1992 MARVEL MASTERPIECES 30th Anniversary Book

[fabiani12333]

When someone repeatedly lies to me about doing something, I eventually take the hint that they're not going to do it and I move on.

Backers are still acting like this book is going to get shipped, and I have no idea why.

Would you like another lie? Or have you finally had enough?

[bub838]

I was looking through the campaign for the first time in a while and saw this. Made me laugh out loud.

Risks and challenges

There are zero risks that this book will not be produced. This is a book that we have wanted to produce for a very long time and can't wait to get at it! Further, this book will be printed in the USA, thusly eliminating any Covid-related shipping delays.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by fabiani12333

When someone repeatedly lies to me about doing something, I eventually take the hint that they're not going to do and I move on.

Backers are still acting like this book is going to get shipped, and I have no idea why.

Would you like another lie? Or have you finally had enough?

I think many people are quite frustrated and no one appreciates lies….outside the few tens of commenters who applaud any update no matter what. I’m just not convinced it’s a “they aren’t making this book period, just move on” type thing at this point. Again I think what’s really going on is they just don’t have a problem giving false/optimistic shipping timeframes (they get endless positive enthusiasm either way). But they are still going to ship it.

What does that do to a company and its rep if some $500k goes into a book like this for it not to be fullfilled (the main part at least)? At the very minimum probably ends the possible future projects prospects I would think. Yea Kickstarter offers no guarantees and it’s a total risk…but seems like a good way to totally plummet a reputation with a project gone bad. I’m not convinced we’re to that point…we do differ in our opinion of what’s going on. You seem to think the books aren’t coming period, I think they are just that honest updates and timeframes don’t seem to matter.

[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

I think many people are quite frustrated and no one appreciates lies….outside the few tens of commenters who applaud any update no matter what. I’m just not convinced it’s a “they aren’t making this book period, just move on” type thing at this point. Again I think what’s really going on is they just don’t have a problem giving false/optimistic shipping timeframes (they get endless positive enthusiasm either way). But they are still going to ship it.

What does that do to a company and its rep if some $500k goes into a book like this for it not to be fullfilled (the main part at least)? At the very minimum probably ends the possible future projects prospects I would think. Yea Kickstarter offers no guarantees and it’s a total risk…but seems like a good way to totally plummet a reputation with a project gone bad. I’m not convinced we’re to that point…we do differ in our opinion of what’s going on. You seem to think the books aren’t coming period, I think they are just that honest updates and timeframes don’t seem to matter.

I mean, if they're blatantly lying like this even though they know the books will eventually ship, that's craziness. They're making a bad situation worse.

Everything tells me this book is in limbo, if not dead, and FPG doesn't have any real updates to give backers, and do not want to reveal the truth about the situation.

If it eventually ships, I feel like it'll be way past the point of caring.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by fabiani12333

I mean, if they're blatantly lying like this even though they know the books will eventually ship, that's craziness. They're making a bad situation worse.

It makes sense to me only if the books do ship in say the next couple weeks. *If* they do, at least it somewhat makes sense. Things can be a week or two off, no biggie, giving updates appeases many people in the meantime, stalls things. Saying such a blatant lie does not make sense to me in the other examples of shipping a long way off, or no plans to ship anymore at all (it makes sense to you in the latter case, but to me it doesn’t). This is one reason I think it actually could be nearing an actual shipping. Because the other scenarios just make so little sense. Need to remember they did ship out bronze cards and paintings to backers. I could also just be trying to talk myself into this making sense…wishful thinking on my part, perhaps.

[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

It makes sense to me only if the books do ship in say the next couple weeks. *If* they do, at least it somewhat makes sense. Things can be a week or two off, no biggie, giving updates appeases many people in the meantime, stalls things. Saying such a blatant lie does not make sense to me in the other examples of shipping a long way off, or no plans to ship anymore at all (it makes sense to you in the latter case, but to me it doesn’t). This is one reason I think it actually could be nearing an actual shipping. Because the other scenarios just make so little sense. Need to remember they did ship out bronze cards and paintings to backers. I could also just be trying to talk myself into this making sense…wishful thinking on my part, perhaps.

We'll see what happens in a couple of weeks. If it's the start of October and the books haven't shipped and they give another "update", we'll have our definitive answer.

[glorbgorb]

Why not, I'll poke at the comments.

[DynaEtch]

Brave man to do that! in all seriousness I don’t think they are checking responding to the comments at this point. Look how long in the main comments it’s been since any comments got a response. Guess they just stopped doing it.

