Sample Art by Jared Souza, Adapting the audio series "Wormwood"

The Kickstarter campaign to raise money to cover creative expenses on the upcoming Sparrow and Crowe comic book met its goal of $4,000 last Sunday, and currently has six days remaining. It will be the first creator-owned comic book at Hermes Press when it launches in 2012.

“We’re thrilled by the response,” says Jeremy Rogers. “Fans of the audio show returned to show their support, as well as a lot of comics fans who saw our pitch and the art and want to get behind this new series.”

With a commitment to publish Sparrow and Crowe as a creator-owned comic book mini-series by Hermes Press, writers Accampo and Jeremy Rogers, and artist Jared Souza began the Kickstarter campaign as a way to cover further marketing and production expenses. Sparrow and Crowe: The Demoniac of Los Angeles is a comics prequel to Accampo and Rogers’ successful Wormwood audio show, which ran as a podcast from 2007 to 2011. Many of the devoted Wormwood fanbase came to their rescue and donated money through buying exclusive CDs of the show’s soundtrack, signed copies of the upcoming first issue, bound copies of the first Wormwood script, and other Wormwood rarities.

Hermes Press had also donated several books for the team to sell at a discounted price and, with only a week left, they are hoping to sell off the remaining items:

• Two full sets of The Phantom: The Complete Newspaper Dailies, featuring the first three volumes. With volume 1 currently out of print, they are still selling the set for only $100 (a cover price value of $150 each set)
• An entire set of Buck Rogers: The Complete Newspaper Dailies, volumes 1 through 5, being sold for $175 (from a $250 value)
• One copy of Buck Rogers: The Complete Newspaper Sundays-Volume One for only $50
• Both volumes of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea: The Complete Series for only $50 (half off from cover).

The books can be purchased with a pledge at the Kickstarter page, along with the other Sparrow and Crowe items, including original art pages from Jared Souza.

“We’re offering Jared’s original art for issue one as a series of tiered pledges-the more you pledge, the earlier you get to select from the pages of issue one,” says David Accampo. “On top of that, we’ve added something very special for our final week: for $75 each, you can buy Jared’s original ‘adapted’ pages of Wormwood art. These are scenes from the audio drama, adapted to comics by Jared that he used to approach us. Totally unique and very, very cool!”

With the first issue of Sparrow and Crowe set to debut in summer of 2012, the creative team are already in a better-than-expected position to comfortably deliver the caliber of comic book they feel worthy of the fanbase that are helping to make it possible.

“The Kickstarter has not only built up anticipation with Wormwood fans-it has the creators fired up,” says Jared Souza. “David and Jeremy are delivering script pages that, as both an artist and a Wormwood fan, are surprising, tightly paced and very fun to draw.”

“And we couldn’t be happier with Jared’s visualization of these characters – the perspective and atmosphere he creates has inspired our scripts as we progress,” adds Jeremy.

The Kickstarter page for Sparrow and Crowe can be found here. The campaign ends on Thursday, November 24th at 8:55 PM Eastern time.

For press inquiries, contact Chris Irving at [email protected]