Kickstarting Comics: Jason Pearson’s ‘Body Bags’ Artist’s Edition

The first book from Scott Dunbier’s Act 4 company, a co-publishing venture with 12-Gauge Comics, brings the late Jason Pearson’s fan-favourite Body Bags back into print as a 200-page Artist’s Edition. It’s Kickstarting right now.

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Pearson was an incredibly talented comic artist whose life was tragically cut short aged just 52, in 2022. He worked on books at Marvel, DC, and Image, and more, but it’s Body Bags that he’s best known for. This new book intends to republish the series as an Artist’s Edition, with additional short stories, promo pieces, and sketches, including giving something back to both fans of his who backed a previous Kickstarter and to Pearson’s family.

Jason Pearson’s Body Bags: Artist’s Edition is a 200-page hardcover book, featuring full-sized 12” x 17” color scans of all the original comic art pages that were previously published and printed, including his covers – it’s an Omnibus Edition of everything from his acclaimed creator-owned series.

Beginning in 1996, Body Bags was Pearson’s creator-owned comic book series, with a story about a strange near-future world of bounty hunters and cold-blooded killers, all through the lens of an estranged father/daughter relationship, Mack and Panda. It was a wild series, over the top, fun, violent, funny, and all done with the sort of energy you saw in everything Pearson did.

If you don’t already know, the Artist’s Edition is a format developed by Dunbier, a collection of the artist’s original penciled and inked art pages, printed at roughly the same size as the originals, bringing you all the fine details of the art.

The Body Bags: Artist’s Edition will contain at least 200 pages of original art from Pearson’s collection, including every page of the collected comic, but more pages will be added if and when stretch goals are reached.

So far, what’s including is – Body Bags: Father’s Day issues #1-4; Body Bags: 3 The Hard Way, featuring the short stories, Hit Da Switches, World Destroyer, and Well, It’s About Time; Body Bags: One Shot; and every one of Pearson’s covers including variants.

Potential stretch goal additions include Body Bags II, with 33 never-before seen pages from Jason’s abandoned sequel to Father’s Day; Body Bags: Threebies shorts, 14 pages of online short stories from 2015; pin-ups and miscellaneous art.

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In addition to the main Artist’s Edition book, there’s also the chance to get more of Pearsons work in Body Bags: Artist’s Edition+ Softcover and Locked & Loaded: A Jason Pearson Sketchbook.

Body Bags: Artist’s Edition+ Softcover is a 64-page book of never-before-seen Body Bags pieces by Pearson, including character designs, early concept art, finished pages from Don’t Die Until I Kill You, and the colored and lettered Threebies short stories, collected here for the first time.

Locked & Loaded: A Jason Pearson Sketchbook is another 64-page softcover with, as you’d expect, plenty of sketches, including commissions from the last few years of his life.

Now, Dunbier’s been at pains to point out that publishing through Kickstarter is not the long-term plan for Act 4, but special circumstances around this one have made it necessary to do it this way. Crowdfunding allows them to add more pages than traditional publishing would, plus allowing the addition of extras that Pearson’s many fans will appreciate.

A big part of the crowdfunder route is designed to benefit both Jason’s family and his fans who backed an unrealised Kickstarter by Pearson. Going direct maximises the profits on the book, with all proceeds from this campaign going directly to Jason’s mother in an effort to help her recoup expenses associated with closing his estate.

But it also allows, through a project-specific deal negotiated with Kickstarter, the creation of a special funding tier to allow backers of that never realised project from 2015, Body Bags: Don’t Die Until I Kill You. Backers of that one have a chance to get a credit on this campaign for whatever they pledged for that unrealised campaign. It’s a classy thing to do, and credit to Pearson’s family and Scott Dunbier/Act 4 and Kevin Gardner/12-Gauge for making this possible. Gardner in particular has long been associated with Pearson, and the setting up of 12-Gauge came with the intent to use the new company to help his friend, Jason Pearson, produce more Body Bags stories.

As you’d expect from this big a project, it absolutely blew through its funding goals very early on and is well on the way to adding even more stretch goals. And of course, there are plenty of tiers to allow you to get the three main books and a lot more.

Body Bags: The Artist’s Edition – by Jason Pearson, co-published by Act 4 and 12-Gauge

The Kickstarter runs until 21 November 2024