If you are in the Phoenix area, come say hi to me at the Phoenix Comicon happening now! I’m in booth 448 under my publishing name Coffee Table Comics! Here’s a map:
I believe I’ll be on a few panels about Kickstarter too so swing on by and lets hang out. Hopefully I’ll see you there!
Jason
Hey everyone! So I have been toying with Youtube lately and I think it’s going to replace my future blogging especially once reMIND is over. Here is my first Vlog! Check it out and subscribe to my channel if you will. My channel is called BrubakerMotion and I’ll probably be putting my future episodes of Making Comics on here as well. Oh yeah, and please share this with EVERYONE!
I’m happy to say that we are at the tail end of shipping out all the Kickstarter orders now. By my rough estimate, we have about 200 orders left and most of those are higher tiers or custom orders. I never in my wildest dreams thought it would be this much work and at times it was paralyzing to walk in my garage and see 3000 books on shelves and no idea how I could get them all out by the end of April. If it wasn’t for friends suggesting shipping parties and hiring helpers then I would be lost in a downward spiral of panic and cold sweats. But even more so, everyone who has come forward to lend me helpful hands and their time, I am truly indebted to and grateful for. I wouldn’t be even close without everyone who helped at the shipping parties. And I want to especially thank Edmond, who has been coming almost every week night to help me pack special orders.
To give you a little window into the process, a friend of mine, who happens to have a Youtube channel, came over to film this last Saturday while we were having a packing party and he caught it all on camera. Soon he will edit a sweet little interview / 5 minute documentary on this project in which I’ll post a link here in a few weeks once it’s online.
But in the meantime, he sent me a bunch of pictures he took while there.
In total I drew about 700 sketches of Victuals that day. I’ve never broken a sweat while drawing before. :)
Even though we mostly look serious in these photos, I assure you, the mood was light and happy and everyone got along great. I think I have some of the best support in the world! :) We packed and shipped about 330 orders this Saturday! That’s amazing if you ask me. It took 3 cars to get it all to the Post Office on Monday.
Thank you to everyone that showed up to help on Saturday: John, Becky, Snowden, Casey, David, Imron, Philip, and Jules (who happens to have a few webcomics of her own here and here.) Serious guys, when all these books are out, we are all going to go have drinks. :)
Almost every night I’ve been printing out postage and helping Edmond pack a few orders. And then in the morning of almost each weekday, I load up my trunk and back seat with boxes and take them to the post office. This was today:
Here it all is filling a post office cart. By now I am friends with all the postal workers and they just let me drive up to the back of the post office and load up a cart myself and push it inside (before the post office even opens to the public). I feel special. :)
Just so you know, this is about $2000 worth of international postage. It’s crazy!
Now, if you ordered prints or original art then your books will probably come first and then your prints will come at a later date once I get all the books out. Also, I’m finally starting to think about that 100k stretch goal of the Making Of book. I’ll probably be able to start assembling the artwork in May and I’ll probably end up making it slightly lighter than reMIND to help lower the crazy shipping costs (which have all increased since my campaign ended.) Anyway, I’m committed to getting all the rewards out in a reasonable time and from the looks of it, we are close.
Thanks again for all your patience.
Oh yeah, if you haven’t sent me your survey answers from a long time ago or if you are international and haven’t paid for international shipping then I will not be sending your order. I have no way of knowing where to send your books without your completed survey. And international shipping is VERY expensive.
That’s it for now! See you soon!
Jason
Thank you John, Becky, Jessica, Casey and Imron! You guys are cool people!
The first packing party went off with a bang! It’s hard for me to express how grateful to you guys who were able to show up and spend your Saturday with me to help. You guys were all so pleasant to work with and it was a great atmosphere! I hope my stress levels didn’t affect anyone too much.
In total we packed 469 books and 270 packages!
That is huge! It would have taken me about 10 Saturdays to accomplish that by myself. haha. Now I realize just how big of a job this whole thing is and it looks like it’s going to take another 3 or 4 packing parties to get everything finished. I am scheduling another packing party on the 9th of March and so if anyone else wants to join in then please send me an email and I’ll add you to my list. Here are a few pictures when we first started and then a few more of all the books that were packed.
For those of you wondering, were able to pack most of the $50 tier rewards and half of the $25 tier rewards. (US only) So within a week some of you just might have a surprise at your doorstep. Thanks again for checking in and we will see you soon!
PS. I’ll be posting the next spread tomorrow (Tuesday) instead of today. Sorry for being late.
See you soon!
Hey all! Happy Valentines Day! Completely unrelated to reMIND, here is a stuffed caterpillar that I made for my wife for Valentines this year.
Now, back to reMIND stuff. Here are pictures of the postcards that all my backers will be getting with their books. I think they turned out great.
Shipping Party this Saturday!
If any of you live close to North Hollywood, I’ll be having a small shipping party this Saturday to try to burn through a bunch of my Kickstarter orders. So far I have about 5 people helping but I wanted to throw it out there that if anyone is local and interested in hanging out and helping then I’d love all the help I can get. Send me an email if you really really really want to help and I’ll give you specifics.
