Hunt For The Skinwalker On The Kickstarter

Skinwalker time! Since setting the all-time record for highest-grossing comic book campaign on Kickstarter with Keanu Reeves, Matt Kindt, and Ron Garney‘s BRZRKR, publisher Boom Studios has continued to post impressive results and become a dominant player on the platform. That includes four of the top 10 of the highest-grossing campaigns in the Comics category, including the #1 and #2 spots, as well as the top three highest-grossing Comic Books subcategory and two of the top 10 highest-grossing campaigns in the Graphic Novels subcategory.

Boom’s latest campaign for Hunt For The Skinwalker launched yesterday and surpassed its initial goal in just a handful of hours. Hunt For The Skinwalker is a bit of a departure for Boom as it’s based on a nonfiction book of the same name by Dr. Colm Kelleher and veteran journalist George Knapp. Those two names may not be immediately recognizable to readers of Bleeding Cool, but they (along with Hunt For The Skinwalker) are quite well known in other circles – chiefly, among fans of the paranormal, supernatural, and extraterrestrial.

It was Kelleher and Knapp’s 2005 book that popularized the remote Utah cattle ranch referred to as “Skinwalker Ranch” and revealed the multi-year scientific investigation into the plethora of bizarre, seemingly unconnected paranormal occurrences there. Since its release the book became a bestseller and inspired a feature length documentary and television documentary series.

In recent years there’s been a sharp increase in the interest surrounding these topics with an explosion of investigations, podcasts, and news stories and in turn, new fictionalized stories drawing inspiration from those real-world reports. Many of them can be traced back to Hunt For The Skinwalker as their inception or source of inspiration. The most significant being a series investigative reports in 2017 by the New York Times revealing the existence of The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), a U.S. government program studying UFOs, which spun directly out of the investigation chronicled in Hunt For The Skinwalker. Kelleher and Knapp’s work and influence has been covered by outlets ranging from Vice, The Daily Beat, Wired, and Newsweek, as well as a chart-topping appearance on The Joe Rogan Show.

So it’s unsurprising to anyone who has read Hunt For The Skinwalker or knows the history of Skinwalker Ranch, to see its direct or indirect inspiration on Jordan Peele‘s award-winning film Nope, the Josh Brolin-starring series Outer Range, or Skybound’s  comic series I Hate This Place.

Now for the first time, the original source of these stories will be visualized in a comic book series and graphic novel by Zac Thompson and Valeria Burzo, alongside a new expanded and updated version of Hunt For The Skinwalker in an exclusive “Declassified Edition.” Will this storied and influential story add to Boom’s domination of Kickstarter’s Comics category? We’ll certainly be keeping a close eye on the campaign over the next 28 days to find out…