An ancient book falls into evil hands. Can 3 unlikely warriors find it before being consumed by evil themselves? The Summons Project: a comic by Chris Williams, Jake Isenberg, and Danielle Alexis St. Pierre.
Basic Information
Format: Comic
Estimated Delivery: July – November 2014
Location: Norristown, PA
Between trying to make our own campaign successful and all of the coding involved with our future store front, I’ve been falling behind with writing reviews lately. However, I wanted to make sure to get a review of The Summons Project in.
Updated Review
Thanks to Christopher, I was given the opportunity to get a look at the first issue of The Summons Project. While a more detailed review is in order, I wanted to provide a quick analysis of the material.
Let me start off by saying that I like the artwork. In many ways it reminds me of another comic that I would have liked to see succeed: Enchanted Explorer. I also like the character development. The main character is one that I can relate to. I can’t say that I ever had that kind of personality type, but I definitely was an outcast, so I’m glad to see an outcast become a main character as Kristine Helios did. I think a lot of us “geeks” will very quickly relate her.
The dialog has me in a bit of a quandary. Something threw me off in the introduction. I think there was too much narrative thrown into too few scenes. Either that or it’s just that first person narrative doesn’t really work as well in comics as it does in other media. Luckily, the comic quickly switches over to standard dialog and after that point part of the uneasiness that I felt in the beginning more or less went away
Even with the dialog giving me somewhat of a pause, I would say that the decent story and great artwork makes the comic worth reading. I feel the majority of those backing this project will be happy with the end result.
Book Overview
Forum: The Summons Project
From the Campaign
There is an ancient text that is said to contain all of the world’s mystic secrets. It is a book of dark and light magic, a book older than the Bible. It is the “Book of Summons”. And the forces of darkness have just gotten their claws on it.
Now, with the earth’s mystic stability imbalanced, it will take a trio of unlikely heroes (a strange teenage girl, an ageless wizard, and a detective with a dark secret) to retrieve the book and restore peace. But can they do it before they’re consumed by the very evil they’re fighting against?
Campaign Specifics
Goal: $5,000
Pledge Tiers: 10 tiers ranging from $5 to $1,000
End Date: Mon, May 19 2014 4:58 PM EDT
Funding Type: Fixed
Chances of success
Christopher put a lot of detail into the Kickstarter campaign: there are plenty of graphics and details about the story. That seems to have helped get an initial set of backers.
The campaign slowed down a bit, but campaigns tend to slow down after that initial burst and then have a final burst within the last 48 hours when the reminder is sent out by Kickstarter. One glitch in the campaign, which I see in so many campaigns is again not taking the time in the first day or two to thank those who have already backed the campaign while asking them to get the word out to others.
Rewards
The rewards are simple, but that’s not bad. Depending on how much you pledge, you can get things like signed copies and a sound track to go along with the comic. There’s a fair amount of custom content that you can get for backing, including custom drawn sketches of the characters.
One point that’s lacking in term of custom content is your likeness in the material. There’s a $1,000 reward that allows your likeness in the second edition, but there’s only one available. It’s certainly not necessary, but I think it helps.
Perhaps, a setup closer to the Slate & Ashe campaign where one can become a full fledged character in an upcoming issue (not necessarily the next one) might have been preferable. It could have certainly drawn in some larger pledges, but again, probably not necessary for the campaign to succeed and it would have added more labor to the project, cutting the chances of completing the issue on time.