Kamikaze is a love letter to animation and comics that’s been running as a webcomic for 5 years. Now we’re bringing our passion for these mediums together to fund an animated short and comic anthology!
If Mad Max and Batman Beyond raised a kid, it’d be Kamikaze. This Glyph Award winning scifi webcomic set 200 years after the fall of civilization follows a young courier turned fledgling covert operative. Name: Markesha Nin. Call sign: Kamikaze.
Equipped with a backpack that allows her to defy gravity, her mission is to tip the scale of power in the dystopian city she calls home. But the only thing Markesha wants to do is leave town with her father for a better life somewhere, ANYWHERE, else. The last thing Markesha is prepared for is her alter-ego Kamikaze becoming a symbol of rebellion for the city she only wants to escape. But if it pays the bills and it keeps her and her father safe she’ll become the hero her city needs.
Our team is made up of comic nerds, film lovers and animation geeks. We took our passion for those mediums and created a love letter to all of them with Kamikaze. We’ve always dreamed of seeing the characters and world of Kamikaze come to life through animation. After 5 years, and lots of popular demand, we’re funding a 10 minute animated short called Embrace the Fire! It will feature Kamikaze and her team on one of her early missions in Outer Trinity. With your help we can ensure Kamikaze transitions from page to screen in style!
Over the years we’ve met stellar creatives who are just as passionate about comics and animation as we are. So in addition to the short we’re also funding “Short Circuits,” an anthology of short comics written and drawn by a stellar cast of collaborators!
For all our printed books, we’re working again with our trusted friends at Advanced Print and Finishing. Based just North of Atlanta, they have decades of printing experience, and are the kind of folks who remember your name! By using a local printer, we can save on shipping costs, and get a better all-around product.
For our swag items, we’re working with a few trusted online manufacturers (StickerApp and Printful). We’re making sure every reward item is top quality before we send them out to you. Items from Printful will ship right from their doorstep to yours, just to make things that much easier for you!
We’re raising funds to help complete our very first animated short of Kamikaze entitled Embrace the Fire. The 2D animated short will be 10 minutes long, and follow Kamikaze and the team on one of her early missions in the dystopian city of Trinity
Finding voices for the characters of Kamikaze was always a thrilling idea for the team, but to actually do it was more challenging than we expected. Thankfully, we were lucky enough to get some of the best pros and new-comers to the business!
Of course our stellar cast needed a script to read, and thankfully Carrie Tupper didn’t have to do it all by herself! Carrie’s the writer behind Kamikaze Volume 1, 2, and 3. She wanted to have someone else write the script originally, but the team decided Carrie was the best person for the job. Not wanting to do this alone, Carrie brought together a team of amazing editors to help in the process.
Rachelle Udell was the first person tapped to help out. She’s a writer, and linguist with experience as a scribe for table top games! In the early 2000’s Rachelle’s talents perked the ears of White Wolf Games. While there she wrote campaigns, lore and more for Vampire the Masquerade and Mage: The Ascension. Rachelle was not only a keen content editor for this project, but ensured the copy editing was held to the highest standard.
D’Andrea Seabrook has a unique talent for finding solutions to Markesha’s problems. Her handle on story, understanding of Markesha’s world, passion for the characters and honest perspectives brought heart and focus to the story.
Alan Tupper (Carrie’s other half) has always been a sounding board for ideas. He was an essential asset to figuring out staging and stakes for the shorts action sequences.
Echo Bridge is an award-winning animation production company and studio specializing in 2D, hand-drawn, animation for commercials, music videos, video games, educational and explainer videos, television shows, feature films.
The company was founded in 2010 by veteran animator, Esteban Valdez, in St Petersburg, Florida.
Every year we get an opportunity to work with talented comic creators who are as passionate about Kamikaze as we are. After a crash course on Markesha’s world, we encourage these creators to find a story they want to create!
Through short comics like the already completed SoundBox and Midnight Run, these artists and writers have expanded and enriched the world of Kamikaze while bringing fresh voices to the table. Kamikaze: Short Circuts is a collection of these short comics together for the first time in a full color, trade paperback anthology.
Takeia Marie is an illustrator from New York, comic book nerd, lover of food, and self-proclaimed hip-hop enthusiast. She’s worked with The Mill, Goode Stuff Publishing, Action Lab, Brooklyn College Community Partnership, and more. Her work has been published in the Glyph Pioneer Award-winning anthology, Artists Against Police Brutality, and has been featured in Black Comix Returns: African-American Comic Art & Culture. She believes that great stories have the power to change people, change minds, and change the world.
