Illustration student reaches Kickstarter goal in one day

When Grace Maughmer (Illustration, 2019) launched the Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the publication of her comic Erro, she didn’t really know what to expect — but it wasn’t much.

”When I opened my Kickstarter, I was incredibly nervous and had low expectations,“ she says.

She had never used the platform before, so she enlisted the help of Lemuel Worrell (Film & Video, 2019) to create a video of her working in her studio and explaining her story Erro, which she’s been thinking about and working on since high school.

”I whole-heartedly believe that it was Lemuel's delivery of my idea and work that allowed it to become successful,“ she says. ”He presented it beautifully and better than I could have on my own.“

Successful, indeed: Maughmer reached her goal of $900 in the 24 hours of putting her project on Kickstarter.

”When I exceeded my goal I was blown away by everyone’s support. I never expected to meet my goal let alone exceed it so quickly,“ she says. ”It has made me that much more excited about the book and sharing it with everyone that donated. Simultaneously excited and nervous, of course!“

Erro, set in late-1800s Maryland, is the story of a young woman named Edith, wife of a distracted pastor of a town called Somnium Grove. Edith’s tale of tapping into an ancient, forgotten power is told through ”surrealism, horror, and the difficult-to-navigate internal landscape of our minds.“

Maughmer’s softcover book will be around 24 pages, and finished by the end of spring. Throughout her time at CCAD, Maughmer has worked on the writing, rewriting, and visual evolution of her comic, but the Self-Publishing class she took this semester helped her learn how to create the book on her own and source funding for its completion. Funds from her Kickstarter will go toward printing and shipping the book.

”I am immensely thankful for everyone’s support and so glad that there has been such a positive response to something that I hold so close to my heart,“ she says.

Read more below about Erro and the CCAD class that inspired Maughmer to publish her book, then check out or support her project on Kickstarter here.

Why is this comic important to you?

This comic is important to me because of how long I’ve been creating the story; having invested roughly four years in story building, I was EXTREMELY excited when [Assistant Professor] Laurenn [McCubbin] presented us with the project at the beginning of the semester. But, I knew that this class wouldn’t allot enough time for me to complete the story as a whole, so I elected to create the prologue, which is a poetic exploration of the story in an almost dream-like manner.

Why are memory and nostalgia themes in your storyline? What makes you want to explore those topics?

Memory and nostalgia have always intrigued me, not only as broad concepts but as well as how individuals recall events and relationships. I’m interested in a human being’s ability to accurately remember things without having any kind of emotional manipulation and how different people can experience the same events in drastically different ways.

How has your Self-Publishing class at CCAD helped you prepare for this moment?

Self-Publishing class has given me SO much information. From story-building, book layout design, to the ins and outs of the printing process and how to manage crowdfunding projects and social media. I would have never been able to complete something like this without the time, assistance and resources I got from the class.