There is just 1 day left to join our Arthur Adams Kickstarter campaign. This forty-year retrospective on the comic-art career of Arthur Adams comes with a gatefold of the cover art, plus nearly 200 drawings and sketches. Each book pledge comes with a bonus portfolio that includes a signed envelope containing five prints–one of which is signed. You also get two bookmarks.
A huge thanks to everyone who has made this upcoming book a big success! We already have the book at the printer and have approved the proofs. We can’t wait to get Arthur’s retrospective into your hands.
Brynn Metheney will be exhibiting at Monsterpalooza this weekend in Pasadena, California. We will be announcing the details about Brynn’s first book from Flesk soon! You can visit Brynn at this show to see her amazing art in person.
Wendy Pini–Celebrating 45 years of Elfquest!
Did you know that 2023 marks the 45th year anniversary of Elfquest? So exciting! Richard and Wendy Pini are making some appearances this year to celebrate. To start, Wendy will be appearing all three days at áyA Con this June 9-11, 2023. This event is located at the McNichols Civic Center Building in Denver, Colorado.
This will be our first time exhibiting at this show and we’re bringing a variety of art books with us. We’ve heard a lot of great things about this show and look forward to seeing everyone there!
Four artists who we are actively working on new books with will be making special appearances.
Daniel Warren Johnson, who is the artist for this fun Murder Falcon cover, will be at the Felix Comic Art table signing all three days. We’ve been working hard on his upcoming book to have the first pass available to show Daniel when we see each other. Pretty exciting!
William Stout and Mark Schultz (Xenozoic and Carbon art book series) will be with us at our Flesk table throughout the event. Both will be signing and have an assortment of original art with them. We have the massive three-volume Stout Comics retrospective in development, and something planned with Schultz, too.
We’re also fortunate to have Jeffrey Alan Love (Thousand Demon Tree and Notes From the Shadowed City) with us at the show. Jeff will be signing between our table and the Felix Comic Art area. We have a new book with Jeff that is getting very close to being done.
Between now and the show we will be continuing to work on these new books. I’m looking forward to seeing these artists as much as you all must be!
We made a short trip to Southern California to visit William Stout last week. We photographed a bunch of recently completed artwork, filmed Bill coloring in some of his new ink pieces using watercolor, and discussed his new Comics three-volume set.
Bill is like ten artists in one. He can do anything and everything! Each time we visit we come up with a new project to start. I’ll give you an example. As Vicky and I were leaving Bill’s studio I noticed a large stack of recently finished originals that he completed for a project. Vicky and I immediately started brainstorming a book idea. I asked Bill if we could take the art home with us to photograph, and before we knew it we were the caretakers of over 100 originals while driving home and talking about the our approach to the new book.
We aim to bring you a fresh library of new Stout books!
The Art of Arthur Adams Kickstarter campaign from Flesk will launch on Tuesday, May 2nd.
We will reveal all of the details and the live link about this long-awaited book on that day.
We can’t wait to share the all-new cover to the book that Arthur has drawn. We spent years putting this book together with Arthur and are eager to get it out to the world. Thanks!
J.A.W. Cooper’s 2023 solo show “Curious” at @gallerynucleus in the Los Angeles area is now available to view online (and also in person through April 30th)!
Cooper completed over 30 new originals that were revealed during the opening night on April 15th from 5:00-8:00PM. We were delighted to see Cooper swarmed by visitors. The line to meet and talk with Cooper lasted throughout the full three-hour premier and eventually had to be moved outside since the gallery had to close. It was great to see everyone there. We had such a good time!
All of the Kickstarter pledges and Flesk online store pre-orders for Carbon 5 by Mark Schultz have been shipped. Thank you so much for making Mark’s latest art book collection a success!
We have approximately 80 copies left of the hardcover signed edition that is limited to 800 copies. This fifth volume in his Carbon art-book series features new drawings and paintings, all created within the last two years.
For those who may want to pick up a copy, here is the link to learn more:
New graphic novel by Jeffrey Alan Love in development from Flesk!
A note from Jeff:
“I finished painting the pages for my next graphic novel with Flesk Publications last week. Whenever I finish a project I immediately think that I should redo it, as I’ve learned so much in the making of it, and I could do a better job of it now. There’s so much left to learn, and I hope I have the years left in my life to grow as an artist and writer in the ways that I hope to. Next up is working with a letterer to find a type that integrates with the art, painting the cover, and then letting John Fleskes work his magic.”
The book is currently being designed. We will announce a release date as soon as we are done.
Photographing Daniel Warren Johnson sketchbooks! We have been slowly working on a new DWJ book. We don’t have any details or a release date to share yet, but rest assured it is in development.
I was talking with Vicky and the subject arose regarding what our top sellers were for 2022. I never sorted out a top 10 list before. Out of curiosity we pulled up the numbers and found ourselves surprised with the results.
We decided to determine the rankings based upon the quantity sold rather than the gross sales. We then combined all of the editions for each title. For instance, paperback and hardcover and limited edition sales were all combined to make one grand total for each title.
Franklin Booth is the clear winner when factoring in both total sales and the total number of books sold. This book did far better than I expected. It came as a complete surprise when the hardcover edition that we offered on Kickstarter sold out. This book served as our Flesk 20th anniversary title and we poured a lot of passion into it. The success of the collection is a testament to just how extraordinary Booth’s art is. It’s great to see how someone who left us over 75 years ago can remain so relevant to a contemporary audience. And I can’t thank Alice Carter enough for her insightful manuscript detailing Booth’s life.
