Finland’s Rovio Entertainment has teamed up with LA-based publisher Rocketship Entertainment to launch its first-ever Kickstarter campaign for a series of three 150-page Angry Birds graphic novels. 

Angry Birds – A Graphic Novel Collection got underway on the crowdfunding platform today, and its goal is to generate US$10,000 in the next month. The funds will go toward publishing three all-new stories from comic creators Paul Tobin and Thom Zahler: The Haunting of Hog House, Level Up and Breaking the Bank. 

To incentivise investors to back the project, Rocketship has constructed benefit tiers that will let them access stories individually in Kickstarter-exclusive softback and hardcover prints (starting at US$19 each), or all together in Team Birds or Team Pigs bundles (starting at US$65). If it’s successfully funded, the collection will roll out to backers and participating retailers next spring. 

With this move, Rovio joins a growing number of kids brand owners who are using Kickstarter as a platform to create exclusive editions of graphic novel series for their most demanding fans ahead of a traditional retail launch. And this first campaign is currently sitting at US$4,720 pledged by 51 backers. 

Past successes using this model include Skybound’s The Transformers Compendium Set, which launched in May and raised US$4.6 million and more than 11,000 pledges during its 31-day run. And BOOM! Studios has hosted three Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Kickstarters that have collectively sold more than US$2 million in comics. 

Since Kickstarter launched in 2009, its user base has funded more than 21,000 comic book projects—13,549 of them at a US$1,000 to US$10,000 level. So far, only eight campaigns have raised more than US$1 million, but that could change with the right IP and the right fandom.