Interview by Joe Lalonde. Joe is a prolific writer and Leadership blogger as well as a Comicbookchuck contributor. Click Here to check out his site.
Kickstarter is the way a lot of new comic book writers and artists are launching their projects. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing one of these up-and-coming writers, Mike Spring. He launched a successful Kickstarter for his comic book Red, White, and Broke.
He’s now successfully funded issue 2 of Red, White, and Broke. The campaign is still in full swing and I wanted to introduce you to him and his comic book about a broke superhero.
If you want to back his newest project, you can by going to Tinyurl.com/RWBissue2 and selecting a backer level (I chose some original art.
With that, let’s get to the interview.
Joe Lalonde
Mike, tell us a little bit about yourself. Okay. I know you did Red, White and Broke number one with Kickstarter. You’re launching number two. I looked at your profile on Kickstarter, you got some other cool stuff that you’ve done. But let’s talk about that.
Mike Spring
All right. Yeah. So well, I’m, you know, I’ve always been the creative sort. I’ve just always had a hard time focusing it. But a few years ago, I really got serious about my writing. I wrote a series of like, short novels that I self-published electronically. But I did hit number one on Amazon for a brief period of time. Amazon is kind of like that. But that was nice. I have also for the last several years, I created and co-hosted a podcast called after the ending, which is a movie podcast. And it’s also kind of a storytelling podcast, because what we do is, we sort of come up with the stories for sequels to movies that don’t have sequels. Like I was always curious, like, what happens after your favorite movies and right, so my coach and I would sort of come up with what we thought would happen to the character. So that was sort of an exercise in storytelling. I’ve been a comics collector pretty much my entire life since I was a little kid. And I’m, you know, obsessed with comic books. And I have been for a long time and, and for many years, I thought, I don’t know if I could write a comic book. Like, I don’t know what I would do with Spider-Man for like, you know, 12 issues like cuz, you know, Marvel’s beating down my door to offer me Spider-Man. So I should, I should maybe set my goals a little lower to start. But I was always daunted by this, like, I don’t know what I would do with these characters. And then, you know, eventually the idea for red, white and broke came to me and I was like, you know, I think when it’s my own character, right, and I know where I want the story to go, it’s much easier. It’s much easier for me to sort of figure out what to do with it, because I’m not trying to fit into somebody else’s universe. You know, I’m trying to do my own. So that’s what led to Red, White, and Broke #1.
Joe Lalonde
Yeah, I was one of your supporters for that. We got that back in April, I think. Or February. And I really love the story. It was this completely different take on superheroes. You know, we’ve always got like the Iron Man or Captain America. And they always seem to have some source of income. And Red, White, and Broke. The superhero does it? Right. Where did that idea come from?
Mike Spring
So I’ve, I’ve always been in my brain process, I’ve always been really fascinated by how fictional things would work in the real world, right? Like, when I started my movie podcast, I was always like, well, what would really happen? Like, you know, when you have like, all the one kid who survives all the slasher murders, and then Jason disappears, well, that kid’s probably going to jail, right? Because they’re gonna think in the real world, they’re gonna think that kid killed everyone else, because they’re the only one who survived, right? So I’m always thinking about, like, how does fiction work in the real world? And so with superheroes, you know, you’ve got your Tony Starks, your Bruce Waynes, you know, you’re billionaires, right? But what happens when you’re that guy who works like an office job, right? And you’re getting paid, you know, 12 bucks an hour, or whatever, you know, and you get superpowers. And so now you’ve got to like, you know, oh, there’s a fire, I got to go save a baby from a burning building. I gotta leave my job. Well, I don’t know about you. But if I just walk out of my job halfway through the day, with no explanation, I’m not going to have that job very long, right? So it really got me thinking about like, well, what’s it like when you when you’re not a billionaire, and you want to be a superhero? And so that kind of gave me the starting point for it. And then I thought, Okay, well, what would you do, right? And I thought, well, you got to find a source of funding, so you’re gonna crowdfunded. I mean, you’re gonna go on Kickstarter and say, hey, I want to be a hero. I’m a superhero. I need help to pay my bills. And so that that led to the story. So that’s where Red, White, and Broke starts with our hero, Captain Stronghold, revealing his identity on national television and saying, I am flat broke, and I need people’s help to pay my bills, or I’m going to get evicted, and I won’t be able to superhero anymore. So that’s kind of where I came from. And yeah, that’s just a crazy thought.
