I should have written this a week ago when I sent out the last of the books but I was so relieved to get through the mass that my brain checked out. Most of you have probably received your book(s) by now but I keep getting emails every day with some of you saying you just received it. I'm loving all the emails and glad you are all enjoying the book!

If you haven't received your copy(s) yet then please be patient because they should be arriving anytime now. Some of them were sent with Media Mail because it was MUCH cheaper than Priority mail but it means it will take a week or two to arrive.

If anyone has any problems with their book or has a messed up copy due to a printing error then please emailed with a photo and I will send you a new book.

And finally, If you are one of the ten $99 backers who get a painting with your 3 books then please be patient (even more) I have completed 5 of the 10 paintings so far and I'm working on the remaining 5 as I find the time. If you got a box with your books but no painting then I haven't forgotten about you. I will send your painting as soon as I finish it! Thanks again for your excellent support!

On another note, I'm getting things ready for the San Diego Comic-Con now in hopes of selling lots of copies of reMIND! If you are going to be at the Comic-Con then come by my Small Press Booth and say hi! My table number is O-07. Just think "James Bond 007". I'll be selling reMIND, Postcards, Prints, T-shirts, Hoodies, Plushies, older comics and original art from reMIND so come on by!

Thanks again everyone and I hope you are enjoying reMIND! I couldn't have done all this without you!

- Jason

Here is a picture of my son with all the pallets of books right after they got delivered.

On Monday I finally got all the books shipped to my garage and I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment. But have no fear. They have all been moved to my bookshelf and the boxes are numbered so I don't loose count of what numbers I'm on when I stamp them all. I picked up a bunch of packing supplies on Saturday and my wife and I spent a late night yesterday getting things ready to start sending out.

We have managed to get about 200 books stamped, numbered and wrapped in foam so far and plan to keep chipping away at it until all 700 pre-orders and kickstarter backer orders are sent out. It has been a real job to figure out the best way to ship out everything without using the slowest method. I believe most of the books will be sent out Priority Mail which means you should be getting your book/s pretty soon...as soon as we can get them packed anyway.

For those of you who pledged $99 or more, I am half way finished with all the paintings. This means that half of you will receive your painting with your books and the other half will get your books now and your painting later when I can finish it. I tend to be much slower than I thought when it comes to painting with real paints so please bare with me. I promise you will get your painting soon though.

Just so you know, I'm hoping to get everything packed up by the end of this week so I can send out everything on Monday. That's the goal anyway. Hopefully it's reasonable. hah.

Thanks again for your amazing support in all this. We are soooo close now!

- Jason

I've been told that my shipment of books is in Los Angeles and getting ready to be delivered to my house! According to the shipping company I should be getting 4 pallets of books on the 3rd or the 6th of June. Needless to say I am nervously excited about this all.

If you have been following my blog you've seen the slow progress of converting a new space set up to handle all the books. Here are some work-in-progress pictures of the space nearly ready for all the action. I'll let you know as soon as I get them and start shipping books! Hopefully very soon now.

Thanks again for all the great support here!

I made my last post only visible to supporters so I figured I needed to make another one so everyone else could see the announcement.

So basically I've announced a pre-order on my website and I would love some help spreading the word. Just to make it easier for you, I made a trailer for the pre-order launch and I'd like to share it with you now.

If you are new here and want to pre-order a copy then goto my store here: http://nvy.gd/lxRpFp

Enjoy the show and please help me spread it around facebook and twitter so I can sell a bunch of pre-orders before I get 3 pallets of books delivered to my garage. haha! What was I thinking?!

Thanks again for all your support!

P.S. Books should start shipping out in about a month.

About 2 weeks ago I received a package from my printer with a bunch of proofs. It was very exciting. Included with the proofs were 2 copies of the complete unbound book in signatures. In case you are unfamiliar with the printing world, a signature is a handful of pages sewn together. A traditional book is made up of several signatures sewn together. This allows the book to fold open all the way and lay flat on a table. You can see pictures of the signatures below. These are stapled but the book will be sewn.

