Dear Friends of RWP,

Reading With Pictures is returning to Kickstarter, and we want you (Yes, YOU!) to be part of it!

Our first Kickstarter campaign funded the production of the RWP Anthology, which was nominated for two Harvey Awards and has become a fixture in classrooms nationwide. It also provided the start-up capital to get the fledgling Reading With Pictures organization off the ground.

I’d say we did pretty good, but this time, “pretty good” isn’t nearly good enough. We’re taking things to a whole new level, and we need your help to do it! We’re soliciting tax deductible donations - both personal and corporate - of high-value rewards to offer on Kickstarter and seeking creative submissions to the following projects:

1. The Graphic Textbook, a comic-based textbook that gives students the high-quality content they want and teachers the standards-based content they need.
2. Open Source Comics, a collection of quality comics made available to students, educators and librarians everywhere under the Creative Commons license.

For more details on our projects, including the guidelines for art and story submissions,click here. To find out how you can make tax deductible contributions to our Kickstarter effort by offering rewards like original art, merchandise and one-of-a-kind fan experiences, click here.

We can’t do this without you! Please respond by no later than February 20 to join the cause and help us eliminate illiteracy once and for all!

Sincerely,

Josh Elder
Founder and President

OUR MISSION

Reading With Pictures is a non-profit organization founded in 2009 to promote the use of comics in the classroom. We do that by facilitating academic research, providing resources and training to educators and developing high-quality content for the classroom. The funds raised through this Kickstarter campaign will fund our ongoing operations and allow us to expand those operations even further in 2012 and beyond.

Oh, and we’ll be funding three revolutionary educational comic projects at the same time. And that’s where you guys come in…

THE GRAPHIC TEXTBOOK

What Is It?

A graphic novel textbook that brings top-notch creators together with the experienced curriculum developers to produce a classroom-ready textbook that students will actually want to read. We’re going to take this into schools around the country and get kids everywhere learning with comics.

And this is just the beginning. In 2013, we intend to expand this concept into an entire series. Each subject will have its own book and each book will be correlated to core educational standards. At that point, we won’t just be adding comics to the curriculum, comics will be the curriculum.

In order to maximize revenue on Kickstarter, creators are encouraged to make your original art available to use as rewards. You are also encouraged to provide as many “cameo appearance” opportunities for Kickstarter backers in your stories as possible.

All genres and styles are welcome. Moreover, RWP isn’t seeking ownership over any of the content in this book, so feel free to use your own characters as well!

In summation, there are only 3 rules: 1) Make your story educational without being overly didactic; 2) Make it age appropriate; 3) Make it good.

Book Specs

• Format: Hardcover and softcover w/ multi-platform digital
• Page Count: 144
• Audience: Grades 3-6
• Story Length: 12 short pieces of 8-12 pages each
• Subject:
  • Science
  • Mathematics
  • Social Studies
  • Language Arts
• Educational Content: A digital teacher’s edition containing lesson plans designed specifically for each piece and a series of research-backed general guidelines on how and why to teach with comics.
• Curriculum Guidelines: Click here for standards-based story topics grouped by subject

Timeline

• Feb 20: All proposals due.
• Feb 29: Proposal approvals given. Work on scripts and promo art for Kickstarter begins.
• Mar 7: Promo art for Kickstarter due.
• Mar 26: First drafts of scripts due.
• Apr 13: Final drafts of scripts due.
• Apr 16: All stories go into full production.
• Jun 15: All finished stories due.
• Oct 10: Book is released across all platforms and formats.

Rights and Compensation

Reading With Pictures is a non-profit entity, but we feel that in order to be successful, The Graphic Textbook needs to operate as a commercial venture. In order to achieve our goal of creating the first in what will become an entire line of gamechanging graphic textbooks, we need serious commitments of time and effort from seriously talented people.

To that end, we will be offering an upfront page rate and backend revenue participation to all the principals involved in the project – from creators and editors to educational consultants. We want to do right by everyone who works with us here at Reading With Pictures.

In keeping with that ethos, creators will retain ALL rights to what you produce. You can republish your stories elsewhere without paying Reading With Pictures any kind of royalty or even seeking our consent. Reading With Pictures will ONLY retain non-exclusive rights to publish your stories in any medium and in any territory into perpetuity. Creators will, of course, continue to receive income from every reprint as per the backend revenue participation agreement.

Submission Guidelines

• We regret that due to the tight turnaround time of this project, our RWP editorial board will not be accepting any unsolicited submissions for this volume.

OPEN SOURCE COMICS

What Is It?

An ever-growing, curated, tagable and searchable digital database of high-quality comics made freely available to schools, libraries and the general public to use however they wish pursuant to the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons license. This will vastly increase the number of comic titles available to teachers looking to use the medium in their classroom. It will also give them considerably more freedom to adapt the content to fit the specific needs of their classrooms.

This fantastic resource will be overseen by Reading With Pictures and will be hosted on our site. We will make the content available in all major file formats and for all major devices, operating systems and browsers. All of it DRM free. We will also curate the content by tagging the stories according to topic, general academic subject area, genre and grade/reading level.

Though free to the public digitally, physical copies of select stories will be available for purchase through a print-on-demand service, with all proceeds going to support Reading With Pictures’ various not-for-profit educational initiatives.