Joe Lalonde
And I’m surprised nobody’s really pursued this before.
Mike Spring
So I will say I do want to pay a little homage to one comic that was an inspiration for me. I will say I don’t think anyone’s done it into this extent before, but I will say that one of the stories that I think kind of always resonated with me was, I believe it was Mike Barron, back on The Flash series from like the early 80s or the late 80s. I read mostly back issues, but he did kind of look at Wally West and have him like, always having to eat like 30 hamburgers at a time, right? Because he had to keep his metabolism up. And I think at one point he ended up working for like the IRS or something because he needed money, not to the extent of being broke and having to go on TV and stuff like that. But I always really liked that run, because it did look at superheroes a little bit more of this, you know, realistic take to it not just Hey, I’m fast. And I’m you know, just because you’re fast, doesn’t mean you’re rich. You know, I mean? So I do want to say a little bit of inspiration there.
You know, but in the end, no, I think most people that just sort of, you know, and again, you have to give some a little bit of inspiration to like Peter Parker and Spider- Man, right? When, when Stan Lee used to write him as always, like, you know, struggling with money and stuff like that, you know, and that was always secondary, I wanted to kind of make it sort of a little bit more of the focus, you know, like, what is the logistics of being a superhero? You know, that’s what I find interesting.
Joe Lalonde
Yeah, you know, good, good point about the Spider-Man to you. He was always telling us photos to your Jamison. And, you know, he was he’s basically pimping himself out? He’s selling them to a guy who’s calling him a menace. So I can see some of that, you know, while he was Peter Parker.
Mike Spring
Yep.
Joe Lalonde
So with with your story, with with Red, White, and Broke, you know, ended on a cliffhanger episode or issue one. Can you tell us a little bit about what might happen in issue two? Absolutely. So I’m very excited about issue two, I have to say, I think we packed a lot in there.
Mike Spring
And, you know, so we are going to resolve the cliffhanger. I’m a big believer in so I’m a big believer in cliffhangers because I love them. And if you’ve ever if you’re familiar with john Byrne, who’s obviously a very famous comic artist and writer. If you’ve ever read any of his talking about comics, he actually believes the last panel on every page should have like a mini cliffhanger right there. I’ll tell you as a writer, that’s hard to pull off. So, I try to keep that in mind but I definitely believe in, like especially as an indie creator, you got to get people coming back for more. So I like a good cliffhanger. But I also don’t like stories that just like, like leave you hanging all the time. Right? So, the cliffhanger will get resolved. And then and I’m not gonna say how that’s only because I also don’t believe in spoilers but what we’re also gonna see in the in the issue, in addition to this, this resolution of the cliffhanger, we’re gonna learn a lot more about Captain Stronghold’s origins. How he became a superhero, how he learned how to use his powers, what his first superhero outing was, like, I’ll give you a minor spoiler on that: it did not go smoothly. Because again, I just can’t imagine that the first time out, you’re gonna just know how to do everything. Right. So we have a lot of fun with that. And then we have a kind of a bit of an action packed ending. And I don’t want to say more than that, because I don’t want to spoil anything. But I will say that a, it’s a lot of fun and be my artist, Dennis Tirona, who’s a terrific artist. The last three or four pages of the book are some of the best artwork I’ve ever seen. They’re just they look like, like peak like era, image era, like Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri, kind of like really just action packed and dynamic. And I’m, every time you send me a page, I was just like, giggling with delight because they just look so, so incredible. So yeah, so a lot of stuff happening in issue too. And I’m really excited for people to get a chance to read it.
