I recently had Rik Offenberger on my campaign podcast, Fantastic Comic Fan Showcase, where he talked about his latest G-Man campaign running through the whole month of August. Below are some of the highlights. If you want to tape for an upcoming campaign, feel free to reach out to me at fantastic_comic_fan@outlook.com
FCF: Rik, how many Kickstarters have you done?
Rik Offenberger: This will be Kickstarter number 12. We do one every six months. So we launch. Every Kickstarter has a planned launch date of August 1st and February 1st. As soon as we collect the money from this Kickstarter, the campaign will end on August 31st. It runs 31 days.
February only has 28. It takes two weeks for them to release the funds, and then they are deposited into our account. As soon as we get the money from this Kickstarter, we pay the artists, and they start on the next Kickstarter. It never ends.
FCF: So what made you get into self-publishing?
Rik Offenberger: I had worked at Archie Comics for a decade. And I had made a pitch to them for the Mighty Crusaders, suggesting that the team should be run like Mission Impossible. If you remember the old Peter Graves one, where he is flipping through the different pictures and he picks the various team members, and it’s not always the same people on the team every time.
I thought they had such a vast pantheon of characters. They should have the Shield at the beginning of the show. They should pick different characters and go out on a mission with various characters from their whole MLJ library. And so I made a pitch, and they decided to pass on that. And so I liked the idea still.
So I had taken that germ of an idea and my character. We’ll bring in other characters from my universe, the ones I’ve created since I was a child. As it turned out, I was working with Jim and Eric, and we brought in their characters. We also introduced a backer tier level where six backers can pledge to have their characters in the book.
FCF: So you have quite a few comic books that go out in your Kickstarters.
Rik Offenberger: This will be 80 comics we’ve published in six years, with this next Kickstarter, 10 will be new this round. We go anywhere from 2 to 11.
FCF: So what are some of the unique perks for the G-Man comics this time around? Is there anything really cool going on when it launches?
Rik Offenberger: We got two. We’ve got two interesting add-ons. The first is the handbook. So, if you pledge to be in the book, we do a Marvel handbook, DC Who’s Who style book.
Your character is in that book with our characters, and all our new characters are there. It gives all the background information for characters and who they are. While they appear in the comics, you don’t get a full, detailed history of them because they have so many pages.
We’re producing an Indie Girls #1, this time, too. Gilbert is doing that one; he had done one about 10 years ago on his own, and now he is doing it with us. They’re not all our characters; they’re all different girls from different indie universes. People contacted Gilbert, and he worked with them to be included. It’s a pinup-style comic, it’s all new, and it’s fun to crossover. We have a lot of characters come in from other independent comic universes from time to time, appearing in our books. We encourage that we like being part of a larger playground.
FCF: Who coordinates everything?
Rik Offenberger: I’m the editor in chief on this, so I touch every single book that goes through to some degree or another. If they’re my books, I write them. Chris Squires is my editor. Eric writes his own comics and helps with Gilbert’s, too.
FCF: Are there any of the new books that you got coming out this time around that you’re especially pleased with?
Rik Offenberger: We’ve got a lot of fun things coming out. I love them all. We work with Bobby Ragland as an artist, and he’s doing our new G-Man Comics 2in1 #1.
The first half is First Guard, which leads into a new launch for us with First Guard #1. The second half is Atomik Bombshell, also crossing over with First Guard, and concludes the larger Atomik Bombshell story. She’s sad that she’s going to live the rest of her life alone. Sgt. Flag says to her, “I’ll tell you what. If you’re still single and I’m alive on your 50th Birthday we’ll get married and you won’t die alone.” Now she thinks they’re engaged, and the fallout of that is in Sgt. Flag #6, where he has to meet her parents.
He has to deal with the fact that he’s accidentally engaged to someone. During this meeting, he finds out how his father died, which is poignant for our character.
FCF: Are these all-ages comic books?
Rik Offenberger: We are thinking PG-13, and so there’s probably a little too much violence for a G-rated movie. We used to use the grawlix instead of swear words, but then Eric said we should probably black them out instead. So now they just swear, and we redact it with black lines, which makes it fun too.
FCF: Any closing comments?
Rik Offenberger: Check out our Kickstarter, and you can check out our website. We’ll be introducing new characters. In Agent Kirby, we always introduce new characters. We’ve got the Fruit Fly and Alpha debuting. We’ve got the new titles like First Guards, G-Man 2in1, Global G-Men, and Indie Girls launching. All your old favorites to like Agent Kirby, Lynx, Sgt. Flag and Taranis: The Thunder Lord.
Find the Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/g-man-comics/g-man-comics-a-new-dawn.
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