Robert Jeffrey II has worked for DC Comics, the Centers for Disease Control, and others. His work with DC Comics’ Green Lantern (Where There’s A Will…) was nominated for the 2019 Glyph Comics Award in both the Best Writer and Fan Award for Best Work.
Robert is a graduate of the 2017 DC Comics New Talent Writers Workshop. He’s the creator of the Glyph Comics Award winning/ nominated Route 3, Mine To Avenge: The Book of Layla, and co-creator of the upcoming The Crossing series. Robert is the series writer for RET: CON, and has also contributed to the Dark Universe: The Bright Empire and The Scribes of Nyota prose anthologies.
Erin O’Neill Jones is a Houston based illustrator and cartoonist who lives for a good story. She’s worked with everyone from award-winning authors to charitable orgs and can’t wait to see what she gets to draw next.
John Robinson IV is an Atlanta-based writer and full-spectrum nerd with a flair for community building. He is the creator of the Urban Fantasy comic series Scorpio and the Wakanda IV Ever podcast. Host of a weekly Writer’s Chat event on Discord, John is also the driving force behind the inclusive fan community #ComicsHorizon on Twitter. When he isn’t writing empowering educational material for fellow creatives, John is balancing his passion for crowdfunding with his day job as an IT Specialist.
Malissa White (NIGHTMARE, SOUNDBOX) is a writer and producer based in Los Angeles, CA. She hosts the Youtube show Comics Creators Club with @comicsacademyx to discuss everything creating comics. Malissa is dedicated to bringing women of color to the forefront of horror, science fiction and fantasy. She enjoys drinking coffee, and accepting Grammys for her shower albums. Okay, probably too much coffee.
Jamel Jones is an Atlanta-based comic artist and illustrator. A graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design’s Sequential Art program, Jamel’s practiced hand has crafted everything from comic pages to storyboards and movie posters. Jamel is the penciler and inker of Kamikaze Wall Tales #1 Midnight Run and Kamikaze Wall Tales #2 Soundbox.
Hank Jones is a professional colorist based out of Atlanta, GA. A long time lover of comics he graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design’s Sequential Art program. His mastery of color brings beautiful comic pages to life with a stunning palette that pops off the page! Hank is the colorist for Kamikaze: Wall Tales #2 Soundbox.
Licca Kirk is a globe trotter, nature enthusiast and illustrator residing in Atlanta, Ga. Her dreamy artwork draws inspiration from nature, imperfection, and an appreciation for the natural decay around her. Licca uses watercolor and hand cut paper to create her ethereal three-dimensional illustrations. Her work has been in galleries everywhere from Georgia and Japan, to paper made dreamscapes in the stop-motion animated show Moon & Me.
Dan Jolley has worked for major American publishers, such as DC (Firestorm), Marvel (Dr. Strange), Dark Horse (Aliens), and Image (G.I. Joe), and branched out into licensed-property novels (Star Trek), film novelizations (Iron Man), and original novels, including the Middle Grade Urban Fantasy series Five Elements and the Urban Sci-Fi Gray Widow Trilogy. He also has written for video games contributing storylines, characters, and dialogue to Transformers: War for Cybertron, Prototype 2, and Dying Light. Recently, Dan sold a pilot for a live-action TV series to Nickelodeon with co-creator Shawn deLoache.
Animation and comics are expensive! We’re using the funds we raise for a few key goals:
If we make it past our initial goal, we’ll be able to grow both projects even further! Check out the Stretch Goals section below to see what we have planned.
Team Kamikaze stands in solidarity with the Kickstarter staff, who are working to form a union. The success of this and so many Kickstarter projects is due in part to the hard work of the company’s employees, and we believe in their right to unionize.
At this time, union organizers are not calling for a boycott. Instead, they’re asking supporters to raise their voices and make our solidarity known. We call on Kickstarter’s senior leadership to recognize the union now, and we hope you’ll join us.
To prevent snags or delays in your shipping rewards follow these helpful tips to make sure you get your comics quickly!
While we’ve individually been part of the animation industry for over 10 years, and have contributed to major projects individually, this is our first animation project together as Team Kamikaze. It’s also our first time working with an oustide animation studio. Fortunately, we’re teamed up with an experienced animation studio staffed with professionals. We are also regularly reaching out to fellow peers in the animation studio world for advice on how to most effectively take Kamikaze from the page to the screen.
This will also be our first ever anthology project. While we’re still learning all the ropes on how it will all work together, we’re confident that our experience publishing two graphic novels and two standalone short comics has given us the tools to succeed. In addition, we’re teamed up with some great collaborators who are not only professionals in the comics field, but have run Kickstarter campaigns of their own. They know how things work, and are ready to lend a hand where needed to make the anthology a success.