That's been discussed here before, currently searching the thread for the relevant post.

EDIT: Found it, eventually.

 

Some months back did Mayhem mechanics not reveal lots of new figures at a convention including some fairly silly bike fem-bots? I could swear I saw that but I can't seem to find a trace of that ever existing now.

 

I'm gonna say that if you ever see those designs pop up again under any name, you stay away from sending money in their direction.

 

See Cassy Sark's Photos tab on Facebook, then scroll down a bit. All of the different design renders he's produced so far can be found there in their own albums.

Cassy Sark

 

Well I wouldn't buy that design unless I decided to resculpt the silly boob chest to be a bit less outright big-boobish, but also I learned my lesson a while back about giving money to products that are not confirmed for production, like Kickstarter stuff. Its been like 5 years since I ordered my Sabertron swords, and I preordered those from their websites, not through Kickstarter. Still don't have them.

Thanks! Yeah, now I remember why they were silly, but I could fix the big goofy boobs thing if those ever come out.

 

And still no refund.

 

So how have the comics been coming along? Any rough expectations of when we might be seeing issue #1?

 

I was at TFNation last weekend, and spoke to both Sid and NatePhoenix, one of the artists working on the interiors, at length at several points over the course of the weekend. I learned a few things, some of which isn't my place to share, but Nate tells me that work on Issue 1 is only four pages away from completion, and he hopes to get it finished following TFN, so we should hopefully be hearing something official from Sid via the Kickstarter soon.

Truth be told, I first spoke to Nate on Aug 8th via DeviantART, and he told me then that the comic was almost ready, but I held my tongue in-case Sid wanted to make any announcements during TFN; sadly there weren't any to make as the comic wasn't finished, and they gave me the go-ahead to update the Mayhem Facebook group that progress was approaching completion.

On a side note, Nate seems very determined to see this project through to the end, and not just for Issue 1, but all 6 issues; both he and Sid were insistent that they have no intention of letting people down. I get the impression that work on the comic has been in Nate's sole hands for a bit; he spoke of colouring and lettering the whole series himself for free if that's what it takes to make sure it gets done, and I appreciate that he seems so dedicated to the project.

See here for the DeviantART page where my conversation with Nick took place:
DeviantArt

 

Thanks for the update!

 

I was just thinking about this project and here we are. Thanks for the update!  

 

AND still no refund.

 

For those who have invested in the comics, I certainly hope that they mean what they say about getting things done.

But Spence'll promise that the tetra jets are going to happen still too.

 

The comics are all on me now, issue 1 will be ready very soon and we have a few plans to move it forward which I can't discuss before anything is finalised. Yes I should have done an update at some point this year, that is also 100% on me. No buck-passing, no glib remarks about the nature of kickstarters.

If something goes wrong with the comics that is on me and not Spencer.

Just a few pages left for colouring and then we'll be moving to print and distribution. It's looking incredibly likely that the kickstarter backers will have something quite different to any future direct market / comic store versions.

Thanks for your patience and support everyone.

Incredibly sorry for those still waiting on purple bike refunds but that sadly is out of my hands.

 

If I remember correctly the higher level backers will need to wait until all issues are complete before we get the physical copies but we will get the digital ones immediately, am I remembering right?

Can't wait to see what the story turns out to be, and if any of my head cannon is good

 

From where I stand, Sid and Nick have my total support - since the original figure Kickstarter, Nick has done his part from the background and kept himself distant from any drama, and Sid has taken pains to deliver consistently on his promises, making sure we get what we paid for on projects where he had direct responsibility -- even when that made things difficult for him. I feel that generally, Sid has yet to let us down, and it's something he strives to avoid whenever he can help it. He has a day job aside from Mayhem Mekanics that takes up a lot of his time, and still he does everything he can to make sure we're not disappointed.

Spence has currently gone to ground, from what I can gather. The outstanding projects he was responsible for seem to be in limbo.

 

Yep and they may be the victims of bad choices and worse partnerships too. But producing something more than promises of "hard at it" wouldn't hurt.

