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ASTER OF PAN: a post-apocalyptic graphic novel by Merwan

Created by Neurobellum Productions

THE HUNGER GAMES meets DODGE BALL in this lushly painted, action-packed blockbuster with exclusive variant cover by PEACH MOMOKO.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Status Update + Peach prints ordered / added to Backerkit
over 3 years ago – Sat, Oct 24, 2020 at 09:36:36 PM

Hi everyone! Happy Saturday!

Hope you're having a good weekend. We just wanted to post a quick update to mention that we have updated Backerkit to include the pre-registration Peach Momoko print.

If you pre-registered as part of the pre-launch campaign, you should now see that print inside your Backerkit item list. 

If you didn't pre-register (sorry if you missed that campaign), you can still get a copy as a Backerkit Add-on. You should see those in the add-on section like this:

They are $10 a piece, and are very limited to what is left of our initial exclusive print run.

We have also ordered the bookplates for Merwan to sign -- all 1750 of them! (We are praying he won't get carpal tunnel syndrome from it all...) They're beautiful mini-prints however:

These will be included one-per campaign copy of the printed book (either cover). They will not be available to purchase separately as add-ons.

There are still 183 of you who haven't filled out your surveys! Please message us if you haven't gotten your Backerkit link yet!

A little bit of update, and a great big INVITATION
over 3 years ago – Mon, Oct 19, 2020 at 04:26:19 PM

Hi everyone!

Hope you're all gearing up for a wonderful weekend! We're going to be spending ours working on the PARIS 2119 artbook and mixing another track for the ASTER soundtrack... four tracks down, and they're turning out to be a lot of fun! Hope you all agree when it rolls out...

The printer has completed pre-flight and proofs have been approved, so it's moving into the printing queue. We're really excited -- we got sucked back into the story just reviewing the final proofs as if reading it for the first time... this book is just so darn good. Merwan is amazing We're looking at bringing one of his other awesome books to market soon. We've got awesome jobs.

So that's the update bit. What's the invitation part...?

THIS invitation to discover your next favorite graphic novel...!

We are launching our next Kickstarter campaign NEXT TUESDAY for another beautiful hardcover graphic novel, this time a dark fantasy in the best LOTR tradition: WAHCOMMO, illustrated by the phenomenal LUIS NCT!

When we saw this book at the Astiberri booth in Angouleme this past January (what feels like AGES AGO), we were instantly hooked, and this title shot to the top of our acquisition wishlist. We are SO THRILLED to bring it to shelves!

And, to make it even more exciting, we're absolutely over the moon to have gotten one of our most favorite artists ever, the multiple-award-winning co-creator of one of our favorite Eisner-nominated comics, ISOLA, to provide a campaign exclusive variant cover for the book: KARL KERSCHL!

In fact, we are so excited by Karl's cover art that we are giving away a FREE LINEN CARDSTOCK PRINT of his cover art to every backer who pre-registers their promise to pledge on our landing page at www.wahcommo.com!

Just visit that site, enter your email address, and when we see your pledge come in during the campaign, we'll mark you down to receive one of these beautiful pieces! (This is similar to our pre-registration offer for the Peach Momoko print for ASTER... if you missed that one, here's your chance to get in on this one!)

Visit the pre-reg landing page for more art and preview material, then also visit the pre-launch page on Kickstarter to be notified when it goes live on TUESDAY OCT. 20th at 10am CST!

But... another Kickstarter? So soon?

Yes. And these days, in this market and economy, you can't really blame us... :)

Kickstarter has proven to be a fantastic way to bring premium quality content to you, a very discerning and supportive audience, directly, with the built in ability to offer so much more for your support. You really have nothing to worry about as far as ASTER is concerned -- production is well-in-hand and sailing smoothly toward our planned shipping schedule. We're not going to disappear on you -- this is what we do, and have done for several years and multiple other campaigns so far! We love Kickstarter and the people we meet here. And as different as each project may be from the last, we think there is an underlying similarity that will hopefully appeal to everyone who has joined us along the way.

Hopefully that will include you on this next one, too! On WAHCOMMO and beyond!

So please pre-register for your FREE print today and mark the campaign page for launch notification! We really could use -- and totally appreciate -- all of your support for a great day one!

Weekend update - FAQ
over 3 years ago – Wed, Oct 14, 2020 at 12:33:14 AM

Hi everyone! 

Hope you're all having a great weekend. A bunch of good Qs and topics have come up over the past few days since the surveys went out, and we wanted to take a quick moment to talk about some of them to hopefully clear up some uncertainty.

First, just a heads-up: while we try to stay caught up on responding to comments, we don't actually get any notifications when comments are posted, so its easy for us to miss some (especially as they're spread out over the main comments forum and each of the growing number of updates). So if you have a pressing question for us, your best bet is to message us instead of asking in the comments thread. Questions posted in the comments section might still get quick answers from other helpful backers (looking at you, Cameron - thanks!), but if you need to hear from us directly, messages are recommended. If the topic is relevant to everyone, we'll aim to address it on stage for the whole community in an update.

...such as this one! Here are some of the things that have come up recently:

"I still haven't gotten my survey link."

We're about 77% complete so far, which is great! If you still haven't received your survey link, just send us a message and we'll paste the link back to you directly.

"Where is the pre-reg Peach Momoko print?"

We haven't imported the pre-registration list into Backerkit yet, so they haven't been added to those accounts yet. We'll get that taken care of soon! Fear not -- if you pre-registered, you'll have that item included in your pledge package before we lock things down. You can hold us to that. :)

The same goes for the interest survey credit -- we will import that list and apply that $.50 credit to each backer who responds before surveys are locked down at the end of November. (And if you haven't filled out the survey yet, please do! https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=lQHFkzC8RU6aH12UVxrldIs-XU76zD9KkP_HGnWJsytUN0FWNURPNjhUSjU0NURJR1hTS0U5NFpMRS4u)

"Can I swap out cover versions in my pledge?"