Thanks again for all your support and see you soon!
Jason
I just wanted to show a little picture of what showed up this morning.
Yeah, it’s like that. :)
Today I received a package from my printer. Inside were some goodies. Here is what I found.
This is the cover proof with cloth binding. It looks beautiful too! I am always worried about how the image will line up with the cloth and logo and stuff but once again, Chris Kosek did a great job making sure all the files worked together and the end result is amazing.
Above, it is folded like a book. There is a slight morie pattern on the cloth in this picture so just ignore that. Below are the fake Volumes inside the new slipcase! I need to make a note for the printer to make sure the size of the new printings exactly match the first printing. You can see here that the new printing (Volume 2) is slightly taller than the first printing of Volume 1.
Below is the slipcase that Christopher Kosek designed. It’s nice and subtle and super cool looking. I really compliments the books well. It’s hard to see in the pictures but the log is just a spot gloss. It’s not printed on the art but you can easily see it because it’s the only shiny part of the slipcase.
Here is the other side.
It looks sooooooo good I almost peed my pants.
If you like this slipcase but didn’t pledge on my Kickstarter, but you really want one, then you should join my mailing list becasue I will only sell them on my website for a super limited time early next year. I’ll also be selling them at a few conventions while they last. I ended up printing 1000 slipcases but about 800 are already pre-sold. You can join my mailing list to be notified when I announce a pre-order here: http://www.remindblog.com/subscribe/
That’s it for now. See you soon!
Things are moving along smoothly with the printing of reMIND Vol 1, Vol 2 and slipcase. I received that proofs about midway through last week and made my small notes and sent everything back. There was only the new cover of Volume 1 that was missing so I’m waiting for that still. We are still on schedule for me to get the books at the end of January too. Here are some pictures I snapped of some of the proofs.
Here are the digital proofs. This is what I look at to make sure the color looks exactly right. These digital proofs are what the printer people will try to match the final colors too. So if these are off then they will be trying to match to off colors. These turned out perfectly though. :)
Next were the Ozalid Proofs. These are to make sure everything is cropped right and the pages are in the correct order. Usually ozalid’s a very ugly with horrible color but for some reason this time, they looked great.
Here you can see how they are made out of signatures, as they call it. A signature is pretty much just like a comic book. Each signature is printed on one sheet of paper and folded over and over and trimmed until it looks like this little booklet. These signatures are stapled but the book itself will be sewn. In this closeup you can see a little number for each signature so the binder will know they have the signatures in the correct order. This is the Ozalid for Volume 2.
Next are the Wet Proofs. These are actually printed on the printing press and they are trying to match the colors to the digital proofs above. In this case they were pretty close but some of the yellows had a slight green hue so I made a note to adjust it. Other than that the Wet Proofs were spot on. You will notice that the wet proofs are all cropped sloppy because it doesn’t matter.
There were also Wet Proofs for the cover. A glossy and unfinished version. I approved the glossy version. The left side is what the back cover will look like.
Here is a picture of almost everything, minus the slipcase proof and Volume 1 proofs.
That’s it for now! We are getting so close I can feel it.
In other news, reMIND Volume 1 made it onto a state reading list for Arkansas! I don’t know how it happened but I am honored that any state would entrust their children to read reMIND. :) Thanks again for all your support!
I came home from work today and I had a nice shiny package waiting for me from my printer! Book dummies! Yay!
So what is a Dummy? It depends on who you are talking about. Kidding. A dummy is a blank book that has the correct paper, trim, and binding. It’s exactly what your book should look like but without anything printed on or in it. I also got a dummy slipcase which looks great too.
Volume 2 is slightly thicker than Volume 1. Above is a close up of the binding.
For those of you who are wondering, Volume 1 is EXACTLY the same size as the first printing. I tested it out by slipping a first printing of Volume 1 into the slipcase along side the dummy for Volume 2 and it looks seamless together. I gotta say, this thing actually feels like a collectors item now. I think everyone who ordered the box set will be very pleased.
Here’s one last picture of the back of the slipcase.
Oh yeah, and look at one more thing:
Everything is pretty much finished now. I’m just in proofread mode. A bunch of my friends and family are reading it all as we speak, giving me notes or pointing out any mistakes they can find. Soooo close!
See you soon,
Jason
Here is the new progress chart!
Actually the lettering still has a few pages but I got excited about blocked it out because I’m letting my editor take a stab at some of the missing dialogue. Even so, it’s an amazing feeling to be finished with all the artwork for this book now. No, serious. In fact it’s kinda hard to explain really. Let me try.
With the brunt of reMIND finished I’ve been spending my free time these last few days cleaning the massive piles of paper and random stuff that have been collecting on every surface in my studio for the last 2 years. I never felt like I had time to do anything but work on the book since I made a tight deadline for myself. After the first printing ran out of stock I just kinda went into obsessive mode to get things finished. My wife would want me to clean up piles of junk around my desk but I would instantly get overwhelmed because I knew it would take 2 weeks to organize and clean and I wouldn’t be making progress on the book. But now that I have time I find myself in a curious situation.