There were also proofs of the cover art and the foil stamping of the logo on the front and spine. I think the cover is going to look great. Oh yeah, I also finally picked out a cloth color that works nicely. It’s not quite as green as I wanted but it still holds up really well.

Also included were wet proofs which are full color printings on the exact paper stock. They looked amazing! Later that week I got the rest of the wet proofs of the entire book to make sure the color looked right on each page.

It took a while but we made some subtle tweaks and got all the proofs back to the printer to get the ball rolling and now it's just a waiting game. I've requested 20 copies to be airmailed to me asap so I can post some good pictures here for you all to see. Hopefully something will arrive soon. So excited!

In addition to that I’ve been working on something that will make these books even more unique that I think you’ll love. I’ll announce that next time.

Thanks again for your support!

-Jason

As the title of this update suggests, reMIND is officially in the printers hands now. Chris (my designer) finished up everything early this week and we uploaded all the files to the printer on Wednesday morning. Everything is in motion now and I still haven't approved the final cloth color. Gulp! We are working on getting samples as close as we can to the color I want without special ordering some super expensive fabric.

Hopefully soon I'll be able to show some pictures of the early proofs but I'm not sure how soon that will be.

Now, just to clarify things. Even though we have started book production it will still be 2 to 3 months before I get all the books in hand because they will be shipping from China on a big slow cargo boat and clear customs.

Once the books are printed, I'm going to get a few airmailed to me and I'll make sure to take some good pictures to show you. I have some cool new announcements about how I'm making these books even more special that I'll share in one of the next updates.

Getting closer every day!

Hey everyone! I haven't stopped by for a while to say hi so here I am with an update.

reMIND is all finished and in my designer's hands now. I've purchased an ISBN and barcode as well as a Library of Congress number. The extra content has been written and is mostly designed. There are 4 amazing pin-up's in the back of the book as well as 6 pages talking about "the making of reMIND". There are 4 additional pages in the story that have never been seen before. I'm not even putting them on my blog. Ever. With all this extra content the book will be 152 pages instead of 136 like originally planned.

The cover art has been finalized and we are in the process of figuring out the exact cloth for the binding now. In other words we are still on schedule to send all the files to the printer at the end of February. I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself. Okay I'm better now.

I'll let you know when we are officially in book production.

Thanks again for all your support over these last months. Talk soon!

- Jason

Hey all. I've been waiting to send out an update until I had all the pages finished. Well, All the pages are finished and colored for reMIND Volume 1. (Except for the extra page that I decided to add.) So in other words, I am in the final edit and design phase of the book.

Here are some of the things that have happened since the last update. I received the dummy books from my printer about a month ago and it looks fantastic. The paper quality is so perfect and it folds nice and flat when you open the book so all the spreads will be nice and visible. Very little of the art should get lost in the gutters if anything. It's a nice thick book too and it looks like I'm going to have to add another 16 or so pages to provide for all the extra content and title page, forward page, credits, special thanks, pinups and more.

After getting the dummy books, I was able to revamp the cover art a bit more. I just decided to recolor the cover image again with nice warm glowing sunlight like in my more successful interior pages. The cover just has to reach out and punch people in the face when they walk by so I'm really trying to pull out all my tricks for it. I finished making my publishing company logo which it essentially Victuals' head in silhouette. I've handed all the cover art and back cover files to my designer who is going to give it all a good working. We have been talking about refining the reMIND logo too. Right now it's just a common font and we want to make it a bit more unique to the book. It will stay really similar but just better.

I bought an ISBN number and bar code. Now stores will be able to stock it on their shelves and I can register it with the library of congress which is on my to-do list.

