Making Some Sacrifices

We have always been keen on supporting comic kickstarter and crowdfunding campaigns and here’s a few details on Robert Wells’ Department Of The Peculiar Goes Pop 1 & 2…

Story

Department of the Peculiar Goes POP! is a two-part story from writer Rol Hirst and artist Robert Wells (who is writing these very words and running this campaign). It concerns the efforts of the DOTP – a fictional UK government department responsible for investigating peculiar occurrences, people and phenomena – to stop a ‘peculiar’ named Gavin Leech, the manager of a hopeless rock band called Areshole, who discovers that he has the ability to bestow them with talent and make them superstars…  but not without making some sacrifices first.

The money raised by this campaign will be used to fund the publication of Department of the Peculiar Goes POP! #2, which is fully drawn and ready to go to press. Copies of #1, which was Kickstarted and published last autumn, are also available as part of this campaign. There are also a limited number of copies of two older DOTP comics available, but you don’t have to have read these to enjoy ‘Goes POP!’ and the digital versions of the two older DOTP comics (and Goes POP! #1) will be available to download for free (here) for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Goes POP! #1 ended on a cliffhanger, so I can’t really post any whole interior pages for #2 here. Instead, here are three sample panels, featuring: Semi-naked celebrity lookalikes (don’t worry, it’s pixilated in the actual comic, too), teleportation, and an excerpt from the secret origin of Lisa Cole (this panel a homage to Steve Ditko / Spider-Man, of course)…

Contents

DOTP Goes POP! #2 has 32 black & white interior pages (that’s the final 27 pages of the Goes POP! story, an extra 3-page DOTP strip, and 2 pages of DOTP-related illustrations I drew while working on this issue), colour covers by me and a painted inside back cover by Phil Elliott.

#1 has 32 black & white interior pages (25 main story pages, a bonus 4-page prose story with spot illustrations, and 3 pages of guest pin-ups by Sean Phillips, Chris Weston and Mark Stafford), plus colour covers (painted back cover by Phil Elliott). 

Department of the Peculiar 1&2 (2012/2013) both have 24 B&W interior pages plus colour covers. The copies on offer here are 2nd printings from 2013. These are currently running very low and are unlikely to be reprinted until we eventually put out a collection (which won’t be until after we’ve done another 2-part DOTP story, which Rol is writing right now). 

For more information about the DOTP and for a 3-page preview of Goes POP! #1, please see the Kickstarter page for our previous campaign (link at bottom of page), but the basic information you need about the characters is…. 

Rewards

Sketches:

Like last time, one of the reward options is for an A4-sized inked sketch of the DOTP character of your choice as your favourite pop / rock star. Some of the drawings I did last time can be seen below…

Painting: 

Another reward option is Phil Elliott’s original painting for our inside back cover. This is an A3 (297mm x 420mm) sized painting, acrylics on cartridge paper, pictured below…

Original Pencil Art:

I draw nearly everything digitally now but pages 2-16 of DOTP Goes POP! #1 were pencilled on paper and later inked digitally. Apart from page 7, which is being offered on its own, most pages were were pencilled one tier at a time (1-3 panels per tier), on A4 sheets of Bristol board, with three tiers making up an average comic page. This was quite a popular reward last time but I still have some panels left to offer this time. These will be assigned randomly, but if there is a specific piece you want, let me know and I’ll try to give you that one (unless everyone wants the same piece). All of the panels I have left (including some that weren’t used in the comic) can be seen here, but here’s page 7 (A3 on Bristol board) and three tiers from different pages of the comic. (Note: There is NOT a crease in the middle of page 7, I just scanned it in two halves.)  

Guest Appearance:

Appear as a character in the next DOTP story. I have no idea when it will eventually appear but Rol is currently writing another DOTP story and when we get around to it your likeness can be used for a character in the story. I can’t guarantee that you will appear in more than a few panels but you will get a speaking part and I will try to give you as big a role as I can (I have read a 1st draft of the script for the next comic and there is a couple of good opportunities for guest roles). The only catch with this reward is that we don’t know when the comic will appear. It’s another story of (at least) two parts and I can’t guarantee that the first issue will even appear this year. When it does, though, you could be in it. You will also get a copy of the comic when it eventually comes out and a hand-drawn recreation of one of the panels your likeness appears in.

What People Have Said About DOTP

Fulfilment  

The comic will go to press as soon as we receive funds from Kickstarter (2-3 weeks after the campaign ends). Obviously, because of the COVID-19 outbreak, things are not running normally at the moment and there may be disruptions to postal services, but I will aim to post out the comics and rewards as soon as I get them myself. Digital rewards will be sent out to all backers as soon as I receive funds from Kickstarter.

For more information about the DOTP and for a 3-page preview of #1, visit the page for our last Kickstarter campaign here.

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