Superheroes Turn to Crowdfunding

Rock N Roll (left) and Night Bug, members of the California Initiative,are fundraising to produce a series of books for children.

In late May I posted a blurb about Austin,Texas RLSH Zimmer's effort to raise funds to build a solar poweredphone recharger for his gadget building company Zimtelligence. His Kickstarter campaign to fund the project was a success, raising over $3,000 and started what appears to be a new trend for RLSH (X-ALTS, RCSM,etc.)-- crowdfunding to support projects and equipment upgrades. There are two current campaigns I'm aware of and will mention here.

Members of the California Initiative are currently trying to raise a little over $8,000 through the site FundRazr to pay for the production of a series of RLSH themed children's books. The FundRazr page states:
"Through our stories, wehope to teach children the importanceof being kind,standing up for what you believe in, getting involved in your community, and much more from the code of ethics that all true superheroes live by."

The group says 10 percent of book sales will be divided between children's charities and are offering incentives at a number of donation levels similar to Kickstarter.

The donation page and more info can be found HERE.

Also a hot topic is Phoenix Jones' effort to raise$10,000 for a new "supersuit" via paypal donations. The Seattle superhero, leader of the Rain City Superhero Movement, says the upgrades include bulletproof armor and face shield, and built in cameras that will allow viewers to follow his patrols live. His effort is off to a strong start,but other RLSH have been critical of his budgetary priorities. (See for example, this post from the Seattle Weekly.)

Jones is also offering a number of incentives for donating at different levels. High rollers can even get their name engraved on the suit. The donation page and more info can be found HERE.

Heroes in the Night will be published in Fall 2013 by Chicago Review Press

CONCESSION SPEECH

Tea Krulos and Uncle Larry singer/ guitarist Billy Judge Baldus in the Superhero Photo Booth

The Kickstarter campaign was a failure, but not a complete one. I realized that after I thought about the long list of people who I had to thank for their help. I've always been cursed with very little monetary capital, but blessed with lots of social capital. And so a big thank you and a cigar to the following people, divided into categories of the campaign.

The Kickstarter campaign itself: Although I didn't have success, I think the Kickstarter site is a really awesome idea, and I highly recommend it to others who have wanted to complete their project, but have been held down by monetary concerns. Videographer Matthew Miller introduced the Kickstarter idea and produced the short videos we used for the site. He generously donated his equipment, services, and his very little available spare time to edit.

The Watchman, photographer Paul Kjelland, and Jack of Hero-Gear.org all agreed to donate services as prizes for different pledge levels.

The project had 41 backers, ranging from $5 donations to ones over $200. I would like to thank these 41 people for believing in the project enough to invest money, especially in hard financial times.

The internet campaign: Many people tried to help spread the word on the internet, via Facebook, MySpace, and their blogs and websites. Thanks to all of these people, some I don't even know. There are so many people who shared the links to the Kickstarter, media articles, and the Superhero Dance Party. Many people mentioned the campaign or attached a widget to their site. I would like to thank reallifesuperheroes.org for not only allowing me to hang around their forum, but also for reprinting the Kickstarter page and media coverage on their main site. Many RLSHs offered encouraging words. I was also quite honored to receive the Award For Literary and Journalistic Excellence in Support of the RLSH Culture which was issued at the Superheroes Anonymous 4 Conference.

Treesong became a Heroes in the Night correspondent when the two of us collaborated on posting his reports about the Superheroes Anonymous 4 conference, so I want to thank him for that and his support.

Real Life Supervillains also offered their evil support- I would like to thank the crafty Overlord and the wily Lord Malignance for posting the project on their blogs and the other supportive villains, too. "Morally neutral" people helped out, too- for example my friend Lacy Landre posted the widget on her site for vintage clothing and collectibles- A-Hem Vintage. My friend, painter Chris Miller, entered the scary world of online comments sections to promote the Kickstarter link.

Flyer campaign: I made a flyer with the Kickstarter info, and mailed copies to some of friends around the country, so thanks to Kelly and Shannon (both of MN), Sarah (FL), Bae Lee and family (AK), Holly (NY), Julie (ID), and Gabe (KY) for hanging flyers in your home towns.


The media campaign- Operation Full Orchestra: One of the benefits of the campaign was a drive to land some media. First I would like to thank the "editor-in-geek" of the Forces of Geek website, Stefan Blitz. He offered a free banner ad on the site and posted a Q and A interview with me about the book.

