2014 Schedule
Interactive: March 7–11  •  Film: March 7–15  •  Music: March 11–16

Code Monkey Save World: A Kickstarter Case Study

#sxsw #codemonkey

In early 2013, comics writer Greg Pak and internet superstar musician Jonathan Coulton launched a Kickstarter for "Code Monkey Save World," a graphic novel written by Pak, drawn by Takeshi Miyazawa, and and based on Coulton's songs. The campaign hit its initial goal of $39,000 within eight hours and went on to become the highest grossing original graphic novel project in the history of Kickstarter.
In this panel, Pak and Coulton will discuss how the project came together, the strategies they used to plan for the Kickstarter and adjust on the fly, and how they might build for the future beyond this single project. Topics include the creative challenges and joys behind this cross-media project, incredibly specific and practical pointers for crowdfunding projects, and musings about the potentially earth-shattering impact of crowdfunding and other revolutionary digital tools on genuinely independent creative projects.

Presenters

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Drew Westphal

Fulfillment Guru

10 Print JoCo

Drew has built software and managed fulfillment and logistics for a number of direct-to-fan online sales initiatives for both Jonathan Coulton and They Might Be Giants, collectively grossing almost 4 million dollars in two years. After Code Monkey Save World funded, Drew took over budgeting, projections, sourcing, fulfillment, and customer service, building custom web front and back-ends to support the project. He also has general experience managing other fussily complicated things such as national music tours, event production at sea for the annual JoCo Cruise Crazy music cruise, and the unstructured mess that is the modern day web development stack.

Greg Pak

Writer

Pak Man Productions

Greg Pak is a comic book writer and filmmaker best known for writing "Batman/Superman" and "Action Comics" for DC Comics and "Planet Hulk" for Marvel. His feature film "Robot Stories" won 35 awards and screened in over 75 film festivals around the world. His "Code Monkey Save World" graphic novel, based on the songs of internet superstar musician Jonathan Coulton, is the highest-grossing original comics project ever on Kickstarter. Pak also wrote the "Vision Machine" sci fi thriller graphic novel, which was funded by the Ford Foundation and imagines a world transformed by a Google Glass-like device called the iEye. Pak's other comics projects include "Magneto Testament," "Doctor Strange Season One," Aspen's and Valhalla's "Dead Man's Run," "Valiant's "Eternal Warrior," and the acclaimed "Incredible Hercules" saga (co-written with Fred Van Lente).

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Jonathan Coulton

Musician

10 Print JoCo

Jonathan Coulton hates to write bios.

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