Saving Neil the Horse
Greetings from Hermes Press! We are a comic book and popular culture art publisher based in New Castle, Pennsylvania. We are a family business that has existed since 2001, and run our company with only 3 full-time employees, along with our unpaid office-dog Moose. Over the years HP has reprinted such titles as The Phantom, Buck Rogers, and Dark Shadows. We have also dabbled in new works such as Scratch9.
Our newest reprint project, Neil the Horse, is a reprint of the much-beloved 1980s Canadian comic book series created by Arn Saba (now Katherine Collins). Hermes Press wants to print Neil the Horse, but to do that we need your help!
We are already working on restoring the pages, but don’t have the dedicated funds to print the book. Until we do, it’ll just be sitting on our desktops! By helping us fund this project, you will be saving an iconic series. Neil the Horse will always be in comics history. But we want more for our horsey hero. How about letting him live again?
Neil and his friends Soapy and Mam’selle Poupée are an always-struggling songand-dance act. To gain success, they will go anywhere, do anything, and put up with anything — like a trip to Hell, or captivity inside a video game, or a gang of slap-happy aliens in a stunt-driving saucer. Oh, and a drunken and disorderly back-up band of cats.
Neil is a happy go-lucky (and not too bright) horse with a mania for bananas. He’s one heck of a tap-dancer and singer, and he can also get down to breakdancing. He adores his two pals, and will do anything for them.
Mam'selle Poupée is a romantic and lovelorn living doll from France, whose wooden body is jointed with hinges. With red circles on her cheeks, curly blonde hair, and large bust, Poupée appears to be a cross between Raggedy Ann and Dolly Parton. She is a serious dancer, and practices at the studio every day.
Soapy is a street-wise and cynical (with a heart of gold) orange alley cat, a cigarsmoker and a drinker, who serves as their trumpet player, manager and the brains of the operation. Neil thinks that Soapy is the smartest guy in the world . . . and he just might be right.
The book includes an introduction by Trina Robbins, and brand-new commentary by Neil’s creator, Katherine Collins. There’s also some rare art, and souvenirs of the early career of Neil.
Help us help you get this project started so that we can successfully reprint Neil the Horse!
What We Need & What You Get
So what exactly do we need this money for? All of our work in done in-house, so that's already paid for by our boss, but we are lacking funding in one very specific area: printing. The cost to print this kind of book is pretty high if we do it correctly (and we want it done correctly!)
We want $15,000 to pay for printing the book, as well as shipping it back to the United States (we print in China). None of this money will go to anything but our printing costs, because we want, more than anything, to preserve this comic series.
If you help us, beyond the satisfaction of knowing that you put your money to a good cause, you can also get a copy of the finished book if we get funding!
We want to keep this simple and keep costs down, so the only real perks are the regular edition of the comic book reprint or the special limited edition version, with extra pages, and signed by Katherine Collins. The regular edition is priced currently at $60.00, and the limited edition at $95.00. You'll also get your name in the Thanks page if you donate $25 or more!
The Impact
Every project Hermes Press has done has been a success. This time we decided to reach out to the fans, old and new alike, and see if they'd like to be a part of the process from the beginning, instead of just at the bookstore.
By reprinting Neil the Horse you will be helping preserve a unique comic creation. Not to mention Making the World Safe for Musical Comedy, of course!
Other Ways You Can Help
If you can't donate, please spread the word! Social media can only help us, so please share this on your Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or any other media you use!
