#KickstarterWatch: 2nd volume of Black Comic Book Access Guide gets hotter

A legendary comic book editor and his amazing friends come together again to (sort of) save the world with a Kickstarter campaign for a truly essential project.

By Abdulkareem Baba Aminu

The second volume of the indispensable Access Guide to the Black Comic Book Community is currently being crowdfunded on Kickstarter. The campaign aims to update the project with new creators, stores, and projects that are quickly springing up as the Black community continues to carve out a unique spot within the comics industry.

The guide will go on sale in February 2022, and the Kickstarter campaign has just eleven days to go. You can support it HERE.

Heavy Metal editor Joe Illidge, writer George Carmona III, and Anyone Comics Store owner Dimitrios Fragiskatos all return for the second book, which will now be three times thicker, and will contain colour pages. Artist Jamal Igle has drawn the cover (full version below this article) for the new volume, featuring The Wrong Earth’s Stinger.

The first edition of Access Guide to the Black Comic Book Community offered a platform for the comics, creators, publishers, and conventions in the Black community which have been underserved in mainstream media.

Illidge, on Facebook, posted  that one year ago, he published an article called ‘Black Lives And The Moral Imperative of Superhero Publishers’, a report card on three publishers that used social media to proclaim support of Black voices in society and the comic book industry.

“After those public statements in 2020, and throughout 2021,” Illidge wrote, “Two publishers upped their game, opening their doors and corporate wallets to more Black creators to tell stories across the breadth of their fictional universes.”

The rest of Illidge’s post goes: “Last year, Volume 1 of Access Guide to The Black Comic Book Community served to provide officers from various publishers with awareness and names of more Black creators in our vast, imaginative comic book industry. The media took notice. This year, the team of Dimitrios Fragiskatos, George Carmona, and yours truly are crowdfunding Volume 2 of Access Guide to The Black Comic Book Community to continue providing a roadmap for people to discover and support Black voices in comics, and we’re grateful! You’ll see the expansion of efforts by companies such as Marvel and DC Comics, as their statements were matched, and proportionately exceeded. 2021 has been a truly amazing year in mainstream comics. The second volume will be bigger and better. Full color, more books, publishers, stores, conventions, and podcasters. Thanks for your continued support to continue the work!”