Art by Pat Skott and Ellie Wright, from Next Door. — Art by Pat Skott and Ellie Wright, from **Next Door.**

By Zack Quaintance — The first draft of my project’s campaign page was, in a word, stilted. I don’t have the exact wording of it (I destroyed all the evidence), but it was really formal, really tightly-wound, and perhaps a bit nervous…the way one gets when they’re talking to a strict teacher or a cop. All of this put the tone of the page at odds with the tone of the comic. One thing I’ve definitely learned during my time kickstarting my first comic is that you want to match the tone of your page as closely as you can to the tone of the book, thereby pulling in an audience that will (ideally) appreciate the work.

For example, my project Next Door — while definitely about distrust between folks in communities, societal struggles, and even violence at times — has quite a bit of levity. Nothing slapstick and certainly no cheese, but part of the way I process and cope with these sorts of serious issues personally is by pointing out the absurdity, and that comes through in my script. I also went for a more conversational approach to the way the characters talk to each other. It’s not dialogue that sounds 100 percent true to life (I don’t think that works in any storytelling medium, not 100 percent), but there’s a naturalistic quality to the way our characters speak to each other, almost as characters might in a stage play.

The point is, that level of conversationally is how I needed my characters to sound, and that brings me to today’s…

ACTIONABLE KICKSTARTER COMICS TIP: Match the tone on your campaign page to the tone of your comic, thereby delivering an accurate glance into what sort of content readers can expect when they actually get their hands on your book. It’s the right thing to do, even if it’s not necessarily the best way to sell the thing (look, if I was interested in that, I’d have a comic on Kickstarter about knights fighting aliens and also some of those knights are beautiful women and also again some of those aliens are beautiful women…that would bring in the big bucks), but I think it’s the right move, one without question made in good faith.

That’s all I have to say for today and also for this week. Tomorrow in this blog, we’ll take a look at our full four-page preview for the book, and then on Friday we’ll have another Q&A between myself and a member of our creative team!

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.