I just started digging through piles of artwork. Bills. Scraps of papers and letters. Things that need to be tossed. Things that were thrown aside in a rush and then buried. I’m finding memories from the last 5 years of working on reMIND in it’s various forms and it’s starting to feel kinda strange. The closest thing I can compare it to is digging through someone’s house after they passed away. It’s sounds kinda morbid but it’s not really. Don’t misunderstand, I don’t consider reMIND dead in any way, in fact now is when its life will truly begin. But the time that it was being created has passed on and now it will always just be a memory of the journey. Finding old art is like finding old photographs. And now it’s time to start packing those memories away and organizing it as best as I can so I can finally move on. It’s kinda sad but it’s also a relief.
I really am excited to see reMIND venture out into the world on its own as a complete story finally. I’m even more excited to start working on some new projects. I clearly remember the time that I decided not to touch any other personal projects until I finished reMIND to ensure that I actually finished it.
Okay, enough of my long, strange, state-of-mind ramblings. Plus I need to start packing for New York Comic-Con! If you see me wondering around I’ll probably have a complete copy of reMIND 2 on hand. ;)
As I write this, the reMIND Kickstarter has 7 hours left before it closes. 7 HOURS! Also we are about $1500 away from hitting $100,000 and unlocking the Hardcover “Making Of reMIND” book!
LOOK AT THE CHART NOW! SOOOO CLOSE! (it’s already out of date)
We are so close to that 100k goal that I am going to open up the option RIGHT NOW to add $25 to any reward tier (under $75) to have the Making Of book added to your reward. If you have selected a $75 tier or higher then you will automatically be getting a “Making Of” book when we cross 100k. Unfortunately when I came up with this 100k goal idea, I didn’t factor in the extra shipping costs because I realize now that I will be sending the “Making Of” books at a later date. So what I hate asking, but feel I must, is if you are an international backer who will be getting a “Making Of” book, would you be able to add an additional $10 to your shipping? ( I can feel the frustration welling up inside of everyone as I type) If you are in the US, It would be helpful if you could add at least $5 extra for shipping for the Making Of book. If you simply hate the idea of adding money for an extra book then I will not force you though. :)
There is also the option to forfeit the Making Of book if you really don’t want it. This will save me lots of production and shipping costs for your copy if you are not interested. Then I can sell it at a convention or something. So for those of you who simply want what you pledged for and nothing else, then please just tell me in the survey that I send out in a few months.
Just so you can see what I am thinking for this book, here are some spreads I assembled a few years ago when I first started thinking about doing something like this. I’ll add a little more text and show as many stages of the progress from initial ideas to animation to layouts to coloring tutorials (I think). Check it out:
Last night I added 20 more $75 Box Set slots and they were all eaten up in a few hours so this morning I added another 30 slots. It looks like they are going fast again so grab one quick if you want one.
I have been getting a few questions about the T-shirt designs so I might as well give you more info before this thing closes. I have 2 shirts. The gray one with the cover of Volume 1 on the front was printed about 2 years ago and it is the shirt that I usually take around to conventions to sell. Here is a close up of the front and back.
The new design that I am making for this Kickstarter campaign is this blue shirt below with Victuals in his robot suit. So far this shirt has not been printed because I am just waiting to tally up all the sizes for this campaign and then I’ll place my order.
Once again, if you want to add any of these shirts to your pledge then first refer to the chart on the home page to see if you are eligible. If you are interested in the hoodie then here is a picture of that. There is nothing printed on the back.
The Hoodie is kinda an inside joke for the die hard reMIND fans. There is a scene in the book where a bubble watcher is wearing this hoodie and several of my readers asked if I would make it. Once again, check the chart to see if you can add one of these if you want one.
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Well, I hate to say it but this will probably be my last update before this campaign closes. You have all been a wonderful group and the comments section of this campaign is off the charts! I love it! I have a lot of you to thank for your help in keeping the momentum alive for this campaign too. I’ll get to that in my next post after everything is done. :)
Keep in mind that even though this campaign is closing today, I’ll still be giving you updates as I make progress on everything. The updates will probably drop to once a week and then once a month but I’ll try to keep you informed as best I can.
Thanks again for all your support in this crazy dream! Now lets hit that $100,000 ULTIMATE goal and close this thing down in style!
Love you all!
Jason
We have 32 hours left on the reMIND V2 Kickstarter as I write this. We are at around $93k! I can just hardly believe how much support and enthusiasm there is for this. Just one year ago I recorded a podcast saying that I didn’t think a solo-no-name-artist/writer could raise 100k for a comic on Kickstarter but here we are just a few thousand away.
