Kickstarter has closed the books on 2020, and as expected it was a record year for the comics division. A few months back, we reported that Kickstarter had already broken their year-over-year record of $16.9 million by October 2020 with $22m. Now with the dust settled, over $25 million was taken in for comics on Kickstarter.
$25,784,658 to be exact.
There were 1,758 successful comics projects on Kickstarter in 2020. The highest-grossing ones of the year are:
- BRZRKR by Boom! Studios: $1,447,212
- How to Think When You Draw 3 by Lorenzo Etherington: $1,100,139
- Ava's Demon: Reborn by Michele Czajkowski: $530,310
- Cmon Comics Vol. 1 by Cmon: $501,632
- Lady Death: Treacherous Infamy #1 by Coffin Comics: $376,256
- Madi by Z2 Comics: $366,610
- Let's Play Volume 2 by Leeanne Krecic: $355,563
- Lady Death: Malevolent Decimation #1 by Coffin Comics: $347,045
- Stand Still Stay Silent Book 3 by Hiveworks Comics: $315,830
- Michael Turner Creations by Aspen Comics: $275,496
And it's not just the revenue has increased, but also the percentage of successful comics Kickstarter projects has increased. 73.9% of all comics Kickstarters were successful in 2020 - up 4.9% from the previous year, and up over 15% from 2016. This success rate is emboldening, and atypical for Kickstarters as a whole - publishing Kickstarters had a 49.4% success rate in 2020, and games 57.4%.
As of February 17, 2021, Kickstarter's 'comics' category has received over $137m in pledges, with 10,900 comics projects successfully funded with $128m raised from those since the company began.
The growing involvement of major publishers and creators in Kickstarter has been a hot topic of conversation.
