It’s one of the most notorious as yet unfulfilled crowdfunding campaigns in comics history and yet the saga of Tales from the Quarantine drags on and on. Conceived by organiser Frazer Brown, the anthology was first mooted in the darkest days of early lockdown and fostered a real sense of community as creators from the small press scene through to writers and artists who have worked for the biggest names in comics publishing came together to tell their stories framed around the pandemic and their experiences of it.
It should have been something extra special. It should have been something magical. It should have been an enduring social record in comics form of those dark days.
Despite the hard work and commitment of so many it has been none of those things.
Fully funded in 2020 the Tales from the Quarantine print anthology is still missing in action despite multiple promises that the book has shipped and with questions still surrounding what happened to the proceeds of this charity book that hit a crowdfunding target of nearly £40,000.
Beginning the week of February 12th, 2024 BF will be building on the tireless work of so many who have relentlessly pursued answers from Frazer Brown by running a small series of weekly articles giving insights into how the anthology’s non-appearance has affected people from a number of different perspectives. But we’re still looking for more contributions, particularly from those of you who contributed and may have bigger profiles in the comics world.
As this is coming from the direction of Broken Frontier you will be unsurprised to hear we are looking at this from a community perspective. So here’s what we’re after!
One-paragraph or so personal testimonies (ideally a minimum of 50 words, max 200 on each point but we can be flexible with this) on any or each of the following:
How the TFTQ situation has affected you as a contributor?
How you feel the TFTQ situation has affected the wider comics community and/or faith in comics crowdfunding?
Initiatives you may have been involved in to support creators affected by the non-appearance of the book?
This is an opportunity to explore the huge impact on the community from a number of vantage points (comments from contributors, backers and activists all welcome!) so if you do wish to add your thoughts on Tales from the Quarantine for posterity please e-mail me here: andyoliver@brokenfrontier.com
Please focus on the impact this has had rather than the character of those involved. Again, we will start running these pieces in the week beginning February 12th.
Article by Andy Oliver
For more on comics and the pandemic check out our resource list here
I was a super backer on this. I did receive the floppy copies, and a poster, but then that’s it. Multiple inquiries across several platforms were ignored. Long periods of silence were excused by Frasers ill health, or business tasks being taken over by other parties seemed to promise it will come eventually. I didn’t push things, as I started to hear of people being blocked on platforms where they were. In the meantime, lots of news of extra contributors were teasing, but after speaking to some of the original names, it seems like they also were kept in the dark, and have it set in mind the book would never arrive. Things were not really helped by some updates that made out things will happen ‘soon’, but contained photos of the same floppy edition in various situations (but never the actual big book). I don’t want to accuse Fraser of anything I have no proof of, but Kickstarter need to take a long look at themselves for allowing the loopholes that can permit a scam of this scale. I’m sure I’m not the only one who is less reluctant to be a backer on Kickstarter after this.