We’re excited to release the inaugural issue of the Kids Comics Studio Anthology Newsletter. At the top of the news is our MAJOR Announcement of Kids Comics Unite’s very first COMICS ANTHOLOGY that will be crowdfunded for a Spring of 2025 release. The comics anthology is by Kids Comics Studio members who have teamed up to feature original comics for early to late middle-grade readers.

Publishing an anthology is a LOT of work. Luckily, there are many helping hands on this project. Besides writing and drawing our own comics, we have branched into several teams focused on editorial, design, marketing and crowdfunding which will lead to printing and distributing the finished book. 

The featured piece in our first issue is by Kids Comics Studio Member, Patrick Lugo, who shares a key method that the Anthology Team uses to connect with readers – an opt-in email marketing newsletter . Be sure to download his bonus pdf on how to get started on your own newsletter campaign.

Here we go!

~Kids Comics Anthology Newsletter Co-Editors, Edna Cabcabin Moran & Maritza Ruiz-Kim

The Journey Begins: A Comic Creator’s Perspective (And More)

By Patrick Lugo

Patrick Lugo illustrates what it’s like to start with an idea and work through it.

Click here to view the rest of Patrick’s comic.

Hello Kids Comics Friends! Here we’ll share experiences we’ve accumulated and lessons we’ve learned along the way. We are learning a lot about working as a collective, producing a theme, titles, cover art, crowdfunding do’s and don’ts, short comics creation and a whole host of other skills that we’d love to bring to the wider community. The newsletter is here to serve you! As we share this anthology process, we want to be engaging and informative. 

• The Anthology Theme: Why pick one. How to pick one. 
• Plotting a campaign timeline, management tools and tricks we’ve used to pull off a collective project.
• All about crowdfunding, budget, fulfillment, marketing, how to create a stellar launch page.
• Marketing tips, research and more.

As some of you may know, Kids Comics Studio, a membership group within Kids Comics Unite, is producing an anthology. We are learning a lot about working as a collective, producing a theme, titles, cover art, crowdfunding dos and don’ts, short comics creation and a whole host of other skills that we’d love to share with the wider community.

Over the course of this mostly monthly series we’ll fill you in on those lessons and strive to present it in a way that’s useful for working on your own projects. We know we’ve got a much better understanding on subjects like themes; Why and how to pick a theme. How we picked ours. We’ve given ourselves a crash course in writing collaboration agreements and how to handle the dilemma presented by A.I. We’re also looking closely at what goes into plotting a campaign timeline. And this brings us to the next step: launching a newsletter!

Download the Newsletter Jumpstart PDF

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Comic by Patrick Lugo continued from above.

Patrick Lugo is a senior correspondent at KungFuMagaizne.com and an author, illustrator & comic creator who consults on comic crowdfunding campaigns when not running one of his own. His latest graphic novel A Tiger’s Tale Volume 2 is currently shipping to fans and will be available for purchase online at aTigersTale.com- if you’d like free comics sent right to your inbox you can also subscribe to PLUGOarts.com.