Broken Frontier

Earlier this week, non-profit corporation Heroes4Heroes reached out to the comics and entertainment world, looking for support. The organisation, launched at the Live art Show at Wizard World Texas in November, was formed by Chris McCrosky and Scott Hinze, of Komikazee.com and Fanboy Radio fame respectively. It aims to boost morale of US military members by sending entertainment material of all sorts—ranging from comics, magazines, and books to CDs, DVDs, MP3 players and gaming systems.

“Early this year, Chris and I knew we wanted to do something with our massive media collections we've assembled over the years,” co-founder and VP of Media Relations Scott Hinze said about the initiative. “Something besides letting them sit there for years and years without doing anything for the world.

“One idea was to give them to poor or sick kids in our communities, but when we were looking over the content of most of our favorite reads, they weren't very appropriate. Chris and I have different opinions and points of view on the use of our military these past few years, but we could agree on one thing—we wanted to do everything we could to help boost troop morale. If that meant just giving away chunks of our comic & DVD collection, it was well worth it to us."

While not wanting to take anything away from other pop culture-related non-profits and industry-spawned charity organisations like the Hero Initiative and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF), Hinze feels Heroes4Heroes fulfils a real need by itself in many ways. “First, it raises troop morale by keeping them culturally tuned-in, one of the only ways that I personally can help make this world a better place to live in. Second, by purging some of my comics, it gives me some perspective and makes me feel great—and because this is an honest-to-goodness non-profit, I can write everything off. Third, we can tell our troops and the world that comic and entertainment fans aren't just selfish, lazy creative-types that are obsessed about fantasy; we love our hobby, but we love the sacrifice our men and women do for us a whole lot more.

“In the end, if the word spreads and we're successful, we can help put the comic and pop culture community in a unique light that will be attractive and maybe [cause for] more people to be interested in what comics and other mediums a whole have to offer.

“And, no doubt it'll be nice for collectors and even retailers or distributors to get a write-off instead of selling things at a quarter or dime per book, but that's because the US Government is in complete agreement that as long as we give our troops quality entertainment, the giver should be benefited as well.”

When it came down to finding other people within both the comics industry, and the broader entertainment field, Hinze experienced it wasn’t all that hard to find interested parties who wanted to commit to the Heroes4Heroes cause. “Our one sentence explanation usually did the trick: "We're giving comics and a bunch of other stuff to troops overseas. Wanna help?"”

Exactly who will be helping the Heroes4Heroes cause, remains a mystery at this time, as Hinze wasn’t at liberty to announce anything specific, because most of the entertainment people and companies involved want their own announcement opportunity on their terms. Feeling bad he couldn’t unveil anything, Hinze did confirm for BF that one creator who’ll be making a donation is Kabuki creator David Mack. “I did just get a huge email from David and he's sending a ton of books as well as donating signed books for auction.”

While Heroes4Heroes will continue to accept donations for some time to come, people who want to have theirs to be included with the first big shipment have to act quickly. “We'll be using whatever we have in our inventory whenever we can,” Hinze stated. “But if people want to get something in to us by the time we make our shipment to the 2nd Battalion 8th Cavalry, we'll probably need everything by the 10th or 11th of January as the shipment will be going out January 12.

Media and financial donations can be sent to:
Heroes4Heroes
9905 Boston Harbor Drive
Aubrey, TX  76227

For online donations, go to: http://www.heroes4heroes.org/donate .

Finally, to give a complete overview of the charity’s present and future accomplishment, here’s an excerpt from the Heroes4Heroes press release that went out on Wednesday.

• A direct-to-Iraq shipment needs to be filled!  The 2nd Battalion 8th Cavalry has 42 soldiers that H4H is currently building care packets for.  The members of this Regiment have specifically requested magazines that cover hunting, fishing, guns and men's topics (Maxim Magazine was mentioned by name).   H4H wants to fill specific requests, as well give additional entertainment material that will surprise our men and women in uniform, so please give what you can.
 
• H4H is in the final stages of putting together a program to provide Xbox 360s for USO stations!   An anonymous supporter of our troops has made it possible for H4H to implement a program that helps the USO do their great work.  While the contribution is a wonderful gift for our returning troops that are staying here at home, H4H is requesting Xbox 360 accessories (extra controllers, headsets, adaptors, etc.) and games to properly outfit this charity package.  The USO station in Dallas, TX will be the first to receive the Xbox 360 charity pack and we will roll the program out nationally through out next year.
 
• Comic book artists are helping in a big way!  Tone Rodriguez, Rick Hoberg and Steve Bennett have all donated outstanding original art that will be up for auction at the H4H site soon.   Here's a huge "Thank you" to them as well as Brock Rizy, Kristian Donaldson, Benjamin Hall, Tom Kurzanski, Cal Slayton, Kody Chamberlain, Cheeks and Marc Wolfe who all donated their time and art at the live art show benefit in November.   The art show was a complete success, reached every goal and was supported by Agg Productions with supplies donated by Zeus Comics.  H4H encourages any artists that believe in the H4H effort to give any available original art for auction.
 
• H4H is in contact with the USO, Chaplains and Fort Hood MWR!  The civilian media distribution charity has a working relationship with the United Service Organization, is getting started with the US Army Chaplain Center and is ironing out the details with Fort Hood Morale, Welfare & Recreation.   Heroes4Heroes has made it a primary goal to provide reading material for solders on their way to assignment overseas and those in medical centers.   There will be more information on the H4H website as news develops.  
 
• The future is bright!  Heroes4Heroes is working with major media outlets, publishers, studios, producers, distributors and creators to raise awareness of supporting our troops with entertainment media donations. If you or a contact of yours can help with the cause, please contact the charity directly.
 
• Your donations matter!  $5 can make a big difference and will help with bulk orders of material, transportation and legal fees.   If you are like most pop culture fans and the H4H staffers, and only have a massive media collection to your name, this charity is perfect for you – Heroes4Heroes will gladly accept your media donations.