I despise doing posts where I ask for help, but here we are.
About two years ago I started a new creator owned project. It began as a spin-off of Princeless, but the reality is this – Raven The Pirate Princess is its own thing altogether. I knew this from the first issue and if you’ve been reading, so have you.
Sure, the first few issues of Raven: Pirate Princess had that heroic lady feminist banter for which Princeless has become known both among its fans and detractors. I mean, Raven had this scene:
and issue 1 had this scene:
But perhaps much more importantly, the first issue of Raven had this:
but that wasn’t where that ended. This is a book about a community of diverse queer women actively claiming their place in the world and taking what’s theirs. It’s about Raven, who is desperately in love with her childhood best friend Ximena
It’s about Ximena, a girl who was held captive for years by a pirate king who pretended to be her liberator. Who fell in love with the pirate’s daughter, only to be left behind by that father when she outlived her value.
About Sunshine, the thief that chose the wrong target and ended up falling in love with a woman already hopelessly in love with somebody else.
It’s about Katie, the bisexual second in command who’s motivated by honor…and occasionally beating the snot out of a dude or two
Oh and in case I forgot to mention, Katie is also incredibly muscular:
And Jayla, the asexual science genius who’s tired of being treated like a little sister
and Cid, the deaf engineer who quietly keeps the ship running
and of course, these two:
The socially awkward poet and the angry sword fighter who couldn’t stand her who have somehow become these two:
But here’s the thing: this comic is failing. It has a very dedicated and exuberant but at this point SMALL fanbase. Today I had a hard conversation with Action Lab about the reality of the numbers on this book versus what it costs to produce this book and, suffice it to say, Action Lab isn’t ready to cancel the book, but they aren’t ready to greenlight year 3 either. After Year 2 #13, Raven is set to go on the shelf until numbers can support continuing it.
This is where I need your help
If you care about this book full of queer pirate ladies and you want it to continue, we need to find a way to spread the word about it. We don’t need to sell single issues (it would be nice) but ultimately we need the trades sales that back up the continuation of this big YA Pirate/Revenge/Adventure/Romance thing.
In fact, if you’ve already purchased volumes 1-4, volume 5 is available for preorder there right now!
Maybe you’ve bought all the issues already. Thank you! If you still want to support Raven, you can review the books on Amazon or other retailers, you can share, reblog or retweet this post. You can tell a friend about the book!
If you have a comics review site or, say, a blog where you talk about LGBT media, contact me for review links or interviews. Please, help us save our ship.
Today, in lieu of a regular positive example, let’s reblog this overdue signal boost for the comic made entirely of positive examples!
I despise doing posts where I ask for help, but here we are.
About two years ago I started a new creator owned project. It began as a spin-off of Princeless, but the reality is this – Raven The Pirate Princess is its own thing altogether. I knew this from the first issue and if you’ve been reading, so have you.
Sure, the first few issues of Raven: Pirate Princess had that heroic lady feminist banter for which Princeless has become known both among its fans and detractors. I mean, Raven had this scene:
and issue 1 had this scene:
But perhaps much more importantly, the first issue of Raven had this:
but that wasn’t where that ended. This is a book about a community of diverse queer women actively claiming their place in the world and taking what’s theirs. It’s about Raven, who is desperately in love with her childhood best friend Ximena
It’s about Ximena, a girl who was held captive for years by a pirate king who pretended to be her liberator. Who fell in love with the pirate’s daughter, only to be left behind by that father when she outlived her value.
About Sunshine, the thief that chose the wrong target and ended up falling in love with a woman already hopelessly in love with somebody else.
It’s about Katie, the bisexual second in command who’s motivated by honor…and occasionally beating the snot out of a dude or two
Oh and in case I forgot to mention, Katie is also incredibly muscular:
And Jayla, the asexual science genius who’s tired of being treated like a little sister
and Cid, the deaf engineer who quietly keeps the ship running
and of course, these two:
The socially awkward poet and the angry sword fighter who couldn’t stand her who have somehow become these two:
But here’s the thing: this comic is failing. It has a very dedicated and exuberant but at this point SMALL fanbase. Today I had a hard conversation with Action Lab about the reality of the numbers on this book versus what it costs to produce this book and, suffice it to say, Action Lab isn’t ready to cancel the book, but they aren’t ready to greenlight year 3 either. After Year 2 #13, Raven is set to go on the shelf until numbers can support continuing it.
This is where I need your help
If you care about this book full of queer pirate ladies and you want it to continue, we need to find a way to spread the word about it. We don’t need to sell single issues (it would be nice) but ultimately we need the trades sales that back up the continuation of this big YA Pirate/Revenge/Adventure/Romance thing.
In fact, if you’ve already purchased volumes 1-4, volume 5 is available for preorder there right now!
Maybe you’ve bought all the issues already. Thank you! If you still want to support Raven, you can review the books on Amazon or other retailers, you can share, reblog or retweet this post. You can tell a friend about the book!
If you have a comics review site or, say, a blog where you talk about LGBT media, contact me for review links or interviews. Please, help us save our ship.
Today, in lieu of a regular positive example, let’s reblog this overdue signal boost for the comic made entirely of positive examples!