Joe Lalonde
That’s exciting hearing about the art style for that, you know, those couple of pages. I grew up on the image era of the early 90s, early to mid 90s. That was like my introduction to comics, so I can’t wait to see what these look like.
For the Kickstarter, you can buy pages. original art, do you want to talk a little bit about the original art that’s available.
Mike Spring
Yeah, absolutely. That’s one of the you know, I that’s something I’m really excited about because a I think it’s a really good a really cool reward for people who like that stuff. But I’ve been collecting original art for many years and I’m a big fan of it. And so I really want as much as it pains me to let any of the pages go because you know i it would be nice for me to have every single page of the comic I really did want to offer some of them for people to get so I just I split them in half is half the pages I put up as rewards the other half. I’m keeping In my personal collection, because, you know, obviously it’s my book, I’m very excited about it. I like having some of the pages but I’m making sure that all the ones that I offer for sale are good ones not duds, as I like to say, but yes, we have original pages that people can get very affordably, especially compared to a lot of other you know, art in the marketplace. There are some, a lot of artworks rewards have sold out, but there’s still some available. There’s a couple of original sketches from from Dennis, who does the book. There’s a couple of other sketches from a few other artists who have been involved with the book, one of my artists, Ian Chase Nichols, who did one of my variant covers for issue one. And then Drew Moss, who did the cover for the alternate cover for issue two, some of his artwork is available as well. So there’s a lot of those about well, that’s the higher end stuff, and you know, but I also wanted to make sure people could just read the book, affordably, you know, digital copies start at $5, print copies start at six bucks. So I really tried to keep it on the, you know, kind of have a little something for everybody, right? I’ve used I’ve backed a lot of Kickstarter projects, and I know, sometimes you just want to be able to spend like $10 and read a comic and sometimes you want to get the mega package for, you know, 150 bucks, and, you know, get a drawing and a T shirt and all of that stuff, you know, so, so I really tried to make sure there was something for every budget and every type of collector.
Joe Lalonde
When you say you’ve back a lot of projects, I looked at your profile. And in fact over 300 projects,
Mike Spring
I may have a bit of a problem. Well, let me first say I love Kickstarter, I think it’s an awesome platform for independent creators. There was definitely a time where I was I would just back anything like I just got so addicted to it. I definitely have come I definitely scaled back from that. But I do still frequent Kickstarter as a fan. And to get exposed to new comics to learn about indie comics, I don’t know about some of my favorite creators do some projects on there as well. So I don’t want to miss out on those chances. It is a good chance sometimes to get some cool artwork, when you don’t have it. You know, right now obviously, we’re not having comic conventions. So this has been a good way for me to get some artwork from people that I like. So yeah, I do sometimes get a little carried away with it. But I do I just love the platform. I love getting the books in the mail, like getting the the goodies that you get extra extra goodies and stuff sometimes. And you know, sometimes it gets frustrating to wait a long time to get the books, but I also like sometimes I pay for something that I forget about it. And then all sudden one day I open the mailbox and there’s this awesome box full of goodies waiting for me like it’s kind of hard to argue with that, you know?
Joe Lalonde
Yeah, that’s really cool. You know, you’ve backed a lot of Kickstarter campaigns. So what made you choose the Kickstarter platform to launch your comic?
