Abnormal Fixation Kickstarter: Get Your Art Seen in An Episode!

Well, we made a grand beginning on Kickstarter yesterday! (And my most humble and sincere thanks to all our backers thus far).

But, apparently, this is a marathon, not a sprint!

So let's see if we can keep up momentum on Day 2! (How do people do this for 29 days...?)

Anyway, today I want to shine a light on some fun rewar tiers if you kick in, particularly if you want to see your own artistic endeavors included in the finished product (an episode of the web series)

Santa's Helper!  One of the lead characters in our show, Elvis Bragg (played by moi!) is obsessed with Santa Claus and Christmas, and has his own Christmas Collectibles room. The room -- and Elvis's passion about Christmas -- play an important part in the show and the firs season arc! For those who contribute at this reward tier on the Kickstarter, they can see their own Santa/Christmas art featured in the episode, with credits for their work (and their store, if they have one), during the episode end credits.

Dr. Carol Carroll Art Lover -- This reward tier is for artists who want to draw, sketch, or paint our characters (Season, Elvis, Mark, Alyssa, Bleeder, The Professor, the Woodpyre Mill Phantom, Tiyanak) and see thatwork featured in an episode, hanging in Dr. Carol Carroll's office! Again, the artwork would be featured in the show, and then credited at the end, along with an artist's store or gallery information.

So, if you want to see your work in Abnormal Fixation, we'd love to have you join our team!

Kickstarter Launch! Help us Fund Abnormal Fixation Season Two!

Today, we are launching a Kickstarter campaign to help fund a second season of Abnormal Fixation, our award-winning, indie web-series.  

And yes, I am humbly asking for your help to make it successful. We need you!

In a creative career that has spanned roughly three decades, I have never before had my hand out to ask for money, (and yeah, I probably picked a bad time to start, given all trade-warring now going on...)

But there seems to be an opportunity here to take a low-budget, independent creation that is a proven commodity, that people like (180,000 views on our season finale!) and take it to the next level, with new locations, improved equipment, special effects, and so on.

I learned while making Abnormal Fixation last summer that location rentals, location insurance, and catering eat up most of the small indie film budget, and our Kickstarter tells the story of how I raised the money the first time around. 

Long story short, I sold on E-bay a veritable life-time of my sci-fi toys and collectibles. 

This isn't a sob-story. The fact is, I'm 55, and you can't take your toys with you. At least the last time I checked. 

And I have seen too many posts on Facebook about men my age passing away suddenly, leaving behind a sea of collectibles for the surviving spouse and children to somehow sell or otherwise dispose of.

So, it was a good trade in my thinking, selling collectibles (and hopefully sparing my family that indignity...) AND raising money to create a story that I really cared about and wanted to make. 

I wouldn't choose differently today if I had the chance. Bringing Elvis Bragg, Season, Alyssa, Mark Missouri, Bleeder, The Professor and Dr. Carol Carroll to life has been one of the great joys of my career.  

But, alas, even E-Bay has its limits.

To make season two of Abnormal Fixation visually and tonally different from Season 1, we need to take chances, go to new frontiers, and show a different world. 

For me, that's what this Kickstarter to raise $15,000 dollars is really about -- just enough funding to create a worthy successor to our first season, and to mix things up a bit, and keep it fresh and interesting for both those of us who create it, and I hope, the audience that enjoyed the first season.

Are we good for it?

To answer that question, you have to look at the record, I suppose. In one year's time, Abnormal Fixation has:

*won over 26 awards at Film Festivals, and received more than a dozen nominations.

*produced and released six half-hour episodes to critical acclaim.

*had over 500,000 views on YouTube.

*Been released on an app for streaming on Roku and Amazon.

Frankly, if you had told me ANY of those things would happen when I first imagined the low-budget web series, I would have said "I wish."

But now, I want to build on this success, and "wish" for a bit more.

So, again, I'm not in the habit of having my hand out. 

But...if you are a fan, if you like my work, if you enjoyed Abnormal Fixation Round One, or are just curious what we will make next, please think about contributing to our Kickstarter.

I appreciate your help, and would love to welcome you to the AF team!

Help Bring Back Mystery Science Theater 3000!

Here's your chance to bring back a cult-tv classic.  I just kicked in this morning, and I hope you will too!

Support Tom Mandrake's Kros: Hallowed Ground at Kickstarter

I do not often feature Kickstarter campaigns on the blog, but when I see a great one, a worthy one, I like to write about it, and see if I can help garner support for it.

And boy, do I have a great one today.

Right now, artist Tom Mandrake -- a talent whose work I adore, on everything from The X-Files/30 Days of Night to To Hell You Ride -- is collaborating with writer John Ostrander on a graphic novel called Kros: Hallowed Ground.  

This 128-page horror adventure involves a vampire hunter battling the supernatural at the Battle of Gettysburg, and the project has been in the works for ten years.

Just look at the art work above, and you get a sense of Mandrake's brilliant style, and also the powerful genre imagery involved. The story premise sounds great (a human battle by day; a supernatural battle by night) too.

There's still time to support and fund this project, and I hope you'll consider doing so.

You can check out the Kickstarter campaign here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kroshallowedground/kros-hallowed-ground

And here's the Kickstarter video:

Gerry Anderson's Firestorm at Kickstarter

I hope that all you fellow fans of the works of Gerry Anderson have already seen this exciting new project. 

Jamie Anderson has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund Firestorm, a new sci-fi series filmed in "Ultramarionation." 

The idea for this series originally came from Gerry Anderson and John Needham in 2001, and was called "Storm Force." 

This heir to Stingray (1964-1965), Thunderbirds (1965 - 1966), and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967-1968) is set to feature practical effects -- meaning real miniatures, real explosions, and puppets. 

I'm super excited about this project, and would love to see it come to fruition (perhaps as a precursor to a new Space:1999 follow-up...), so check out the video below, and if you can, think about contributing.  I just pledged!