As I write this, reMIND is officially in the top 10 most funded Kickstarter projects for comics. And when I look at the comics in the top 10 I notice that it’s the third most funded original graphic novel of all time right behind Sullivan’s Sluggers’ ($97k) and Fairy Quest ($95k). Everything else is either an anthology, art book, marketing campaign, or paying for something that isn’t a comic at all (like to replace the advertising on Penny Arcade). So, I’m going to put a new goal at $97,627 which would make reMIND the MOST funded original graphic novel on Kickstarter. :)
The biggest question I get at this point is about how to get the Making Of book if you weren’t able to get a $75 or higher pledge. It has been a hard question to answer because until we hit 100k I didn’t want to make any offers. But I think I have a solution.
IF we hit 100k before this campaign closes… anyone under a $75 tier level can add $25 to their pledge to get a “Making Of” book. But just remember, the “Making Of” book is still miles from completion and it will not be sent with everything else in your package. IF we hit 100k and you miss your chance to add $25 to your pledge then I will offer you another chance to add it to your order through Paypal after the fact. So don’t worry, IF we get to 100k then you will have plenty of chances to lock in a Making Of book if you want one. How does that sound? The only down side is if you are international and you have added money for the Making Of book then you will have to add shipping again. Sorry.
There is no real release date set for this Making Of book, only that I was planning on working on it after I finished the story of reMIND.
The second most asked question I get now is if you can add $25 to your pledge and get an additional copy of reMIND Volume 1 or 2. The answer is yes. Just remember to increase your postage if needed to ship more than one book. And remember that it will be your responsibility to tell me what the extra money is for when I send out the survey to collect your information. But seriously, you can add as many books as you want. I would love it! :)
I had an art contest for reMIND Volume 2 last month and I received 44 amazing submissions. I opened up voting on my site last week to narrow it down to the top 3. Then it was my job to decide which of the top 3 would be included in the book and win $150. It was a hard decision but I think I have finally made up my mind. The winner is…
Christopher Clements!
I was happy to see this one got a ton of votes because every time I looked at it I would smile as I scanned all the details of the image. I get a kick out of seeing what each character is thinking about. Plus, it’s one of my wife’s favorites too. :) So, congratulations Christopher! Your pinup will be printed in reMIND Volume 2 and you win $150!
Second place goes to Don Garvey & Mike Connelly who did an amazing looking piece as well which had more votes than anyone by a landslide!
Third place goes to Bradley Smith who also had a ton of votes with his great looking piece.
Thanks again to all the artists who submitted.
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The number of days on the reMIND Kickstarter has switched to hours! This means we are officially in the home stretch. So, instead of announcing something new that will only complicate everything, I think I need to address some common existing questions. But first, the progress chart:
Many have asked what I plan on doing after reMIND and how to find out about it. The best way is to join my mailing list. I only send to this list when I have something new coming out or if I launch something like this Kickstarter or a pre-order. If you do join my list, please put jason@remindblog.com into your email program as a trusted source so my emails don’t accidentally go into your spam folder. Click this link to join it.
Fill out your name, email and submit it and you will be notified when I start something new! :)
Now that we are almost finished with this campaign I want to remind you that if you are outside of the USA then you will need to add the appropriate shipping to your pledge. This does not automatically happen when the campaign closes. You need to do this manually. But don’t worry it’s easy, just login to Kickstarter. Right under where it says how many hours are left to go you should see a big blue button that says, “Manage Your Pledge”. Click that button and then where it says, “Pledge amount”, you will need to add the appropriate shipping(if you are outside of the U.S.A.). If you don’t do this then I will not be able to send you your book(s) until I get additional funds to help cover some of the shipping. If the campaign closes and I still need shipping money from you then I’ll send you an email with my paypal info to pay what is needed. Here’s the shipping chart again:
I know that you are savvy though, after all, you ARE using Kickstarter so I’m pretty sure you have this all under control but I figured I’d just make sure.
Oh yeah, one more thing, if you selected one of the tiers that has one book & a slipcase, then you will need to pay for the higher shipping charge because the slipcase will be the size of 2 books and I will have to use a bigger box and more packing. Sorry.
I know many of you have added lots of stuff to your pledge like books, prints and shirts. If you have then PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE remember to write it down somewhere safe because it will be YOUR JOB to tell me what you donated the extra money for when I send out my survey to collect your information. This survey will not be sent out until after the campaign closes, and in some cases, it won’t be send out until early next year. So once again, it would be a good idea to make a note of this somewhere so you remember what you gave me money for. (if you added money for something specific)
Messaging me will not remind we what your money is for because it will just get lost in the messaging system here. The survey will be the only way to make sure you get the extras you paid for otherwise I will just assume you gave me extra money just to be super nice. :) I hope that is clear enough.
I know that many of you were pushing hard to get that hardcover unlocked and I am grateful for your help. Even if we don’t reach that 100k goal, I want you to know that I am still planning on making the hardcover book at some point. Everyone who backed this project will be the first to know and I’ll be more than happy to give you a big fat discount if you want it.