Riverwest Currents editor Jan Christensen has been helping me edit the book and in the October edition of the paper she rewrote some info about the book for a couple paragraph write up, accompanied by a great photo by Paul Kjelland.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote a story accompanied by a video. Thanks to Mike De Sisti for producing that and editor Tom Tolan, who edited the piece and bravely joined us on patrol twice! The Journal Sentinel piece was picked up by other websites here and there and led me to being a guest on The Rob Breakenridge Show, a radio talk show that airs across the great province of Alberta.

Third Coast Digest has produced a wonderful two part podcast series. The first was posted last week and was an interview with me, the next airs this week and will be an interview with The Watchman. Thanks much to Mark Metcalf, who conducted the interviews, Brian Jacobson, for taking some awesome pictures for the website, and managing editor Erin Petersen, who oversaw the operations, along with a team of sharp interns.

Lastly, I'd like to announce that this attention has led me to be a guest this week on Ripley's Believe it or Not Radio (a podcast or as they call it, an "oddcast" on their website)- a link will be posted here when it debuts later in the week.

The Superhero Dance Party: David Beyer, Jr. drew the fun graphic for the flyer, and two of my favorite local bands- Uncle Larry and Danny Price and the Loose Change proved what awesome guys they are once again by playing the show and ignoring my lack of money. Rounding out the entertainment was opening act Paul Kuhn, who played a great set and DJ Lady Blackheart.

The Watchman and Blackbird, in addition to helping me with the aforementioned media, made a guest appearance at the show and got to meet a lot of people attending the show. Thanks to them for all the support.

My sister Megan and her husband Nick took money and sold raffle tickets at the door. That was a huge relief to me so I could walk around and talk to people.

We raffled off 23 prizes. Some of it was stuff from my own collection- some comic books and a framed portrait of Thomas Jefferson that was hanging in my office. Other people donated prizes- Felix Frankee Bofil, a talented artist and anti-litter advocate donated shirts and postcards, local jewelry maker Alana Coppinger of Dragon's Fire Creations donated necklaces, esteemed author Hoam Rogh of Shady House Publications donated books, Comics biz guru Tim Demeter donated design/consultation service, Jan Christensen donated a plot in a community garden, and my girlfriend, Laura Gorzek donated free photo sessions. Laura and her friend, photographer April Heding also operated the popular Superhero Photo Booth- you can see the results HERE.

I also need to thank Laura for her support of me. It takes a brave woman to enter into a relationship with a madman in the middle of a Kickstarter cyclone. But instead of distancing herself from the madness, she began e-mailing her friend list, designed the text for the dance party flyer, and helped organize the event.

Many of you are probably wondering what happens next. I honestly don't know.
I am going to take a few days off from thinking about it and then try to think of a new strategy.

Thanks again, everyone!

THE LEGEND OF THE FOX

Heroes in the Night's Bibliography's Greatest Hits

This will be a series posted randomly over the next month.

Writing Heroes in the Night has been based on three major points- extensive interviewing, field work, and research. Interviewing is pretty self explanatory. I’ve spoken to as many RLSHs (and assorted personnel ) as much as I’ve could. I’ve done interviews by e-mail, instant message, phone, and of course the most preferred method- in person. That ties in with field work which would be joining RLSHs out on the street, not only to observe, but to participate when I can.

Research started with reading RLSH MySpace pages and websites and reading all the articles and watching any video I could find online. I also began reading anything I thought might establish “mood”- mostly comic books and graphic novels, as well as some studies of comic books and philosophy (there are a couple of books that explore the psychology of Batman, for instance) and studies of groups that might be in the same family tree, even if it was just to conclude they had nothing in common with RLSH.

Of course one of the most sensational historic finds was by a group of RLSH working together who uncovered How to be a Superhero, a 1980 book by Night Rider. I wrote about that book in an entry HERE.

The book refers to self proclaimed “real life superheroes” Night Rider, Ms. Mystery, and Phantom Avenger. However unless something else is recovered or one of these individuals comes forward publicly to reveal more info, their story starts and stops within the book covers of How to be a Superhero. A fourth person mentioned in the book- Curtis Sliwa- on the other hand, is well documented to this day. He formed the Guardian Angels, now more or less a “mainstream” organization that has been recognized by New York mayors, presidents, and world leaders.

But there was one more mentioned in that book- The Fox. It turned out that there were quite a few online articles on the wily Fox, and one of them mentioned that he had published an autobiography. A search on Amazon turned up a few copies, so I excitedly added one to the shopping cart, and I’m glad I did.

The book is titled Raising Kane: The Fox Chronicles, By “Ray Fox”and was published by Kindred Spirits Press in 1999, and not a moment too soon- The Fox died at age 70 two years later in 2001.