In the last month I've also collected several pinups from amazing artist. A few of the talented folks who made something for the book are Sam Kieth, Tang Heng, Jon Klassen and possibly a few others. I got Sam's image last week and quickly colored it and I'm really happy with the end result. Sam has been so helpful and encouraging with all this. It's been surreal.

Jeremy Barlow, an amazing writer who has worked with Dark Horse for years, is editing reMIND. I also asked him to write a forward or foreword. (I'm not sure which way to spell it)

The new things on my plate are as follows. I am half way finished with the editing revisions of the book now and still have to fine tune the new dialogue for Chapter 3. Hopefully I'll finish it all this week and I can send it all back to Jeremy and some friends to do a final proof reading to catch any stupid mistakes. There are several parts that I need to possibly create art for like the title page, credits page, forward page, introduction, extra contents in the back, and inside back cover. All this stuff is pretty foreign to me. Luckily Christopher Kosek is designing it all and helping me see what I need to add to make it look it's best.

Our deadlines have been locked and here they are:

1st of January - I need to have all extra content and final edited pages finished and in Chris' hands.

March 1st - Chris needs to have all design finished and everything should be in the printers hands. If I print any earlier than this in the year then the prices will be inflated because of Chinese holiday's so I have to wait until after February to play it safe and be more cost effective.

June 1st - I should have all the books in my garage and start shipping them out to everyone. Now this June deadline is only if things take as long as humanly possible with the printer. They say that I could get the books within 6 weeks if all goes super smooth which would mean I would have them around mid April. I'm planning on the worst case scenario here so I am saying June.

One of the most important deadlines is getting 6 copies of reMIND to the Xeric Foundation before mid June so I don't forfeit the grant money they gave me. This was the main reason my goal was to finish the book by the end of this year so that I have plenty time for any possible problems with the printing production. Wow, say that 3 times fast.

For any of you who pledged to get and original painting, I'm going to start working on those in the new year after I've handed reMIND to my designer. Sorry for the wait.

Well, that's about it. Thanks again for all your support in this crazy project. I'm learning so much and enjoying all of it and I can't wait to see the final product!

See you soon.

- Jason

It's been a while since my last video update and it's amazing how much has happened since then. Just so you know, I keep promising video updates but the work involved in making a new video distracts me so much from what I need to be doing that I never end up making one. Sooo, I've decided to just type updates from now on so that I actually make them. Sorry to all you video update fans.

Here we go. As you all know, this project was funded at $12,665 on August 22nd. After giving Kickstarter their 5% and having problems with a few of the transactions, I'm left with $11,492. If I add the $5000 Xeric grant money to the mix, my grand total is $16,492 which is so much more money than I ever dreamed possible to raise. So thank you again!

With Kickstarter backers alone, I have already sold 460 copies of reMIND. I'm still debating how many copies I should print. I was going to stick with 2000 but I just can't decide.

So, what am I using the extra money for? Well, I just placed a big order for t-shirts and hoodies to sell on my website and at cons. I don't think I'll spend too much more of the money until after the books are printed and shipped. Just playing it safe. For those of you interested in a t-shirt or hoodie, visit my reMIND shop to find out more and place orders when they are available.

reMIND shop - http://remind.storenvy.com/

Shortly after the pledge drive closed I sent a questionnaire to everyone to collect contact info as well as how you want your name printed in the book (if you picked that option). Everyone who pledged to have their name printed in the book sent me their info so I put all the names into the book layout and I'll be sending you an approval email to make sure I spelled it right and you are happy with how it looks. Be looking for that email shortly.

There are still a few of you who haven't answered my information request. I really will need your address if you want me to send you your book. Serious. If I don't hear from you in another month or so then I'll try emailing you again. It's only about 10 people who haven't responded so it's not a big deal.

Now, I know what you're thinking. How is the book coming along? Great! I have 2 spreads left to color. 1 of those spreads needs to be completely drawn too. I have 6 spreads that are half way colored that I need to finish. Then after that I need to go through all the text and update it. Then I send it all back to my editor for his final pass. Then I start working on the extra content pages.

