The Kickstarter for the Ctrl+Alt+Del 1.0 Box Set is LIVE!!!!

Ctrl+Alt+Del 1.0: The Box Set is a comprehensive three-volume collection that houses the entire first decade of Ctrl+Alt+Del. Everything from the first comic, to the end of the original Ethan and Lucas storyline in 2012, or what I consider “Ctrl+Alt+Del 1.0.”

When I say it houses everything, I mean everything. I scoured every hard drive and physical media I had for anything I created in those first ten years. So not only does it include every comic published to the website in those ten years, but 50+ comics that weren’t. Comics that were offered to donators, exclusive to books, made for special events or game projects, etc.

The set also includes the first 450 Sillies, that feature Ethan and the gang as the characters. Old wallpapers, art, t-shirt designs, behind the scenes looks at unfinished projects, and commentary scattered throughout with notes and facts about certain comics. This is the most complete collection of the first decade of my work that will ever exist. Nearly 2500 comic strips.

Each of the three volumes is a cloth wrapped, foil-stamped hardcover book, with a nice matte dustjacket featuring new front/back synergy artwork. The set comes with a cloth-wrapped and foil-stamped slipcase to house/display the entire collection. All book sets ordered via the Kickstarter will also include a signed and numbered bookplate.

And for the first time ever, you’ll be able to read the entire saga of Ethan and Lucas without interruptions.

Book I and Book II contain everything related to the main story of Ethan and Lucas. Everything that I considered relevant and “canon” to their ten-year arc. With the unrelated one-shots removed, these two books focus entirely on the main cast of characters. Especially later on in the comic’s run, there would sometimes be 2-3 months of one-shots inbetween stories about the main cast. With this book set, there are no interruptions. This set also includes the massive “Game Games Bowl” short story in its entirety.

Book III contains… well, everything else. All of the gaming one-shots, Players stuff, Chef Brian, the Sillies, the Ethan MacManus: Space Archeologist issues, etc. Ten years worth of gaming references, nostalgia and random antics and industry commentary.

Shipping

I am prepared to ship this book worldwide. However, not all shipping is created equal. This is a large and rather heavy book set. Getting it into the hands of US customers presents no issue. However shipping this set to customers overseas, if done the same way, would cost as much as the book itself.

So instead, I will be working with a fulfillment company and importing books in bulk to a handful of distribution centers around the world, and shipping from there. This will allow me to offer more reasonable shipping to places where I know I have a lot of international customers, such as Canada and the UK.

The shipping prices are as follows:

• United States – $15
• Canada – $25
• UK – $35
• Countries in the EU – $35
• Australia – $35
• Norway, Switzerland, Mexico, Greece, Serbia – $65
• Everywhere Else – $90

 There are some places where I simply had no options for lowering the shipping prices. While I hate to charge $90 shipping for an $80 book, the alternative is simply not to offer the option at all.

The Kickstarter

The goal for this Kickstarter will be $150,000.

I know, it makes me light-headed just looking at that number. But the bottom line is, this is a big book set. The majority of that number is just printing the books. And then Kickstarter takes a cut, and I have to account for that in the goal. And then (for some reason), all shipping charges that people pay get counted towards the project’s goal.

So if I set the goal at the bare minimum break-even point to print the books, and we only just meet it… I won’t actually have enough money to print the books. Because a chunk of that money is actually shipping costs. It’s messed up, and I think it makes this Kickstarter thing far more complicated, but it’s the way it is. Therefore, the goal needs to account for the printing AND shipping of the books.

Now, in perspective, while that seems like a massive chunk of change, I wouldn’t bother with this whole thing if I didn’t at least think it was possible. A few months ago, when I first started talking about this project, I put up a poll to guage interest.

There’s a big difference between clicking a button on a poll, and pledging actual money, but if even a quarter of the people who answered that they would be interested in buying the book actually do, we can get this funded.

With that said, I want to be very clear about the limited nature of this book set. This is not a product I have intentions of keeping in stock forever. This is a single print run. If we get funded, I will print enough books to cover orders, rounded up to the nearest 500 or 1000, but that’s it. However many we end up making will be the only copies to ever exist.

After all of the Kickstarters rewards are filled etc, I might have some books left over to sell, but there won’t be many, and they won’t last forever. What I’m saying is, if you want this book set, pledge to the Kickstarter. Don’t count on it being available for a year from now.

The Kickstarter will run for 30 days. October is currently my projected date to begin shipping these, if we get funded. I would like to have these in people’s hands by Christmas. There will of course be a handful of different reward tiers both below and above the baseline book set, and those (and more details) will be explained in the Kickstarter itself.

So as I said above, my goal is to launch this Kickstarter in the first week of May. Once I have a specific date, I will let you know.

In the meantime, if you have questions, don’t hesitate to ask (tim (at) cad-comic.com or @TimCAD). I welcome the opportunity to figure out answers to frequently asked questions before I launch the Kickstarter.