[DynaEtch]

Sounds like no one got a notification. Not sure why I didn’t think to do this before but looked back at some of FPGs past like 6 kickstarters- Wrightson, Ploog, Enric etc and there is some good news on that front at least. They all seemed to eventually get delivered, although there was a common theme of delays. Granted nothing like the delay with the Jusko plus also not the “It’s shipping at the end of the month’ thing every month…so that’s a little different, but they got there.

But looking at the Enric one, there was an update on Dec 1, 2021 saying books arrived and will be shipping to backers within 2 weeks. When you follow the comments you see that there was a further update in mid Dec and people got them in hand around early Jan 2022. So basically it was a few weeks after the update said they’d be shipping. There also was comment I saw in one of the projects that they purposely stagger the shipping out to like 10 days. So some info gleaned from past projects at least. This does make me think they could be shipping them out soon. Could easily be wrong though.

[BobCollects]

I haven't checked in since the address confirmation e-mails went out. I'm not surprised about anything that happens (or doesn't happen) with this book anymore. We remain in limbo. The book both exists and doesn't exist, it's like Schrödinger's cat.

Until and unless the details of this sad saga start being discussed and reported outside of niche forums like ours or on Facebook, FPG has nothing to worry about. We have no way of forcing FPG to do anything. There are no repercussions to never mailing the books outside of bad press and/or a hit to FPG's reputation. Technically, someone could file a lawsuit against FPG, but I doubt that would go anywhere.

Honestly, FPG probably doesn't feel like it has to worry about damage to its reputation. How many people who didn't participate in the Kickstarter campaign even know about this book? 1,605 people backed the campaign. I'm guessing many if not most of them, like myself, had never heard of FPG before and have no interest in FPG products outside of this book.

All I know is I will never back a Kickstarter campaign again after this. It's just not worth it.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by BobCollects

I haven't checked in since the address confirmation e-mails went out. I'm not surprised about anything that happens (or doesn't happen) with this book anymore. We remain in limbo. The book both exists and doesn't exist, it's like Schrödinger's cat.

Until and unless the details of this sad saga start being discussed and reported outside of niche forums like ours or on Facebook, FPG has nothing to worry about. We have no way of forcing FPG to do anything. There are no repercussions to never mailing the books outside of bad press and/or a hit to FPG's reputation. Technically, someone could file a lawsuit against FPG, but I doubt that would go anywhere.

Honestly, FPG probably doesn't feel like it has to worry about damage to its reputation. How many people who didn't participate in the Kickstarter campaign even know about this book? 1,605 people backed the campaign. I'm guessing many if not most of them, like myself, had never heard of FPG before and have no interest in FPG products outside of this book.

All I know is I will never back a Kickstarter campaign again after this. It's just not worth it.

It’s odd because they said they were shipping out last week with email notifications daily….and nothing. The odd part isn’t even that they didn’t do what they said, it’s that they don’t even chime in/respond to anything after what was said turned out false. Wouldn’t a normal company at least say at this point what is going on and acknowledge they weren’t shipped yet? Instead it's radio silence and ghost backers I guess. Bizarre things like this makes me truly start to think we’ve been had.

There is no recourse I’m pretty sure, Kickstarter is very clear in their terms it’s a total risk with backing projects yada yada. I have heard of FPG prior but only because some random art based card sets in the 90s they put out like Jusko’s Edgar Burroughs set. Pretty sure lately the business has been basically just putting out a few art books via Kickstarter and that’s mostly it. The only thing backers can do really if this project goes south and never gets delivered is help make others aware just had bad this has been, how backers didn’t get what we paid for, how bad the handling of this thing was by FPG, including basically ghosting after false updates. What channels to do that besides here…idk.

This was some $500k that went towards this project. Granted about $250k of that was for the paintings, which were actually made by Jusko and delivered.

For a new backer to Kickstarter, this is absolutely not a good luck, and hard to blame someone for giving up on the platform. From day 1 I said it’s not just the delays (which are a lot), it’s the way everything (or should I say nothing) is being communicated. The person defending above…I just wonder if you defend the recent communication, or lack thereof, on any of this. Including every month stating they are shipping that month and then not.

[glorbgorb]

I looked at my KS numbers. I have, uhh, kickstarted 101 projects now total.

Of those 101, only one has not met it's funding goal.

Of those 101, only one has met its funding goal but resulted in no product. Oddly enough it was the first one I ever contributed to (and still feel bad about it--long story...).

The way it is looking, there will now be two.

[DynaEtch]

It is good to get some perspective from veteran Kickstarter users since I’m sure as heck not. The way that sounds, this is quite unusual for a Kickstarter then. (assuming backers don’t get these books shipped anytime soon).

