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Crowdfund comics about science and scientists, Ralph Bakshi shorts, and Space Invaders chess

If you love science—and laughing both at scientists and with them—there's a great new Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal looking for crowdfunding. Plus, animator Ralph Bakshi has a new independent animated project, a crew of laser cutters is building Space Invaders chess sets, and a puppeteer is working on an intriguing steampunk short.

SCIENCE: Ruining Everything Since 1543: Zach Weinersmith's Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal is one of the smartest webcomics out there, especially when it comes to poking fun at science and scientists. This collection includes comics about how aliens would interpret our treatment of flowers, the greatest "Who's on first?" rendition of the periodic table, and the, ahem, excitable tendencies of science reporters. For a $10 pledge, you'll receive an ebook of the collection. For a $20 pledge, you'll receive both the ebook and the physical book.

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Last Days of Coney Island by Ralph Bakshi: This isn't a genre fiction endeavor, but still an interesting project from an interesting creator. Bakshi describes Last Days of Coney Island as "an animated cop, mafia, horror movie set in the 1960s in Coney Island, with political overtones both realistic and outrageous." The movie will be constructed as a series of short films, and Bakshi is looking to raise funds for the first short. For a $10 pledge, you'll get access to a pre-release online screening of the short, and if you're in the mood to shell out $1,250 or more, you can score an original background drawing from Bakshi's animated Lord of the Rings. [via Twitch]

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Space Invader Chess Set laser cut from acrylic: This is a fun idea for folks fond of classic arcade games. It is, very simply what it says: a full chess set with Space Invaders sprites as the pieces. For a $65 pledge, you'll receive the full chess set and board. If you're not one for chess, you can get the nine individual character pieces for a $20 pledge and stage your own invasion. [via Kotaku]

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Monster of the Sky: We don't see nearly enough steampunk media that utilizes puppetry, but Sam Koji Hale seeks to rectify that. His work combines computer effects with puppetry, and here is the pitch for his latest short:

MONSTER OF THE SKY is a mythical 10-minute sci-fi/fantasy film about a woman swept away to, and then held captive in, a palace in the clouds, her clockwork world interrupted by a handsome stranger from the sky. Enabled by the ghosts of her ancestors, our heroine embarks on a quest to punish her lover and captor, escalating to a spectacular final battle between them: a goddess of destruction and a mechanical winged warrior clash in the silence of deep space. It is a tale of love, revenge and closure.

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For a $15 pledge, you'll receive a digital download of the film.