Joe Sonntag, creator of Reaper Destroyer, raised over $75,000 on IndieGoGo for his first issue. The campaign fulfilled. Backers got their books. By every commercial and ethical measure, it was a success.
Now Sonntag is trying to launch Reaper Destroyer #2 on the same platform, and the approval queue has been running for more than two weeks with no explanation.
On May 13, Sonntag posted an update to his pre-launch page:
“Where can you back?! The day is almost here! May 15th is approaching fast and I am excited to launch! One problem though. There may be an issue delaying the IGG page for backing. As you know the new IGG is kind of clunky and a lot of hoops to jump through to get this campaign approved for launch. The pre launch page was already approved but we have to go through the process again. Why you ask? Well you would have to ask IGG about that. So what do we do? On May 15th, if this page is not ready to go, you can find all of the same tiers on my company’s website superiorpresscomics.com.”
May 15 came and went. On May 23, eight days after the planned launch, Sonntag posted again:
“I am still waiting for approval on the Reaper Destroyer #2 Campaign. Hopefully this will happen soon and then I’ll set an actual date for the IGG launch. If you don’t want to wait for IGG you can also go right now and pre-order the book on my companies at superiorpresscomics.com.”
No explanation from IndieGoGo. No stated violation. The platform where Sonntag previously raised $75,000 and delivered every reward to every backer cannot produce a reason to approve his sequel.
Reaper Destroyer is a dark science fiction action comic about a man imprisoned in supernatural armor, tormented by the Spirit of Death, and fighting for his soul. It is exactly the kind of 90s-inflected dark hero work that built Image Comics. Nothing in IndieGoGo’s stated terms of service applies to it.
The pattern behind this delay has a long paper trail.
IndieGoGo’s history with ComicsGate and conservative comic creators stretches back to 2018. In October of that year, the platform shut down the Alt-Hero: Q campaign written by Chuck Dixon and published by Arkhaven Comics. The campaign had already raised over $100,000 and was in post-campaign store mode when the Trust and Safety team refunded all pledges, citing a terms of service violation without specifying what it was. Dixon is one of the most accomplished comic writers in the industry’s history, responsible for definitive runs on Batman, Robin, Nightwing, and Punisher across decades at DC and Marvel.
By 2022, multiple ComicsGate creators including Mike Baron, Ethan Van Sciver, and Shane Davis had discovered their campaigns were shadowbanned: hidden from search results, blocked from Google, accessible only via direct link. IndieGoGo’s own help center confirmed the practice, stating campaigns are not guaranteed to appear in search and offering no appeal process. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression documented the broader pattern, noting that in multiple cases the platform retroactively decided campaigns violated its terms after they had already gone live and raised thousands of dollars. In 2024, Cecil Jones was banned from crowdfunding his Cash Grab 2 comic on the platform with no explanation.
IndieGoGo’s terms of service grant the company complete legal cover: “We have the right to monitor, terminate, suspend, or delete any User Account at any time for any reason, or no reason. It is our policy not to comment on any reasons for termination and we have no obligation to provide you with a reason for termination.” That clause applies to every user on the platform. The documented pattern of its application runs in one direction.
When Gamefound acquired IndieGoGo in late 2024, the hope in the independent comics community was that new ownership might mean a genuine reset. Asked directly whether old bans would be upheld, the company said new projects would be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Sonntag’s case has been under review for more than two weeks.
His situation sits inside a crowdfunding infrastructure that is becoming broadly hostile to independent creators regardless of political affiliation. Last month Kickstarter suspended multiple funded campaigns after its payment processor Stripe flagged mature content, including one that had already raised over $10,000 from 198 backers. Kickstarter later reversed the policy and publicly admitted the crackdown was driven entirely by Stripe’s requirements, while conceding that Stripe can still freeze campaigns at any time under its own rules. BackerKit’s Trust and Safety team has left applications without response for weeks. Crowdfundr has absorbed some of the displaced traffic. Gamefound is now the presumed serious alternative for tabletop and comics crowdfunding, but has not yet demonstrated whether its moderation culture differs from IndieGoGo’s in practice.
Sonntag found his workaround. He is selling directly through superiorpresscomics.com. Reaper Destroyer #2 features cover art by Jon Malin, Ethan Van Sciver, Brett Booth, and Oliver Isabedra alongside Sonntag’s own cover. His audience is waiting. They should not have to navigate platform politics to buy a comic.
Direct-to-creator is the cleanest model available to independent publishers right now, or going to free-speech sites like IndieCrowdFund. The corporate crowdfunding platforms add discoverability and payment infrastructure. They also add gatekeepers who can delay or remove campaigns with no stated reason and no recourse.
Sonntag’s backers proved once that they would show up in numbers. The platform that collected its fees from that campaign’s success has spent two weeks deciding whether to let him come back.
Have you backed Reaper Destroyer or other independent campaigns and run into platform problems? Let us know in the comments.
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