Monday, December 31, 2018

Waging Art in a Cryptic New Year



What a year.

The war to control crowdfunding is upon us.  Thought you could choose your entertainment, and simply support who you like?  Well strap in.

But let’s recap before looking ahead.

Skirmish delivered.  Our deluxe boxed tabletop game, complete with foil stamping and black-core linen-textured cards, along with the first expansion deck. “Ruthless”.  The guys at EPF games outdid themselves, and Dreamkeepers has successfully claimed another medium with flying colors.

Simultaneously, the Dreamkeepers spinoff novel “Wayward Astronomer” won multiple Ursa Major Awards, as did the Dreamkeepers comic series itself.

And congratulating fellow winner Dogpatch Press, we discovered the most curious thing.  A secret blacklist!  (Not the only secret in the furry community, as it would later turn out.)  They weren’t permitted to even retweet our congratulations.  So I wrote a nice article for them about how to prevent Nazis, and our Patreon boomed. 

Backer support has unleashed more art than ever before.  It’s backlogged, I have too much to post!  Vivid has hired a social media manager to help us keep up.

Aside from a cascade of art from crowdfunding, Vivid published & delivered Mike Rosen’s Firebrat book just in time for Christmas, and the Dreamkeepers Volume 5 soundtrack was successfully crowdfunded by composer Nikolas Albrecht on Kickstarter.

The Dreamkeepers theme, as recorded by a live orchestra in Budapest, will make your hair stand on end when you hear it. 

We also licensed Furrysculptures.com to create 3-D printed Dreamkeepers figurines, and launched a unique Dreamkeepers roleplay system in Discord.

And that’s about when Patreon decided to start violating their own terms of service to ban creators for wrongthink.

If you’re out of the loop, check out Timcast or any of the legion of youtubers covering the debacle.

Creators flocked to an alternative platform, Subscribestar- which was immediately crushed by Paypal and Stripe, the same way they killed other Patreon competitors like Makersupport.  Some concerned citizens, like YoutuberLaw, are filing FTC complaints.  But everyone is talking about new alternatives. 

Like cryptocurrency.

Starting in 2019, Vivid Publishing will unlock the door to crypto.

In fact, you can try it right now.

Advanced players in our new cyberpunk dystopia, send BTC to:

1KvbJhj5JNDzhT4DEm1yQ6JqGcFkjmGMrf

A comprehensive announcement with more currency options, and rewards for crypto donations, is coming next month.

So, 2019 ought to be interesting! 

New platforms, new opportunities, and more content than ever for you to enjoy.

Vivid will navigate the changing marketplace to give you the best possible options, while I work my tail off to create the best possible content.

2017-2018 saw the successful expansion of Dreamkeepers, but 2019 I’ll be focusing exclusively on Volume 5.  I can’t wait to show you what we have in store.

Meanwhile, look forward to the next Vivid book release, “False Start” by the unstoppable madman Boneitis. 

If you trust the social media company algorithms, then just sit back and do nothing.  But if you want to take control, secure a position in our newsletter:  http://www.dreamkeeperscomic.com/EmailNewsletter.htm 

Thank you to the readers for making all this possible- through ups and downs, corporate censorship and community drama nonsense, it’s your willpower and commitment to your own taste that keeps things vivid.

Keep reading, and we’ll keep drawing. 

1 comment:

Wesley Bernick said...

Keep rocking it out Liz and Dave! Miss you guys!