ABOUT THE STORY

Ever since he was a boy growing up in Brazil, all Acacio wanted was to please his parents: get good grades in school, meet a nice girl, stop being so... gay.

In a clash between what he wants and who he is, Acacio turns to increasingly extreme remedies, treatments found all too easily in a Catholic nation that sees homosexuality as an aberration, a perversion, something to be cured, whatever the cost.

Acacio will live. He will survive. But what will be the nature of the life he leads? What price will be extracted in his search for a Blessed Cure?

Originally published in Brazil, - and soon to be in English - is a TWO-TIME WINNER of the HQ MIX TROPHY FOR BEST WEB COMIC and a FINALIST for the JABITU AWARD, BLESSED CURE is a harrowing, heartbreaking examination of Conversion Therapy.

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GET THE PRINTS

READ THE EXCERPT

http://spengu.in/rtg456Ge

ABOUT THE BOOK

Blessed Cure

Page count: 312pp

Trim size: h 160mm x w 230mm

Illustrations: Full Colour

Format: Digital, Softcover and Hardcover

ISBN: 978-1-908030-54-2

ABOUT THE CREATOR

Mário César is an awarded LGBTQ+ Brazilian author. He has been publishing comic books since 2006 and has won 4 times the HQ MIX Trophy, Brazil’s most important comic’s awards, and also has been a two-times finalist of the Jabuti Awards, Brazil’s biggest book awards, in the category of Best Comic Book.

He was one the first openly LGBTQ+ Brazilian authors and also organizes, POC CON, a comic-con where all the exhibitors are LGBTQ+.

ABOUT SOARING PENGUIN PRESS

Soaring Penguin Pressis an Eisner and Ignatz Award nominated UK-based graphic novel publisher.

Established in 2010 (but in existence much earlier), Soaring Penguin Press have published a number of notable titles, including Loisel's Peter Pan (in English for the first time), To End All Wars: the Graphic Anthology of the First World War (nominated for two Eisner Awards), Ellen Lindner's The Black Feather Falls (nominated for an Ignatz for Outstanding Series).

More recently, we published Black, Tobias Taitt’s autobiographical story of being second-generation Windrush in 1980s UK, and Ilana Zeffren’s Urban Tails, a Tel Aviv-based collection of stories about Ilana, her wife and their two cats. But mostly about their two cats.

For further details why we're running this campaign, please visit: https://www.firstcomicsnews.com/soaring-penguin-press-switch-to-a-crowdfunding-business-model

RISKS AND CHALLENGES

The book is done, we just need to print it. Tim Pilcher and John Anderson (that’s us) have been in the comics industry for decades. We’ve been bringing books to print for a while now and this is our third year of crowdfunding campaigns, so we're getting the hang of this now. We aim to have the book out by May 2023 in time for Pride Month UK. We’ll have the PDF to you shortly after the campaign ends - just as soon as you fill in the Backers’ Survey.

TIMELINE

OCTOBER 2022: Crowdfundr campaign runs

November 2022: Book goes to the printers

January 2023: Book leaves printers

April 2023: Book arrives in the UK

MAY 2023: Book out to backers (that's you!)

June 2023: Book out on general release

BUDGET

This is the estimated budget for the production of Blessed Cure:

This is the allocation of any funds raised by this campaign:

We're allocating 53.5% of any funds raised as royaties for Mario.

If we reach our £3000 goal, that will mean a payout of £1605 for his incredible work, with £1395 going toward printing. The balance we expect to raise through the sale of the book.

If we raise £3510, the printing will be covered. If we raise just over 14k, the entire budget is covered.

It's important, as a publisher, to do everything we can to try to create a living wage for the creators. This is one of the ways we do this.