October was a strong month for crowdfunded comics. We’re leading the campaign for The Dungeon Crawler Carl: CROCODILE graphic novel, which has already raised nearly $2.3 million with only hours left.
Based on Matt Dinniman’s wildly popular LitRPG series Dungeon Crawler Carl, Vault’s graphic novel is nothing short of a huge success.
It’s no secret that publishers have had a lot of success with crowdfunding, but they’ve reached even greater heights in recent months. For example, Oni’s Murder Drones graphic novel campaign, which also ended in October, earned $1,750,552. And earlier this year, Skybound’s THE TRANSFORMERS Compendium Set sold for a shocking $4.6 million. Previous GI Joe campaigns brought in $3.8 million in revenue.
These are all targeted at very specific fan bases, so there’s clearly room for multiple huge campaigns at once.
What are the biggest comics campaigns of all time? Kickstarter has a helpful chart, but there are many campaigns currently running on Backerkit, including Dungeon Crawler Carl, that don’t have as informative a chart. There are also platforms that don’t have charts, such as Zoop and Indiegogo.
However, I did a little digging and put together the following unofficial table. Maybe I missed something outside of Kickstarter. Let us know in the comments. I will update as much as possible.
For years, Rich Burlew’s 2012 Order of the Stick campaign was the gold standard, raising more than $1 million. Considering inflation, this is still a staggering number. But it’s interesting to see how campaigns by individual creators of hugely popular webcomics have passed through publishers. they worked fine.
Also note that I haven’t included Indiegogo projects here as numbers are much harder to come by. Maybe with an update.
Rank Project Publisher Platform Pledge Backer Amount Year 1 Transformers Compendium Set Skybound Kickstarter (+ BackerKit) $4,650,828 11,315 2025 2 GI Joe: A Real American Hero Compendium Set Skybound Kickstarter (+ BackerKit) $3,794,167 10,490 2025 3 A Good Sign: Official (And Unspeakable) Graphic Novel Trelly Pratchett Estate Kickstarter £2,419,973 (~$3M) 36,867 2023 4 The Dungeon Crawler Carl: CROCODILE Graphic Novel Vault Backerkit $2,296,901 23,001 2025 5 Lackadaisy: What Comes Next (Books, stuffed animals, animation) Iron Circus BackerKit $2,008,728 16,053 2023 6 MURDER DRONES: THE OFFICIAL GRAPHIC NOVEL Oni Kickstarter $1,750,552 21,004 2025 7 Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver Prequel Graphic Novel Bit Bot Kickstarter $1,496,557 8,836 2025 8 BRZRKR BOOM Kickstarter $1,447,212 14,571 2020 9 Expansion continues with DRAGON TOOTH graphic novel! Boom Kickstarter $1,405,859 12,196 2025 10 The Order of the Stick Reprint Drive Rich Burlew Kickstarter $1,254,120 14,952 2012 11 How to THINK when you DRAW BOOK 4 + reprint sold out book Lorenzo Etherington Kickstarter £793,608 (~$1M) 8,564 2021 12 How to THINK when you DRAW BOOK 3 + reprint sold out book Lorenzo Etherington Kickstarter £786,930 (~$1M) 9,029 2020 13 How to THINK when you DRAW BOOK 5 + reprint sold out book Lorenzo Etherington Kickstarter £752,060 (~$1M) 7,856 2020 14 The Amory Wars: No World for Tomorrow Boom BackerKit $952,216 6,711 2023 15 30th Anniversary Disney Gargoyle Collection is here! Dynamite Kickstarter $925,001 6,225 2025 16 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Complete Comic Book Collection Boom Kickstarter $804,018 1,584 2021 17 Ctrl+Alt+Del 1.0: Box Set Tom Buckley Kickstarter $665,725 5,553 2015 18 I Roved Out in Search of Truth and Love: Tomes 1-3 Alexis Flower Zoop $658,954 2,968 2025 19 Ava’s Demon – Book Two / Aftermath Michelle Fus (Published by Skybound) Kickstarter (+ BackerKit) $648,198 6,060 2022
The project with the most backers in the above list is Good Omens, followed by Dungeon Crawler Carl, and FWIW.
Kickstarter provides a lot of statistics for different categories, but it’s worth noting that comics are currently the most funded category, with a success rate of 68.66%. However, in terms of success, it only ranks 6th with $311.77 million, compared to the #1 category, Games, with $2.67 billion. All numbers are historical: Kickstarter has raised $9.2 billion since its inception.
I’m not entirely sure what we’re going to get out of all of this, but one thing is for sure: Manga publishers will continue to do a lot of crowdfunding.
Something like this:
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