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HELLO, FRIENDS! Been a little while! Welcome to my new website!
IT’S NOT SCARY is a brand new, fully painted kid’s book I wrote and illustrated in between all my various ZIM duties over the past, uh… five years. I taught myself to digitally paint doing this thing (with color, even! WUT.), and now, with your help, we’re going to get this monster printed AND, even better, my wife Ami (THE GOFFLIN) is going to transform it into a fully interactive APP with voice acting, animations, and all the bells and whistles. It’s gonna be AWESOME.
PLEASE HELP IF YOU CAN! Check out the full KS description below for all the details and incentives. And thanks so much for checking it out! You are the best!
WELCOME TO MY NEW EXPERIMENT! This is your old pal AARON ALEXOVICH, character designer for INVADER ZIM (TV + movie) and comic artist for the ZIM series, STITCHED, and Kickstarter bigshot SERENITY ROSE. I have a question for you all:
Have you ever REALLY been scared?
I SURE HAVE. When I was a kid growing up in Chicago, I was an EXTREMELY ANXIOUS little guy. Every little thing filled me with full-on blistering TERROR. One time in preschool I was so panicked by the idea of a field trip to “McDonaldland” that my Mom had to come rescue me from a pool of my own tears. It was AWFUL.But you know what helped me deal with all that crazy fear? MONSTERS. Godzilla, Frankenstein, and Ray Harryhausen’s whole menagerie. The Hulk, Swamp Thing, and The Cryptkeeper. The absolutely mind-melting horrors floating through Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. How did all these scary critters help me? These were all fears I could confront in SAFETY. All I had to do to fight them off was close my eyes or turn the page. That’s powerful stuff!And now I want to be a part of that creepy/powerful tradition. I want to make something for little 6-year-old Aaron and all the other scared little kids out there. Something cool. I want to make a children’s book… and MORE… (DUN DUN DUUUUUNN)
IT’S NOT SCARY! is a 35-page, fully painted, hardcover children’s book, all complete and ready to ship to the printer NOW. The cover goes like this:
“NICE! NOW SHUT UP AND TELL US WHAT THE BOOK’S ABOUT, BUDDY!” OKAY! IT’S NOT SCARY! is about a kid named MILO who’s dared to ring the doorbell of a colossal, twisted castle on the edge of town. Inside he meets SUNNY VON SHOCK, the super-chipper, crazily positive daughter (experiment?) of the fiendish mad scientists who live there. Sunny insists on giving Milo a tour of her cavernous old house, completely oblivious to the bone-chilling nature of all its contents. To her all these hideous creatures, ghosts, machines and experiments are AWESOME… but will Milo agree?
Now, there are a lot of kids’ books about monsters and creepy things, and those are fantastic! I love ‘em! But IT’S NOT SCARY! is specifically about dealing with fear of the unknown. It’s about ANXIETY, facing what scares you, and opening yourself up to whole different worlds. I kind of think we need more of that right now.But the book part is just the beginning…
Like I sez, the book is already done. Ready to print. But we want to go further… Into THE THIRD DIMENSION.My wife AMI GOFF is a brilliant artist and technical wizard with years of experience in both the app development and feature film compositing worlds (most recently on Mary Poppins Returns!). Under her direction, we’re going to Frankenstein this book into an amazing colossal iOS/Android app (check the FAQ to see if your device will work). What all is in there?
- VOICE ACTING! Not just narration, either; we’re going to hire professional voice actors to bring all my new characters to life. My pal Rikki (“THE VOICE OF GIR”) Simons is already onboard to play DR. HEIRONYMOUS “HEIRO” VON SHOCK, grim(?) lord of the SHOCKTOWER itself.
- INTERACTIVE ELEMENTS! We’re going to trick out every page with all kinds of buttons, switches, and critters to poke and drag around the screen. UNLEASH A SHOWER OF SPARKS! REVEAL A BEAST FROM THE DEPTHS! TEAR A GHOST FROM ITS GRAVE! You’ll follow Milo into the darkness and become a part of Sunny’s world.
- 3D EFFECTS! The coolest bit, honestly. Ami spent years helping develop some killer tech to turn your iPad/Android device into essentially a three-dimensional SHADOW BOX. Tilt your device left, right, up and down to peek around and see behind all the stuff on a page. Discover all the secrets in every room and find hidden horrors you’d NEVER find in the print version. It’s incredible!
