In case someone other than me is interested in this, Nozomi Entertainment has a Kickstarter up to create an English dub of the first season of Emma: A Victorian Romance (the link goes to legally streaming English subtitled episodes). No, not Jane Austen's Emma. It's the anime version of Kaoru Mori's manga about the romance between William, the eldest son of a wealthy merchant middle class family, and Emma, a maid.

I'm hoping that the Kickstarter will not only get fully funded, but that it'll reach the Season 2 stretch goal, so that I can hear the English dub for this guy (Hans, the footman, aka the guy I still kind of wish Emma had ended up with):

If I had the money for those tiers, I'd love the Emma figure, Emma doll with amazingly detailed period clothing (seriously, the doll comes with instructions explaining how to tie her corset), and even the custom cosplay outfit, although I don't cosplay. Alas, I must settle for a tier that won't make my bank account scream in agony.

If you're at all interested in manga and haven't read this series before, I highly recommend it. No Kickstarter necessary for those, they're all already published and available. The series jumps off the rails a bit near the end, with action and melodrama, but Mori's gorgeous artwork helps make up for it. I do remember one cringe-y bit - an Indian prince character, Hakim, who comes across as a giant stereotype at the beginning of the series. Mori adds a bit of depth to him and his family later on, but I could still see the character being a problem for folks.

Unlike the digital version, this print edition of The Sadist’s Bible will be a wholly unique reading experience which will include scene-specific typographic and graphic design, as well as in-book illustrations by artist Patrick McEvoy. The final product will be a 140 page book, the cover will be full-color and printed on 14pt cardstock and be covered in a Gloss coat.The inside pages will be a 70 lbs. paper stock. This Kickstarter is to fund offset printing require to produce a book of this high quality.

Nicole Cushing is the Bram Stoker Award® winning author of Mr. Suicide. She has also written the Stoker-nominated collection The Mirrors and the Shirley Jackson Award nominated novella, Children of No One.

Various reviewers have described her work as “brutal”, “cerebral”, “transgressive”, “taboo”, “groundbreaking” and “mind-bending”. This Is Horror has said that she is “quickly becoming a household name for horror fans”. She has also garnered praise from Jack Ketchum, Rue Morgue, Thomas Ligotti, John Skipp, S.T. Joshi, Poppy Z. Brite, Ray Garton, Famous Monsters of Filmland, and Ain’t It Cool News.

A native of Maryland, she now lives with her husband in Indiana.

This appeals to the part of me that is always gravitating towards pretty covers. All the pretty, none of the "oh crap, I probably should have read more of the excerpt." Also, Julie Dillon has successfully delivered on at least one other Kickstarter that I know of, so it's a good one for the risk-averse, like myself.

I love how IMMEDIATELY dorks jump in claiming that this-or-that creature is not a zombie. People are so determined to police the semantic boundaries around zombies, more so than any other creature out there. Maybe it's because zombies are often a stand-in for racial or economic divides, and we (possibly I mean Americans here) are deeply kinked about the semantic boundaries of those too. Either way, this chart is pretty sweet.