The Fox operated in Aurora, Illinois (not too far from Chicago) and his name is dually clever- he main mission was protecting the Fox River from pollution. “Zorro” is Spanish for fox, and there is a comparison to be made there. To understand the Fox’s mission more clearly, here is an excerpt from the book:

So what have I done? Essentially I’ve diddled with, or messed with the Law. Not once, but many, many times; deliberately and premeditatedly. More sorrowfully than rancorously.

Just what did I do to the Law? Depends on who you talk to. Some will say I broke hell out of it. That I am a dangerous, evil, lawbreaker. A formidable enemy of the Law. Others have said that I bent it just a tad. Very minor. Justifiable civil disobedience, a necessary gadfly. Who’s law? Mankind’s?...Maybe. Natural Law?...Never. Lots of people have lots of opinions.

Over the last twenty-nine years, I’ve capped smokestacks, plugged sewers, and hung signs. (I’ve) distributed broadsides, defaced products, and dumped sewage and rotten fish in corporate offices. I have also deposited, hung, sailed, and poured (yes poured), more dead skunks in more unusual places than anyone I know of. I’m probably the only person in North America who considers a road killed skunk to be a natural resource.

Some of my little wars were one raid affairs, and some lasted off and on for several years. I won some, lost some, and some were rained out.

Was The Fox a real life superhero? That would depend very much on an individual’s opinion. The Fox admits as much in this passage:

One thing for sure, along the way, I’ve collected an impressive list of names. Among them, but not limited to: Zorro, Asshole, Hero, Kook, Robin Hood, Screwball, Folk Hero, and Eco-terrorist. Sometimes the names were used in the same sentence that was questioning my ancestry ; which goes to prove you can’t please all of the people all of the time.

Much to my surprise, (in many languages and in many countries), considerable ink has been used to editorialize, report, teach, defend, discuss, and fictionalize the things that were done. I have been praised, vilified, emulated, harassed, admired, hated, and loved. About the only thing I haven’t been, is ignored.

The Fox began his actions in March 1969. His first target was against a soap company that was dumping industrial waste into the Fox River. Readers should understand that in 1969 what few anti-pollution laws existed were very primitive. The Fox explains:

Illinois did not yet have an Environmental Protection Agency and Washington was just organizing theirs. Essentially what we had was a group of ineffectual local, state, and federal entities who really couldn’t enforce the environmental laws; even if those people who were responsible for enforcing what laws we had wanted to. Locally, we had a severe pollution problem and local authority was looking out the window.

The Fox explains the effects of the waste on the river:

The gilled animals were wiped out first. Dragonfly larvae, crustaceans, fingernail clams, tadpoles, and bass fingerlings’ bodies floated, decayed, and stank on the water. The adult amphibians and lung breathing animals were the last to go. Atleast they could crawl out of the liquid garbage for a breath of air, but eventually, they, too, returned to the only home they knew; to be killed by the lethal soup that would envelope them and add their bodies to the bloated rottenness that covered the water surface.

Clouds of oily soot belched from its boiler house stacks and a variety of aromas generated by steam-heated fats and oils, some of which were rancid, wafted through the air. The neighbors had a double barreled problem; air as well as water pollution.

While going for a walk, The Fox finds a family of ducks dying is the soapy sludge, and vows that the soap factory is his enemy, and curses them. The Fox:

“You greedy bastards. You ignorant, greedy bastards!” I rasped through clenched teeth.

After talking with a friend, he gets the idea to jam the sewer pipe so that the waste backs up back into the factory. Although he is determined, he also has doubts and finds himself puking before the mission, something that will happen frequently before future mission. The Fox writes:

But what if my actions caused somebody to get hurt, or even killed? I sank to my hands and knees at this last thought and threw up. I could never live with myself if that happened.

The company unplugged the sewer and continued business. The Fox felt his passion deepening:

For the first time in my life, I was beginning to feel myself slipping away from the legions of law abiding citizens and into the realm of those who felt a gut driven need to follow another set of laws. Maybe those of a higher set than statutory law. In other words, if one of us (the company) was going to break laws against polluting the environment, there were now two of us making the rules by which we would abide.

He continued his attacks on the sewer pipe. He always left a note signed FOX, with a cartoon fox face drawn in the “O.” One note read:

What God has wrought, we must preserve and protect, not desecrate for the sake of profit. –FOX

The Fox soon diversified to other companies polluting the area. He went after a aluminum refinery owner he nicknamed “Bob Rotten” with dead skunks, hung huge signs and banners, distributed flyers, and began to make some superhero comic like connections. He became friends with a politician working for the State Sanitary Water Board, who joined him on several missions. A couple of disgruntled police officers, sick of their overbearing boss, also became friends. They left messages tipping The Fox off when the trail on him was hot or when there was a stake out in an empty cola bottle near a tree.

