Jamal Igle Hopes to KICKSTART 10 Year-Old Superhero

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In the trend toward more well-known comic book creators turning toward Kickstarter to launch new comics, Jamal Igle has left the world of Superman and Supergirl behind to publish his own creations.

"When I heard about Kickstarter, I realized this was what I'd been waiting for," Igle said. "Instead of working on someone else's concept, Kickstarter gives me the chance to dust off one of my ideas and try to do it myself."

Earlier this month, Igle launched a page for his new comic Molly Danger on Kickstarter, the fund-raising website being utilized by comic book creators to publish their own properties. So far, it's raised about $19,081 of its overall $45,000 goal. It has 13 days to go.

"I looked at Kickstarter versus a lot of the other sites, and it's almost entirely for creative projects, and that was a big draw for me," Igle said. "And because of the amount success I've seen for other projects by people like Amanda Palmer, Paul Jenkins and Humberto Ramos with Fairyquest, and the Cyberforce relaunch from Top Cow, it seems like the best option for what I was looking to do."

 

Molly Danger is a story about the world's most powerful 10-year-old girl -- who also doesn't age. Although she's been fulfilling her job as the protector of a city called Coopersville for the last 20 years, something happens to turn her world upside down.

The story will be released as a hardcover, 48-page graphic novel. "It will be four total books, with each one being a 9 x 12 hardcover in full color with 48 pages," Igle said. "And then once everything's collected, it will be released as a trade. We're doing digital and everything."

The project is about halfway through its tenure on the fund-raising website

 

"When my DC contract was wrapping up," Igle said, "at first, I was going to help someone else out with their creator-owned concept. But a couple of people I talked to were doing their comic through Kickstarter. I had never heard of it! I did some research and realized this was perfect for what I want to do with Molly Danger."

What makes Molly Danger unique is that the story doesn't start with her gaining powers. Instead, it picks up 20 years into her story at a point where she's lonely and has a life far from other people. She's been told that she's an alien, but Igle teases that "everything she knows is wrong."

 

"She's been told that she's immortal, and that's why she doesn't age," Igle said. "As we pick up her story, she's almost a princess in an ivory tower, because she doesn't have any real friends, she doesn't have a secret identity, and all she's known in her life is being a superhero. She's a very lonely little girl."

Molly is watched closely by D.A.R.T., which stands for "Dangerous Action Response Team." "We introduce a new member of D.A.R.T. named Austin Briggs, and he has ulterior motives for joining D.A.R.T.," Igle said. "He has a step-son named Brian who is a huge fan of Molly Danger, and Austin wants to get closer to her to impress Brian.

 

"And Austin brings her home for dinner, breaking the rules terribly," Igle said with a laugh. "And everything just sort of takes off from there, as Molly's whole world is challenged in a new way."

The artist is offering a lot of incentives to people who put money toward the publication of Molly Danger, including limited edition comics, original sketches, posters and more. He's also offering retailers the chance to receive a signing at their comic book store.

 

Igle has been kicking around the concept of Molly Danger for seven years and finally just decided to take the leap into self-publishing. The character was first conceived by Igle and Rich Maurizio in 2001. It was originally an animation pitch.

"I had just come back from California and just finished working at Sony, and I was just sort of burnt out on animation, so we retooled it as a comic book," Igle said. "We even had an ad on the back of a comic once teasing it, fully intending to publish it at that time."

 

But Igle suddenly got offers on bigger and bigger comics, with regular money and the chance to draw big-name characters enticing him to delay Molly Danger.

"Every time I started thinking about doing this project, some other work would come up," he said. "We even hired another artist for awhile, but that didn't work out either. So it just became that project in the back of my head."

 

Eventually, he decided not to sign with a big-name publisher, instead focusing on creator-owned projects like Molly Danger.

Igle's mother had even started to pressure him to get back to the project. "Every once in awhile she'd say, 'When are you going to do Molly Danger?" Igle said. "She loved the idea. And she was right. It was too good an idea to set aside."

For details on incentives for backers of Molly Danger, go to Igle's Molly Danger fundraising page.

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