I am not a huge comics book fan by even the most generous of measures, but late in 2024 when I saw the Kickstarter campaign for Atomic Robo and the Agents of C.H.A.N.G.E I went ahead and backed it. While I own Atomic Robo: The Roleplaying Game (Evil Hat, 2014) I have missed out on more than a few volumes of the comic over the years. This campaign sounded like a good place to jump back into the series:
ATOMIC ROBO AND THE AGENTS OF C.H.A.N.G.E. is the latest chapter in Robo’s exciting life. Now he’s…sort of a university administrator? But for a sci-fi action school to train the next next generation of ACTION SCIENTISTS including his sorta-secret robot son with the rebooted intelligence core from the Advanced Learning Algorithm Network that nearly killed all life on Earth, and framed Atomic Robo for it, and got Tesladyne shut down by the secret fascist science police, which indirectly threatened all life on Earth (again), and got a bunch of his comrades probably killed and definitely hunted as terrorists for a few years. Uh, but that was the old ALAN. The new Alan is a much nicer fellow, but he’s still being kept secret on the Tesladyne campus because folks might link him to all that other stuff and, golly, that wouldn’t be pleasant.
Kickstarter Campaign
Problematic CHANGE
The Atomic Robo: Agents of C.H.A.N.G.E. campaign pledged to fulfill in May 2025. The pledge manager went out a few weeks back and all looked good for a late-May/early-June fulfillment. That is, until backers-only Update #10 posted on May 30. Agents of C.H.A.N.G.E. has problems—big time.
First, the spine of the book is misprinted with “The Vengeful Dead” instead of “Agents of CHANGE.” Second, the chapter/issue covers are printed out of sequence and are non-final versions. Third, these problems were not discovered until after the books were printed.
[Sigh.]
While the digital edition is easy to fix, the physical book I backed—already printed and in the warehouse—is a more difficult challenge. The creators are frank about the situation: “our options are limited without bankrupting ourselves and ending the series forever.”
Their solution? Put a sticker over the spine with the right name. Backers will also be offered a coupon for a discount of a new corrected version in an undetermined future.
[Double sigh.]
The problems stem from what the creators call “a perfect storm.” What that storm boils down to—in my words—was a lack of attention to detail. The creators talk about a losing files and being confused by their own file naming conventions. If the creators had simply framed their problems in that manner I might remain supportive.
Instead, the creators point to two events that discombobulated them. One I can empathize with; the second is, well, you decide.
According to the creators, the first stage of the “perfect storm” was the death of a cat. My condolences; after 17 years of companionship it was surely a tough loss. What I cannot understand, however, is how the creators allowed that death to trump their professionalism and attention to detail. If the death upset their thinking that much (like it appears it did) the responsible action would be to maybe delay some layout work until they could focus. Yes, some backers would be unhappy but in the greater scheme of things it is better to be a bit late with a quality product than to deliver a defective one.
The creators describe the second stage of their “perfect storm” this way:
Then two days later my country elected a deranged fascist who would threaten the lives and safety of literally every single person on the planet starting with our trans friends and family.
Agents of C.H.A.N.G.E. Update #10
I get that people have political opinions. It is not the opinion expressed by the creators that offends me but instead how it is being used as an excuse. Are the creators really telling me that what some call “TDS” caused them to lose the bubble on the details of their publication? Really? Are the creators telling me that their business is such a snowflake that TDS actually trumped their professionalism?
If that is really the case then I strongly encourage the creators to reconsider their publishing endeavors.
Feature image courtesy Kickstarter
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