Commissioning art from Kent Archer, as a forum

[Owen]

UPDATE:
We are 100% funded! Thanks to everyone who donated.
The PayPal account is now closed.

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Some of you may be aware that after six years, Kent Archer is ceasing work as inker for Dr McNinja at the end of the current storyline. He's been with the comic since the very first issue - basically, he's inked every page of (non guest-strip) McNinja that you have ever read. That's pretty huge!

Anyway, Kent sells commissions on his DeviantArt page, and LawCleaver suggested a while ago that we could club together and commission a piece of art to be used as a banner for the forums. Now, in my opinion, not only would this be pretty awesome for the forums, but it could be a great way of supporting Kent as an artist (particularly for those of us who can't afford to donate much or are overseas and don't necessarily want to pay international shipping on merchandise) and a great way to pass on a message to Kent from the readers of Dr McNinja thanking him for his work over the years.

The question is, what do you think? If you can't or don't want to donate, no problem! Just vote no, you don't even have to give a reason. If you could and would be willing to donate even a couple of dollars, vote yes! You can go back and change your vote at any time.

A few things to mention:

Nobody is going to make you donate. However you vote, we're not going to hold you to it - in fact, nobody can see who voted which way, not even me.
We don't know how much it will cost. I'm just trying to gauge interest. If I think we have enough, I will close the poll and email Kent for a quote.
The method for donations is not settled yet. Again, nobody is going to make you donate. If we have enough interest I will do my best to find a safe, secure method for taking donations, and full details will be disclosed before any money is taken.

I think that's about it, but any questions, suggestions for how it might work - post them below! You can always PM me if you want to ask a question but don't want to ask it in the thread.

Thanks!
Owen

[ghisteslwchlohm]

How would we be contributing? PayPal or something?

[Owen]

That has yet to be decided - ideally, I'd like to use something similar to Kickstarter which would allow us to fund with a goal in mind and not take any actual money until the goal had been met. Kickstarter wouldn't have us, although I've found one option that may work so far. I still have to check the details.

Alternatively, there's PayPal, but that doesn't have quite the same protections. [Updated again]It does allow people to register a 'dispute' in case of fraud which I believe freezes the disputed account while it's being investigated. PayPal provide some fraud protection up to a set amount, which should me more than enough for our purposes. It is possible to set up donations to a non-profit service through PayPal, which does not require donors to create an account. It does take a 2.2% fee from each donation, though (on the recipient's end - it's not added to the amount donated). Most other sites I've seen take 4% upwards (I saw one which takes a 7% fee...).

Obviously I think I'm a safe pair of hands! But if needs be, I would want to try and demonstrate some sort of security for people's money, perhaps by giving out my personal details to a few trusted members of the forum so somebody has my name, address, etc in case of any impropriety.

As I said above, even if you vote 'Yes' nobody is going to make you donate - I'd want to use as secure and protected a donation method as possible, and I'd want to see it approved by at least some portion of forum members, but if anyone were to decide they didn't feel comfortable donating, that's entirely their choice.

Meanwhile, if anyone has any suggestions, let me know! I'm not really ready to start sending emails round asking companies for details about their services until we know broadly whether or not people would want to donate in the first place, but I'll definitely check out any suggestions anybody has to offer.

[mistercow.pinoy]

One way would be to have those that want to donate make a deviantART account and contribute points to a main person. Transactions of said points can be monitored and documented, it'd also make an easy way to pass them along to Kent. However, I'm not sure if he'd be willing to accept points as a form of payment, and that'd be requiring everyone that wants to donate to make a dA.

[LawCleaver]

As the originator of the idea, I'm happy to say that I am still in.
(I was wondering how to jumpstart the discussion - thanks for stepping up, Owen!)

[Owen]

One way would be to have those that want to donate make a deviantART account and contribute points to a main person. Transactions of said points can be monitored and documented, it'd also make an easy way to pass them along to Kent. However, I'm not sure if he'd be willing to accept points as a form of payment, and that'd be requiring everyone that wants to donate to make a dA.

That's an interesting idea. I'm not sure he'd want points he can only really spend in the deviantART store, though?

I'm glad to see such a positive turnout already

EDIT: Updated/corrected my post re PayPal

[CrazyEyes]

I'd be down to contribute to this, but I do have a question: are we getting only Kent to do the banner? As I understand it, "inker" and "artist" are two very different things, and it seems like we should make sure Kent is willing/able to do a banner in Chris's art style before we get all worked up.

Alternatively, maybe ask Chris to draw us a banner and Kent to ink it?

[the_shankmaster]

We don't want it in Chris' style, we want it in Kent's style.

[Owen]

I'd be down to contribute to this, but I do have a question: are we getting only Kent to do the banner?

CrazyEyes, if you follow the link to Kent's deviantART page you can see some examples of work that he has drawn, inked and coloured by himself. He has done McNinja commissions before, and he's pretty well qualified outside the McNinja universe too Of course, the whole thing rests on the assumption that he still wouldn't mind being asked to draw some McNinja characters.

[LawCleaver]

I love Kent's flying McNinjas and think it entirely appropriate for him to do the art. We are saying good-bye and thank you!

(And besides, a future reunion is not ruled out if this is an amicable parting of the ways between Archer and Dr. Hastings.)