Okay. This is really huge. I’m Kickstarting the first issue of my epic, sex-positive, feminist graphic novel, Tracy Queen. I am really excited, and also extremely nervous. It feels like asking for a lot. So I thought I’d tell my blog readers why it also feels incredibly important.
About Tracy Queen
I’ve been working on this story for the better part of a decade, and I don’t think I’ve ever created anything that I’m this proud of before. The character of Tracy Queen started out as a fictional version of someone I knew. I started writing her story for fun, as a way to talk about some of my feelings about feminism, pornography, sex-positivity, and empowerment. But the character began to develop faster and better and deeper than anything I’d ever done. This was my first experience writing a character that took on a life, a mission, a vision of her own. It was absolutely magical. And it convinced me that Tracy Queen is a force to be reckoned with.
Tracy’s story turned out to be complex, scary, beautiful, and fearless. Over the course of her journey from a repressed, sheltered, wholly owned young woman into a fully empowered, totally independent, rabidly feminist, queer love-warrior, we tackled issues that I never saw coming. I created a messy, difficult, sometimes problematic character who isn’t always her best self, and whose wildly eccentric life takes her far off the path of righteousness sometimes. But she’s always trying her damndest to be better, and to carve out the life she wants to herself, for those she loves, and for the world as a whole. In the end, she learns to love and understand herself. That’s a big deal.
And, hey, if you’ve got to go to war against the patriarchy, you might as well use all the tools at your disposal. Including cyborg-clones you created using genetic samples collected on the sets of the gangbangs you film, right?
About the Kickstarter
So, look. I really think that this graphic novel is important. I believe that Tracy is a fabulous person who you’ll come to love, and her BFF Nikola the raccoon is the best thing since sliced pie (and I love sliced pie). And I think that this graphic novel is worth your support. It’s funny, enjoyable, and serious in turns, and it’s gorgeous. The art by Jayel Draco is stunning, and it brings a sense of solidity and realism to a story that can get pretty wildly out-there. It also embodies Tracy as a fully realized, if not always functional, human being with her own motivations, dreams, failures, and flaws.
To make this first volume—the first of seven that will eventually make up the book—happen, I need your help. Kickstarting only works if there are lots of people helping out!
If you can share the Kickstarter campaign on social media, tell your friends about IRL, talk about it on your YouTube channel, interview me about it on your podcast, shout it from the rooftops…that would be awesome. And if you can back it, we’re going to send you some sweet rewards to say thanks! Like art prints, signed copies of the book, original sketches, stickers, even original penciled pages!
Thanks in advance for literally any help you can offer. You’re a love warrior!