Atomic Robo Kickstarter Aims To Reprint Entire Sci-Fi Pulp Series

Fanghawk

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Atomic Robo Kickstarter Aims To Reprint Entire Sci-Fi Pulp Series

Do you love pulpy, sci-tales of robots defending humanity from evil? Tesladyne's Atomic Robo reprint Kickstarter is for you.

There's a lot to love about the comic series Atomic Robo. It introduces Robo, a self-aware robot designed by Nikola Tesla. It follows pulpy sci-adventures that cover Nazis, dinosaurs, Lovecraftian horrors, and much more. Most importantly, the Eisner-nominated series can be read in full - for free - on this official website. The only disappointment is that all physical copies are currently out of print - something creators Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener hope to change. That's why they've launched the Atomic Robo Kickstarter campaign, with the goal of updating all nine volumes and putting copies back in the hands of fans.

[kickstarter=tesladyne/atomic-robo-reprint-regalia]

Since its original launch in 2007, Atomic Robo was unique in that every volume acted as a starting point. Thanks to Robo's incredibly long life-span, each mini-series follows him in a different 20th Century era - and occasionally beyond that due to time travel mishaps. Clevinger and Wegener used that premise to make each storyline a standalone adventure, so that collected volumes could be read in any order. In fact, these new hardcover reprints won't even have volume numbers on them.

This approach means the Atomic Robo Kickstarter is offering "grab bag" reward tiers. Instead of choosing which individual collection you receive, every tier from one to eight volumes offers randomized book sets. According to the campaign page, this lets Tesladyne save on shipping/handling, make accurate cost projections, and offer the books below retail price. The downside, of course, is that the only way to ensure getting your favorite volume is buying the $170 reward tier. But on the plus side, you can grab the complete PDF collection for $45.

Not that Tesladyne is just reprinting the books and calling it a day. Along with the hardcover upgrades, each of the original five volumes will be re-lettered to match the improved fonts of later books. The reprints will also include "The Secret Files of Dr. Dinosaur", detailing the rough notes of the villain's maniacal plans. Various tiers also include PDFs of Robo's Real Science Adventures, along with transforming backers into Action Scientists for future Atomic Robo stories.

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As of writing, Atomic Robo has raised well over half of its $70,000 - so with 22 days remaining there's a strong chance of getting those hardcover books. Whether you're a newcomer to Atomic Robo or a long-time fan, the status of this project is well-worth paying attention to.

Source: <a href=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tesladyne/atomic-robo-reprint-regalia>Kickstarter

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PunkRex

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Aaaaaahhh shit... my buddy's been harassing me to read this and now you're telling me I gotta dish out £120 odd quid for it... curse me and my love for physical copies!
 

remnant_phoenix

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Nice...

I was a follower of Clevinger's 8-bit theater for most of its run and I loved his humor. I read the first one of these, Atomic Robo and the Fightin' Scientists of Tesladyne was the title I think, a few years back and loved it.

This is quite tempting.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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Best comic out there for my money. The hard part is trying to justify spending for all the HC's...

Then getting a namecheck isn't too much more...

EDIT: Kinda wondering how they'll resolve the climax to the last arc. I mean, one of their stated goals was to be as unlike mainstream comics as they could be, and that'd be iffy in this regard. Then again, they've never disappointed me in the past, and they've already got a good time-travel story, so they've got my attention.
 

Skeleon

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I was about to back this, but the shipping costs for all the hardcovers to Germany are an insane $380. I have to assume this is a bug or something. Wrote them a note to inquire about it, but until that is resolved, there's no fucking way that I'm backing this. Anybody else have this problem?

EDIT: Okay, those who know how to read have a clear advantage. They actually mention it:

A NOTE ABOUT INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING

We ran into a host of issues with international shipping during our previous campaign. A lot of shipments disappeared, got returned, or were damaged before they got to our backers. We did a lot of reshipping. And in some cases we had to reorder high-dollar exclusive items to replace what was lost. We were using standard international shipping because it was the cheapest option for you guys. But this didn't offer any sort of insurance, so all the extra costs were on us. There was no customs brokerage either, so many of our international backers felt they had to pay for shipping twice.

Never again.

This time around we're dealing with packages that will be weighing in excess of 13 POUNDS (6KG!) so international shipping costs will be high no matter what we do. Even so, we were horrified at the idea of hundreds of dollars worth of books getting lost or damaged. And we don't want our international backers being asked to pay for additional fees upon delivery.

So this time around, anything OUTSIDE the U.S. or CANADA is getting shipped via UPS Worldwide Expedited. This service gets your goods to you in FIVE business days max. It includes tracking, insurance, and customs brokerage. If anything goes wrong with these shipments, you will know immediately, and we will be able to respond faster than ever. Best of all, we'll get refunds for any lost goods and the shipping so we can easily replace them without eating into already slim profits.

That said these services do not come cheap. The next service down didn't include insurance, customs brokerage, or live tracking, and was around 2/3 the cost. Given our previous experience, we did not consider that savings worth the risk. If we ran into any of the international shipping problems from the previous campaign, we'd have to re-ship, we'd still be out of all the money, we still wouldn't know what happened, and you'd still have paid more in shipping for essentially no reason. So, we're only offering the fastest/most secure option for outside the U.S. and Canada.

Canada gets a bit of a pass on this. We didn't see many Canadian packages go missing, but when they did it still stung. So we're shipping via DHL International with Delivery Confirmation. This literally cuts the shipping cost by 1/3rd for those of you in the Great North. Higher tiers will still be pricey to ship, but remember at those levels we're moving 13lbs/6kg worth of books and other goodies.
Fuck. No. You are fucking nuts. I'm not paying more than twice the amount for shipping that I pay for the goods themselves. Especially goods that I don't even know will be delivered at all, since this is Kickstarter and they have no obligation to succeed or to guarantee me anything. This is bonkers.

OP, you might want to add a note to your article saying that international buyers need not bother unless they feel a burning hatred towards their money.