Sometimes they’re curled up under the desk. Sometimes they’re supervising from the back of a chair. Sometimes they’re sitting directly on the keyboard, absolutely certain that whatever you were working on can wait. Adorable Assistants: Tails Behind the Art is a mixed-media anthology celebrating the animals who share our lives, our studios, and - whether we asked them to or not - our creative process.
Through comics, short stories, and illustrations, creators share stories about the pets, service animals, emotional support animals, and other beloved companions who keep us company while we do the things we do. These are stories about inspiration and interruption, comfort and chaos, late-night deadlines, warm laps, stolen pencils, mysterious noises during video calls, and the very important reminder that perhaps you have been working long enough and should go throw the ball right now.
Adorable Assistants is a love letter to the fur, feathers, and scales behind the art: the companions who sit beside us through every sketch, rewrite, deadline, rejection, breakthrough, and victory.
20+ talented creators 3 editors 1 partridge in a pear tree
What makes Adorable Assistants so Special?
Adorable Assistants wasn’t just created to make a good anthology.
The anthology began through a mentorship program developed by Arledge Comics, where Maria’s concept was selected to be developed with guidance from two experienced editors. From the very beginning, the goal was to make the process itself part of the project. We worked with our mentee through every stage of anthology production: building the application and submission process, reviewing pitches and portfolios, communicating with contributors, shaping the book, and eventually doing the hands-on editorial work required to wrangle all those individual pieces into one cohesive collection.
Because this was both a publishing project and a teaching opportunity, Adorable Assistants grew slowly and intentionally over the course of several years. That gave us room to move through each stage together, share the practical behind-the-scenes knowledge that comes from editing and publishing comics, and give an emerging editor the chance to learn by actually doing the work. Which is, as it turns out, the best way to discover just how many spreadsheets an anthology can generate. The result is a book we’re proud of not only for the stories inside it, but for the mentorship, experience, and community that helped bring it to life.
Every stretch goal in this campaign is delightfully simple: we pay the creators more.
Our original funding goal is $3,500, and for every additional $500 we raise beyond that, every contributing artist and writer gets a small pay bump.
So once we hit goal, keep sharing, keep backing, and keep pushing this campaign upward. Every extra pledge helps turn a successful anthology into a better payday for the people who actually made it. No increasingly unhinged pile of bonus objects. No surprise manufacturing side quest. Just more money going directly to the creators whose stories, comics, and art fill these pages.
If you want to help us do something genuinely meaningful with our stretch goals, help us blow past $3,500 and put more money in our contributors’ pockets.
Shipping costs will be charged to you SEPARATELY through your BackerKit survey.
Add on items may come with additional shipping costs depending on the final weight of your order.
All orders are shipped through USPS and come with tracking. International backers are responsible for their own country's VAT or import taxes/fees. Due to new GDPR rules, we're currently unable to ship to countries within the EU. Sorry!
When shipping internationally we will make every effort to properly fill out customs forms. We will abide by your country's customs and shipping laws, which means we will denote the package value as the cost of your order, and mark it as merchandise. We are not responsible if your country holds your package and requires extra payment to release it.
Due to the ever-changing tariff landscape, we may experience fulfillment delays. Should this happen, we only ask for your patience as issues resolve.
The Book Bazaar is doing a little cross-campaign mischief: back three or more participating projects, and you’ll receive an exclusive bookmark from every campaign you backed. That means the more projects you support, the more tiny pieces of limited-edition bookish treasure you get to collect. It’s our way of rewarding folks who wander through The Bazaar, find several things they love, and decide that restraint is wildly overrated.
Picture it. Sicily. 1922. Or in our case, small town in Washington state 2016.
Arledge Comics is turning 10 this year! 🎉 We started back in May 2016, and a whole decade of stories, art, ups and downs, we’re still here thanks to you - our backers. To say thank you for all the support over the years, we’re giving returning backers an exclusive collectible trading card with each of our BackerKit campaigns this year. There are nine cards total, all illustrated by the incredible Melissa Capriglione, and when you collect them all, they fit together to form one complete scene. It’s our little anniversary thank you to the folks who’ve been with us along the way. 💖
Welcome to The Book Bazaar, a celebration of all things indie and small press! We're collaborating to help make each creator's dreams come true with their publishing project. The more you back, the more goodies you earn. Here's how you can earn more:
🌟 Back three (or more) projects, get even more rewards. You can never have enough bookmarks! Each The Book Bazaar 2026 project will be offering a TBB exclusive bookmark... Back any 3 campaigns, and get those campaign's bookmarks (as long as the campaigns fund). Each bookmark will be fulfilled by each campaign and will be fulfilled/shipped with your campaign's rewards.
🌟 Back ten (or more) projects, get an exclusive reward. We're offering an exclusive The Book Bazaar: Volume 2 reward to anyone who goes all out and backs ten or more projects. The Book Bazaar 2026 participants are putting together a one-of-a-kind anthology full of unique and never-before-seen stories. This anthology is available as an ebook to qualifying backers, and physical perfect-bound book for an additional fee (shipped separately from other rewards in early 2027). Claim your anthology by showing your support now!
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