On top of that, I have a “How-to” book that I have been writing over the last 3 years. It’s around 200 pages long and it will probably be the next thing I launch a Kickstarter for. I have been asked countless times if I would write a book about making and self-publishing comics and as soon as I finish reMIND, I will put in a few months to finish it next. Once again, join my mailing list if this is something you’re interested in. Mailing List.
Thanks again for making this crazy dream so much more crazy! Crazy is a good way.
See you tomorrow!
Jason
I’ve been putting off releasing reMIND as a digital download for a long time mainly because I don’t have an iPad and so I have never had the desire to see it on one. reMIND has always been a book for print first and foremost. That’s not to say I am against a digital version though. So one day John Roberts, the Co-Founder of ComiXology, approached me about my future plans for reMIND. I knew about ComiXology but never pursued them because they were for mainstream comics (Marvel, DC and Image) and I never thought they would even consider listing reMIND next to The Walking Dead and Batman.
Later, John and I talked at the San Diego Comic-Con and I told him that I was about to launch a new Kickstarter for Volume 2. He offered to put reMIND on Comixology and offer it for free as a download to all my backers. I said yes. Now I happily announce that reMIND Volume 1 and 2 will be exclusively on ComiXology as a digital download. Not only that, if you back reMIND on Kickstarter then you will be given a free download of the book you selected.
The best part about this is you will be able to get this ComiXology download months before the book actually comes out so if you are eager to see how reMIND ends, ComiXology readers will be the first ones to see it. We don’t have an official release date yet but I’ll let you know as we get closer. Here is a quick word from ComiXology:
All Kickstarter backers at $25 or more will be gifted a copy of the book they selected for free on comiXology – the revolutionary digital comics platform.
That means if you have an iPhone, iPad, Android, Kindle Fire or access to the web – and if you are reading this than you do – you will be able to read reMIND in comiXology’s patent pending Guided View across their entire platform!
There you have it! I know many of you have been asking me about a downloadable version of reMIND and here it finally is. :)
So just for fun I snuck it in my stretch goal chart today at $83k. Blam-o! UNLOCKED!
And just for clarity, here is an updated version of the “What-am-I-Getting-and-can-I-add-Stuff-to-my-Pledge Chart?” Click to enlarge.
Just so you know, I have been pushing this thing in every way I know how. There’s some good publicity happening now and I have high hopes that things will keep up through the end of this campaign. All my effort is going towards finding new backers now and I know that many of you are doing the same and I greatly appreciate all your effort. Whatever happens, I will make it worth it to you.
Thanks again and I’ll see you on Monday with a new Update!
Jason
With our powers combined we have unlocked the secret of $80k! There’s no secret really. It just sounded cooler that way. But I have added one more stretch goal that we were talking about a few days ago. If (when) we reach 87k, I will do my best to make the first 2000 copies of reMIND Vol 2 with a special tipped-in signature page. If I can’t get it tipped-in then it will be something similar though because I’ve never done anything like that before so there are many unanswered questions about the logistics of doing something like this in a book.
$80,000 goal reached and the reMIND poster (digital only) has been unlocked!
Congratulations! Don’t get too excited about your download just yet because I’m not going to start working on it until after I actually finish the book. And I have a confession to make…
Yesterday I was trying to thumbnail out the 6 page Epilogue (the ending of the story) and… I completely rewrote it. This isn’t uncommon for me though. I usually have a rough script and when I finally go to thumbnail everything I make massive changes. The final chapter is still the same and I’m super excited for you to see it because it has all the amazing moments that I’ve been waiting to show for 7 years now. Anyway, I am very satisfied with the new ending now. I just need to send it to my editor to see if I’m crazy. :)
This brings me to the remaining tier levels. I was thinking about offering a new fancy tier reward but I decided against it yesterday. So what you have on the left is what you will have until the campaign closes in 6 days. I even removed the crazy $10k tier for fear that someone would actually select it and then I would have to paint a giant painting which would take me forever. haha It would be a great problem to have if I didn’t have to finish the book still but my time is limited to I need to be careful about what I offer.
You might also notice that I reduced some of the limited rewards. The $600 tier I lowered to 7 slots now. This allows me to give a plushie keychain to the 3 backers who pledged $650 now. So there is only 1 more $600 level left and I don’t plan on offering any more big rewards so grab it if you want it.
As of now, I will not be offering any more of my first printings of Volume 1 here on Kickstarter. Sorry. Well, except for that final $600 tier.
In addition, there are only 28 more BOX SET’s left. I don’t really want to increase the number that I need to make either so I doubt I will be upping the amount available. I know all these decisions might affect the amount of money we can potentially raise here but the real problem is going to be where to store over 5000 books and 600 slipcases when they arrive. It’s going to be a madhouse for a few months at my place.
To give you some perspective of just how many books that is. When I printed 2500 copies of Volume 1, I was delivered 4 pallets of books out of the back of a semi truck. I knew it would be a lot of books so I built some massive shelves in my garage to hold most of it.
