Wormwood webcomic merch -- a Kickstarter

Back in 2011, Mark blogged about the Wormworld Saga, a free, beautiful, multilingual webcomic created by Daniel Lieske. Now, Lieske has produced a world of beautiful merchandise for people who want to support his project, show off their fandom, and look stylin'. He's structured the merch production as a Kickstarter -- back it at different levels to get different items.

At the core of the Wormworld Saga are its fans. They support the project in many ways including donations, fan artwork and translations. The fans made the development of the Wormworld Saga App possible and the fans are the ones that spread the word about the Wormworld Saga on the internet so that over a million people have already become aware of it.
Funding an independent project like the Wormworld Saga is a huge challenge. And although we've already made huge steps, the financial future of the project is still not secure over the long run. With this kickstarter campaign we want to turn our focus on an aspect that we've largely neglected up to this point: there are virtually no fan items available for the fans of the Wormworld Saga! And we finally want to change that.

The Wormworld Saga Treasure Chest by Daniel Lieske — Kickstarter (Thanks, Dave!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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SamSam

Can someone explain why this, and other similar projects, needs to be structured as a KickStarter project rather than just a merch store?

With this kickstarter campaign we want to turn our focus on an aspect that we’ve largely neglected up to this point: there are virtually no fan items available for the fans of the Wormworld Saga! And we finally want to change that.

So… open a store on Etsy? Or anywhere else that doesn’t take 7% of your money like KickStarter does?

Is it a psychological thing, that people feel like they’re donating to a cause with KickStarter, and are more likely to kick in to help a project meet its goals?
- Ito Kagehisa
  
  Seven percent? These kickstarter people sound to me like a couple bookies!
  
  I had no idea, seriously.
Paul Renault

That looks like a round-head screw. I would have gone with a pan head screw (less chance of damaging the slot, better torque from the screwdriver), or even better, a countersunk screw.
- Ramone
  
  It’s supposed to match the look of the sword in the comic.