Meet the Flesk Crew – John Fleskes

Hi, everyone,

Running a book publishing business could not happen without the help of a hard working group of people. I like those who are fun to be around, are smart and have a good work ethic. The day to day tasks can be demanding, but we share the enthusiasm for what we do and can feel proud of what we accomplish.

There are three core elements to what goes on here at Flesk Publications. The first is Flesk, where our focus is making beautiful art books. The second aspect is focused on the yearly Spectrum annual. And the third area is the Spectrum Fantastic Art Live event. (I wrote a separate Spectrum Fantastic Art Live post which goes into the details of that crew.) Each of the following individuals represent the Flesk crew who assist in all three of these areas.

Keith Silva is my full duty assistant. He manages the office, orders and emails. He also edits and puts together almost all of the videos that we post each week. He’s been going through all of our film archives that run back approximately 10 years, as well as taking new footage to make clips out of. He also serves as a secondary camera man when needed. Keith also helps me with book production by scanning art and by doing the first pass on the color correcting. He maps out books by following my blueprints, helps to review books for quality control prior to printing and just about anything else that I ask him to do throughout the day. He pays attention to details and works with pride.

Josh Ford is both an old-time Flesk crew member and a new one. Josh has been helping at shows for years where he has proven himself friendly and hard working. He also helps with orders, emails and the general office odds and ends needs to help keep things flowing.

James Walker has been with us since starting in 2002 by helping at the Flesk booth at events. He serves as the lead at events by setting up the booth and making sure things go smoothly.

Heather Chang, Veronica Otto, Rachel Silva and Gary Velo come in on occasion when work piles up. Good examples of this are when a new book comes out, or we are doing Kickstarter fulfillment. At times we may have hundreds of boxes to pack and ship and I always want pre-orders out the door as soon as possible so as many people get them at the same time as possible. Also, Laura West helps on occasion at Comic-Con and we are always glad to have her there.

Martin Timins is our chief copy editor. He is instrumental in raising the standard of the text within our entire line. He works with all of the artists and writers to improve their manuscripts.

Arpad Terek is new with Flesk. He is a book designer who is helping us to get caught up on the backlog of thirty books in development. Between Arpad and myself we are chipping away at the pile.

Tracy, Vineeta and Jocelyn are my secret money task force. They handle the Flesk accounting, bookkeeping and banking needs. You cannot run a business without having good people looking out for you and the money end of things.

That brings me to myself. In general I prefer praising others and pointing out their achievements. For the sake of this blog post, I’ll touch briefly upon some of the things that I do. On most days I split my attention between Flesk and Spectrum. The first thing that I do once I arrive at the office is sit down with the crew and discuss our goals for the day. I share any news that is helpful to keep them updated on what is going on in the business. I’m fairly open about everything that is going on. These are good people who I enjoy spending the day with.

Once they have their tasks and are busy working I turn my attention on what I need to do. I usually start with emails and phone calls to update or answer questions relating to books or events to make sure everyone who needs something is taken care of. This can keep me busy until lunchtime or take the full day depending on what’s going on.

On a good day I’ll get to work on whatever book project I am working on late in the day. Three that are hot on my plate are Spectrum 22, Art of Elfquest and a new Harvey Dunn book for the South Dakota Art Museum. All three are in a good place as they are being tightened up and prepared for the final design stage

It takes hundreds of hours each week to run these three aspects of the business. And with your support we will keep at it!

Enjoy,

John

John Fleskes

Flesk Publications
Flesk Publications on Facebook
Spectrum Fantastic Art
Spectrum Fantastic Art Live
Spectrum Fantastic Art Live on Facebook