New Art Reveal, Book Launch Event & Backerkit Survey Coming
3 months ago
– Sun, Aug 23, 2026 at 07:37:14 AM
Hello everyone! With the book wrapped and off to the press in Europe, I wanted to provide a few updates here as we await the arrival of our massive 592 page final premium collectors edition for our Kickstarter backers!
The buzz around the book has been absolutely wonderful. At San Diego Comic Con we were able to share a preview print with some of our collaborators including Jorge Gutierrez, Rafael Gallur, El Kartun and Brian Viveros - and watching their eyes all light up at the size, scope and presentation of the book truly made me happy. This joy also extended when convention attendees who had never even heard about our project stopped by the Masked Republic booth and learned of it for the first time - and the decided they HAD to have it. We anticipate a relatively limited amount of books to be available after we fulfull the Kickstarter orders, so if you do know others interested, I'd encourage them to take advantage of the late pledge option here on the page.
As most of you are aware by now, the team here decided that even though certain stretch goals were not met, we were going to do all we could to go above and beyond. That is how the book went from 300+ pages to nearly 600. To that end as well, it was our hope to meet the stretch goal of having Mexican muralist Miguel Valverde, perhaps best known to lucha libre fans for having created the mural inside Arena Mexico, create an alternate side of our dust jacket. And, I am very excited to let you know that we have been working with Miguel quietly behind the scenes to actually be able to include this! So, it is with great pride that I share with you now this amazing piece which will only be included as a dual side to the dust jacket with the Kickstarter edition. You can learn more about Miguel at @muralistavalverde on Instagram (his works include sculptures, murals and other works of art found throughout Mexico and in galleries in Europe) and look for an interview I conducted with him along with bonus art as part of the epilogue of the Kickstarter version of the book as well.
We are honored that the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) in Los Angeles will be hosting the Luchadores vs. Everything Book Launch event as part of their huge Lucha Libre Weekend September 25-27th. The launch event will take place on Friday, September 25th from 6-10 PM and will feature a panel discussion about the book and many of our contributors will be in attendance. Join Viviana, Jeff, Dr. David Wilt and myself for this very special moment. Information is available here: https://molaa.org/events/2026/09/25/luchadroes-vs-everything. And a huge thank you to Alison Heney of MOLAA (herself a book backer!) for all of her support of both the book and the creation of this special event for us.
Our book launch event is part of of the museum's larger lucha libre weekend which includes live matches and a concert on the Saturday night and a "lucha expo" on the Sunday featuring seminars, interactive events and vendors. 3-Day passes are available now, and we have been informed that individual event passes (including our book launch event) will be available closer to the event date should there remain space after 3-Day pass sales complete.
Finally, now that we have the size and weight of the book (a massive 6+ lbs), it's time for us to get all of our fulfillment details set up. In order to process orders and serve you better, we will be using Backerkit. Sometime in the next few weeks, backers will receive a Backerkit survey which will help us collect your address for shipping, determine shipping costs and collect any additional information we need for any add ons you may have selected.
Stay tuned here for more updates including your chance to possibly get a sneak peek at the book or experience the films or art from the book close up closer to you this Fall.
We thank you all so very much for your continued support of the book and can't wait for you to have it in your hands before the end of the year. (And when that happens, we fully expect you all to share its awesomeness on social media and tag us #luchadoresvseverything).
-Kevin