I also wonder if it’s normal for the company to tease it month after month saying it’ll be shipped. And also the almost no communication about what’s actually going on/the hold up. Do creators usually discuss those details….concrete stuff about project snags, fund allocations, specific details…maybe they dont, I don’t know. But backers are being told almost nothing in this project.

[glorbgorb]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

I also wonder if it’s normal for the company to tease it month after month saying it’ll be shipped. And also the almost no communication about what’s actually going on/the hold up. Do creators usually discuss those details….concrete stuff about project snags, fund allocations, specific details…maybe they dont, I don’t know. But backers are being told almost nothing in this project.

It really varies. The ones from, say, Coffin Comics, are like a well-oiled machine at this point so they know just when and what to say. They run their campaigns really well. They have Youtube drawings for extra prizes, and are really engaged. You never question where they are in the process of any given Kickstarter.

FPG is not alone--several other books I have supported had delays from overseas, but they don't give 'empty' updates. They do at least say what's going on to an extent, but their levels of transparency are probably in-step with how many campaigns they have run, how many people have contributed, or how much money is on the line. I don't recall any particularly negative comments, even on things that are/were 3-4 months behind. I think some creators are good enough to know where to place blame as opposed to making it sound like an excuse. Of course, all of those others all came through in the end.

Purely anecdotal, but I find the better communicators are the small-press comic people. They've probably contributed to 'starters themselves so know how to treat people on theirs.

For this one? I dunno. It's so sad and long-running, it's not funny anymore. Pitiful? Desperate? Empty? I don't know how to describe it. But as you can see it is at the far end of the spectrum for the sorts of things I support.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by glorbgorb

For this one? I dunno. It's so sad and long-running, it's not funny anymore. Pitiful? Desperate? Empty? I don't know how to describe it. But as you can see it is at the far end of the spectrum for the sorts of things I support.

Good to know (or should I say unfortunate to know), based on how many you have supported that this is indeed an outlier. I wondered if maybe I just didn’t get how the Kickstarter works, but sounds like it’s indeed unusual.

[techtre2003]

Just an FYI for you '92 MM collectors. A seller over on CGC forums has a bunch of Jusko signed cards from the set for sale if anyone is interested: https://boards.cgccomics.com/topic/5...h-or-5-for-50/

[glorbgorb]

Dang, even the checklist. That person must have shown up at a show with a whole stack of cards.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by glorbgorb

Dang, even the checklist. That person must have shown up at a show with a whole stack of cards.

I sent in a checklist for the CGC Jusko signing (which surprisingly already happened end of Aug…now just waiting on grading). lol I wasn’t sure if he’d sign it or not since it doesn’t actually have any of his art on it. I guess maybe he will…looks like a signed one in that post at least. Well it’s part of the set he did at least. I’ll see soon hopefully.

[techtre2003]

Originally Posted by glorbgorb

Dang, even the checklist. That person must have shown up at a show with a whole stack of cards.

Yeah, he has a lot of sales threads over there so I'm guessing he does a lot of shows and that type of thing. I was thinking about picking a couple up because they are really cool, but they really don't fit into my collection and I need to stay focused

[sfgiants4life]

I got a shipping notification from fpg for the book. FedEx home delivery

[glorbgorb]

Originally Posted by sfgiants4life

I got a shipping notification from fpg for the book. FedEx home delivery

Really? I'm surprised they didn't update the KS to say they were going out. What with all the questions since the 1st about it.

[Fenian95]

Kickstarter now updated and multiple people confirming tracking numbers.

Update below:

All hands are on deck! Books are rolling out, and email notifications are being sent from a dedicated email address: jjmm@fpguniverse.com. (jjmm = Joe Jusko's Marvel Masterpieces.) Thanks!!!

Whitelist the email address I guess.

[comicbooksgo]

Originally Posted by glorbgorb

Dang, even the checklist. That person must have shown up at a show with a whole stack of cards.

I can tell you on good authority that he didn't lol
You would think after doing like a thousand comic shows I'd be better prepared, but I didn't realize he was going to be there. I was running around trying to buy any I could find.. Ended up with an incomplete set with dupes mixed in, so I decided to just keep my favorites and try to recoup the costs a bit with the ones listed. No one seems to care over there on the CGC boards though
Someone here buy them from me!!!

[comicbooksgo]

That explains the checklist. I was thinking I was going to have a nice binder of them all signed including that, but oh well. On the plus side, i got to chat with him for an hour or so. Super cool guy. He was dying of the ebola virus, but was still really friendly with anyone that came up.

[DynaEtch]

People are reporting already having received the books in hand.

No tracking here. Has anyone in here received tracking, and if so, which tier backer were you?