When the books came the four pallets filled up the entire floor space of my half garage. I moved 3 of the four pallets to the shelves and started working on filling orders. You can see there is still a full pallet of books on the floor in the bottom left corner of this picture below.
Now, with this new run I will be printing at least twice as many books as this AND the second volume is thicker that the first one. AND I will also have slipcases as well. So I’m estimating having at least 8 to 10 pallets of books this time. I’m planning on moving some of my garage tools and stuff outside to a shed to make more room for all this craziness. It’s going to be tiring but I can’t wait!
If anyone is a local to North Hollywood and needs a job next year then let me know. I’m going to be looking for a good assistant to help out. ;)
See you soon,
Jason
In early 2010 I wrote an article on my blog called 1000 True Fans. Well, it was written about this original article by Kevin Kelly who is a best selling author. But I bring this up because the reMIND Vol 2 Kickstarter now has over 1000 backers who have shelled out their hard eared money to get a book. I’m not sure how many will continue to support any of my future projects but it feels surreal to look at that number when only 2 years ago I was dreaming about it. So I just want to take this moment to do The Slow Clap to all of you. Thanks for making this happen!
Now onto some amazing news!
Today I have a few choice morsels to serve you. First of all, raise of hands, has anyone heard of Skottie Young? (pause) Yeah, it looks like about 92% of you have. Very good. For those of you who don’t know of Skottie, he is the artist of the New York Times Best Selling and Eisner Award winning series of OZ adaptations published by Marvel Comics. And in my opinion he has one of the most imaginative art styles I’ve seen in a long time. (Link to Google Images here)
Skottie bought a copy of reMIND when it was a pre-order on Amazon and wrote one of my first reviews there. Since then he has been a big supporter of reMIND and we’ve become great friends. You can even give him some credit for keeping me focused on finishing this second book when all I wanted to do was flounder.
So why am I talking about Skottie? Because I asked him if he would contribute a pinup to the back of the book and he immediately said yes. In fact, you can see his amazing contribution right here! (Link to his site and see more amazing art)
In addition to that I am happy to announce that Skottie will be writing the Foreword for Volume 2! Thanks again Skottie, for all your help and support.
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On a side note, I had another audio interview shortly after I launched this Kickstarter Campaign with Santosh from Illustration.org. This one is more geared towards artists who are trying to create their own intellectual property. It went live this morning and you can hear part 1 right here. Thanks Santosh!
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Some of you noticed that I removed the $900 and $2000 tiers. I don’t have any grand reasons. I just decided to take them down because the bigger this campaign gets the less I will have time to do all these crazy big rewards which involve paintings and stuff. I think I’ll even remove the $10,000 reward as well because painting a large painting will take me FOREVER! Haha. Who knows maybe, Will Smith is watching this campaign just waiting to pull the trigger. ;)
I have another fun idea for a new reward but I’m still on the fence if I should put it up because it will complicate things. And at this point, I want to focus on getting new backers who have never heard of reMIND more than anything.
Oh yeah, one more thing. So for the first Volume of reMIND, I printed 2500 copies and they were all numbered. At this point I am looking at printing around 3500 copies of reMIND Volume 2 because of the amount of orders already placed through Kickstarter. BUT, I will not be numbering more than 2500 copies of Vol 2. I might even lower it to the first 2000 copies that are numbered this time so I can sell the unnumbered copies to Amazon, Libraries and random book stores. This will save me lots of time I think. But it also gives me the opportunity to do something extra special to those first 2000 copies. I’m looking into doing a Tipped-In page like a backer suggested that might look something like one of these:
http://www.awfulbooks.com/awfulbooks/extraextra/08%20-%20limitation%20pages/Limitation%20Pages.html
If this is the case, then these first 2000 copies that you all get will be very special indeed! This is just a thought at this point but one I am seriously considering.
And now, your daily progress chart!
See you tomorrow!
Jason
Okay, here we go! Take a moment to look through all the pinups that were submitted for the reMIND Volume 2 pinup contest below. You might want to get a pencil and paper to write your favorites down because there are 44! Once you determine your favorite 3 then scroll back to the top left sidebar under the comic and click the check boxes for the 3 that you like. Please only submit your favorites once but feel free to tell all your friends to come and vote. :)
Thank you to all the amazingly talented folks who put in the time to submit a reMIND drawing. I can’t wait to see who the top 3 are! The lucky winner will get their pinup printed in the reMIND Volume 2 book along side other industry professionals and win $150. This poll is just one of the factors in determining the winner but it is the most important factor so please vote.
