April 2015 New Flesk Titles Update

Hi, everyone,

I don’t recall there ever being a time when I felt more passionate about making art books than right now. There’s a good reason for this. A culmination of two years of focus on redeveloping the internal structure here at Flesk, followed by moving into our new office space in the fall of 2014, the addition of more help in the office, while gaining a new book trade distribution partner (Publishers Group West) has put us in an exceptional position for growth. We are equipped with the resources, support and goodwill to make books that we can be proud of, while knowing our partners will get them into the stores worldwide. 2015 is the beginning of a whole new chapter for Flesk. And we have you, our supporters, to thank.

I would like to give you an update on the latest Flesk books that are coming out soon.

The Book of Giants by Petar Meseldzija. This book is being bound and finalized at the printer. Due to the complexity of the deluxe edition the production time is taking a little longer than usual. However, it will be worth the wait. We are still on track for a summer release.

Storms at Sea by Mark Schultz. The trade edition is on the press now. The proofs looked beautiful and I gave an enthusiastic approval to the printer. We will have copies in the summer.

Something to note about Storms at Sea is that we will be producing a deluxe edition in a larger format. Mark and I have already determined all of the extra components that we wish to include. I am currently checking with various printers to find one who can do the specialized work I’m looking for. I have no schedule for this yet, although I’m aiming for the end of this year.

Tribes of Kai by Daren Bader and Lance HaunRogue. All of the art and writing is complete. We are currently in the design stages. Thanks to the generosity of our backers who supported our pre-order campaign using Kickstarter we are adding a number of upgrades to the deluxe edition. We plan on turning these in to the printer in early May. We also have a second complementary book Pridelands that will be limited to 500 copies. I’ll have these listed on the Flesk website soon with the full details. These will be available in late summer.

The Art of Elfquest with art by Wendy Pini and text by Richard and Wendy Pini. This is in of the most exciting books that I’ve worked on. Elfquest is one of the first comics that I read in the mid-eighties and helped set the stage for my passion for great independent storytelling. I absolutely adore Richard and Wendy and have put a lot of pressure on myself to get this book right. It’s scheduled for this fall.

Portfolio by Mark Schultz. This large format book is at the printer. It’s a complete collection of the five Various Drawings books, along with some new art. Mark wrote many new captions throughout as well. We ended up reviewing all of the originals and bringing them up to our current standards by doing slight adjustments to all of the art. I’ll be reviewing the proofs on Monday. This is also slated for summer.

Bruce Timm. We are working on a new show book with an increased page count and size compared to the previous three show books. It’s a whole new look that we are having a blast putting together. I’ll show off the cover, title name and details next month.

Imagery from the Bird’s Home: The Art of Bill Carman. I’ve been wanted to work with Bill ever since I first met him when we were both judges for Spectrum 17. Bill is designing this book himself and it looks gorgeous. Our new distributor, PGW, informed us that they love the cover and sample pages so much that they are highlighting it on their catalog cover. Bill is wrapping up the final spreads. We are aiming for a delivery date to the printer in early May.

Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art 22. With Spectrum 21 under my belt I fully realize how much work this is to design and write. (A ton!) July 1st is my due date to have it to the printer. Fortunately, I’ve already written most of the 2014 year in review. (I’ve even written part of the year in review for Spectrum 23.) I’ve learned to write portions each month, rather than write it all at once at the end of the year. I have some news ideas that I will be implementing to the chapter headers.

The Nexus Chronicles by Steve Rude. This book is a hair width away from being done. Steve is providing some commentary and once this goes in the book we will send it off to the printer. We’ve collected a batch of our favorite stories direct from the original art.

Beyond these titles, we are working on the new Harvey Dunn book for the South Dakota Art Museum and I’m already building our list for 2016-2018. (There are roughly 30 books that I have my hands in.)

Thanks for reading.

Enjoy,

John

John Fleskes

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