Book Specs

• Format: DRM-free, multi-platform digital database
• Page Count: Constantly expanding
• Audience: Grades 3-6
• Story Length: Any length is acceptable, though 8-12 pages is recommended
• Educational Content: Explicit educational content is welcome as per the content guidelines of The Graphic Textbook, but not required.

Timeline

• Feb 20: All proposals due.
• Feb 29: Proposal approvals given. Promo art for Kickstarter begins.
• Mar 7: Promo art for Kickstarter due.
• July 1: Final pieces due.
• Aug 1: Open Source Comics goes live.

Rights and Compensation

Open Source Comics is a public resource rather than a traditional commercial product. As such, we will be relying entirely on volunteer effort and d content. All of which can be tax deductible as per the rules laid out here.

In keeping with our philosophy regarding intellectual property, creators will retain ALL commercial rights to your content pursuant to the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons license. You can republish your pieces elsewhere without paying Reading With Pictures any kind of royalty or even seeking our consent. Reading With Pictures will only act to maintain your content on the Open Source Comics database.

Submission Guidelines

• Submissions are open to all.
• Please limit proposals to a one page story description.
• Please send a 50-70 word bio and additional art samples along with any proposal.
• Due to constraints on editorial resources, we will only be accepting submissions from full creative teams or all-in-one cartoonists.
• Previously published pieces are acceptable so long as they fit our guidelines.
• In order to maximize revenue on Kickstarter, creators are encouraged to make your original art available to use as rewards. You are also encouraged to provide as many “cameo appearance” opportunities for Kickstarter backers in your pieces as possible.

To be considered, please must submit all proposals to [email protected] with the subject line “Open Source Comics submission” by no later than Feb. 20.

Reading With Pictures makes an evolutionary leap on March 1st with the launch of RWP 2.0. - and we want YOU to be part of it!

What You Will Find

In addition to a snazzy new look, the revamped ReadingWithPictures.org will offer an unprecedented array of open source resources for the educational comics community:

• Searchable databases for research papers and course materials
• Book reviews and recommended reading Lists
• Forums for guided discussion
• Educational consultation services
• A speaker’s bureau for cartoonists
• Curated links to external resources
• And much more!

Get In the Know

The second phase of RWP 2.0 begins in April with the launch of our Kickstarter campaign to fund two gamechanging educational comic projects:

THE GRAPHIC TEXTBOOK

A graphic novel textbook that brings top-notch creators together with experienced curriculum developers to produce a classroom-ready textbook that students will actually want to read. We’ll be taking this into schools around the country in order to get kids everywhere learning with comics.

And this is just the beginning. In 2013, we intend to expand this concept into an entire series. Each subject will have its own book and each book will be correlated to core educational standards. At that point, we won’t just be adding comics to the curriculum, comics will be the curriculum.

OPEN SOURCE COMICS

An ever-growing, curated, tagable and searchable digital database of educational comics made freely available to schools, libraries and the general public to use however they wish pursuant to the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons license. This will vastly increase the number of comic titles available to teachers looking to use the medium in their classroom. It will also give them considerably more freedom to adapt the content to fit the specific needs of their classrooms.

This fantastic resource will be overseen by Reading With Pictures and will be hosted on our site. We will make the content available in all major file formats and for all major devices, operating systems and browsers. All of it DRM free. We will also curate the content by tagging the stories according to topic, general academic subject area, genre and grade/reading level.

Though free to the public digitally, physical copies of select stories will be available for purchase through a print-on-demand service, with all proceeds going to support Reading With Pictures various not-for-profit educational initiatives.

DONATING KICKSTARTER REWARDS

Most of our backers on Kickstarter will be comic fans and/or educators and librarians. We’re seeking rewards that will appeal to those audience

Rewards will be considered tax deductible donations under the rules specified below.

All donations worth $25 or more will be recognized on our website.

If you wish to a reward to our Kickstarter campaign, please contact us at [email protected] with the subject line “Joining the RWP Kickstarter campaign”

And thank you!

How Can Comic Creators Help?

• Submit a proposal to one of our educational comic projects.
• original art for auction.
• Name a character in an upcoming story after a backer.
• Draw a backer into an upcoming story as an “extra.”
• signed and personalized books and/or merchandise.
• Critique a backer’s script.
• Review a backer’s portfolio.
• Provide a custom illustration of the backer’s choice.
• Fully produce (pencil/ink/color/letter) a backer’s short script.
• And anything else you feel would serve the cause!

How Can Comic Publishers Help?

• sets of books and/or merchandise.
• Have one of your experienced editors provide a professional critique of a backer’s script and/or portfolio.
• Enlist one of your creative teams to name a character in an upcoming story after a backer and/or draw a backer into an upcoming story as an “extra.”
• And anything else you feel would serve the cause!

What About the Rest of Us?

• goods or services (high-end merchandise, custom action figures, etc.) that appeal to comics fans, educators and librarians.
• Spread the word about our efforts.
• And anything else you feel would serve the cause!

Rules for Tax Deductible Donations

Reading With Pictures is a Section 501(c)3 nonprofit. As such, your donation of goods and/or services can be considered a charitable deduction for federal income tax purposes. This includes the goods/services d as well as any expenses incurred in making the donation. When making a donation, please supply a description that lists all goods or services provided. Reading With Pictures will then supply a letter of receipt for tax purposes.

If you have any additional questions regarding this process or what qualifies for a tax deduction, please consult with your tax advisers or the IRS.gov (IRS Publication 526, Charitable Contributions) for more detailed information.