What Is Galaxion?

Galaxion is a multi-part science fiction graphic novel. The story is told first on the web, with pages published weekly and then collected into print form. We’re ready to print the third volume and you can help us make that happen!

The graphic novel tells the story of the crew of the starship Galaxion, who are testing a new jump engine. They make the jump, but don’t end up where they expect. The story has adventure, humour, romance and mystery. It appeals to readers of all ages and fans of ensemble cast science fiction shows like Star Trek (although those who watched Star Blazers may notice some influence, too).

As Volume 3 begins, the crew has made their way to a planet that looks too much like Earth to be a coincidence, but is different enough so that they know they are somewhere else. On the surface of the planet they find the wreck of the Hiawatha, a previous ship that had attempted to make the jump years before. They also find two distinct bands of human-like natives: one attacks them, then the other takes them prisoner. The ground party has lost contact with those still on the ship. 

If you want to see what it’s like, you can check it out at the Galaxion website. We think that’ll convince you. But many readers agree, it reads even better in print form.

This year is something of an anniversary for Galaxion. It was 30 years ago this year that Tara and her friend Wendy first assembled the crew of the Galaxion and started telling their tales. It was 20 years ago, at the Chicago Comicon in 1993, that the comic was first printed (photocopied) and sold. Later in the 90s it graduated to full-size printed comic format and was properly distributed for several years. In  2006 a new, improved version was launched on the web, which we are collecting now.

Help us celebrate Galaxion’s 20^th (or 30^th!) birthday by contributing to the publication of this volume!

What We Need

We’re looking for $4,000. That will enable us to print and ship the graphic novels without going into debt. If we reach that, great! If we exceed that, even better! If we don’t reach it, we’ll still print the books and send the perks. But not only will we get less in total, we get less of what you contribute as Indiegogo takes a bigger cut. It will just mean a lot more scrimping for the family.

Don't worry about the currency. We take lots of different ones. Indiegogo/Paypal handles the conversion.

To help inspire you to getting us to our goal, we are going to add incentives as the campaign runs and we hit percentage targets. I’ll say a bit more about that below, in the next section.

What You Get

No matter what you donate, you are part of the Galaxion Volume 3 publishing team. That said, we all love perks and you can see a range of them over to the side. I won’t repeat them all here, but I do want to highlight a few:

• $25 is an important level. That’s where you get the printed book (signed and personalized) as well as everything for the levels above.
• $100 is for the art collectors (and game players). It gets you the original art for a Galaxion playing card. It takes the character sketch to a whole new level. There’s a limit of 54 of them, though (to allow for jokers). And, if we manage to get 52 takers, we’re committed to making them into real decks and we’ll send a deck along, too.
• $250 is for the completists. There have been three different versions of Galaxion in print. This gets you all of them, as well as everything else we can lay our hands on that Tara published! (It also gets you an Amy Unbounded story from NYT bestselling and award-winning author Rachel Hartman (Seraphina)
• $600 is for those who love to see themselves in print. Add yourself to the crew of the Galaxion!

In addition, we’ll be unlocking bonus perks to add to what you’re getting as we reach various milestones. Each time we reach a milestone, we’ll add it to the level and announce the next. To start off with, here’s the first:

• When we are 50% funded, we’ll add e-books of volumes 1 and 2 for everyone who has supported at least $10. Instead of just getting volume 3, you get all of them. It should make it easier to catch up, if this campaign is your introduction to Galaxion. ACHIEVED!
• When we are 75% funded, we'll add a couple of buttons and a bookmark for everyone who has supported at least $25. Tara has been working on diversifying her sales items for when she goes to conventons. One thing she’s been adding are buttons and bookmarks. Of course, there are Galaxion buttons. But there are other buttons as well: Fracking Geologists (in BSG font), EPIC FIAL, Save Ferris, Dendarii Mercenary or Ivan for Emperor, Big Damn Hero, Un(obtainium) or Ex(plodium), a whole raft of Minecraft buttons, etc. ACHIEVED!

• When we are 100% funded we will add a signed colour print for everyone who has supported at least $100. The print will show a never-before-seen alternate of the painting that we used for the first printing of Volume 1 - one that Tara now says she prefers to the one we went with. ACHIEVED!
• When we are 125% funded we will add a "Volume 3: In the Making" digital book (PDF) for everyone who has supported at least $10. What is this "In the Making" you ask? It's a collection of the script and all of the penciled pages that preceded the inked and toned pages that you'll already be getting. See how the story progressed from script to pencils to final inks - and what changed along the way. We've got the scripts. We've got scans of just about all of the pencils (we're missing a five page stretch, I admit, but we can fill at least some of that in with the thumbnails). And we'll see if we can find anything else good to throw in to make up for the missing pages. For anyone interested in the process of making comics, this is the perk bonus for you! ACHIEVED!
• When we are 150% funded we will add a "Galaxion: The Salmagundi Years" digital book for everyone who has supported at least $10. As we say above, Galaxion got its as a comic start 20 years ago at the Chicago Comicon. Tara and her cousin Franz got together and produced a small photocopied comic called Salmagundi. It was a flip book with one side being Galaxion and the other side Franz's comic Vagabond. It ran for seven issues before Tara left to move to full-size professionally printed comics. I'll scan in the Galaxion stories from these issues so you can see how the comic got its start - and how far Tara has come! ACHIEVED!
• When we are 175% funded we will have characters answer a question for everyone who has supported at least $50. As we've promised, all books will come signed and personalized. However, if you are at the Ensign level and above, you can submit a question (within reason) to one of the characters. Tara will sketch a small headshot of that character by the signature in Volume 3 and have him or her answer the question for you. ACHIEVED!
• When we are 200% funded we will add a brand new GALAXION short story to the bundle for everyone who has supported at least $10. After Tara has completed all of the playing cards she has committed to drawing, she'll create the new GALAXION short story. We'll turn it into a PDF and send it along.

How you know the book will ship

This isn’t our first time printing Galaxion. This is Volume 3. We’ve done this twice before (more if you count earlier versions) and we know what it takes. The comics are all done. The book is assembled. We have the quote from the printer. All we are waiting for is your contribution to lighten the load and help pay the bills.

Other Ways You Can Help

But your financial contribution isn’t the only way you can help. We need all the help we can get spreading the word! Share the campaign on social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Google+ or all of them). Send emails to friends and family with links to the Indiegogo page or the video. This is a great opportunity for people to join the ranks of Galaxion-readers – especially with that first bonus perk!