Rocketship to Add Retailer Tiers to All Kickstarters

Rocketship Entertainment had some news for the retailers at ComicsPRO last month.

The publisher, which crowdfunds most of its books, will add a retailer tier to its Kickstarters, and it is beefing up its recently announced young-readers line, Bottlerocket, with some new titles, including graphic novels by Marv Wolfman and Kevin Grevioux.

Rocketship CEO and Co-Founder Tom Akel announced at the meeting that going forward, all Rocketship Kickstarters would have a retailer tier, with typical terms being 50% off and free shipping within the U.S. The retailer tiers will typically have five copies of the book, and they will allow retailers to get the products before they are widely distributed. “And you’ll have access to the exclusive versions that don’t get distributed to retail, for which there is high demand from these fans,” Akel added.

The Bottlerocket imprint will launch later this year with a Felix the Cat graphic novel (see “Rocketship Launches New Young-Readers Line”), and Akel had four new titles to announce at the show: Mekk and Me, by Marv Wolfman, which will be the New Teen Titans creator’s first all-ages graphic novel; Monsteroids, by Kevin Grevioux, which Akel described as “classic monsters mixed with Transformers robot types”; Commander Tomorrow, by Kevin Conn, a sci-fi adventure story that also deals with mental health issues such as anxiety; and Succulents, a gently funny gag comic that has almost 50,000 subscribers on the Webtoon platform.

Akel also announced the tabletop game Stan Lee’s Genesis, which is being produced in cooperation with Pow Entertainment. Artist Ryan Benjamin and the Rocketship team have designed 200 characters for the game, in which players create their own superhero universes. “It’s very evocative of Marvel, DC, the pulp era,” Akel said.