Welcome back to another Crowdfunding Carnival! It’s not just any Crowdfunding Carnival, though…it’s February. And that means it’s time for Zine Month! And this is a big deal, because for the first time since 2022, it’s actually time for Zine Month, not just Zine Quest. Backerkit has stepped into the ring and it looks like they’re going to stand toe to toe with…wait, I’ve just gotten word that Backerkit’s Zinetopia event is capped at 63 projects? Meaning that if we extrapolate from Kickstarter’s typical Zine Quest growth profile they’ll end up being around 30% of the size? Hm. Oh dear.

It’s not a bad showing, to be clear; 63 non-Kickstarter projects is more than we’ve ever seen from the alternate Zine Event folks since Kickstarter made the confusing decision to move Zine Quest to August. But ultimately there were more Zine Quest projects live even by February 2nd, and unlike Backerkit Kickstarter will let you tag any zine project started in February as Zine Quest, so we’re likely to have well over 200 projects by February’s end, if not even more. It is notable, though, that while the number of projects live in the first week of Zine Month is similar this year and last (around 150), the split is around 60/40 Kickstarter and BackerKit, meaning that a lot of people took Backerkit’s rival Zinetopia event seriously.