Hockeypocalypse

In the time paradox that is running a crowdfunding campaign, they simultaneously feel endless and like everything needs to happen NOW. Near the end, time becomes more straightforward, because the end is in sight and it very much needs to happen now. The good news, then, is that Slashers exceeded the funding goal over the weekend, so now we’re in “can it beat the last one?” territory.

What that means for you, dear reader, is that you’re straight-up preordering the new book, signed, and with access to a bunch of cool extra stuff. The Kickstarter campaign for Cult of Hockey ended up with 56 backers, which I was pretty concerned would not be matched for most of the last month. As of the writing of this post, it seems pretty reachable, and I’d very much like to see it exceeded. I think Slashers is the best book I’ve ever produced, and it would feel very appropriate for it to outdo my previous best book.

The campaign ends on Thursday, July 21st at midnight PT/11 PM MT, so there’s not much time left to get a first printing copy of Hockeypocalypse: Slashers… click on any of the images below to go to the Zoop campaign and place your preorder!

Hockeypocalypse: Slashers continues to batter its way through the playoff series that is crowdfunding, and like an NHL playoff series, this one has been a grind.

For a series that I’ve been able to sell over a thousand copies of at conventions and book fairs, trying to crowdfund Hockeypocalypse is, for whatever reason, far more difficult than seems reasonable. I’ve thought a lot about why that is, and I have yet to reach any reasoning other than for some reason the audience of people who want these books and the audience of people willing to follow my work online overlap very little. Regardless of the reasoning, the result is discouraging! So if you’ve been thinking about it but haven’t gotten around to it yet, click the image below and get that preorder in.

The Beat included Hockeypocalypse: Slashers as the leadoff in their Crowdfunding Projects We Love roundup, with someone other than me confirming that you do not, in fact, have to like hockey to enjoy this book.

Support the book’s existence by preordering it on Zoop. I’m aware that for some, using something that isn’t Kickstarter might seem iffy, but let me assure you that Zoop is, in fact, a real, reputable service, exclusively for comics that are cool as hell.

Hockeypocalypse: Slashers has hit the halfway point of the campaign, time-wise, so it’s time for another update!

Hockeypocalypse is a series that is near and dear to me, and has been a passion project for over a decade now. It began humbly, with a desire to engage with hockey, a sport I love, without being driven to a blind fury by the worst stretch of hockey ever played by the Edmonton Oilers. Drawings of hockey mutants in my sketchbook started turning into a story, and what would become The Battle of Alberta graphic novel was the ultimate result of that. Along the way were many rejections, and more uses of the phrase “it’s great but I don’t know how to sell that” than I’ve ever heard. It’s still the thing I hear most commonly when pitching Hockeypocalypse, and as a result, every book in the series has been a DIY endeavour.

Hockeypocalypse has probably done more to improve my writing than any other series, because sports stories are reliant on finding an emotional core beyond “I hope they win.” In Slashers, that core is a reflection of experiences making comics – what happens when you get what you want, but it stops feeling like enough? What happens when you get to play hockey full time, your dream for your whole life, but now it’s normal? The excitement isn’t there anymore, it’s like a job, it’s a thing you do. That’s where Stretch is at when we begin our story, and he needs to find a way to get things figured out, because if he can’t then all of the people in Edmonton are going to be victims of the maniacal Cold Lake Slashers.

This is the best book I’ve ever drawn, but this crowdfunding process has been quite a grind. Check the book out, and support it. Maybe get one to donate to your local library!

It’s taken a lot of time and effort, but Hockeypocalypse: Slashers is nearly upon us! The crowdfunding campaign to finance the book’s publication will be taking place on new comics-only platform ZOOP beginning on June 21st. You can sign up now to be notified when the campaign goes live – there are some awesome early-bird deals, and the faster it is funded, the faster I can breathe normally again.

Click on the cover image to go to the campaign’s Zoop page, where you can sign up to be notified via email when the campaign launches on June 21st!