A Saskatoon-based comic creator that launched a “redemption” campaign to produce a long-delayed board game met the fundraising goal in less than three days.
Kurtis Wiebe owns Talespinner Games, a “tiny,” family-run arts and games business. He also co-created the award-winning, New York Times best-selling comic series Rat Queens with artist Roc Upchurch.
Image Comics, founded by renowned comic artists such as Todd McFarlane and Jim Lee, started publishing Rat Queens in 2013.
The fantasy-action comedy series centres on four young women who are roommates, and also kill villains and monsters for gold. It has been distributed worldwide and translated into eight languages.
In November 2018, Wiebe licensed his intellectual property rights for Rat Queens to an American board game publisher. It went on to raise $338,000 US in a 2021 Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign that had a stated goal of $60,000 US.
Wiebe said he was pretty distant from the project and first learned about delays a couple of years later from Kickstarter backers.
“We started getting some emails,” he said. “‘Hey, I know you’re not directly involved with this, but could you look into it? We’re a little bit concerned that something isn’t right with this campaign.'”
Wiebe said it was around COVID, so there were a lot of production delays in games and shipping.
He said he, the original game designers Sen Foong-Lim and Erica Bouyouris, and Upchurch were supposed to get some of the crowdfunding money under a contract. None of them did, the game never materialized, and none of the backers got their money back.
The CEO of the publisher declined to be interviewed by CBC News about Rat Queens, adding, “I wish nothing but the best for that team and that property, which is an important one.”
Wiebe said he rescinded the licensing agreement in 2024. He and Upchurch redesigned the game — a “co-operative deck-building tower defence game where friendship makes you stronger and villain slaying makes you richer.”
They launched a new crowdfunding campaign in August. Wiebe says part of the motivation was to get free copies of the redesigned game to the original campaign’s backers, who never got a game or their money back.
The new campaign, which is active until Oct. 8, hit its target of $115,000 Cdn in 56 hours. As of noon CST on Friday, it had exceeded its goal by almost $35,000 Cdn.
Wiebe said the surplus will be used to pay the artists who’ve been volunteering their time.
More faith from original backers
He said 70 per cent of backers from the original campaign supported the new one, making up 50 per cent of the money that has been pledged so far.
CBC spoke to three backers who contributed to both campaigns. They all praised Wiebe for providing regular updates and planning to give the original backers a free copy of the new game.
Stephanie Lorée of Toledo, Ohio, said her late husband, Nate Beebe, was a big Rat Queens fan who introduced her to the comic series. When the original Kickstarter campaign went live, he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Beebe died the same day the original crowdfunding campaign ended, Aug. 4, 2021.
“It was actually a big point of joy in our lives to be able to support the board game originally and to just take part in this little creative thing of this fan base that he really loved,” she said. “It brought him a lot of joy.
“Rat Queens has a special place in my heart. So for it to fail, it was very disappointing.”
Chris Bachelder II of Omaha, Neb., said he has backed 10 or 12 Kickstarter campaigns, and the first Rat Queens board game was one of two that didn’t work out. Wiebe’s plan to make things right for the previous backers was “refreshing,” he said.
“That alone was something that you don’t really see a lot on funding my interest.”
Matthew Most of Worchester, Mass., said of the 40 times he has backed something on Kickstarter, the original Rat Queens board game campaign was one of two where he had not received the product.
“You can look back and see the slow decline in communication and then just nothing. No responses,” Most said.
The transparency around the new campaign convinced him to contribute, he said.
“The folks who are involved in the new campaign, it’s the original authors, it’s the people who built the entire Rat Queens world, and they’re passionate about it,” Most said.
“We want to support it and want to make sure the artists get paid, want to make sure that game designers get paid.”
Most support coming from U.S. fans
Wiebe said most of the contributions for the new campaign have come from Americans. Asked about the timing of Americans supporting a small Canadian business in a time of trade tension between the two nations, Wiebe said it was interesting.
“I think what’s really happening is it’s pretty ordinary people just connecting with each other over a shared love of something,” he said.
“It’s just ordinary, common people who have a love for games and for comic books coming together and just saying, ‘You know, ignore all that.’ There’s a really good message here for all of humanity.”
Wiebe said they are aiming to have the game in customers’ hands by August 2027.