- A FULL SCORE (HOPEFULLY!) We’ll definitely be adding some kind of music to the app, but with your help we just might be able to get a FULL, UNIQUE SCORE to really get pulses pounding and nerves crawling. By whom, you ask? KEEP YOUR EARS PEELED, for all will be revealed!
Sounds pretty sweet, eh?
We’ve had some great success with Kickstarter in the past, but this time we’ve got a MUCH bigger project. Bigger is more exciting! But it’s also more expensive. Here’s a breakdown of what we’ll need to bring Sunny’s chilling world to life:
- PRINTING. Gotta get that ink and paper all nice. We’ll be using the same team that made the big, glorious SERENITY ROSE omnibus. They know their stuff!
- VOICE ACTING (ACTORS + STUDIO RENTAL). And we have to pay them PROPERLY, too!
- PROGRAMMING/ DEVELOPMENT. Hack that code and build that art!
- SHIPPING. The boring part. But expensive. So very expensive.
- KICKSTARTER FEES. Hey, they have to get paid, too!
We’ll get to the score in STRETCH GOALS.And remember, the more we can raise the more ASTOUNDING the app can be.
Of COURSE there will be incentives! Get outta here, you maniac!
- THE APP – $10
- THE BOOK – $20
- BOOK + APP – $30
- BOOK + APP + BUTTONS – $40. Five 1.5″ Sunny faces to match any mood! (Or, well, a few moods, anyway…)
- BOOK + APP + STICKERS – $45 . Five die-cut stickers (about 1-3″ wide) to make five of your things look cooler than ever before!
- BOOK + APP + POSTER SET – $80. An ALL-NEW set of five signed B-movie posters straight from the drive-in theaters of Sunny’s world. We’ll reveal one new poster every week in the updates, and the last one just before the end. FIRST UP: WILD FRANKENSTEINS!
- SKETCH COMMISSIONS – $100. Only 8 available! You’ve been asking for this… Get ’em while they’re hot!
- SERENITY ROSE SUPERFAN – $200. 8 available. Sad you missed our first Kickstarter? Well, cheer up, witchy! Get a signed copy of the ORIGINAL SLIPCASE EDITION of the SERENITY ROSE omnibus (1st printing!) and a commission sketch of any SR character!
- INVADER ZIM SUPERFAN – $250. 8 available. Get a copy of Oni Press’ massive first INVADER ZIM OMNIBUS (featuring art by me) signed by me, RIKKI SIMONS, ERIC TRUEHEART, and JHONEN VASQUEZ. Also includes a sketch of any ZIM character!
- SHADOW BOX – $300. Only TWO available! STUN YOUR FRIENDS INTO SILENCE with this incredible handmade physical recreation of a page from IT’S NOT SCARY! Using a box frame and several sheets of acetate, you’ll feel like you’re peering into a WHOLE NEW WORLD OF HORRORS.
- AMAZING COLOSSAL SET – $500. 5 available. PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING! Check a look at the sidebar for dem deets.
And if we’re lucky enough to go skittering past our goal, we’ve got some other cool stuff planned for you. INCLUDING:
- SPOT GLOSS! We’ll make the book cover extra-fanciful with some extra shiny bits!
- KICKSTARTER-ONLY PRINT! Everyone at the BOOK + APP level and above will get an exclusive, KS-backers-only print!
- ENAMEL PINS! Everyone at the STICKER level and above will have an enamel pin set added to their loot!
- A FULL SCORE! Details to come! You’re not going to believe this one, my friends…
- AND MORE TO BE REVEALED! Gotta keep some secrets, right?
Oh man, I’ve been working on this book off and on for about 5 years now. Taught myself to paint in Photoshop doing this thing. (Hoo boy… those first few drafts… TRULY scary.) You wouldn’t believe how hard it’s been to keep my mouth shut all this time. I’m basically bouncing around with excitement to FINALLY share Sunny’s world with you. And if this goes well, it will only be the beginning. So get in here on the first floor, first app, first printing! This shuddering old elevator is heading deep into the catacombs, and everyone (of ANY age) is invited to join in and help us explore the dark.IS IT SCARY? Let’s find out together!
SIGNED COPIES are in the store now! ($30!)
Like eggnog spiked with hallucinogens, signed copies of SERENITY ROSE: 10 AWKWARD YEARS are here to make your holiday more magical.
Also available (unsigned) through…
AMAZON
HIVEMILL
SLG
DIGITAL copies still being served up by HIVEREAD.
