OOTS Three-Quarters Of A Million bucks- Why????

[Wolfs Heart]

I don't mean to be a jerk, but I just got to ask … Why in the world are you guys funding this project???

… and why are you still funding it?

I mean, I wish the guy all the best, and I know my comment is being fueled by jealousy, but seriously ... how does a stick figure comic even get $50,000, let alone ¾ of million dollars.

I’m an artist, I’m an animator and I feel like I’ve put a huge amount of time and effort into learning how to create my work (and I feel that I'm good at it) … but I'm sitting here watching a guy drawing stick figures, stomp my kickstarter effort into the ground!

I just don’t get it?

[Chess Tyrant]

A few reasons:

1) OOTS isn't just crappy stick figure art - the excellent storytelling and hilarious jokes make it one of the most successful webcomics in existence. (Plus, though it is stick figure art, it's the best stick figure art on the internet.

2) All the books were originally given small print runs, and anyone who found the comic after they were printed probably hasn't had a chance to buy them. This means that there's an abnormally high demand for the books and other merchandise - Rich will never be able to run a fundraiser like this again. (And this comic has been accumulating fans for something like 10 years, a lot of whom are taking the opportunity to pledge for bonus rewards and PDFs even if they already have the books.)

[sparkyinbozo]

5 words: dedicated fan base, great swag.

I don't know what the forum rules here are, but usually any post with "I don't mean to be a jerk, but" is usually locked because people try to justify being said jerk.

[Toper]

It's not just the art; it's the story, the comedy in nearly every strip, the quotable lines, the consistent but developing characters, the thoughtful but not in-your-face concern with theme and the nature of good and evil. This comic is the whole package, the real deal; it's been going on for many years; and it's a small honor to finally be able to throw a little money to the guy who's been performing for free on the street all this time, and even get a little swag back in the bargain.

[FlawedParadigm]

If you think form always beats function, you have a LOT to learn about art to begin with.

[Chess Tyrant]

I don't know what the forum rules here are, but usually any post with "I don't mean to be a jerk, but" is usually locked because people try to justify being said jerk.

I think that only applies to people who break the rules and say "I know I'm breaking the rules, but..." This post doesn't seem to break any rules on its own, so that's fine.

[Dark Elf Bard]

I'm pretty sure this is a mea culpa and trolling.

[B. Dandelion]

I don't know if we could tell you anything that would help your own Kickstarter, unfortunately. OOTS is already a really well-established franchise. It's had a lot of time to build up a fanbase. People know exactly what they're getting out of it with the drive.

Also, it may be stick figures, but in this case it's more a simplistic style than a low-quality one. They are simple but still manage to be aesthetically pleasing in their way.

But really, it's the story that makes the comic. It is epic in scope, features multi-layered characters, and seems to span multiple genres effortlessly. I think the art is fun, but it's rather deceptively simple in that regard (which, really, is another part of its charm). I think even the most detailed, beautiful and talented artwork in the world would find itself in a fight if it went head-to-head against OOTS based on that strength alone.

[Chess Tyrant]

I'm pretty sure this is a mea culpa and trolling.

I don't think he's trolling - just a little exasperated that OOTS is doing much better than his Kickstarter, and confused as to why.

To which we can reply, read OOTS if you haven't already, consider that it's been accumulating fans for 10+ years, and that many of them haven't bought the books yet.

The drive continues to accumulate money because some people are only just now finding it, and some are deciding to upgrade their pledges as more rewards become available.

[Ash_Gazn]

large fan base, good story telling, and realising that most of the money isn't going into Rich's pocket, but is wrapped up in printing, postage, etc. I mean, Rich is lucky if he gets 15% of the cover price of a book as actual income, and then it gets taxed.

I'm contributing $25, plus $4 for a patch.

What does this get me?

An entire books worth of new comic material, just not printed. This ALONE is worth it to me, but I'm getting other stuff too.

Where's your kickstarter? Will the content of your creation promise as much entertainment, game fodder, and community as OOTS? If so, I'll back you.

