New York artist Jess Ruliffson is turning the table on her fellow cartoonists: Last year, she set out to paint 100 portraits of her comic book peers for a one-day exhibition at a local gallery. That show has come and gone, sadly, but after interest in seeing these works continued, Ruliffson partnered with Paper Rocket Comics to publish 50 of those pieces in a book titled Characters: Fifty Portraits of Contemporary Cartoonists.

Of the 50 cartoonists profiled, you can see comic stalwarts like Reilly Brown, Dean Haspiel, Lara Antal, Josh Neufeld and Nick Bertozzi. Ruliffson even relented and included a self-portrait to complete the book.

Paper Rocket and Ruliffson took to Kickstarter to help make this project a reality, and with the fundraising period ending Saturday the publisher has already exceeded its modest $600 goal. Plans are to publish the book in early March. Paper Rocket used Kickstarter as both a capital campaign and a back-door pre-ordering system.