Free Hands #2 is in Pre-Launch on Kickstarter

Oh man, it’s been some time, hasn’t it!

For those who forgot they signed up for this thing, I’m Matthew Wilding, and I write comics. You probably bought one.

I’m writing to let you know that FREE HANDS #2 is finally coming, with a July 26 launch date on Kickstarter.

I’m really excited about continuing this story with the creative team. When we left off last year, an 18th century pirate named Gregor was recounting his exploits to a Cotton Mather-esque Boston minister, and had informed you, the good readers:

But while life sometimes finds away, it just as often gets in the way, and there were quite a few unexpected delays in production, almost entirely my fault.

Luckily for me, Matt Rowe kept drawing and Toben Racicot kept lettering, and we are ready to bring the second part of this thing into the world. We are really hoping to have 100 followers on the Kickstarter campaign before our July 26 launch, and we could really use your help to make that happen.

It’s very simple.

1. Click on this link

2. Hit the “Notify me on launch” button

That’s it! That’s all the instructions (unless you don’t have a Kickstarter account, and then it will ask you to set one up). This is incredibly important for us, as more folks following the project on launch day means that we will have more backers early on, but also that Kickstarter knows people are paying attention to the campaign, and so they will be more likely to feature it.

To thank you all for your support, I wanted to share a little sneak peek of how things are going.

For some people, not well!

But hey, now you probably get the name of the book a little better?

Comic art in museums

I haven’t cranked out many comics recently, but I have been busy. In particular, I’ve been working on an exhibit at Boston’s Old State House called Impassioned Destruction: Politics, Vandalism, and the Boston Tea Party. This was a really exciting project for a lot of reasons—I got to interpret the Boston Tea Party in a new way for the 250th anniversary of the event (this December) in a historic site closely associated with the event, and contrast it with other examples of property destruction in American history: the Stamp Act Riots of 1765, the Ursuline Convent Fire of 1834, the Reading Railroad Strike of 1877, the bombing of Gulf Tower by the Weather Underground in 1974, and of course, the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

But I also got to commission a comics collaborator of mine, Jeremiah Schiek, who did an absolutely fantastic job illustrating the events in the exhibit. Check out some of his fantastic work:

The purpose of this exhibit is to reexamine the Boston Tea Party, a controversial event in 1773 that was essentially rebranded as a celebratory founding myth in the 19th century by juxtaposing it against a variety of other historical events with similar criteria and a wide range of political motivations ranging from radical anti-colonialism to labor unionism to anti-Catholicism to an actual attempt to overturn the results of an election. Our hope is that the exhibit will make people think differently about the Tea Party (called “the destruction of the tea” by its contemporaries, and denounced by the likes of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin), and may also cause them to consider the way they think about the Tea Party when learning about or witnessing other acts of property destruction in protest.

Jeremiah was instrumental in telling that story, and I was really happy to work with him and bring his incredible visual work out of the pages of some of my favorite indie comics and into the walls of an American landmark.

If you’re in Boston, come visit.

What’s next?

Free Hands #2 may be in the immediate offing, but there’s more to come. I’ve been working on a novel, and Matt Rowe & I intend to move rather quickly into Free Hands #3, which is written and ready to go.

The newsletter is also going to become a bit more regular, and will have some articles, reviews, and write-ups, as well as general goings-on. I hope to give you more peeks behind the curtain going forward, and do all major announcements here before they end up on social.

You can expect to hear from me again on July 26, and then on a regular monthly clip going forward. Hopefully you find it interesting.

Playlist

• Aqueduct-I Sold Gold: Chill indie rock, and I think there’s a xylophone?

• Kal Marks-My Name Is Hell: There’s a lot going on with this record. Sludgy, power-rocky, and vocals somewhere between Walter Sikert, Ralph Cuseglio, and a middle ages monk.

• There Were Wires-Self-Titled: One of my favorite bands from the early 2000s. Rereleased and remastered edition of their first record and two seven-inches, it’s not the stoner masterpiece that their follow-up was, but it does totally kill in a faster way.

• The Late Risers Club: On WMBR and streaming from 10am-noon on weekdays, I keep it on to feel some semblance of knowing what’s going on in local music. It sure beats a Spotify algorithm.

SEE YOU NEXT TIME, FRIENDOS.