and confidant for many, some would go so far as to seek her opinion before going to the clergy.

When Mariah arrived, she was met coldly by most in the village, but not Hester. Hester made her feel at home, taught her little secrets to make domestic life more tolerable, and shared gossip with her to ease the tension of coming to a new homestead. Perhaps she was sensitive to Mariah's plight, or maybe she saw a potential pupil in her despite her proximity to the village reverend, but in secret she began teaching Mariah to read.

Thomas caught them one night upon waking to find Mariah missing. The next day a trial was held and she was charged with Witchcraft. No one spoke to her defense and all were present that night when she burned. 

For all the good she had done them, they did nothing to stop her murder. Fine. They deserve what's coming. All of them.

We're down to a single digit number of days and fast approaching 2/3rds funding! It'll be a nail biter, but I feel good about our chances. We just need to keep waving our arms and getting eyes on the project. To that end, sharing the project on your preferred social media will do a lot to help us reach our goal (and who knows, maybe even get spot coloring in the book!).

I've had a couple people ask about digital versions of some of our books in the add-ons. Not all of them can be distributed digitally for legal or logistical reasons, but for the ones that can, we've made them available. So if you wanted to read The Catskin and the Rose, MechaTon, Smut, or Frankenstein the Unconquered, but don't have the shelf space or can't afford the shipping, you'll have the option to pick it up as a high quality PDF instead!

"Eydis Frigsdottir is an Icelandic attorney with an unusual gift: contracts signed in her presence can never be broken. That talent — along with her ability to see through supernatural glamours — has made her popular with the local huldufólk. 

"But when a pair of Norse gods ask her to negotiate a peace treaty between their rather violent-natured family, Eydis quickly finds herself with a daunting to-do list: return vengeful deities back to Helheim, figure out why her lover, Addy, is kind of turning into a zombie, befriend a homicidal corgi … oh, and prevent the destruction of the world in a new Ragnarök.

"ValhalLaw is a queer, fantasy-fueled dark comedy of epic proportions, brimming with action, romance, and the occasional legalese. 

The apocalypse will be notarized."

This project is a part of the Nightfall section of Printopia along with our project and one that I wasn't aware of before, but there's nothing I don't love about it! Incredible artwork, a fantastic premise, and Sharp writing, I really encourage people to check it out!

That's all for today, let's make sure we're in a good position headed into the last week of the campaign!

Wells

Happy to announce that we are more than 50% of the way to our goal, which puts us at a great pace to make Echoes a reality! Of course, I expect a bit of a slow down as we head into the middle weeks, but I'm absolutely undeterred and super excited to be able to tell this story.

Last week I wrote a bit about where I get my ideas from and used Echoes as an example for a lot of it, so if you'd like to learn a bit more about how this story came to be, I'll link the post here!

But writing that did get me thinking, what other kinds of stuff would people want to hear about? Luckily, BackerKit comes with a polling functionality, so let's use it! Tell me in the attached poll what about this book you'd like to know more about.

Bound Words by Attic Door Media


"In her quiet bookstore, Madeline sheltered the children the crown wanted gone. She always tried to keep her head down. She never meant to fall in love. Least of all, with the leader of the rebellion, trapped away in a magic tower.

"Siora's revolution ended in chains. Captured and sentenced to solitary confinement in a lonely tower, she had all but given up until Madeline's first letters arrived. Now, with only days of freedom left, she's found love. But is it already too late?"

Queer fantasy is having something of a renaissance in the last year or so and I am ALL about it! This project is also part of the Printopia event and the art looks absolutely stunning with a really exciting premise and incredible creative team on board. It also features a cover by my friend and colleague Fell Hound, which you should absolutely spring for because it's incredible and she's the best! Check it out here!

"After their beloved city of Serena sinks into the dark waters of the lagoon, leaving it half-submerged, a charming two-bit con artist and a disenchanted former priest reinvent themselves as delivery men working on the razor's edge, bordering between sanctity and blasphemy on their motorized gondolas. As they fight for a brighter future, they soon realize that their past is not too far behind them."

Can we all agree that The Road to El Dorado is the best movie? Cool, this comic captures all the swashbuckling, con artist, gorgeously atmospheric magic of that film and also makes the queer subtext explicit. Iolanda is an incredible storyteller who's never disappointed me with her sharp wit and clever narratives and I suspect this book will fill you with as much joy as it does me! Check it out here!

That's all for now, talk soon!

Wells Thompson