Mike Spring
That’s a great question. Actually, um, you know, a couple things. One, printing comics is really expensive. First and foremost, right, I’m not rich, much like the character of the comic, I’m not rich, I have been, I’ve been paying my artists out of pocket for the artwork, which isn’t, isn’t cheap. But you know, I really was committed to. So originally, I’ll tell a quick little story Originally, I was gonna launch last April. And then, as you probably know, this big event happened in March that basically shut the world there. And my original plan was to launch with just like four pages of finished artwork, and then, you know, make sure I could fund it to pay my artists. But then when the pandemic hit, I didn’t feel right, right. At first, if everything was so unknown, I didn’t feel right asking people for money, you know, you’re hearing my people losing their jobs, people getting sick, I didn’t feel like being like, hey, back my comic, you know, so I put it on hold for a while. And in the meantime, I artists kept working on the book. So I was like, Alright, I can I can afford to pay him for, you know, a couple pages every week, you know, I can swing that. Eventually, when things kind of settled down, we kind of fell into a little bit of a normal routine in the world. In September, I launched the Kickstarter for issue one, and it went very, very well. You know, so I was able to pay for the artwork, but coloring, printing, shipping, lettering, all that stuff really adds up. And it’s more than I can afford to pay for out of my own pocket. So Kickstarter, to me is the best platform for independent creators to really, you know, find a way to afford I’m not looking for tons of money. And I’m not asking for $30,000 or anything, you know, my goal on issue one was 20 $500. Luckily, I funded for more than that, because I learned that wasn’t enough to pay for everything. So this time, the goal is a little higher. It’s at 4500, which should cover everything. But what I like about Kickstarter, when I really try to remind people is you know, it’s not a donation platform. You know, what I learned is a lot of people who’ve never used it before, don’t really know what it is. I think they’re just donating money. There’s giving you money, right to do this thing. And I’m like, I try to remind me like you’re not just donating money, like every pledge gets you something right. You know, $5 gets you a digital copy, you know, $25 you get all three covers, but you’re going to get something In your hands or on your iPad, no matter how much money you spend, right, so it’s not just like, Hey, I’m just your friend donate money. To me, it’s like you’re just pre ordering, finished comic books, you know what I mean. And that’s what I like about it is that you know, you, you, you, you’re not just begging for money, you’re your pre order. It’s a pre order system, right. And obviously, some creators are better than others at fulfilling those orders, as I have learned as a backer, but I’m proud to say we got our comics in people’s hands in under just under three months, they started shipping, which is a pretty fast turnaround time. That was because I was able to finish the artwork, you know, have it all drawn ahead of time. So we started on Book Two, before he booked one even finished the campaign, so it is fully drawn now. So I’ll be in the same boat, when this one finishes, I’ll be able to get it off to the colorist, the letter the printers, and I’m hoping to have it in people’s hands again, two to three months, you know, hoping even quicker this time, because now I kind of know how everything works a little better, you know, but that’s really, Kickstarter is great for that. So I’m a big fan.
Joe Lalonde
Yeah, that’s awesome you know, and you’re right. You know, sometimes it takes a long time to get a Kickstarter backed product. My experience with your campaign, it was a very quick and easy experience. And, you know, I loved how quickly you got everything into our hands, you know, the digital copy the physical copy. It was just a great experience.
Mike Spring
I’m glad to hear that.
Joe Lalonde
And after this issue… what are your plans for Red, White, and Broke?
Mike Spring
Yeah, so the plan right now, and I’m glad you asked that. Actually, the plan right now is to do it as a four issue miniseries. I obviously have issues one and two fully completed. Well, one is published two is fully scripted and drawn. And then issues three and four, I’ve got them worked out in my head, I haven’t put them to paper yet. That’s mostly because I’m a procrastinator. So I will write my scripts at the last possible second before I send them over to Dennis. But I have them all mapped out in my head, I know where I want the story to go, I know where issue four ends. And then I want to collect them into a trade paperback and hopefully either either Kickstart it or it’d be nice if I could connect with an indie publisher between now and then that’s my goal is to maybe try and find a company that might want to publish the book. And then I have a sort of a broad idea of where I want to take the story in the future. If I feel like people want to read more about this character and this world, right, I definitely have plans for a second story arc, if if it’s warranted right now, it seems like people are interested because I funded my first one, I’m this close to funding. The second issue. So I feel like we’re on the right path. But I figured let me get through four issues, you know, a complete story with a beginning, middle and end. Then I’ll see where people want to, you know, go from there. But and I also have another idea that my I will say my artist did a couple of weeks ago, he was like, you know what I like to draw when we’re done with this, I was like, what’s that and he’s like, some sexy lady. Like, you know, I was like, Alright, I happen to have a story idea for for a female superhero. It’s again, and it’s similar to this and that it’s like superheroes, but with a twist. It’s not just a, you know, it’s not just, you know, guns and fists and flying and stuff like that. It’s more about the different angle of superheroes, but I happen to have one in mind with a female character who centers that so I may do that one after I finished this one. But my plan right now is to power through all four issues. Collect them in a trade paperback. Hopefully, by that point, we’ll have conventions again. So I’ll have a nice, you know, table full of comics and trades to merchandise. And then and then we’ll see where we go from there. Yeah.
