(April 8, 2024) Spike Trotman’s Iron Circus Comics — the premiere publisher of award-winning, critically-acclaimed graphic novels in the American Midwest, which has raised nearly 5 million dollars via crowdfunding — is launching a BackerKit campaign to publish the first ever, highly anticipated print edition of the cartoonist S.E. Case’s webcomic hit series RIGSBY WI. The funny, naturalistic graphic novel series chronicles the lives of a group of average teenagers in a small city in Northern Wisconsin. It’s a series about growing up and the things that shape us, including relationships, poverty, race and sexuality, and how we choose to present ourselves to our friends, family, and the rest of the world. The BackerKit for the first book, a 120 page graphic novel titled RIGSBY WI: FOOTHOLD is now live.
“When you’re young, you have so little control over your own life — you are subject to the whims of your parents or guardians, which is not always a bad thing if they truly have your best interests at heart, but unfortunately that’s not the case for all kids,” said cartoonist S.E. Case. “Part of being a teenager is trying to figure out who you are, and that’s hard — but even harder when those around you cannot accept who you discover yourself to be. Will anyone recognize your value as a person when your goal is not to make the football team, or get into a prestigious college, or be crowned homecoming queen, but to simply get through the experience of being a teenager relatively unscathed? Maybe smoking weed in the woods and stealing sunglasses from the mall aren’t the most productive coping mechanisms, but what else is a disaffected 16-year-old in a rural town to do?
Sometimes as a teen in a small town, you can feel trapped — trapped enough to want to gnaw off your own leg to escape. Bethany has gotten some much needed stability in Rigsby, WI — she’s away from her oppressively disapproving mother, and the other local teens Jeordie, Erik, and Anna have welcomed her in — and together the four of them know how to escape from the world that is closing in on them. While Case’s vibrant art and naturalistic writing doesn’t shy away from the rougher experiences and feelings of teens, it also covers the truly important topics like, “is Phish a good band?”, “is the neck the dong of the torso?” and “Ernest Hemingway: Was he a piece of shit?” Nostalgic, sweet, bitter and funny all at once, RIGSBY WI feels like a teenage afternoon spent with friends, with all the pathos, boredom and absurdity inherent therein.
Praise for RIGSBY WI and S.E. Case:
“There’s a subtle, tragic irony about entering into the springtime of adulthood in a place with the derelict atmosphere of a permanent autumn. RIGSBY WI is everything sweet, sad, and infuriating about that. It’s also funny, perfectly complemented by its textured palettes, and populated by the kinds of troubled, complicated characters who – if you grew up in a certain kind of nowhere town – you’d swear you must have known at some point. I’ve seldom seen something captured with such lovely and moving genuineness.”—Tracey Butler, Creator of Lackadaisy
“She has a real knack for capturing both the emotionally charged interactions and sheer irreverence of teenagerhood.”—Tinted Edges
“Case does a great job with expressions, and I love the various ways her characters change and grow over time.”—Woman Write About Comics
“RIGSBY WI is an unflinching, frank, and thoroughly compassionate reflection on life in transition between both youth and adulthood and between the 20th and 21st centuries. Case skillfully explores social class, familial bonds, and trauma through the relatable and completely believable cast of characters.”—EK Weaver, Creator of Less than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal
To support the campaign on BackerKit, visit this link: https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/iron-circus-comics/rigsby-wi-volume-1?ref=PR
For updates, follow Iron Circus Comics on X, Facebook, and Instagram.
About the creator
S.E. Case is an illustrator, writer, and designer living in Southeastern Minnesota with her husband, daughter, and dog. She is best known for her webcomics, Cheap Thrills and Rigsby WI. She enjoys creating comics about average people, with a particular focus on realistic characters, facial expression, body language, character interaction, and rich environmental design. Rigsby WI is inspired in part by the people she has met and places she has lived in the upper midwest, including the Wisconsin Northwoods and Mississippi Driftless area.
About the publisher
C. Spike Trotman (she/her) – C. Spike Trotman was born in DC, raised in MD, and lives in IL. An artist and writer, she founded Iron Circus Comics in 2007, which has since grown to become the region’s largest comics publisher. Her notable work includes the webcomic “Templar, Arizona,” the Smut Peddler series of erotic comic anthologies, and Poorcraft, a graphic novel guide to frugal living. A Kickstarter early adopter, she pioneered the widely-adopted bonus model that’s since completely reshaped the pay system of the small press, jump-starting the current renaissance of alt-comics anthologies. Iron Circus is also the first comics publisher of note to fully incorporate crowdfunding into its business model, inventing one of the single most effective uses of new media in comics publishing today.
