Matter Anti-Matter
Welcome to Matter Anti-Matter, a site about nerd stuff. By day, I work at Kickstarter.
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You can also find me here .
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I make silly stick figures for a living, but you’re the ones who care about them enough to make this happen. I couldn’t have done it without your help—literally, of course, but also in more intangible ways. Nine years is a long time to draw stick figures, and I’ve had days where I just wanted to wrap the whole thing up early and move on to something else. But now that I know I have this kind of support out there, it will be that much easier to keep going during the hard times. So I’ll keep working to make OOTS better and we’ll keep this spirit going through the end of the pledge drive, through the rest of the year, and on into whatever the future holds. Thank you.
Rich Burlew’s 26th project update, and the first one since Order of the Stick crossed the million dollar threshold.
Between just yesterday and today, Burlew spent 14 hours answering emails and messages from thousands of backers. Since kicking off this project, he’s posted an update every day (except weekends) with progress reports, hand-drawn charts, and new rewards. He’s been talking non-stop to backers through updates, comments, and on his own forums. His project holds a record for most comments ever (currently at 13,502 and rising). He’s communicating up a storm, making sure every single person knows what they’re getting and who they’re supporting. He’s doing it right.
If you want to know why Burlew’s been so successful, read through his updates and take note of how much he cares about his community.
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Rich Burlew’s D&D-inspired webcomic Order of the Stick has officially become the third project in Kickstarter history to surpass $1 million. Congrats!
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Richard Stevens, aka rstevens, has launched a project to release a free eBook version of his long-running webcomic Diesel Sweeties.
He’s also leading the charge in creating more bacon-based rewards, so obviously you should support this.
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Oh, and my email inbox is a swirling eldritch nightmare that threatens to burst the fragile digital bonds that restrain it from devouring me in my sleep. Other than that, though, it’s all going very well.
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But what makes it really fascinating is that it’s the democracy of the Internet in action. In an industry like comics, where the mainstream print publishers are losing readers, here’s a webcomic that’s directed at about as much of a niche audience as humanly possible — a parody of D&D done with stick figures — that’s not only found an audience, but has mobilized them into a fundraising effort that’s raised $264,000 in eight days, just to get collections of it back in print. And if those readers are big enough fans that they’re willing to do that much for the strip, odds are pretty good that they’ve got the books already, and are doing it so that the strip will be there for newer fans to enjoy.
Chris Sims at Comics Alliance marvels at the power of fans.
As of this moment, Order of the Stick has raised over $331k and is on track to become one of Kickstarter’s 10 Most Funded projects of all time.
Mind. Blown.
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