Joe Lalonde
What happens if someone misses your Kickstarter campaign? Are the issues available anywhere else? Are they Kickstarter exclusive?
Mike Spring
That’s a good question. So I have a website that will be up and running short. I already have a website and renaming it. So I have I decided when I started publishing this to create kind of like a comics publishing company. So it’s Out Of Time comics is my publishing arm. I’m working on getting OutOfTimeComics.com set up and then through there, I’m going to offer issues for sale. Now, are they available just yet? No. Stay tuned, hopefully soon. At the moment. Kickstarter is the only way but I do make sure that each Kickstarter will offer the issues before so like with the issue to campaign right now. You can get issue one in every form digital print, all the different covers are available. There’s even some mega collector packages where you get like every cover that we’ve published so far, and we have for issue two, so I’ll never do a thing where it’s like, Hey, here’s issue three, and you can only get issue three, right? If you missed the earlier ones too bad. Like, I don’t believe in doing things that way. So, so for that for now. They’ll all be available through each Kickstarter campaign. And soon I’ll have them up on the website for sale as well for people who you know, who hear about it, hopefully through some word of mouth and I am working on getting into some comic stores as well. Right now I have it just in some local comic stores where I’m at in upstate New York. I do have plans to sort of reach out to some of the bigger comic stores and hey, like I said, some independent publishers, I have a couple in mind that I have some contacts with. So hopefully eventually it’ll get distributed to all the comic stores, you know, but one step at a time.
Joe Lalonde
I mean, I’m making comics is not easy, right?
Mike Spring
You know, it has to be a big deal, you know, has to be this like this mental challenge to like, how do I get the comic into the stores? Yeah, yeah, it’s tough. You know, it’s like, the first thing you got to focus on is just creating the comic, right? And like, you know, the fact that I got an actual issue published, and in people’s hands, like, that’s a that’s a feat as far as I’m concerned, right? You know, because there’s a lot goes into it. And now I’m doing a second issue. It’s like, holy cow. But then it’s like, you know, it’s time consuming. And so then it’s like, Alright, well, I got to figure out like, Can I get it into the Diamond Distributor catalog? Can I get it into stores? Through them? You know, do I want to try it out? On my own? Do I want to reach out to a publisher? What does that entail? I don’t know much about the publishers, you know, do they pay for the printing? Do they pay for the artists? Do I have to pay? I don’t know, you know, so there’s just a lot to learn. There’s only so many hours in the day. So, you know, it’s all it’s all in progress. But it’s you know, the wheels of progress move a little slowly sometimes. Right?
Joe Lalonde
Yeah. I know. I’d love to see, you know, Red, White, And Broke in some comic stores, you know, some some of my local shops, it would be just so cool to see this project.
Mike Spring
Yeah, I would love that, too. And I’m working on it. I’m working on it, for sure. So you know, fingers crossed, we’ll get there. Right now my main focus is on getting it out there and getting it published, you know what I mean? Because once I’ve got the books in hand, it’s a lot easier to get them into various places to. So that’s kind of like, you know, all my energy right now goes into creating it. And then when I have a little leftover time, I start looking at all these other aspects of it.
Joe Lalonde
Yeah, you know, especially with Kickstarter, it’ll be like, you can go to a comic shop and say, hey, look at the success I’ve had here. Right? Yeah, people are interested in it. You know, what do you guys think?