We want you to have whichever makes you happiest, and swapping out the Peach Momoko variant for the standard edition is not a problem. We need to confirm how to do that on a technical level within Backerkit, but if you would like to make that swap, just message us and we'll make a note of it.

Please note that we did fix an incorrect book description in Backerkit that erroneously said that the standard edition has foil-stamped logo as well -- it does not! Only the exclusive Peach Momoko variant has the foil-stamped logo. Both editions do have round spine, curved corners, and spotUV gloss elements, however.

"Shipping to Australia is EXPENSIVE! What's up with that?"

Actually, I single out Australia there, but a few of you from other countries have made a similar observation. And it is definitely a fair observation to make! It IS expensive to ship abroad! And we took a big step toward correcting that by partnering with a UK fulfillment provider -- a step that cut most costs nearly in half compared to what they'd cost coming directly from the US! But we've re-confirmed those rates with them, and that is sincerely what it will cost for those regions, including packaging, handling, customs, and, yes, TRACKING. We can send to a few regions without tracking to save a couple of dollars, but we can't be held responsible for lost packages at that point. If you'd absolutely like to see how much that might save you, message us and we'll see if that's even an option for your region and what that savings could be. 

"Can I remove the stretch goal items to save on shipping?"

We can certainly take those freebies off your pledge if you'd like, but we estimate those are only about 9oz in shipping weight compared to the 40+oz of the single hardcover book itself, so that might not lower your shipping rate that much, to be quite honest. If you'd still like us to take those off, just message us and we'll make it so. Keep in mind that they are very limited and exclusive to this campaign, tho'...

A few thoughts about international shipping in general...

When facing the option in the Kickstarter setup process of whether or not to accept international pledges, shipping is always the tipping factor. Of course we want to make our books available to the widest audience, but international fulfillment is almost always the most complicated part of any campaign. After seven successful campaigns under our belt so far, each with a healthy number of international backers, we've tried to improve the process and pricing with each one. We suspect -- through experience -- that other campaigns offering lower shipping to those high-cost regions are in fact subsidizing a (significant) loss on those packages with slightly-higher postage collected from a majority of domestic shipments. We lost a LOT of money by underestimating int'l shipping costs on our first five campaigns, mostly because, like you, we couldn't imagine that it would/should cost that much to send a book to, say, Australia or Malaysia or Chile. But it does. And the only way to cut down on that seems to be by having regional fulfillment partners. And for that to even make sense, there needs to be enough orders in those regions to justify the cost of the drop-shipment to that partner.

Considering that there are about 50 backers each in Australia and Canada, we're looking into regional options for those two segments. If anyone in either of those territories has recommendations or suggestions, please message us! If we can get something setup before our target fulfillment date in mid-December, we'll try to factor those savings into your shipping rates before lockdown at the end of November.

In the meantime, hopefully the many cool, limited, exclusive bonus items you'll be receiving will more than make up for what may feel like a disproportionate cost ratio of postage-to-book-price.  If you were to calculate postage-to-total-package-value instead , the ratio hopefully looks much more favorable. :)

Bottom line, however, is this: WE APPRECIATE YOUR SUPPORT! And we want to make this a fair and satisfying experience for everyone everywhere. As a scrappy indie publisher, our options might be limited, but with your help and support, we can level up to offer more options down the road. 

So thank you for sticking with us and helping us grow!

Surveys out. What's next?
over 3 years ago – Sat, Oct 10, 2020 at 12:13:20 AM

Hi Everyone!

The surveys went out at 10am this morning, as promised, and about half of you have already filled them out... that's great! If you haven't gotten your email with the unique code, Backerkit says that some servers might take longer to deliver (out of theirs and our control), so watch for it over the next day or so. If you still haven't gotten it (or if you don't want to wait and see), just message us and we'll reply with your unique link.

Once you've filled out your survey, the next step is on us: making everything!

The book is already at the printers, and we hope to have them in our warehouse in mid-December. Whether we can actually start sending out packages before Christmas is anyone's guess (but you might not want to count on it as a gift... its just too close to call...) We will, of course, keep everyone posted all along the way!

The next step for you:

Frankly, you have the next several weeks to fill out your surveys. We likely won't lock down the Backerkit orders until near the end of November. At that point, you will not be able to add or change anything in your order (including shipping method). This will allow us to finalize our item count for final production, and to get everything ready for fulfillment the minute the books arrive. Backerkit won't actually charge your cards until orders have been locked down, so if you're unsure about adding anything or need to change payment methods, shipping directions, etc, you have plenty of time.

Then, about a week before we actually start fulfilling, we will lock down the Backerkit addresses. This will be mid-December. So if you aren't sure where you want your stuff sent yet, you will have until then to make any address changes.

Speaking of addresses:

We've tried our best to keep shipping costs as low/reasonable as possible. That can be tough, especially between the US and Canada. (We're so close, why is it so expensive??) The rates currently in Backerkit are the best we are able to offer, but it is a big, heavy, hardcover book, and there are a LOT of unlocked bonus items being included (for FREE). We are looking into possible alternatives. Not sure if they will be ready in time for this campaign, but if we can set that up before December, we will update the Canadian rates accordingly.

In the meantime, if you have access to anyone stateside, or an address in the states we could send the package to on your behalf, that could be an alternate cost-saving method. I know that won't work for everyone, but its an idea. We're working on all kinds of ideas. We're an idea factory.

Thanks again, everyone! More news to come as it develops!