Despite these warnings, The Fox had to run from police at least three times, once running through the freezing Fox River in February, once through the dark woods, and once after hanging a poster of a political cartoon in Chicago. He was almost hit by a bus during his escape.

He also developed a ongoing friendship with Chicago Daily News columnist Mike Ryoko after he took a direct action by dumping industrial waste and the animals it had killed on the carpet of the company’s reception room*. He called Ryoko for the first of many times. The Fox recalled the phone call:

“I just dumped fifty pounds of rotten fish, birds and sewage on the floor of the executive offices of American Reduction, inc., of Gary, Indiana.” I replied.
There was silence for a few seconds.
“You did WHAT?”

Among the many other actions The Fox carried out were chaining and locking shut an asphalt plant and holding a mock funeral for the Fox River in 1971. He also orchestrated an effort that mailed out 10,000 day glo stickers that read “(soap company) pollutes our air, kills our water –The Fox.” The stickers were mailed out with instructions for people to go to their local stores on the same day and stick the stickers to the company’s products, but one of the products and mail the label with the sticker to the company, demanding an explanation.

After his death, The Fox was cremated and his ashes spread over the Fox River, the river he had spent 30 plus years fighting for.



*To show what a classy guy he was, The Fox was concerned that he had scared the receptionist at the company with his sewage spilling so he had a bouquet of flowers delivered. It had a card that apologized if he had scared or upset her,and that he had nothing against her, but was angry at her boss's company.

Announcement 1- "Self Publishing"

I have made the executive decision to self publish Heroes in the Night. Actually, self publish isn't entirely accurate. I will be working with a small, local publication house called Currents, inc. This company publishes the Riverwest Currents, a small community newspaper. They have been publishing the paper almost ten years now and gave yours truly many of his first gigs. They have a lot of social capital and experience, but things have always been rough for them financially. Most print media is crumpling up so just the fact that they are hanging in there is amazing. They are going to help me produce the book and I am raising funds to publish it through the site Kickstarter. More on that in a moment.

The reason I have gone this route is my interactions with agents and publishers haven't been fulfilling. Some of them just don't "get it." One agent told me he liked the book, but wanted me to completely rewrite the narrative and feature no more than five RLSHs in the book. The other day I walked through a Borders bookstore and kind of had a panic attack looking at all the crap on the shelves- teenie bopper vampire books and cat joke books- who wants to negotiate with people who produce that?!

I'd rather do it my way, creative control means a lot to me. That will insure that the exact book that I want to happen will happen. So that is the advantage of self publishing. The disadvantage is that it is A LOT of work. Fortunately, I've been assembling a X-Men style team to help me for awhile now.

This team includes editor Jan Christensen who is also the editor of the Riverwest Currents. She is going crazy with the red ink, correcting spelling, grammar, and continuity errors. Graphic designer J. Jason Groschopf is doing the entire lay out for the book. Besides the writing, I want Heroes in the Night to be very visually dynamic. It will almost be like a fun to read textbook. Comic book artist David Beyer, Jr. will be contributing some comic book style illustrations to the book, and there will be a lot of great photos from a variety of photographers including Peter Tangen, Paul Kjelland, and Pierre-Elie de Pibrac. Videographer Matthew Miller has been helping make promotional videos. I also have a team of two lawyers reading the entire book, a book keeper, someone working on a more official looking website, and for the last team member I'm looking for someone to handle my least favorite job- PR/ publicity.

These people are all doing work for free or at a discounted rate, but there still are expenses. It is impossible to think a quality job in producing a 250-300 page book is going to happen for nothing. I have to pay the lay out guys something, I have to pay the lawyers, I need a small budget for PR, etc., etc. I added this up and it came to approx. 8,000 dollars. I also want to do a large enough print run that I will have some copies to send out to people, including reviewers, as well as a stock to sell online and at bookstores, which will fund a second print run.

Matthew Miller pointed me in the direction of Kickstarter, a website that helps people raise funding for their projects (they take a 5% fee)- Kickstarter approved my project and today is day 1 of 35 days of fund raising. Kickstarter is an all-or-nothing affair, you either get all of the funding or you get zip.
There are several levels people can donate at, with different incentives. I think the most sensible one is Level 2, which is basically just preordering the book.

Well, that is all I have to say on it now. I will have more announcements that I will be making this week, namely about the charity I am partnered with and some details on the book itself. I will also be writing about some of the books I've used to research my own.

I will be updating this blog with content as much as possible over the next month.

HERE IS THE LINK TO THE HEROES IN THE NIGHT KICKSTARTER PAGE
Bonus feature: Video of me speaking awkwardly about the project!

Please pass it on if you feel inclined.

Your pal,
Tea Krulos