Crowdfunding Comic Books - "LATE BOOKS" - Is YouTuber Richard Meyer Taking a Shot at Iconic Comics?

(Image Source)

ATTACKING QUALITY TO OBSCURE BAD BUSINESS PRACTICES, IN CROWDFUNDED COMIC BOOKS?

In a post to his Youtube Community page (above image) YouTuber and Indie Comic publisher Richard Meyer aka Ya Boi Zach, appears to be mocking Tim Lim and Mark Pellegrini co-creators of the Kamen America graphic novels, along with Douglas Ernst creator of the Soulfinder series. Both series are produced by Iconic Comics which has a history of on time fulfillment of crowdfunded graphic novels (comic books). This is the dirty not-so secret, secret of crowdfunded comic books; they are late more often than not, if they come out at all. The cutesy manga-styled image could be a veiled reference to Kamen America, which employs a manga-inspired style often with unabashed silly or cutey scenes and themes.

Douglas Ernst (Soulfinder creator) and some of his readers seemed to believe that Meyer was targeting Iconic Comics. In this Tweet, Ernst referenced Meyer's post and said:

Richard once said Iconic was the “gold standard” in indie comics fulfillment and then when his audience started telling him to live up to the gold standard he got upset and deleted all of the nice things he said about us.
But, yes, being a man of your word matters to readers.

RICHARD MEYER AND ETHAN VAN SCIVER - THE COMICS-LATE KING

Richard Meyer is perceived as aligned to, and a long time friend of Comicsgate's Ethan Van Sciver. Van Sciver is perhaps one of the most notorious, apparent abusers of comic book crowdfunding, launching multiple campaigns while previous campaigns are unfulfilled on the Indiegogo platform. For those unfamiliar with crowdfunding, on the Indiegogo platform, user called backer can pledge varying amounts of money towards a particular project to potentially receive a future product (perk). Indiegogo attempts to blur the lines between commerce and donations, and on their website tells their users that they are not guaranteed to receive perks. Van Sciver offered a comic book titled "Reinbow the Brute" and raised $354,100, when the initial part of the campaign concluded on Jan 29, 2021. Van Sciver solicited the project with a December 2021 delivery, but as of January 25, 2025 the project remains uncompleted and unfulfilled. Van Sciver has offered over a dozen campaigns in the interim. In this Tweet on January 24, 2025 - Van Sciver praises Meyer's post - saying "Lmao. Zack kicks some ass still."

Van Sciver has a long running feud with Tim Lim and Mark Pellegrini, even appearing to make defamatory statements about them. See this short video clip on 3speak.tv for reference.

BAD ARGUMENTS ARE A SMOKESCREEN FOR ABUSING BACKERS

What appears to be an attempt by Meyer to create a distraction for his friend Ethan Van Sciver, does expose a weakness with Crowdfunded Comic books. It also highlights a recent argument made by Van Sciver's Comicsgate - that good comic books take longer to produce. Van Sciver's main comic book is "Cyberfrog" a cybernetic frog fighting alien bees who have invaded the earth, "Reinbow the Brute" is a cartoonish parody of Rainbow Brite, essentially a premium priced Mad Magazine. Neither of these offerings are objectively substantial additions to the medium of graphic novels. They will not be spoken of in the same breath with the Watchmen, Moebius, or Frank Miller. More importantly Van Sciver and his peers set the deadlines for the projects they offer on Indiegogo. Van Sciver's backers who have already parted with their money, did not receive Reinbow the Brute in 2024. They did get to see Van Sciver created hundreds if not a thousand hours of YouTube content, where he solicited tips and superchats, and attacked publishers like Iconic and Rippaverse, who take pride in on time delivery. Fans of Meyer and Van Sciver, should be at least somewhat offended that Richard and Ethan appear to believe they are stupid enough to swallow patently stupid arguments.

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