October was a BOOMING month for crowdfunded comics. Leading the way the campaign for The Dungeon Crawler Carl: CROCODILE graphic novel which has a few hours to go but has already cleared nearly $2.3 million.
Based on the wildly popular LitRPG series Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman, the graphic novel from Vault can only be termed a huge success.
It’s no secret that publishers have been having lots of success with crowdfunding, but in recent months they’ve been reaching even higher tiers. For instance, also wrapping up in October, Oni’s Murder Drones graphic novel campaign made $1,750,552. And earlier this year Skybound’s THE TRANSFORMERS Compendium Set made a shocking $4.6 million. An earlier GI Joe campaign made $3.8 million.
Clearly there’s room for more than one huge campaign at a time because these are all targeted at very specific fanbases.
What are the biggest comics campaigns of all time? While Kickstarter has a helpful chart here, a lot of campaigns are running on Backerkit now, including Dungeon Crawler Carl, and they don’t have charts that are as informative. And there are other platforms like Zoop and Indiegogo that don’t have charts either.
But with a little digging and some elbow grease I put together the following chart which is NOT official. I probably missed something outside of Kickstarter. Let me know in the comments, and I’ll update as best I can.
For many years, Rich Burlew’s Order of the Stick campaign in 2012 was the gold standard with more than $1 million raised. Given inflation it’s still an astounding number. But it’s fascinating to see how campaigns from individual creators with very popular webcomics have been passed by publishers. They caught on.
And note, I have not included Indiegogo projects here because numbers are much harder to come by. Maybe in the update.
| Rank | Project | Publisher | Platform(s) | Amount Pledged | Backers | Year |
| 1 | THE TRANSFORMERS Compendium Set | Skybound | Kickstarter (+ BackerKit) | $4,650,828 | 11,315 | 2025 |
| 2 | G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero Compendium Set | Skybound | Kickstarter (+ BackerKit) | $3,794,167 | 10,490 | 2025 |
| 3 | Good Omens: The Official (and Ineffable) Graphic Novel | Trerry Pratchett Estate | Kickstarter | £2,419,973 (~$3M) | 36,867 | 2023 |
| 4 | The Dungeon Crawler Carl: CROCODILE graphic novel | Vault | Backerkit | $2,296,901 | 23,001 | 2025 |
| 5 | Lackadaisy: What Comes Next (Books, Plushes, Animation) | Iron Circus | BackerKit | $2,008,728 | 16,053 | 2023 |
| 6 | MURDER DRONES: THE OFFICIAL GRAPHIC NOVEL | Oni | Kickstarter | $1,750,552 | 21,004 | 2025 |
| 7 | Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver Prequel Graphic Novel | Bit Bot | Kickstarter | $1,496,557 | 8,836 | 2025 |
| 8 | BRZRKR | BOOM | Kickstarter | $1,447,212 | 14,571 | 2020 |
| 9 | THE EXPANSE Continues In The DRAGON TOOTH Graphic Novels! | Boom | Kickstarter | $1,405,859 | 12,196 | 2025 |
| 10 | The Order of the Stick Reprint Drive | Rich Burlew | Kickstarter | $1,254,120 | 14,952 | 2012 |
| 11 | How to THINK when you DRAW BOOK 4 +REPRINTING SOLD OUT BOOKS | Lorenzo Etherington | Kickstarter | £793,608 (~$1M) | 8,564 | 2021 |
| 12 | How to THINK when you DRAW BOOK 3 +REPRINTING SOLD OUT BOOKS | Lorenzo Etherington | Kickstarter | £786,930 (~$1M) | 9,029 | 2020 |
| 13 | How to THINK when you DRAW BOOK 5 +REPRINTING SOLD OUT BOOKS | Lorenzo Etherington | Kickstarter | £752,060 (~$1M) | 7,856 | 2020 |
| 14 | The Amory Wars: No World for Tomorrow | Boom | BackerKit | $952,216 | 6,711 | 2023 |
| 15 | 30TH ANNIVERSARY DISNEY GARGOYLES COLLECTIONS ARE HERE! | Dynamite | Kickstarter | $925,001 | 6,225 | 2025 |
| 16 | Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Complete Comic Book Collection | Boom | Kickstarter | $804,018 | 1,584 | 2021 |
| 17 | Ctrl+Alt+Del 1.0: The Box Set | Tom Buckley | Kickstarter | $665,725 | 5,553 | 2015 |
| 18 | I Roved Out in Search of Truth and Love: Tomes 1-3 | Alexis Flower | Zoop | $658,954 | 2,968 | 2025 |
| 19 | Ava’s Demon – Book Two / Aftermath | Michelle Fus (Published by Skybound) | Kickstarter (+ BackerKit) | $648,198 | 6,060 | 2022 |
The projects with the most BACKERS on the above list are Good Omens followed by Dungeon Crawler Carl, FWIW.
Kickstarter offers lots of statistics about their various categories, and it’s of note that comics is now the MOST FUNDED category, with a 68.66% success rate. It’s only sixth in successful dollar, though, with $311.77 million compared to the #1 category, Games, with $2.67 billion. All figures are all time and Kickstarter has raised $9.2 billion since it started.
I’m not entirely certain what the takeaways from all this are except for one thing: comics publishers are going to keep doing a lot of crowdfunding.
English (US) · 