July was a good month for manga kickstarter campaigns. Digital Manga Publishing and Chromatic Press, publisher of Sparkler Monthly Magazine both had campaigns end successfully.

DMP is continuing its goal of publishing Osamu Tezuka’s library of works. This time, it was Storm Fairy, a short story collection of three shojo stories. They were looking for $14,200 as an initial goal. Once meeting it, they added as the first stretch goal a new edition of Unico with better quality color and paper. Once that was hit, they announced a second stretch goal, the printing of previously-digital-only Crime and Punishment which would kick in at $31,500. The entire campaign ended at $38,142. easily making the second stretch goal with money to spare.

DMP’s desire to get all of Tezuka’s works in print is admirable, but I think they have finally seen it’s not attainable at the speed they wanted. Originally, DMP president Hikaru Sasahara wanted to publish 50-70 volumes a year funded through kickstarter. Fans made it clear they weren’t willing to do that. They ratcheted things down to a 20-30 volumes a year, which would require at kickstarter nearly every month, but that hasn’t happened either. So far, they have only gotten 8 volumes to print, with campaigns happening every quarter, not every month.

Sparkler Monthly is a female gaze online magazine that has just entered its third year of publication. The magazine is subscriber based, and needs a certain number of subscribers to pay not just the staff, but also advances to creators. They weren’t getting them through the membership drive, so they turned to kickstarter to get their third year funded.

Chromatic Press was looking for $15,000 in order to fund the magazine with the same number of stories/comics/audio dramas as year two. There was an announced stretch goal of $22,000 which would have given creators a 10% pay increase, but the campaign ended at $16, 787. Not enough to reach it, but still a respectable amount, and we get our year three!

Pledging to the kickstarter was like paying for a years subscriptions, but it was the rewards that really seemed to draw people in. Creators such as Jen Quick, Kaiju, and Studio Kosen offered commissions, while others such as Heldrad and Jenn Doyle offered backers to be extras in their comics. These perks really brought in the backers as not only did several sell out, but additional tiers were added to keep backers coming.

I really hope the new backers of the kickstarter translate into regular subscribers so there can be a year four without having to kickstart again. Sparkler Monthly is a great magazine filled with great stories that aren’t found as much or as easily in big publishing, as well as getting new creators a place to get their work out. Even if you missed the kickstarter, you can still pledge through the subscriber drive.

Congratulations to both publishers.