Kickstarter Banned Me For Submitting My Space Marine Military Sci-Fi Comic

This is insane censorship from Kickstarter, banning someone who delivers quality sci-fi books on time when they have such a bad reputation as it is.

This weekend, in an unprecedented move, Kickstarter banned me after I submitted my military science fiction space marine comic, The Emerald Array, for approval. I’ve seen projects declined before, but never an outright creator ban like this where it’s stripped me of the ability to communicate with the current backers of my last campaign, some asking questions via message or comment, which I have no way to answer. 

I first saw a problem with Kickstarter at the beginning of The Hidden Emperor campaign. For the first 72 hours, the campaign didn’t show up on the search in comics. I reached out to the head of Kickstarter Comics, Sam Kusek, who’s a former employee of Boom! Studios, a mainstream comic company best known for Power Rangers and Mark Waid’s Irredeemable. Though he had been part of the mainstream, he was cordial and responsive in helping me with my problem.

However, even in his response, I could tell someone at Kickstarter had targeted me, and this was no simple mistake: “I took a look at the page and was able to make some adjustments on my end. I'm seeing it show up in the search now,” he told me.

It was an adjustment to settings. The Hidden Emperor had been shadowbanned intentionally during its launch—which didn’t hurt the campaign too much, as I raised over $51,000 from nearly 700 backers, my record to date for a comic. Backers who read the book tell me it was one of their favorites. 

During the campaign and the one for Overmind before it, I noted that Kickstarter did something else sinister. No matter when I searched, what browser, or had fans search just scrolling through the comics, the book was pinned to the bottom of the search. Kickstarter actively attempted to make sure my book didn’t get seen by backers.

This doesn’t make much sense, as Kickstarter's site mostly features blatant pornography, which gets the most traffic. To maintain a semblance of legitimacy, Kickstarter should prioritize legitimate comics that a trade audience can read, but radical politics appear to be more important to them.

During the campaign, multiple groups targeted me, tagging Kickstarter and attempting to get them to ban me. One was led by Kwanzaa, one of DC Comics’ literal diversity hires they brought in to try to virtue signal. He’s since been flushed out of comics because he couldn’t make money and didn’t like the competition from someone who had more talent than him in the industry.

On the flip side, I faced a cancel campaign by Ethan Van Sciver of ComicsGate fame. He spent the last two weeks of my campaign making nasty and libelous accusations in an attempt to get people not to back my book. The result was several of his fans tagging Kickstarter, trying to get me banned as well.

I don't know whether Van Sciver, Kwanzaa, or a combination of both led to my actual cancellation, but after the campaign for The Hidden Emperor closed, I noticed that Kickstarter took an excessive amount of time to send me funds.

From the date my campaign closed to when Kickstarter sent me the funds, it took 17 full days for them to “review,” even though I’ve been a creator who’s successfully filled more than a dozen campaigns to backer satisfaction. I am a literal paragon on Kickstarter, with my books being on time and of high quality. 

During this time, I set up the campaign for my Emerald Array campaign, my military sci-fi space marine comic to follow up on The Hidden Emperor. Much like the funds, it took more than two weeks of my sitting not able to get approval for the campaign, even though it’s an innocuous, good comic that any normal comic reader would and will love. I contacted support and received a stock answer claiming there are a lot of projects to review.

I received my answer a couple of days later: a permanent ban from creating projects, citing violations of community guidelines without specifying what they were. It was clear that the mass reporting going on during my last campaign got my account flagged even though I’d done nothing wrong.

I reached out to Sam Kusek again, but when I looked on X for the DMs this time, I found he’d blocked me. At this point, I realized this was a targeted and coordinated attempt to deplatform me and destroy my business.

Kickstarter is literally taking food off the table for my family and for the families of my artists, who get paid very well compared to most comic outlets out there. They are literally harming multiple minorities and women, an irony as I’m sure this targeting is due to their “diversity and inclusion” agenda.

I’m not going to take this lying down, however. I’ve decided to fight, fight, fight, moving up the timetable of The Emerald Array space marine graphic novel campaign. We’re moving to Fund My Comic, a site run by a Christian creator committed to free speech. I’m doing this both to get this book out and funded and to help this start-up website compete against the evils Kickstarter perpetuates.

To do so, we will need the strongest launch possible to show that we can make this work without Kickstarter. Please back The Emerald Array and support not just me but my artists, the founders of Fund My Comic. Let’s build a parallel economy together. Their loss will be all of our gain as our platforms and reach continue to grow because of their relentless politicking destroying entertainment.

The Emerald Array is the book everyone’s been asking for for a long time in these spaces. It combines the 1970s aesthetic of Jack Kirby with military science fiction themes you’d find in Starship Troopers, Warhammer 40K, and Star Wars. Thank you so much for your support.

Back THE EMERALD ARRAY book here.