Check out our variant Propoganda covers for Raven: Pirate Princess 1-8. Including, at the very top, oour NYCC exclusive issue 1 variant with Captain Raven herself!
Check out our variant Propoganda covers for Raven: Pirate Princess 1-8. Including, at the very top, oour NYCC exclusive issue 1 variant with Captain Raven herself!
We’ve received a few requests for information regarding bikini armor free media that people may enjoy and while the main focus of the blog is to bring critical attention to products that embrace bikini armor – we’re certainly not against celebrating people who do it right.
For PC games we already have the Curator section of the Steam Group, but we’re now going to start a new section of BABD Recommends to promote things that are available by other means.
Print Comics
We highly recommend that you consider buying your comics at your local comic shop – not just to support local business but also to encourage them to get in more awesome stuff. In case your local comic shop isn’t a pleasant place to be or isn’t local, we’ve included links to where you can get the comics online:
Help Us! Great Warrior (Comixology | Tumblr) The hilarious adventures of the great warrior who’d really rather not be out saving the world today. A fun and inclusive breath of fresh air.
Princess Ugg (Comixology) The daughter of a barbarian tribal chief is sent to a Princess Academy in order to learn the ways of “civilized” kingdoms and gain allies for her people. It goes about as well as you expect.
Tomb Raider (Dark Horse Digital) Follows on from the 2014 reboot of the video game. With her inner action hero now thoroughly awakened, Lara’s ordeals continue and take her all around the world to face all kinds of ruthless opponents. Written by Gail Simone ( gailsimone ) and Rhianna Pratchett.
Video Games
As mentioned above, we have a Steam Group with a Curator page, however since not all games are available on Steam, here are a few you may want to check out if the group isn’t much good to you.
Assassins Creed III: Liberation HD ( Steam | PlayStation | X-Box ) Set in 18th century New Orleans. By means of agility and disguises
Aveline de Grandpré
moves between the worlds of privileged nobility, impoverished slavery and a war between secret societies. The console and PC re-releases of this game have been amazingly under marketed by Ubisoft (the company that said female assassins are too much work).
Not focused on bikini armor itself but on in related issues.
Escher Girls ( Tumblr ) Part catalog of terrifying trends in comic art, part delicious snark at these trends – also partially the inspiration for this blog. The perfect response to anyone who tries to tell you it’s “just Liefeld” or “just some comics”.
Killscreen Daily ( E-Zine ) This is a unique video games site in that it aspires to discuss video games as part of our larger culture and humanity. Aspects such as gender, violence, sexuality, race and advertising.
We’ve received a few requests for information regarding bikini armor free media that people may enjoy and while the main focus of the blog is to bring critical attention to products that embrace bikini armor – we’re certainly not against celebrating people who do it right.
For PC games we already have the Curator section of the Steam Group, but we’re now going to start a new section of BABD Recommends to promote things that are available by other means.
Print Comics
We highly recommend that you consider buying your comics at your local comic shop – not just to support local business but also to encourage them to get in more awesome stuff. In case your local comic shop isn’t a pleasant place to be or isn’t local, we’ve included links to where you can get the comics online:
Help Us! Great Warrior (Comixology | Tumblr) The hilarious adventures of the great warrior who’d really rather not be out saving the world today. A fun and inclusive breath of fresh air.
Princess Ugg (Comixology) The daughter of a barbarian tribal chief is sent to a Princess Academy in order to learn the ways of “civilized” kingdoms and gain allies for her people. It goes about as well as you expect.
Tomb Raider (Dark Horse Digital) Follows on from the 2014 reboot of the video game. With her inner action hero now thoroughly awakened, Lara’s ordeals continue and take her all around the world to face all kinds of ruthless opponents. Written by Gail Simone ( gailsimone ) and Rhianna Pratchett.
Video Games
As mentioned above, we have a Steam Group with a Curator page, however since not all games are available on Steam, here are a few you may want to check out if the group isn’t much good to you.
Assassins Creed III: Liberation HD ( Steam | PlayStation | X-Box ) Set in 18th century New Orleans. By means of agility and disguises
Aveline de Grandpré
moves between the worlds of privileged nobility, impoverished slavery and a war between secret societies. The console and PC re-releases of this game have been amazingly under marketed by Ubisoft (the company that said female assassins are too much work).
Not focused on bikini armor itself but on in related issues.
Escher Girls ( Tumblr ) Part catalog of terrifying trends in comic art, part delicious snark at these trends – also partially the inspiration for this blog. The perfect response to anyone who tries to tell you it’s “just Liefeld” or “just some comics”.
Killscreen Daily ( E-Zine ) This is a unique video games site in that it aspires to discuss video games as part of our larger culture and humanity. Aspects such as gender, violence, sexuality, race and advertising.
Princeless is a great, fairly new comic book series aimed at kids. The protagonist is Princess Adrienne, who has decided to rescue herself. There are plenty of moments that mock standard comic book conventions. Here’s one about ladies’ armor.
Considering it’s a kids comic, not young adult one, I’m starting to think that all those clever references in Princeless may fly over the heads of target audience.
