Back To Earth - A Sapphic, Post-Apocalyptic Graphic Novel

TLDR: Getting a little personal, achievements, stickers, and more cool rewards!

Hi everyone!

First off, I want to thank you all for supporting this project, and I'd like to get a little more personal than I usually do. If you don't want to read it, you can scroll down, I'll indicate where my rambling stops so you can read about news from the campaign!:)

I became a scientist and worked in research for more than a decade now because I have this need to understand things. Really understand them as much as I can.

When I sat down to write Back To Earth, it was one of the few times in my life that I was overwhelmed. I needed to get the angst and introspection about the future out. So I imagined a future not far from now where technology has taken over every aspect of life. From cyborgs to literal robots, this world became a mix of Blade Runner and The Last Of Us. But then things caught up with what was left of humanity, and the apocalypse hit. What then? What happens when everything seems to have collapsed?!

It's easy to break things. It's harder to rebuild them.

Through time, I realized that when facing hardships, what counts above all are the connections we made along the way. I wanted to channel that in this story. When you can count on people, and they can count on you. The true spirit of community. But also on a deep personal level of that ONE person who sticks with you through thick and thin. You are stronger because they are by your side, and you can face anything. They are your best friend, your lover, your world.

Enter Sasha and Leora and their exceptional bond. It's a love story for the ages in a way.

Anyway, as soon as I finished the script, I only had one artist's name in mind: Kej. I collaborated with them previously—albeit briefly—for my debut graphic novel Kiwi, and I knew they'd be the perfect match for this deeply emotional story. I was thrilled when they read it and accepted to jump on board.

What followed was a year full of discussions about world building, about those characters that became family, and gorgeous art at every step of the way. Kej (and Ines) are dream collaborators, and in my opinion they should be on everyone's radar. They bring beauty and uniqueness to the table in ways I can't even describe (and I'm supposed to be the writer here haha).

They made literal magic with my words.

What you're seeing in this project is only the beginning. We have more in store for you, and if you give us a chance we aim to bring you this specific graphic novel, but also more queer stories full of heart in the future!

ENOUGH WORDS HAVE BEEN TYPED! ONTO THE FUN NEWS ABOUT THIS CAMPAIGN!

We officially surpassed 50% funding! We're actually more than half of the way there! We can do it!

It also means that we unlocked two new stickers since last time I posted an update, so here are all the currently unlocked designs:



Aren't they so pretty? Which is your favourite so far? The cyborg's arm floating in water? The wind chime made of robots remains? Sasha's backpack with Twinkle the star? Sasha's side view? The pinky fingers hold? The sequoia with pine cone split horizontally as comics panels? Let us know! :)

As hinted at previously, we have some fun surprises for you all! As you already saw on the campaign page, as soon as we get funded, everyone is getting a high-res wallpaper from Liana Kangas, and the oversized sticker sheet/digital wallpaper of them by Vern, but there's more!

We are thrilled to announce that as soon as we get funded, all backers at the Budding Tier or higher will also instantly get three extra prints added to their packages. Those prints will be of exclusive illustrations by Fell Hound, Emily Schnall, and Natasha Alterici (it was a stretch goal, but why wait? With Natasha, we agreed that it would be instantly activated upon funding!). The illustrations will be slowly unveiled in the next few weeks leading to the end of the campaign, but with them you can bet they're going to be gorgeous! 

We are currently working on updating the main page to reflect this update in rewards, but all the creators have already been added to the Team section :)

We are also in talks for another quite exciting bonus to offer upon funding (hint: might be a variant cover) so stay tuned for updates on that front.

That's all for now! We're wishing you a wonderful weekend, and thank you again for the support everyone :) 

Cheers,
MH, Kej & Ines

TLDR: more about us + milestone achievements stickers reveal

Happy Tuesday Earthlings!

We now sit at over 20% funded, and it's very heartwarming for us to witness the support you're giving us, especially since we're kind of new to the comics scene.

Kej and Ines have been making art for years, but this is their first foray (and not the last!) into sequential storytelling, and honestly they should be on everyone's radar because if those preview pages don't convince you, I don't know what will! They are a true dream to collaborate with, and I can't imagine working on this project with anyone else.

As for me (MH), I am mainly an author of novels. But I do write scripts, and I've been told more than once that my prose is cinematic & immersive, so comics are something that can also suit my writing style well. I often love deconstructing panels and thinking in terms of sequential flow. When that happens, I know the story I'm thinking about needs to be told in comics form! Thanks to another bunch of wonderful backers like you, my debut graphic novel was just released at the beginning of this year. In it, Elsa Charretier wrote the foreword and said that 'MH is just getting started'...I guess she was right, and I hope you guys will enjoy my endeavours.

But enough about how, as small indie creators, we are oh so happy to have you all on board of this adventure with us :)

The main reason I wrote this update in the first place is that WE HAVE COOL NEWS!

The 48h bookmark incentive is officially gone (it's still available as an add-on for anyone interested in grabbing one, though), but we are switching things up to offer you guys more fun things!

We are introducing a sticker sheet made of 12 total stickers drawn by Oliver Elias (@vervaynn on IG, @vervayn.bsky.social on Bluesky), and all inspired by the Back To Earth Universe! As soon as we get funded, everyone at a physical tier will get the sheet + digital tiers will get it as a digital wallpaper!

How does it works, you might ask?

For every 1k we fund toward our goal, a new sticker will be unlocked! Which means that we currently have 2/12 stickers unlocked. The designs will be unveiled in the next few days, but I wanted to announce it here first because we're pretty excited about them!

Talk soon with new stickers designs, and hopefully even more fun news!
Take care of each other. We also want you to know that if you have any questions we're always happy to answer them so don't hesitate.

Until next time.
Cheers,
MH, Kej & Ines

PS Kej drew this to celebrate the 1/5 funded. If we keep this going, I'm sure they will draw more of Sasha & Leora being all lovey dovey...and I personally want to see that so let's get this funded + Kej drawing!

Hi lovely backers!

First off, I want to be clear that I won't spam you with updates, but will still share things with you from time to time!

What we want to tell you now is that the whole team thank you for your early support. It truly means a lot, especially to indie creators like us. We know there's a lot of projects out there, and the fact that you pledged to ours is an honour.

We also would like to tell you that we had lots of fun working on this graphic novel. Sasha and Leora became a bit like family, we enjoyed imagining the post-apocalyptic landscape they are currently living in to then design and bring it to life. 

We imagined this society quite like ours, but a few decades into the future. We didn't want to go full sci-fi, but a middle ground of what our reality is on track of being with what the future might hold realistically according to us. Hence why there's cyborgs, insane inventions that you haven't fully seen in the preview pages, and this duality between humanity and technology. In the end, nature won, though, and vegetation no one had seen for decades is coming back. In a way, it's our love letter to the force of nature who will always prevails because we are little guys on this planet! More than anything, it's our love letter to human connections in the face of adversity. I tell you...this lesbian couple is GOALS! Writing and drawing them was a pleasure, we ended up finding them very inspiring and we wish you'll think the same when reading their adventure within these pages!

But enough ramblings on my part. We hope to be able to bring this full story to you :) For that, we need to keep spreading the word and get funded! If you know anyone who would be interested in our project, send them our way! We'll be happy to welcome them to the Back To Earth family. 

Wishing you all a nice weekend! Until next week.

Cheers,
Cali

PS Backers are also getting an exclusive preview of an inked page Kej is currently working on colouring. Things are getting spicy in that one...