I was going to be writing about how our old friend, Christopher Hastings, has picked up a significant writing gig on Quantum & Woody, and how his sense of humor is a natural fit. I mean, look at what he’s done in comic books — a very funny Six Million Dollar Man series, Deadpool and Longshot minis¹, and a character-defining stint on Gwenpool that legitimately played with the nature of comics and fiction in original and hilarious ways. He’s gonna kill on a series that features a caprine superhero pet named Vincent van Goat.

But something happened that’s unfortunately larger, so we aren’t doing any of that. Sorry, you absolutely will not learn from me that the Hastings run on Q&W will start in January, or that he’ll be at the Valiant booth (#1635) at NYCC this Saturday at 3:00pm, or at their panel (room 1A02) at 6:30pm. You won’t learn about his drunken superhero movie discussion podcast, or his new Halloween-themed merch at TopatoCo, or remind you about his weekly, posted-to-Twitter webcomic, a noir detective story starring Wario. Sorry. You’ll just have to go elsewhere to learn about those.

But I suspect that Dr Hastings will forgive me (especially given his own recent statements on the matter), because what we’re discussing instead is the Kickstarter United union effort. Because despite the repeated declarations from Kickstarter’s CEO that he will not voluntarily recognize the union, they haven’t actually asked for voluntary recognition.

Until this afternoon:

Today KSRU officially requested voluntary recognition of our union, and we are waiting to see if it will be granted. We stand firm in our commitment not to call for any boycotts, but we need your help.

Join us in urging leadership to recognize our union! Email, tweet, and post everywhere to express support for KSRU. Activate whatever channels you can to share our message of solidarity: Kickstarter is ready to be united, and senior leadership must grant us voluntary recognition.

Gauntlet thrown, management. Because as C Spike Trotman points out — and she’s pretty much the poster child for making KS work for you in webcomics — Kickstarter didn’t invent crowdfunding, they aren’t the only game in town, and whole communities exist that are fans of creators, not the KS platform.

Which is super important because you know what I’m seeing all over social media? Project creators and backers declaring their support for the union. You know what I’m not seeing? Anybody that claims to be either creator or backer loudly going on about how unions suck and they’ll use Kickstarter even more because screw the union. Now maybe it’s because I curate my feed to eliminate assholes, but I’m not finding anybody in comics taking the anti-union position. Granted that’s just one category out of what, fifteen? But high-profile creators, and people with deep success in the Kickstarter ecosystem are all on the side of KSRU.

For the record, here is what I said:

As a superbacker, and as a blogger that promotes many Kickstarter campaigns, I stand with @ksr_united and urge @kickstarter management to recognize the union.

It’s happening one way or another, or we all find another platform. Want to be a PBC? ACT LIKE IT.

Want to help, particularly if you previously decided to close your account or cancel pledges (which, let’s be clear, the union hasn’t called for³)? Tweet, email, or reach out to anybody you may know in Kickstarter management. Let them know that Kickstarter (the platform) is made up of Kickstarter (the people, all of them), and which of those Kickstarters you’re loyal to.

Spam of the day:

Fingernail Fungus — All the patients who put this incredibly strong spice in their shoes…Cleared their fungal infection for good in as little as a couple of days

Are you suggesting I wear these spice-laden shoes on my hands? On account of that’s where my fingernails are.

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¹ The latter of which featured Reed Richards and Tony Stark having a discussion about how many weddings they’d been to recently that prominently featured Get Lucky at the reception. That’s just such a ludicrously ordinary thing for the two biggest geniuses of the Marvel universe² to be talking about, which is why it was perfect.

² Only if you discount DOOM, which of course only FOOLS would do.

³ Largely, I suspect, because individual statements don’t have the impact of a mass boycott, and because the folks in KSRU aren’t trying to establish their union on the backs of creators.