[SpacemanSpif]

A tremendous fan base is a very powerful thing, and what you are seeing is the leverage of that power.

There are basically two ways to get a fan base like this.

The first is to come up with a great creative idea, convince someone with lots of money to buy it from you, and have that person sell it through their massive media empire.

The second is to create lots of consistently great content, and give most of it away for free, for the better part of a decade. It will help if you go back in time and start doing this before as many other people were also trying to do it.

[Eldray]

Because he has an established fan base, and a ton of his work is already available on this website, meaning that pledgers know exactly what they are going to get, and already know they like it.

You don't seem to have either, and I don't see why people would want to fund a random guy when they have no idea whether he can/will produce results and whether they are going to like it.

As for the comic, it's an excellent comic, especially for those into fantasy and/or RPG gaming, and the art style is very effective.

[Gift Jeraff]

It's not the art, it's how he uses it. Plus, as SpacemanSpif said, he made his foothold before there was an oversaturation of webcomics and the like.
alsohehastakenallofushostageinordertoforceustopled gepleasesendhelp

[Chess435]

Also, there's the fact that he hasn't accepted donations of any kind for at least as long as I've been here, so there's a lot of repressed desire to throw money at Rich for being awesome.

[Ted The Bug]

Well, when your fanbase consists of hundreds of thousands of dedicated readers, and they don't pony up enough to reprint your books, then you can compare yourself to Rich. Otherwise, yeah, not sure if trolling or just totally unaware of the fact that OOTS is *gasp* popular!

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

We also know that the quality will be good. I've read Origin of the PCs, and that makes me know that buying all of the non-print books and getting the PDFs will be worth it.

[Chess435]

Well, when your fanbase consists of hundreds of thousands of dedicated readers, and they don't pony up enough to reprint your books, then you can compare yourself to Rich. Otherwise, yeah, not sure if trolling or just totally unaware of the fact that OOTS is *gasp* popular!

Now, now, no need to make the guy feel bad.

[Joran]

He's not trolling; he has an ongoing Kickstarter to try to raise $8,000 for his stop motion animation film. He has five days to go and only has raised $1,000 of it.

As previously was said, Rich and Double Fine both built up devoted fan bases with quality work over a long time. So, when they ask for money, people have a general idea of what they're getting (and for Rich, he's basically selling already made product so you know exactly what you're getting). Celebrity, name recognition, brand awareness is worth a lot. Just starting something on Kickstarter is often not enough; honestly most people don't surf the site looking for projects to back, they are linked to a project by another person.

How you build up that much good faith? If I could tell you that, I'd do it myself. Part of it is hard work, turning out high quality material. Part of it is smart promotion or spotting a good opportunity to get your name out there, linking up with the right people or company. Finally, sad to say, some of it is just pure luck and timing.

Edit: Just watched the Kickstarter video. I think you should have put together a longer demo reel with sound and music, so the backer would have a better idea of what the finished product would look like.

Also, you said you were an illustrator with comic books, having some of your friends or colleagues tweet or Facebook the project could spread the word. Trying to get a good word from other people that are interested in stop motion animation; someone like Neil Gaiman would absolutely be golden.

It's frustrating to put yourself out there in such a public way and not get much of a response, but as you said, you'll continue on, even if the Kickstarter falls through.

[Chess435]

@OP Also, go and look at the date for the first comic. (right below the strip) He's been at this for awhile.

[Mr. Snuggles]

I’m an artist, I’m an animator and I feel like I’ve put a huge amount of time and effort into learning how to create my work (and I feel that I'm good at it) … but I'm sitting here watching a guy drawing stick figures, stomp my kickstarter effort into the ground!

I just don’t get it?

It's easy, pull your head out of [the dark]. The rest of the world doesn't think like you. What the hell do we care if it's stick figures or not? Who uses that as a metric to decide what to buy? Apparently, only you and your tiny circle of acquaintances. If it's good, it's good period. Does Southpark suck because it's a flash animation?