And for an extra jolt of holiday magic, don’t forget we have heart-shaped skull PENDANTS, PRINTS, ART BOOKS, and, for as long as they last, a small batch of newly-unearthed “ROOM FOR A THOUSAND” prints, featuring all 999 happy haunts from Disney’s Haunted Mansion.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS, everybody! I’ve always thought of this season as a great opportunity to support some of my favorite weirdos… Hope I’m one of yours! Thanks so much!
That… is a big pile of ME.
On Monday I got another package from China with the whole book in it, unbound and ready for review. They aren’t “proofs,” exactly; they’re the actual pages that will get folded up and bound right into the big monster hardcover. And oh my goodness, these things are SWEET.
Sweet, and HUGE.
I’m not sure what kind of complicated origami formula leads to these particular pages ending up right next to each other, but I figure people way smarter than me have it all sorted out, so YAY! (And look how impressed Dr. Faustus is back there!)
That was officially the last bit of business I had to take care of before the printer could fire up their presses and start launching out your books. I have to admit I had a moment of absolute nerve-shattering panic when we opened up that package Monday night. I’d opted for this shmancy textured paper for the cover, and for some reason didn’t demand to see a test print way earlier in the process. (I saw color proofs on similar paper, but without the texture.) When I finally saw it earlier this week… GREAT SCREAMING NEURONS, the texture made it look like I was seeing my cover through a screen door. (And the spot gloss felt like someone was chucking motor oil at the screen.) I think the nubbly paper is more for highly graphic covers, not super-fussy, highly detailed ones like mine.
To stay on schedule we had to start printing books Wednesday. HORROR. My brain seriously felt like one of those jellyfish with its arms tearing themselves off.
BUT… it all turned out okay. We got it all sorted out in the morning and everything’s fine. Everything’s being printed right now with no “oily screen door” look, and the schedule hasn’t been destroyed. All you guys will still get your books in May.
Lesson learned: Always do tests.
Once the books are printed, they’re scheduled to hitch the next boat ride out of Hong Kong on March 26th, and they’ll be here at my house for the Great Shipping Nightmare a month later. Between now and then, I’ll be doing all the original sketches (please send your idea if you haven’t yet!) and hopefully posting them for everybody to look at here. Should be fun!
Sorry for letting a month go by before updating you guys. It’s more or less going to be weekly here on in. Thanks again for everything, everyone! Talk to you soon.
Well, that’s it. I’m depressed now.
You saw the title there. I was hoping this project wouldn’t have your standard-issue Kickstarter delays and all your books would be in the mail at the end of this month, but it is not to be. I’m a dope. The books won’t be in your hands until May.
I’m so sorry, you guys. This sucks.
Chalk it up to me being a total noob when it comes to dealing directly with printers. When they told me I’d get the books in 6-8 weeks, I thought “WOW! I can send them out by the end of January!” But it turns out “6-8 weeks” means “6-8 weeks from final approval,” and the approval process is a fairly drawn out thing involving several different checkpoints and various packages of “proofs” going back and forth between here and Hong Kong. (Do you know what “ozalid proofs” are? I sure don’t, but I know I approved some today!)
Ultimately it’s a good thing that they ask me to sign off on every stage of the process, but it does add a LOT of time, especially when there are slight corrections here and there (as there have already been). So between the approvals, the corrections, the Christmas break, and Chinese New Year (Two weeks off in HK. Great for them; they should get two weeks! Bad for us, though.), we’re way behind. And, of course, this is all before the books get on their month-long journey on the proverbial slow boat from China. These are all things I should’ve seen coming, but, well… noob. I’m sorry for letting you down.
BUT. On the plus side, I can tell you this book is going to be utterly GORGEOUS. They sent me a blank “dummy” copy of the book this week, and I couldn’t be happier with the paper, binding, everything. This thing is a MONSTER. The print quality in the proofs is just incredible. We’re making some minor tweaks to the color now, mostly because I’m an insufferable stickler, but everything should be sorted soon. I’ll post some photos along the way.
Apologies again about the delay, guys. It’s no one’s fault but my own. If you were planning to give this book to someone as a gift between now and May, please send me a message and we’ll work something out. I’ve got all the art books and pendants here now, and everything else should be finished within the next few weeks, so we’ve got some options. I might even be able to get some advance copies by the end of March.
I’m trying not to stress out too much here… I owe you guys a lot, and the worst thing to do right now would be to rush through this approval process. I hope you can forgive me for my total ignoramousness.
(NOTE: As soon as I get the books, I’ll message all of you to make sure I’ve got your addresses right. No moving worries!)
THANK YOU SO MUCH!
