Ben Mitchell

Before reading this, just watch the video above. I think it does a pretty good job at setting the mood! Special thanks to Luke, Pebbles, English Mark, Grizz and Anneliese for their respective cameo roles.



My name is Ben Mitchell, and I am an illustrator from Newcastle, New South Wales. In March of this year, I launched my first comic book, Storm Clouds, to an overwhelming response from the Newcastle creative community. Though I originally intended for it to be a one-off project, I deliberately gave it a pretty open-ended final chapter, to see what people thought. After a big response from friends and strangers, I have decided to begin work on a sequel - a 40 page continuation/prequel named Don't Panic. The comic will be risograph printed in Melbourne and will come with a companion soundtrack made up of real recordings of pretend songs featured in the story, as performed by the main character's band. As an avid follower of crowdfunding comics for the past few years, I am extremely excited to be using Pozible, with the help of This is Not Art and Creative Partnerships Australia, to bring the idea to life!



"Storm Clouds is a modern tale told through the conventions of a classic hard-boiled detective story. The appearance of technology feels anachronistic and the humour is both dark and subtle. The disturbing elements of the story subvert the innocent expressions of Mitchell's characters - a clever contrast. Storm Clouds is simmering with intrigue and originality." - Nick Milligan, author of erotic science fiction classic Enormity

Storm Clouds followed Officer Nadia Chino and Detective Adrian Rose as they tracked The Party Killer, an infamous masked murderer from Sydney to the city where Nadia grew up, Bontown. As Detective Rose grew closer to his new partner, he is lead to believe their main suspect for the killer is an ex lover of Nadia's, Jared Paige. After an undercover investigation of a local punk venue turns pear-shaped, our heroes discover that Bontown is hiding some deep, dark secrets, and finding Jared Paige is only scratching the surface.






In a city like Bontown, no one is innocent.

Don't Panic is set directly after the events of Storm Clouds, and follows Detective Rose - defeated, jaded and separated from his partner - in his obsessive quest for answers, taking the search for the Party Killer off the books as a rogue agent. With the new knowledge gained after the events of Storm Clouds, Rose travels back to Bontown to investigate Jared Paige's past, up until his disappearance. Here, we finally learn about the man behind the mask - his rise and fall as a local hero vocalist, his struggles with anxiety and his transformation to the masked anarchist we saw in the future.  



This Is Not Art and Creative Partnerships Australia caught word of the first comic and were interested in what I wanted to do next. I felt like I was being pretty ambitious with Storm Clouds, as it was my first full comic project and it was 60 pages long and printed in a very special way. The idea of recording a soundtrack for the second story was my way of taking it one step further, and the people at TiNA loved it, and wanted to get involved. As Don't Panic will be released as part of This Is Not Art 2014, all funds I can raise with this campaign will be matched by TiNA and Creative Partnerships Australia, effectively doubling the print run I can produce!




Thanks to Creative Partnerships Australia, every dollar you give will be matched $1 for $1 through their Match: Crowdfunding for the Independent Arts Sector initiative program.



PICTURED: Getting totally turnt at the Storm Clouds launch party in March

Storm Clouds was very much a one-man show, written, designed and illustrated by me over 8-months, and the story was essentially an extension of myself. Even all the lettering was done in my handwriting! This was the first time I'd put so much of myself into a project (as a freelance illustrator I usually am making art that is a representation of someone else) and was very nervous to see how people would take it. Thankfully everyone was into it. I put on a big, obnoxious launch party at my friend's cafe and tried to get as many of my mates involved as possible, and I sold 80 copies in one night. 80 of 100. After that, my printer moved to India for 5 weeks and the paper mill that we got the stock from closed down, and it's currently been sold out for like two months. This time around I definitely want to print more than 100 copies!


PICTURED: Sindy Sinn, Dan Arnold, Keo Match & Collie DeLoach's Storm Clouds trading cards, as modelled by Swan Bell

In the weeks surrounding its release, I tried to use Storm Clouds to bring together as many people as possible. I pulled together a rag-tag gang of illustrators to try their hand at drawing the main characters for a trading card set, and I even had by friend Dave brew up some official Storm Clouds brand ice coffees for our launch party. As this Pozible campaign goes on, I'll be announcing new ways I've gotten friends in different fields to contribute this time. I am trying to expand upon this idea with Don't Panic in many ways, including collaborating with musician Jordan Crotty to write and record the comic's soundtrack.



Crotty and I have been friends for over half a decade, and have collaborated on many projects before, so as a fan of the original comic he was more than keen to get involved. He has appeared as a guitarist and vocalist in the hardcore bands Hold Your Own, Beyond The Aurora and Mindshank, and can easily match the kind of sound I'm after. In Storm Clouds, a significant scene in the story involved the main character learning she was no longer welcome in her city when she heard a song written about her by Jared Paige's band, Chances. I was pretty excited about telling this part of the story only through song lyrics, and wanted to expand upon this in Don't Panic. A large chunk of the story shows Jared's transformation as an adult through his songwriting, as his thought process is told through his band's lyrics. Each song that appears in the comic will be fully written and recorded by Crotty and I, with the soundtrack giving further insight to the story.



The story for this comic has already been completely written, all I need to do is the art. My style has changed an awful lot since I began Storm Clouds - which was over a year ago - and I am excited to show how much I've grown in the new instalment. Most recently I have been working on a short comic with a writer named Blake Jolly, which I've drawn in a much more stylised, complex style than my previous work - far more indicative of the style in Don't Panic than Storm Clouds is, heavily inspired by Adrian Tomine, Ed Piskor, Dan Clowes and Paul Hornschemeier.

ALSO THIS:

Rewards

I have a slightly shorter timeline to finish the art now than I did with Storm Clouds, but I also screwed around a lot when working on it last year. I'm a lot quicker, and a lot more confident in my comics now. Also, with TiNA on my side I'm going to be taking a break on the majority of my freelance work to focus entirely on this project. It's already completely written, I just need to draw it!