Read the excerpt: campaign begins for hard ‘slice-of-like’ sci-fi graphic novel that explores species relationships, communication, and everyday life in a meticulously constructed alien world.
Iron Circus Comics has just launched the Kickstarter campaign for "Runaway to the Stars," a hard sci-fi slice-of-life graphic novel by cartoonist Jay Eaton that explores cross-species relationships, communication, and everyday life in a meticulously constructed alien world.
The story follows Talita, a centaur aerospace engineer and foster child, who befriends a shipwrecked AI pirate named Bip and gets involved in a plan to escape the planet Dirtball. As Talita uncovers a damaged centaur spaceship in a salvage yard, she is drawn into Bip’s mission, despite uncertainty surrounding the fate of the ship’s former crew and the AI’s undisclosed past.
Abandoned as an infant on the doorstep of the Nexus Jovia youth foster care facility in a cat carrier, centaur and aerospace engineer Talita has no idea where she came from. She’s spent the vast majority of her life around humans, has very little familiarity with her own species’ cultures, and has always had trouble connecting with anyone — other than sentient AI beings, that is. So when Talita discovers a damaged Centaur spaceship in the Ixion Recycling Plant’s salvage yard with a pirate AI onboard named Bip, she quickly becomes drawn into its plans to escape the planet of Dirtball. But her two human friends, Idrisah and Gillie, aren’t about to let her commit crimes on behalf of a shady AI... not without their help, of course! Because Bip, the pilot of the Runaway, is definitely not telling Talita everything about what happened to the ship's now-deceased centaur crew, or what mission they might have been on. But despite Bip’s suspiciously shady past, the AI is a charmer and quickly gets the team on board to help. Now all they have to do is secretly repair the ship and get all the clearances needed to file a flight plan… Of course, they just can’t get caught doing it.
According to Eaton, "This book is the culmination of over a decade of chipping away at a science fiction setting and the interesting people living there, and I'm very excited to finally be able to share this labor of love with the world and introduce everyone to these characters. It continually delights me how many different people have seen their lives reflected in the fictional struggles and triumphs of Talita and her friends. Whether you're a 3-meter tall alien woman, a GMO catgirl, a sapient quantum computer, or a human being, I think there is something to find of yourself in 'Runaway to the Stars.'"
Publisher C. Spike Trotman added, "This story is for everyone who's ever felt displaced, othered, or unheard — and every reader that loves a good sci-fi story and is intrigued by what secrets a sentient pirate AI might be hiding One of the (many) things that makes ‘Runaway to the Stars’ so great is Jay’s attention to the complexities of communication. We have Gillie, a genetically-modified human who is Deaf, forced to deal with clunky and ineffective tech in her efforts to communicate; Idrisah, a professional xenolinguist who can communicate with double-larynxed alien Avians, but can’t fluently speak in either of her family’s languages; and Talita, whose social anxiety and fear of inconveniencing others gets her taken advantage of, despite her towering height and fearsome appearance. This singular graphic novel is a testament to the fact that our all-too-human faults and anxieties are universal concerns — no matter your point of origin!”
The Kickstarter campaign will also include supplemental items such as an exclusive bookplate and curated bundles of Iron Circus titles selected by Eaton.
Iron Circus, founded in 2007 by Trotman, has established itself as a major independent comics publisher and an early adopter of crowdfunding models, raising nearly $5 million through Kickstarter campaigns. Eaton, whose background includes horticulture and evolutionary biology, brings an interest in linguistics, speculative technology, and systems-based worldbuilding to the project.
Source: Iron Circus Comics
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