If you have a slow internet connection then this post might take a while to load because it has 44 pictures in it. Enjoy!
reMIND pinup #1 by Mark Wise
reMIND pinup #2 by Shawn Williams
reMIND pinup #3 by Philip Wignell
reMIND pinup #4 by Christopher Clements
reMIND pinup #5 by Bradley Smith
reMIND pinup #6 by Sarah Leuver
reMIND pinup #7 by Jason Smith
reMIND pinup #8 by Mike Schwartz
reMIND pinup #9 by Aviv Itzcovitz
reMIND pinup #10 by Max Miller
reMIND pinup #11 by Don Garvey & Mike Connelly
reMIND pinup #12 by Taylor Lymbery
reMIND pinup #13 by Sam Kirkman
reMIND pinup #14 by Jerome Walford
reMIND pinup #15 by Insanity in a Box
reMIND pinup #16 by Jonny Jimison
reMIND pinup #17 by J C Mowrer
reMIND pinup #18 by Mike Slaton
reMIND pinup #19 by Kevin Cameron
reMIND pinup #20 by Wouter Goedkoop
reMIND pinup #21 by Neil Norris
reMIND pinup #22 by David Campbell
reMIND pinup #23 by Elson ‘Darkspeeds’ Wong
reMIND pinup #24 by Chris Stanfield
reMIND pinup #25 by Matt Buckett
reMIND pinup #26 by Derek Pashano
reMIND pinup #27 by Vanessa Hawley
reMIND pinup #28 by Chris Hagens
reMIND pinup #29 by Mandy Waaijer
reMIND pinup #30 by Patrick Concepcion
reMIND pinup #31 by Angela Entzminger
reMIND pinup #32 by James Hohenstein
reMIND pinup #33 by Mariah Kidd
reMIND pinup #34 by Reece James
reMIND pinup #35 by Chris Cabang
reMIND pinup #36 by Felisha Crittenden
reMIND pinup #37 by Silver Moonlight
reMIND pinup #38 by Erik Korsgaard
reMIND pinup #39 by Omar Karmally
reMIND pinup #40 by Samuel Lieb
reMIND pinup #41 by Monica Chambers
reMIND pinup #42 by Steven Jap
reMIND pinup #43 by Josue Geronimo
reMIND pinup #44 by Neil Norris (2)
That’s it. Now scroll all the way back to the top left column and cast your votes!
Just when I thought we couldn’t do it you hit a new goal in less than a day! That is incredible and I know that many of you are out there pounding the pavement sharing this project with friends, family and just today I was told that a backer talked about it on his radio show!!! Thank you all so much! This 100k ultimate goal is actually starting to look achievable now. If we keep going at the rate we are going then we will just barely hit it before the campaign closes. So keep it up and we’ll all be flipping through an extra hardcover book with lots of sketches and explanation of the journey to make reMIND!
But first, CONGRATULATIONS! Everyone who pledges at a 40 tier or higher will now get an original animation cell (pencil drawing from the reMIND animation). Even I don’t remember what all is in my huge stack of animation pages. All I know is some will be simple floating heads and some will be full on animation stills. It’s kinda like a lottery ticket where you might get something really cool and you might get something… not so cool.
Lets see where we are now:
You might notice my blue trend line on the chart. We have been climbing at just the right rate that if continued, will guarantee the hardcover book gets made. :) Lets keep this going.
I have a few new ideas for stretch goals that I’ll be adding in-between 80k and 100k too. I just need to work out more details before I can announce anything so keep subscribed to these updates.
Here are a few pictures I took this morning of some of the full pages of reMIND that you would get if you pledge for the Original Art 3 tier. Hopefully this helps you decided which one to select. You can see pictures of Original Art 1 and 2 in update # 11.
I’ve been asked what the 11×17 prints will look like and so here are some pictures. Now that I measure them I see they are actually on 12×16 paper for the most part with a few exceptions like the image of Victuals in the rain with his robo-suit is 7.5×18. I hope that doesn’t ruin anyone’s plans if they are slightly a different size. The pictures below show the cover print of Vol 1, and a few random spreads (minus the word balloons) and a hero shot of Victuals. If you have a $600 tier package then you will be able to choose any spread in the book to be your signed print or a cover. I used to sell the spreads at conventions but it’s too hard to know which page people want so I discontinued it. Now the only way to get one of these reMIND spreads will be through this Kickstarter campaign.
Don’t mind me. I just woke up in that picture. :)
Now if you like any of these prints and want to add one to your pledge then I would love to sell you one. You will just need to add $30 to your pledge (to cover the print and shipping tube) If you want more than one then add $20 for each additional print you want. This will be your responsibility to remind me what your extra money if for when I send you the survey to collect your information before I ship everything. So make sure to write down what you are adding and how much we agreed it would cost because I will never be able to keep track of it all myself.
Okay NOW, for all the people who wanted to add shirts, prints and anything else to their order, if you are confused at what comes with each tier, if you don’t know if you can add something to your pledge then please refer to my handy little chart below. Click the chart to see it full size.
Sorry again about the shipping for the prints. I hope this doesn’t come back to haunt me. hah. For those of you requesting to add original art to their pledge, the best way is to just message me through Kickstarter because I might adjust the price down depending on how much you are pledging or if you are helping out is additional ways with this campaign.
If you do add money to your tier to pay for something additional (where allowed) then remember that it’s your responsibility to keep track of what you added so you can tell me later. This is the only way for me to make sure I get your reward right. And even so I’m sure I’ll make some mistakes but I will make sure you are happy at the end of the day. :)
Wow! That took a long time to make. If you see any errors in this chart (which there probably are some) then please let me know. But hopefully this answers many questions out there.
