VEI Press Sponsorship Announced!

Lots of excitement since Monday [12 September] evening this week!!

A quick bit of background info, first: While at the con in August a man went up to Andy Lee’s table and bought a copy of Drawing The Line. Andy informed him that I was the person who had put it all together and was seated a couple of tables down. He came over and we chatted like comic book fans of a certain mode are wont. Over the course of the day he became our biggest customer, buying 7 out of the 9 books we managed to sell. He asked about the new project and about sponsoring. His name is Kasra Ghanbari.

I was at this particular table [next to Andy Lee] thanks to Walter Dickinson and Sean Menard. They had the table assigned to Frecklebean Comics, but decided not to use it. During a chat with them, Sean suggested that the best way to garner attention for DTL2 would be to launch it at a comic convention. My aim was to have the artwork in by mid-October for a 1st of December release to profit from Christmas sales and the spirit of ‘sharing/giving’.

So on Monday evening I got the phone call. Kasra, after sounding me out, said that he’d like to sponsor the print run and the artists’ copies – the majority of the proposed budget for the new project, essentially. The parent company is VEI Studios and the arm that is sponsoring our project is VEI Press. VEI Press focuses on creating limited run, hand-crafted, illustrated books. These include graphic novels, children’s books, and artist retrospectives. More information will soon be available at http://www.veipress.cc./ VEI Press is part of VEI Studios, Inc., which develops and produces a wide range of multi-media content. More information may be found at http://www.vei.cc./

Kasra is passionate yet humble and seems a great person. He also said that he has contacts with a lot of “who’s who”. I have sent off our Miyazaki proposal to him because he said he "...can deliver it into Miyazaki’s own hands”!! WOW!! Thanks to this conversation the next book is growing in size and shape. I called our printer to check out new prices and possible colour inserts. As well, there will be an extension for the artists who are sitting on the fence or looking for more time. You know who you are!!

As the conversation with Kasra began to wind down, I brought up Sean’s idea of the launch and said that the only comic convention that was on the horizon of any worth was the Paradise Con. On Wednesday [14 September] night I met with Peter Dixon and Kevin Boyd of Paradise Comics. They are very excited, too, and we will have the next book launch during the weekend of 28 – 30 April, 2006. Stan Lee is the guest of honour. See http://www.torontocomicon.com/ . There will also be an art auction so if you are ready to contribute your originals, please do so. Let me know.

So far we have 12 pages in. Ron Kasman is finished as well and waiting to send in his 4-pager. 84 pages have been committed to; that works out to 20 pages left before we reach the 104 page mark of the first book. Kasra and I were talking about increasing the number of pages in the new book and possibly having some colour pages in the middle. This all depends on the quotes we get from the printer. We are waiting for revised quotes and will be discussing that with Kasra in the following days.

Out of the 45 or so artists that have committed, 10 or so have NOT given me an estimated page count; and I’m still waiting to hear from some of you, please!! I trust this will enable you to commit. There is a new deadline for the art: Wednesday, 1st FEBRUARY 2006. My thanks must go out to all the artists who have already delivered artwork. My apologies for my off-timing. Forgive me, but I think given recent events this will be a better date for everyone.

We are, of course, also excited to make Drawing The Line's NewsBlog (www.benefitcomic.blogspot.com) live. Tell everyone to check it out!

There you have it. I look forward to all the contributions with giddy glee and want to thank all artists, again, profusely, for participating and making this project a reality. It couldn’t happen have happened without YOUR generosity and support!!!

Cheers,
Suley