And let's not forget that they made the choice to use a kickstarter campaign and get involved in making a comic. Was it a bad decision, possibly, was it their decision, certainly.

And this was all done after seeing the mishandling of the initial effort probably from a better perspective than anyone else because they were involved directly.

That's not being mean or cynical, that's just an assessment of where they are due entirely to choices that they made.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "mishandling of the initial effort", there; the original figure Kickstarter had few if any problems. All Backers received what they put in for, and Mayhem met all of their obligations up to that point. In terms of the figures, it was only when Sid handed the toy side of things fully over to Spence so he could focus on the comic side that problems started cropping up.

And I'm not totally clear on what your problem is with the comic Kickstarter, either - yes, it's taken its time to come to fruition, but we should start seeing rewards soon. Producing a comic to build a narrative around the figures was something Mayhem always intended to do, because figures are just figures without characters to build around them and a world to put them in. Comics take time to produce, they were forced to make compromises early in the comic Kickstarter that limited their production budget, and from what I can gather, aside from the covers, they've been working with a very small production team for the guts of the book.

 

You know, it's not worth this discussion. You choose to see their promise as good enough. I choose to question that the first and only time CZ has provided an update is because after three months someone has brought the thread to light again. Facebook, last post in March; the MM website just has "pageok".

And I would bet that questioning a lack of updates would only get defensive responses much as it did during the toy campaign.

I also find it insulting to the backers when an excuse of "hard work and time consuming" is used when efforts aren't clearly being shown. Yep, producing a comic is hard work, they knew that from the beginning.

But producing, at the very least, the first issue in digital format could have happened by now, right? If it has, my apologies for being inaccurate but I can only find four pages in a quick search.

I was fortunate enough to not throw any more money at a Bastard Project and realize a pattern of hollow promise when I see it.

I wish you luck in receiving your six issues. I would hope that you see at least the first.

 

@glazios as always thank you for your belief and support. The sad fact is Hicks Royel is right about a lot of things.

I'm still proud of the first kickstarter and the fact that every single pledge and reward was fulfilled. I'm incredibly glad we brought Cassy's designs kicking and screaming into the real world as a physical object. We knew the odds were against us from day one and we knew there were risks.

I feel we still don't know the full story of what happened with the factory, I haven't spoken to Spencer (or many people) for months. I have always chosen to believe the Unrustables was entered into by all parties with the best of faith on all sides with the single goal.of producing something cool and you know what... we did that.

It shouldn't have cost as much as it did in terms of time, money and friends. Factories should be paid. The purple bike should have never have been offered. The comic should have been earlier, possibly before the first figure kickstarter. Most importantly the second figure The Yamazuki should never have been offered as a kickstarter if there was even a hint that something wasn't right. That's why you never got the Yamazuki kickstarter: I blocked it because I got cold feet. I could not say why but I got a feeling we needed to not collect another $100k plus of other people's money and I acted on that instinct. In the process of doing that I may have been the one to scupper not only Mayhem Mekanics, but also Maas. Maybe that extra cash would have been the thing to keep everything in the black and kept everything moving forward. I don't know. I can't say what happened exactly but I know I didn't want to be responsible for that much of other people's hard earned money should something go wrong. In hindsight it's incredible that I ever felt confident enough to even try the first kickstarter back in 2016!

But yeah, the cost of doing this was high. But thank God it wasn't higher. Just six years of my life.

And there is light at the end of the tunnel regarding the comic and completing my obligations towards that.

What happened after that I don't know. Will we ever get any more figures? Unlikely. Is the Mayhem Mekanics / Unrustables toyline dead? In it's current form, probably.

Historically, success is always built on the back of failure. I just don't want it built on the back of YOUR money.

I guess we keep failing forward until we succeed with this or something else. But the comics are coming.

 

Failure is an opportunity to learn, that's where the success comes from. Learning from mistakes and not repeating them. You've yet to prove that you aren't repeating your mistakes and, therefore, have no proof of success.

If that's "failing forward" well, good luck with that, I suppose it did get you more money.

And the time you spend here is time you could be producing a comic.