That’s it for today! Thanks again for all your help in making this so successful!
See you soon,
Jason
Good Morning!
I started working on the sketches for the other postcards this morning and I’ll post them all when I get something I like.
Also, I am still waiting on a few bits of information before I can announce some new things that I’m excited about. :) But just so you know, I can’t get a full refund on the upcoming convention so it looks like I’ll be going after all. None the less, I don’t want to pass up this opportunity to sell as many first printings here on Kickstarter while there is demand so I have resolved to only bring a handful of books to the con and a bunch of fliers and prints and other stuff. This allows me the ability to throw a bunch of first printings at this campaign like so many people have requested. The only thing I am hesitant about now is how many more names I can fit into the book. So to solve that problem, I am offering some first printing box sets with Phobos (and no name in the book) for $125. Remember that you can add a shirt or two to your limited reward if you want by adding $20 a shirt (or $25 for 3x and larger).
If you are looking to upgrade to a first printing then now is your chance! I still have more but depending on how things go they might be put into different tier levels.
The big news of yesterday is that we broke through the 7th stretch goal which unlocks the downloadable sketch version of all the pages of Volume 1! Once the campaign closes I’ll give you a link in one of the BACKER ONLY updates.
It’s exciting to see that we are breaking through a new stretch goal almost every day now. I’m wracking my brain to figure out some new rewards to offer but it’s getting harder now. I don’t want to offer too many things that will take me a long time to make (like original paintings) but I am considering it.
On another note, I lowered the $1000 tier to $900 and changed the original art ink drawing of your choice to be 8×11 now. I also upgraded the size of the original painting in the $2000 tier to 8×11.
Well, here is the new chart with our progress. We are currently at $66,258. Only a few more thousand until I start giving away animation pages! :) I have a few more rewards I plan to squeeze in between some of these existing ones as soon as the details are worked out too.
We will need to do some major work to get that 100k goal but I think it’s definitely obtainable. If everyone can convince a friend, in person, to check out this Kickstarter and make a pledge then we will hit it for sure! There is no better marketing than one on one friend recommendations.
You have all been amazing so far and I thank you again! High five’s all around!
See you soon,
Jason
Gooooood morning everyone! Lot’s of great stuff to announce this morning!
First of all, we’ve unlocked all the postcards! Now I just need to finish them all. haha Here is a scan of the inks for the Victuals postcard that I just finished this morning. (The next person to back reMIND after this is announced with a pledge of $100 or more will get this original ink drawing of Victuals!)
And here is the final colored version. The only thing I’m not sure about is the reMIND logo placement.
I have been getting several requests for Plushies to be offered outside of the higher tiers and I am working on figuring out how many I can get made for this campaign. Right now I only have 11 left which is why it’s only in the higher pledge options. But if you are in desperate need of a Victuals Plushie then fear not! It will only be a matter of time before I announce something sweet!
Since we have almost blown through all the stretch goals, everyone is asking what’s next! And what is the Mystery Goal? Well, here is a hint for the Mystery Goal!
Last week when I was thinking about special things to add to everyone’s reward if we hit crazy goals I happened across my drawer full of animation cells from the reMIND animation. I never really knew what to do with all these thousands of pieces of paper but now I do! :) When we hit 70k, I will give a cell from the reMIND animation to everyone who pledges at the $40 Tier or higher! Some are amazing and some are okay. You will just have to wait and see what you get but this way everyone will get something very unique from the reMIND vault. I’m not sure how I will pack these but I might have to trim some of the larger pieces down to fit into the shipping box but I won’t cut any of the artwork.
I have heard some great suggestions and I believe it’s time to announce some new goals all the way up to a big fat reward when we hit 100k! :) Secretly, 100k has been my dream goal because it would allow me to do some big things that I have only dreamed of. Well, all of this is something I only dreamed of a few months ago but you are making it all possible now.
Okay, enough talking, here is a new chart with the new goals and rewards!
$65,000 – Digital PDF of Sketched pages of reMIND Volume 1
$70,000 – Everyone ($40 tier and up) gets an animation cell from the reMIND animation!
$75,000 – reMIND wristbands for everyone!
$80,000 – Digital Print Quality reMIND Poster for Everyone!
$90,000 – Digital “Making of” reMIND Book for Everyone!
$100,000 – ULTIMATE GOAL – Hardcover “Making of reMIND” Book for $75 Tier and up
(all these rewards are FREE with a minimum pledge of a book for $25 except where otherwise stated)
Also here is an example of some wristbands that I made before. They might be the same color… or not. :)
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I had more cool news but it will probably have to wait until tomorrow morning! But if you don’t want to miss it then follow my Twitter at @Jason_Brubaker
That’s all for now! See you tomorrow,
Jason
(Oh yeah and I’m adding some more $600 tiers now.)
Goto my Kickstarter page here!
