The BackerKit Campaign For The Highly Anticipated First-Ever Print Edition Is Now Live
(April 8, 2024) Spike Trotman’s Iron Circus Comics — the premiere publisher of award-winning, critically-acclaimed graphic novels in the American Midwest, which has raised nearly 5 million dollars via crowdfunding — is launching a BackerKit campaign to publish the first ever, highly anticipated print edition of the cartoonist S.E. Case’s webcomic hit series RIGSBY WI. The funny, naturalistic graphic novel series chronicles the lives of a group of average teenagers in a small city in Northern Wisconsin. It’s a series about growing up and the things that shape us, including relationships, poverty, race and sexuality, and how we choose to present ourselves to our friends, family, and the rest of the world. The BackerKit for the first book, a 120 page graphic novel titled RIGSBY WI: FOOTHOLD is now live.
“When you’re young, you have so little control over your own life — you are subject to the whims of your parents or guardians, which is not always a bad thing if they truly have your best interests at heart, but unfortunately that’s not the case for all kids,” said cartoonist S.E. Case. “Part of being a teenager is trying to figure out who you are, and that’s hard — but even harder when those around you cannot accept who you discover yourself to be. Will anyone recognize your value as a person when your goal is not to make the football team, or get into a prestigious college, or be crowned homecoming queen, but to simply get through the experience of being a teenager relatively unscathed? Maybe smoking weed in the woods and stealing sunglasses from the mall aren’t the most productive coping mechanisms, but what else is a disaffected 16-year-old in a rural town to do?
Sometimes as a teen in a small town, you can feel trapped — trapped enough to want to gnaw off your own leg to escape. Bethany has gotten some much needed stability in Rigsby, WI — she’s away from her oppressively disapproving mother, and the other local teens Jeordie, Erik, and Anna have welcomed her in — and together the four of them know how to escape from the world that is closing in on them. While Case’s vibrant art and naturalistic writing doesn’t shy away from the rougher experiences and feelings of teens, it also covers the truly important topics like, “is Phish a good band?”, “is the neck the dong of the torso?” and “Ernest Hemingway: Was he a piece of shit?” Nostalgic, sweet, bitter and funny all at once, RIGSBY WI feels like a teenage afternoon spent with friends, with all the pathos, boredom and absurdity inherent therein.
To support the campaign on BackerKit, visit this link: https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/iron-circus-comics/rigsby-wi-volume-1?ref=PR
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