Where's your kickstarter link? Let's judge YOU. I'll bet the only person who thinks you're great is you.

[Chess435]

It's easy, pull your head out of [the dark]. The rest of the world doesn't think like you. What the hell do we care if it's stick figures or not? Who uses that as a metric to decide what to buy? Apparently, only you and your tiny circle of acquaintances. If it's good, it's good period. Does Southpark suck because it's a flash animation?

Where's your kickstarter link? Let's judge YOU. I'll bet the only person who thinks you're great is you.

As stated before, we don't need to be mean to the guy.

Anyway, his Kickstarter link is here.

@OP: Do you have any previous material of yours to look at?

Never mind, found his gallery. Not bad, if I must say so myself. Reminds me of old movie posters.

[Kancsar]

OotS artwork is secondary to Giant's real accomplishment, which is STORY TELLING. he's created a set of vibrant characters and an interesting setting, and consistently hits notes of comedy and tragedy within a long term story that holds up surprisingly well to logical analysis.

with that foundation, Giant can use almost any superficial artistic style and it is probably going to work. if you prefer a tumblr of beautiful unconnected images, just go look at a collection of Franzetta cover illustrations.

now, if some movie or game producer took a story by Giant and threw a few million dollars at it, you'ld probably get something really amazing. (this is Pixar's trick - great story FIRST, then add equally great production design and execution.)

[Savannah]

Well, assuming you want a serious answer, I'd say your problem is two-fold.

First: audience. You're a start-up, Rich has been doing this for years. You don't have any finished product to show, Rich has most of his comic online for free and has a history of producing books. There's really nothing you can do about this, unfortunately, which brings me to point number two...

Second: how you're presenting yourself. I was curious, so I clicked on your link to your blog. The first thing I found was a post ranting about how a coathook and a stick-figure comic were doing better than you are at Kickstarter. Quite frankly, I don't give my money to people who are trying to tear others down because they're jealous. Remember that everything you post reflects on your project. Now, that would have been enough to turn me off if I had been a casual viewer, but I went ahead and looked at your Kickstarter page. Several things jumped out at me (going through your description in order):

I'd say the biggest problem is the return on investment. You're trying to raise $8000 and say that that won't be enough and that you're going to need more when it runs out. Why would I, some random investor, want to put down money for a project where you could very well run out of money and produce nothing?

Then there's your movie pitch...Now, this is obviously a personal opinion, but I was not at all hooked by your summary of the movie. Admittedly, how exciting a summary is has very little to do with how exciting the full work is, but nothing you said in your summary made me think "ooh, I need to see this!"

Unfortunately, your reasons for doing this also make me wary. While I understand wanting to fulfill a dream, you're asking for $8000 of other people's money to do it and, to me, "Because I've always wanted to do something great!" doesn't make me confident that you'll actually follow through on it should I give you my money.

Finally, it's hard for me to pin down specific instances, but the whole thing feels quite casual, which would be fine if you were just making a movie, but I'd like to see a lot more professionalism if I'm going to be giving you my money (especially if I'm going to be giving you my money and, by your own admission, it won't be enough to ensure that I get a final product in return). A couple of things that strike me as unprofessional (really, it's just an overall feeling, but this is as specific as I can pin down):

• The whole "why does [x] get more money than I do????" thing
• ALL CAPS ALL OVER THE PLACE -- it's really hard to read
• Multiple exclamation points

I hope you do continue to pursue your dream of making this movie and I hope this analysis is helpful next time you're looking for funding

[Porthos]

As other people have said, this is a massively popular website with a devoted fanbase. The forum itself gets hundreds of thousands of hits every day, and I understand that the Main Comic Page is even larger.

Second, and this is the real key, art can be minimalistic and still be great. Compare the first few strips with a random selection in the latter. And obvious progression can be seen even to an untrained eye.

But, mostly, it's the story that's being told. The artist in question has quite a few people wanting and believing in his storytelling. Heck the flames passioned debates that break out over his storytelling should be proof of that.