I should be getting some dummy books from my printer that will be the exact size, paper stock, binding and thickness of the actual book. I'm excited to get these because up until now it's all been a figment of my imagination and it will be nice to see something that I can hold and flip through to see how it will look and feel.

That's the important stuff. Thanks again for all your support with reMIND!

Oh yeah, for those of you making your own graphic novel, I just launched a forum called MakingGraphicNovels.com. It's all about... well, making a graphic novel. Check it out if your interested.

http://makinggraphicnovels.com

This is just a quick little note to say thank you for the amazing support! I'll make a new video update with all the fun details soon. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

Hey all. This morning we passes $10,000 in pledges! I am blown away.

THANK YOU ONE MILLION TIMES!

You might also notice a few new rewards. I don't want this to be confusing to anyone but it seems like it already is. I added these new reward options mainly because a few people have asked me if they can get 2 or 3 copies of the book and all the existing options with more than 1 copy are sold out. So if anyone wants to get another copy or two of reMIND, you can increase your pledge and select one of these new rewards which comes with a T-shirt.

This doesn't affect any of the other rewards though. I'm not allowed to change any of the rewards that people have already selected. If you really want a t-shirt, you can always go to my website and order one there for $15. I'll be printing up a new batch of shirts soon so keep checking back if you really want to get one.

I hope this clears up some questions. Thanks again for all the wonderful support for reMIND. Check out reMINDblog.com to see the ending of chapter 2. Chapter 3 will start going live in 2 weeks.

- Jason

It's late and I'm really sleepy but CAN YOU BELIEVE WE HIT $9,000 IN PLEDGES!!!!

Love you all!

Well, I got back from vacation this week and was swamped with playing catch up so I apologize for just sending a text update instead of a new video update. So here we go...

We have over 200 backers now and we are approaching $8,000 in pledges. Since last update I asked for some ideas of what to do with the extra money and I've gotten some great suggestions in comments and emails. Here are some of the ideas given:

Print more books
Print a cheaper run of books
T-shirts for pledgers
Hire agent
Mouse pads
stickers
spend it on a big vacation (serious, this was a suggestion)
Number the books and give the lowest numbers to the highest pledges.
Give an extra book
Spend on booths at conventions.
I'm sure there were more that I'm not thinking of right now too.

Thanks for all the ideas and I've though each one over as they were given. Here are some of my conclusions so far

I've decided to keep the print run at 2000 copies to reward those of you who appreciate smaller print runs. I also plan on numbering them and giving the lowest numbers to the highest pledgers. I can't quite justify adding a T-shirt to the mix because, believe it or not, making a shirt costs more than the book AND this will make my shipping costs much greater because I wont be able to use Media Mail (within the U.S.) which is really cheap and reserved for books and DVD's only. I think the sticker and mouse pad ideas are great although I don't know how much it costs to make mouse pads yet so we will see about that one.

Most of the extra money will go towards making t-shirts (to sell on my site) and stickers and convention fees (which are pretty expensive) as well as any hotel or travel costs for attending any conventions. I'm sure I'll run out of money even though we are far past my original goal because everything always ends up being more expensive than you expect for this kind of stuff.

On a side note, while I was in San Diego for the Comic Con, I stopped by the printing company that I plan on using and had a great meeting about the cloth binding and all the bells and whistles that will go into making the book. I'm going to be receiving a blank book from them in the next month that is the exact size, page count, paper stock and binding that I will order so I can see how it feels, looks and weighs. I can't wait to get it so I can show some pictures here on the updates.

Anyway, It's back to work for me. I have lots of pages that I need to finish over the next few months. Check out the blog to see more pages every Monday too! Thanks again for all your support and I'll see you in the next update.

- Jason

With the $6000 goal reached, I owe you another video update!