Mike Spring
Yeah, a lot of the artists and creators that I know, who have gotten picked up by publishers, that’s something they told me is like, you know, it was helpful for me to be able to say, like, Hey, you know, we funded at 500% of our goal, right? There’s interest in this book, you know, issue one, I’m real happy to say we funded at 200% of our goal, and I feel like listen, you know, for being a basically an unknown creator. I’m very proud of that. You know, what I mean? Aside from my novels, which are, you know, kind of unrelated to my podcast, I don’t have a name in the comics world. So the fact that we were able to get to 100%. I think, I think it is a testament to Dennis’s art for one. And I think that the concept for the book really caught people’s attention. And I got very positive marks remarks from most people who read it, which made me very happy. Because, you know, when you’re writing a comic and, and working on it so much, you don’t really know what people are gonna think of it until it’s in their hands. So it’s like, well, what if it’s a flaming pile of garbage? Like, I think it’s great, you know what I mean, but I might be a little bit biased. So what happens if it’s terrible, but I’m happy to say that, you know, people were very, very receptive to it, even people I don’t know, because, of course, they’re always like, Well, yeah, your mom’s gonna love it, you know, although actually, my mom wasn’t even one of the most glowing reviews I got. So I don’t know what that means. But anyway, people I didn’t know were very, very, you know, were very kind and their remarks and said, Hey, I really enjoyed this looking forward issue too, you know, so that made me feel like we were on the right path, you know?
Joe Lalonde
Yeah, I guess you got to tell your mom she’s got to step it up the next time.
Mike Spring
I know. She’s usually like the first one to be like, you know, this is the best thing ever. And this one, she was like, yeah, it was good. I’m like, Okay. Like, if mom says it’s good, right? What does good mean? Right? What does that mean? I’m not sure. I don’t know. But that’s all right. No, cool.
Joe Lalonde
Okay, people are interested now. How can they find your campaign on Kickstarter?
Mike Spring
Alright, so there’s a couple of ways they can do it, I’m sure you’ll find a way to add a link. But if not, it’s it’s the easiest, I just did a short link URL, it’s Tinyurl.com/RWBissue2. That’s a little unwieldy to remember. But if you go to Kickstarter, and you search for either, like just type in Red, White, and Broke, that’ll bring it up, you probably could just type in Broke and get it. Because there’s not a lot of projects with that name on Kickstarter, or you can just search for my name, Mike Spring, and you’ll get my campaigns up, just make sure you pick issue too. But yeah, those are the easiest ways to get there. You know, go to Kickstarter, or if you just go scroll through the comics, even the the the comics projects mind will come up relatively quick. They’re not quite at the top of the charts. Kickstarter, they have their own algorithm, you know, the ones that are making $30,000 or $40,000. You know, they get up at the top, but if you scroll through the comments a little bit, you’ll find it as well.
Joe Lalonde
I want to say thank you for your time today. Mike, do you have anything else you want to share? Talk about?
Mike Spring
I think I just you know, I mean, just just not to not to sales pitch people too much. But I do just want to say that one of the things that I’m really proud of with Red, White, and Broke is it’s a really fun book. I think there’s some good humor in it. A lot of people like my beef jerky gag, I won’t go any further into it than that. But like, I got a lot of comments about that. It’s it’s a fun book, even though it’s dealing with, you know, this guy can’t pay his bills. But there’s a lot of humor too. And I feel like with everything that’s going on in the world, for one MB, I like I read comics, like nobody’s business. I buy a stack of comics this big every week. But some of them are so serious and so dark. And there’s just like, you turn a page, and there’s just like, mountains of dialogue, and it’s all this, like, serious exposition and stuff. And it’s like, that’s great. But sometimes I just want to like chuckle and be entertained, right? And that’s where I feel like my book fits really well. Like it’s a it’s a fun book. I think people can read it and get a smile on their face. It’s not overly serious. It’s not overly dark, you know, and I think that, you know, sometimes that’s what people are looking for. So that’s what I’ll say about the book. Because if you if you like stuff, that’s fun, that’s kind of my motto in life. Like I just like things to be fun, you know. So hopefully that carries through into the comic itself.
Joe Lalonde
Yeah, I can back you up on that one. Issue one was a lot of fun.
Mike Spring
Well, thank you. I appreciate that very much. That’s what people are looking for. That’s what they’ll get with it.