Lastly, he's been doing this for a long time and has built up quite a reservoir of people wanting his product. So much so that even Rich seems to be astonished at what is happening. But in a way it shouldn't be that surprising.

After all, if Penny Arcade had some sort of Kickstarter, what do you think it would pull? A Metric Butt Load of Money, that's what. And yet PA isn't exactly High Art (though its art has also gotten better over the years). One could give it a glance and say, "That? That is one of the most popular webcomics around?" And yet it is. For many many reasons.

And while OotS isn't exactly in the same category, it might only be one or three levels down from PA.

So in a way it's the old story of Luck Equals Preparedness Plus Opportunity. Rich Burlew has put a lot of work into his storytelling skills, has put a lot of work into refining his craft, and, yes, through a bit of luck it is paying off.

It is a classic case of "An overnight sensation that took years to develop at play".

[MyNameIsSecret]

I don't think I can say anything that hasn't been said already, but I'll say it anyway, just to echo everything above.

It doesn't make a difference that OotS is stick figures - in fact, they compliment the story in every way. And its the story that matters; great humour, complex characters and exciting storylines. OotS is not just 'guy drawing stick figures', and it never has been, and that's why it has drawn such a large fanbase to get so much money from a kickstarter.

EDIT: I looked at your blog and actually thought your project looked pretty sweet... I have animated myself (pretty amateurishly, however) so I'm kinda interested...

[Cheerios623]

Judging from your work, you are pretty obviously talented. I don't doubt that a lot of hard work and expertise goes into your skill set. The same is true of Rich Burlew. His stick figures may not become part of Art history, but they are an appropriate medium for an excellent story. And The Order of the Stick is an excellent story, complete with comedy, tragedy, and parody.

What's more, is that we've been reading this comic for free for almost ten years. You'll notice that there aren't even advertisements on the comics page(the forum has ads, but that is new and goes to pay for the forum servers). A lot of folk have been waiting a long time to give something back to this guy.

[Kancsar]

just went and watched your 7 min movie on your kickstarter site. looks technically accomplished (the gallery of illustrations at your website also look good), and you credit Dragon Slayer as an influence, so respect to you for that, but maybe you should try presenting the story (or a good long piece of it) in a simple illustrated 2D black-and-white storyboard format (dare i suggest stick figure format?), and see if your characters and story are compelling enough for it to be worth the huge time and money investment to produce your stop-motion animation version, or does this exist already somewhere? good luck to you.

[Porthos]

Having read your blog post now, I do have to ask:

Have you actually read OotS at all? Oh, sure the first hundred strips or so can be a little rough. But if you start reading around, oh, Strip 112 or so and give it a bit, you might see what is going on here.

The story can be (and usually is) funny.
It can be dramatic.
It can be heartbreaking.
It can be surprising, and even a little disquieting.
And, yes, it can be moving.

In short, it has all the hallmarks of being a good story, well told.

If the fact that they are stick figures is a deal killer, I can't say I blame you. After all there are plenty of art styles I can't stand. And if the style of story doesn't appeal, that I can understand as well. Both of those are simply a matter of taste.

But is he a good craftsman of Art? Well, while I understand Popularity Does Not Necessarily Equal Quality, the insane amount of coverage this comic gets at TV Tropes might suggest that the people out there who do love it, can give the reasons why they love it, and very strongly at that.

Perhaps if you looked over those TV Trope pages, you might get an idea of what the comic is all about. Sure it ain't Lit Crit. Far from it, in fact. But it does explain what is going on and a lot of the motifs and storytelling techniques that are at play in this work.

[Chess435]

Your second link is broken, Porthos.

[B. Dandelion]

I had more respect for the OP before seeing that blog post, which he seems to have made after this post. In particular the implication that Rich Burlew doesn't spend a lot of time and effort crafting his comic, and can't possibly have worked as hard or cared as much about his art as you, severely grates.

Jealousy is understandable, and I give you credit for copping to it, but check your assumptions, please!