Star Wars: Ben Solo Fans Raise $7,500 for Original Charles Soule Story Benefitting Comic Stores

Devotees of one particular Star Wars character are using their love for him to do some good. Fans of Adam Driver's Kylo Ren/Ben Solo from the Star Wars sequel trilogy have taken to a GoFundMe campaign to pool their money together to bid an auction benefiting the Book Industry Charitable Foundation. The auction is for some unique and exclusive content about the sequel character including a signed copy of the Marvel Comic Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren #1 with a signature from writer Charles Soule is being auctioned off as party of the event, with Soule revealing he'll write a NON-CANON, unofficial, prose story about Ben Solo or Kylo Ren as an additional bonus. Plus some original art by the series' artist Will Sliney will be included as well.

Soule has said the prose story he intends to write will only be distributed to the winner, which prompted the creation of the GoFundMe to not only insure Ben Solo fans got the chance to read it, but to bring even more money to the BINC Fund. The campaign wrote: "Charles explained this story would only be shared if the winner of the auction decided to share, so we're pooling money and ensuring Ben Solo's newest story is told to all fans. Thank you for all your help! Let's Save Ben Solo." Funds will be raised for the bid through Monday, April 20.

"I'll pick topic and details, though I am planning to let bidders vote on whether it's a story about Ben or Kylo, if I can," Soule tweeted about the auction. "Will and I will get it done ASAP considering other commitments." The writer went on to say that if the fund hits $9,000 in total he'll up the word count to 1,500 words.

The BINC Fund is being used to help booksellers comic shops "who are affected by COVID -19, with serious medical expenses, eviction prevention, funeral expenses, disaster assistance, domestic violence survival, utility shut-off prevention, unexpected loss of household income, and more."

Luckily for Ben Solo/Kylo Ren fans, all four issues of Soule and Sliney's The Rise of Kylo Ren comic were able to be published by Marvel before the coronavirus shutdown fully impacted the comic book industry. The same cannot be said for other anticipated Star Wars stories, like an upcoming Clone Wars comic series which has been delayed indefinitely by IDW Publishing.