There is no magic formula to knowing how any one of our books will be received. I wanted to see this book back in print and guessed that others may be interested. Bruce Timm’s personal naughty drawings remain a bestseller year after year. He is a joy to work with and we have more books in the works together. Our other book with Bruce, The Big Tease, is currently sold out. I’ll bring this back to print once the shipping and printing costs drop back down to reasonable levels.
This was a very welcome surprise to see this title at the number three spot. This beautifully illustrated book is packed with Gianni’s pencil drawings. It’s a great value at only $19.95 for the paperback. Marcelo Anciano (editor and designer) and Gary Gianni poured their efforts and time into the creative design and production of this book. It was my pleasure to publish it.
Since we didn’t ship this book until 2022, I went ahead and rolled over the Kickstarter pre-orders from 2021 to combine with the 2022 sales. Even if I didn’t it would still have made the top 10. A gorgeous book and one that was a delight to work on with Tyler. His art is breathtaking. I’m delighted that he was willing to let us publish a collection of his art. We have some ideas that we are playing around with for a new book that will come out in the future.
I’m showing the cover for Spectrum 25 by Paul Bonner, but this is a combined entry for Spectrum 21-27. By grouping the sales for all seven volumes this book hits the fifth spot on the list. The sales for all editions for this series jumped in 2021 and 2022. Our distributor blew through the remaining inventory. Each volume is now sold out from our distributor and officially out of print. We have the remaining copies on our website.
No surprise here. Frank has always been a top and a steady seller here at Flesk. This book consists of all of the material that we wanted to add to his big The Art of Frank Cho book, but had to omit for space considerations. I feel satisfied and happy to have been able to share more great Cho art in this book. Frank is one of the best draftsmen in the business. His figure work is astonishing.
Even after almost a decade in print, The Art of Brom rules! We are sold out of the publisher edition and copies here at our office. The last remaining hardcovers are with our distributor and will sell out this year. Brom is a silly and really good guy who happens to draw dark subjects. I hope you have had a chance to read his novels too!
The most common question that we hear at events, in comments and through emails are, “When is new Xenozoic material coming?” My answer to you is that anything Mark wants us to publish–whenever it is done and ready–we will support him and get it into your hands. (Sorry for the politician answer.) We have had this Xenozoic book in print since 2010 and it remains one of our top sellers. This collects everything that Mark has written and drawn to date. It’s a terrific story that I enjoy reading over and over.
This book was over 15 years in the making. I met Brad when I was first starting to publish and he was first starting to become a serious painter. We always kept in touch and would visit with one another from time to time. We talked about working with one another for years. We remained patient and let the time present itself to us. The book came out exactly when it was meant to. We never rushed it and remained patient. I am thrilled with how beautiful it looks. The magic square idea that Brad came up with is brilliant and adds to how special this book is. I was reminded of something very important with this book. Brad’s collection may be the latest book that I have published, yet it remains Brad’s first. I have to work with everyone, and on every book, as if it is the first. The quality of the book always takes precedence over the release date and quantity of titles I publish in a year. I should note that if we determined this list by gross sales, this would jump to the number two spot.
I think it is pretty well known that it is tough to get published by me and that I do not take book proposals. A big part of this is because I made the conscience decision to keep this company small. That limits how much I can do in a year. When I received the email from Mark asking if I was interested in publishing this book it took me less than a minute to reply with a “yes!” Getting to work with Mark and Kevin was a dream. I absolutely love this book and am proud to have had the chance to publish it.
Honorable Mentions
Now it’s time for some honorable mentions. The Big Tease by Bruce Timm andBallpoint Beauties by Frank Cho may have been on the top ten if not for both titles selling out earlier in the year. I have plans to reprint both as soon as the supply chain issues have calmed down and shipping prices have subsided.
Next up is Covenant by Allen Williams. This book was a big seller in 2021. It’s nice to see it still being appreciated during the second year after its release. The Thousand Demon Tree by Jeffrey Alan Love was also popular. It would surely have had a higher ranking if it did not sell out at our distributor. I have plans to reprint this alongside Jeff’s next book that we will publish later this year.
The final book that I’ll note is Art of Gary Gianni for George R. R. Martin’s Seven Kingdoms. This is another magical collection put together by the editor and designer, Marcelo Anciano, and the artist, Gary Gianni. These two have packaged some extraordinary books and make quite the team. Again, this represents another time when I was lucky enough to publish a book by two people who I admire.
Back in June, Bruce Timm emailed me about a fresh stack of originals that he pulled together for me to scan for possible upcoming projects. When he mentioned that there was over 400 pieces we both got nervous about shipping them in the mail.
Vicky and I drove down to the LA area to scan and photograph the originals to make the process smoother. We arrived back home with enough material for three new Timm books. Pretty exciting!
This picture is of our makeshift office at the hotel. You can see a stack of originals on the scanner, and even more in the binder. There is another full binder that you can’t see in this picture. Bruce makes all of his art on standard copy paper. This is his favorite type of paper to work on.
Since this trip, Bruce has discovered more artwork. Another photography trip is in our future!
The first all-new book of three is planned for the fall 2023 at the earliest. I will share the details about exactly what each of these titles will focus on in the future. In the meantime, we hope you continue to enjoy The Big Tease and Naughty and Nice.
