Michael Marcus has teamed up with Detroit Tradecraft to launch an IndieGoGo benefit campaign to help support comic book creator William Messner-Loebs and his wife Nadine, who have found themselves on hard times and are currently homeless.
William Messner- Loebs or Bill Loebs is a comic book veteran having written for both DC Comics and Marvel Comics as well as a number of smaller publishers including BOOM! Studios, Dark Horse Comics, Eclipse Comics, Zenescope Entertainment, and others.
Loebs created Linda Park with artist Greg LaRocque when he began writing The Flash in 1988. In fact, he had a lengthy run on The Flash from The Flash #15 all the way to The Flash #61. Loebs would go on to work on Dr. Fate as well as Wonder Woman and Hawkman. During his Wonder Woman run he created Artemis of Bana-Mighdall. Loebs also was the writer on the Batman newspaper comic strip in 1990 and continued work on it until it was cancelled.
He had a brief run on Thor in 1996. He would also script The Maxx, which was co-written and drawn by Sam Kieth. Loebs would return to work on DC Comics with an issue of Green Arrow in 2005. He would also pen the DC Retroactive: The Flash – The ’80s and DC Retroactive: WOnder Woman – The ’90s one-shots in 2011. Loebs would even be credited on DC’s Wonder Woman movie.
This isn’t the first time Loebs and his wife have struggled with homelessness. In the early 2000s, he and his wife lost their home after both his mother and wife got sick. Fortunately, he received help from Clifford Meth and Neal Adams who created a benefit auction as well as an art tribute book titled Heroes & Villains where all proceeds went to Messner-Loebs.
Bill Messner-Loebs’ current problems stem from a gas leak that occurred at his house while he was receiving the Bill Finger award at San Diego’s Comic Con. His house was declared unlivable by the Fire Marshall.
Bill currently lives in his car and travels from church to church where he participates in a church program called Severe Weather Network. According to Fox 2 Detroit, the Severe Weather Network is “a collaborative effort in Livingston County where churches host the homeless during winter months – kind of a “share the task, help a lot of people” thing.”
But while Bill might be homeless, he is still working hard. He works part time at a Panera and is also working as a janitor at one of the churches.
The Unforgotten
The benefit comic book titled The Unforgotten will be an anthology featuring work by Tom Orzechowski, Bill Bryan, Brent Bowman, G. Walker Teon, J.R. Mounts, C. Pat Jackson, David Branstetter, Marco Evans, Anthony Zicari, Claudio Sepulveda, Nick Gibson, Jason Johnson, and Jammie Eric Baird.
The Unforgotten will be thirty six pages in length with full color. The theme of the anthology series will be about homelessness.
Marcus elaborates:
“This is about William and Nadine Messner-Loebs and helping them find their way back into a place of their own. This is also about homelessness in general–these are people like us, and most of us are just one bad month from being on the streets, just like them. This anthology highlights that fact.”
Marcus explains that all profits from the sale of The Unforgotten will go towards helping Bill and Nadine into a new home.
“The goal we set assumes the cost of a print run of 500 books and shipments for the books within the United States, with the profit going directly to Bill and Nadine Messner-Loebs. The more books we print, however, the lower the cost-per-book goes, and the more we get to give. Should we miraculously raise enough to help them into a new home by our means alone, any surplus funds will go to Habitat for Humanity, helping to build homes for the homeless.”
Perks
There are a number of perks, backers to this anthology book can contribute to.
$3 – You will receive a digital copy of The Unforgotten in PDF format.
$10 – You will receive a physical copy of The Unforgotten that will be shipped USPS First Class Mail in the United States
$15 – You get two physical copies of The Unforgotten vis USPS First Class Mail
$20 – You get one physical copy of The Unforgotten via Priority Mail
$25 – You get two copies of The Unforgotten via Priority Mail
$50 – You get two copies of The Unforgotten and your names will be published on a Special Thanks page in the book
The IndieGoGo currently has a goal of $5,000. As of this writing it has already raised $2,787 from