Peter David and The Fans Are Buried Tales Kickstarter

The Fans Are Buried Tales Kickstarter, explained

Peter David is one of the busiest names in American comics and genre fiction, and in early 2022 he put his name on a crowdfunding page for a book that did not exist yet as a finished object. The Fans Are Buried Tales is a 410-page anthology, and the Fans Are Buried Tales Kickstarter was the way its publisher, Crazy 8 Press, decided to get it into readers' hands after a convention plan fell through.

The résumé behind the project is long. David wrote long runs on The Incredible Hulk, Aquaman and Supergirl, created Spider-Man 2099, and developed the Nickelodeon series Space Cases. He is an Eisner Award and GLAAD Award winner. That is the kind of career most comics writers would take without complaint, which makes the timing of this book stranger: he was also recovering his kidney health at the time, a condition he had discussed publicly, and he was recovering well.

So the obvious question is why someone in that position would take on an anthology with dozens of contributors. David answers it himself in the campaign text, and the answer starts with a convention.

Where the idea came from

The premise grows out of a real event. According to David's description on the campaign page, attendees of the Star Trek convention Farpoint were snowed in by a huge, unexpected storm nineteen years earlier. The show was over, the roads were not usable, and people had to fill days. Erin Gray led yoga classes in the lobby. Armin Shimerman ran acting seminars. Everyone else found their own way to kill time.

David paired that memory with a much older book. Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales has a group of pilgrims trade stories on the road to the shrine of Sir Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. David merged the two: a large, general science fiction convention, a blizzard, and a hotel bar where fans trade tales about their favorite characters and genres. Each story is told by a fan of something, and the something varies wildly.

Why there was a Kickstarter at all

David says he normally dislikes launching a Kickstarter before a book exists, because he does not want to ask people to pay for something they cannot yet picture. This time the submissions came in first. The open call went out to the kind of writers who rarely get invited to anthologies, and he had no idea what would come back.

What came back was a flood. In his words, most Crazy 8 Press authors contributed, and the rest of the table of contents is a murderers' row of fans and professionals. There were more submissions than he had money to pay for. His plan was to sell copies at the Farpoint convention itself and use that income to pay every contributor.

That plan changed when Crazy 8 Press learned that Farpoint would not require attendees to show proof of vaccination or a negative test that year. In the press's judgment, that made attending too hazardous, and the campaign text jokes that, despite the title, nobody wants fans buried permanently. The books that would have sold at the show moved to Kickstarter instead, with all of the money raised going to pay the authors.

Who is in The Fans Are Buried Tales

The campaign lists 38 tales. A sample of the range, with each title as printed on the contents list:

• The House Stark Fan's Tale, by Robert Greenberger.
• The Sam Beckett Fan's Tale, by Steve Nagy, a nod to Quantum Leap.
• The Carpet's Tale, by Keith R. A. DeCandido.
• The Red Ranger's Tale, by Isaac Sher.
• The Super-Villain Fan's Tale, by Josh Pritchett.
• The Mash-Up Fan's Tale, by John Peel.
• The Caper Film Fan's Tale, by Bev Vincent.
• The Great British Detective's Tale, by Aaron Rosenberg.
• The Baseball Fan's Tale, by Michael Jan Friedman.
• The Robin Hood Fan's Tale, by Peter David himself, which closes the contents list.

What backers actually get from the Kickstarter

The book comes in paperback and digital editions, and some copies are autographed. Glenn Hauman designed numerous covers, so the anthology ships with a choice of artwork instead of one image. Backers who support the campaign can also buy leftover comics from David's personal stash, each with a certificate of authenticity stating that the issue came from him.

The contents list reads like a map of fandom as it is lived, not as a trade press would package it. Sports sit beside science fiction. Pulp fiction, H.P. Lovecraft and The Eye of Argon each get a fan to speak for them. There is a Dadaist, a cyclist, a parliamentarian, a zombie fan and, in a title that tells you the editors were having a good time, a carpet.

Nothing about the line-up suggests a themed collection with a single tone. A caped crusader story sits next to a conspiracy theorist and a ghost. That scattershot quality is deliberate, since a hotel bar full of strangers is exactly where unrelated people end up swapping stories.

Reading the contents list

A few details on the list say a lot about how the anthology was assembled. Two different writers, Mary Fan and Wes Nicholson, each contributed a story titled The Space Opera Fan's Tale, so the same premise turned up twice in one contents list. The Pro's Tale, by John Trumbull, nods to the professionals in the room. Jo Duffy takes the Fantasy Western, and Susan Hillwig the Bounty Hunter.

Some titles are plainly puzzles. Brenda Huettner's entry carries a double title, The Parliamentarian Fan's/Owl's Tale, and The Caped Crusader's Tale has two authors, Christopher J. Valin and Steve Beaulieu. Santa gets a story from Andy Allard. A reader who likes to browse by obsession will find plenty of doors.

That openness is the main selling point of the Fans Are Buried Tales Kickstarter for casual readers. Nobody needs to know Star Trek, Chaucer or comics history to enjoy a baseball story or a story about a cyclist. The Farpoint snowstorm is only the frame, and the frame stays out of the way once the tales begin.

Why this one is worth a look

Anthologies are risky for readers because the quality swings from story to story. This one reduces that risk in a specific way: nearly every tale is built on one narrow fan identity, so a reader can find the contributors who share their obsession and start there, which is a practical way to approach any big anthology. If you grew up on Quantum Leap or Game of Thrones, there is a story written by someone who clearly did too.

The charitable angle is also unusually plain. David is not asking for money to cover a profit margin. The campaign says the funds go to the writers who submitted. David says in the campaign text that the sales at the convention were supposed to cover them.

A verdict on the Fans Are Buried Tales Kickstarter

Start with what the Fans Are Buried Tales Kickstarter does not try to be. It is not a slick pre-launch pitch with stretch goals and a trailer. David says outright that he dislikes that approach, and the campaign page reads like a letter from an editor who ran out of road.

This is a good reason to back a book. A publisher made a promise to dozens of writers, the sales channel disappeared for public health reasons, and the campaign exists to keep that promise. The premise, Chaucer by way of a snowed-in Star Trek convention, is a joke with real structure underneath it.

The weakest part is the nature of the format. With 38 tales by many hands, a reader should expect highs and lows, and the campaign text offers no sample pages to judge from. For readers who already follow Crazy 8 Press authors such as Keith R. A. DeCandido, Robert Greenberger or Michael Jan Friedman, that is not much of a risk. For everyone else, the Peter David name is the draw.

If a stash of signed comics from a Hulk and Supergirl veteran sounds appealing, the leftover-comics add-on is the part to watch. It is a small thing, but it shows how personal the project is.

Sources

• Peter David, Wikipedia — bibliography and career