TALES FROM THE QUARANTINE - AN UNFULFILLED CAMPAIGN

Much has happened since my last blog post about the Tales from the Quarantine (TFTQ) comic anthology.  None of it good, I’m afraid.  The Kickstarter campaign remains unfulfilled, with no one receiving a physical copy of the book or refund, and monies not going to charities either (the legitimate ones, that is).
 
With charity being the driving force behind TFTQ, at least £37,000 was raised in 2020 thanks to 400 comic creatives the world over, including writers, artists, colourists and letterers (more than 100 of which being Eisner, Emmy, Hugo and Ringo award winners and nominees), promoting and contributing to the campaign for free.  However, a multitude of excuses ranging from feeble to preposterous have been given as reason for delay since the initial publishing and distribution deadlines were missed and more than FOUR YEARS ON it's no wonder most people involved have run out of patience.
 
If you follow goings-on in the UK indie comics scene or were unfortunate enough to be one of the many hundreds of people to back the project, you will undoubtedly be aware by now that Frazer Brown, sole proprietor of Red Cabin Comics (despite his claims of being a CEO with business premises, staff members, etc.), has shown himself to be deceitful, evasive and dishonest about production and mailing of the book and demonstrated prevarication regarding what has happened to the money raised.
 
Brown’s Kickstarter updates (146 of them at time of publishing this blog post) are now few and far between, provide no meaningful information and seem issued only to meet the bare minimum required from him as campaign creator.  He ignores questions and concerns emailed to him or posted on the TFTQ campaign’s comments section, even blocking backers to hide public queries and criticism.
 
Akin to a schoolboy claiming his pet dog ate his homework, Brown has resorted to claiming long periods of illness without providing a shred of evidence, while simultaneously posting contradictory content on his remaining Instagram and TikTok social media accounts, showing him frequently enjoying day trips out and such.  Unsurprisingly, the likes of X, Facebook and BlueSky are rife with scornful comments so he's not active on these platforms.

Several comic review websites have reported on Tales from the Quarantine and Brown’s dubious conduct, including Bleeding Cool, 3 Million Years and Broken Frontier, the latter of which published a 3-part series of articles which I contributed to here, here and here.  As revealed in Part 3, I initially parted with several hundred pounds to obtain copies of the book for myself and family and friends but eventually formally withdrew my artwork from the project and began court proceedings against Brown to get my money back. 
 
Despite a reasonably positive result for me personally, my heart goes out to everyone affected by Frazer Brown’s continuing disgraceful conduct, particularly those who backed the project due to my involvement.  It’s clear to me that he has done lasting damage to the trust necessary for crowdfunding and good people with great projects have been impacted as a result.  I hope Kickstarter will seek to take action against him and will review their business model to prevent others from exploiting the concept in a similar fashion.

I can only conclude TFTQ was first and foremost a vanity project designed to use the work of others as a springboard to propel Brown to the forefront of the comics industry, with his interest in delivering the project rapidly diminishing once he realised he was well short of the much-publicised 200+ pages needed to claim the anthology was “world record breaking” .
 
Notwithstanding so much negative coverage, for some reason Brown bizarrely continues to invest time and energy in Instagram and TikTok posts intended to keep up the pretence that Tales from the Quarantine is an accomplishment.  Of course, comments are turned off, accompanying images are either deceptively staged or AI generated, and most of his followers are fake paid-for accounts considering such low engagement.  One thing's for certain though: the internet doesn't forget and the indie comics community will be ever ready to hold him to account should he resurface with something new.