Mignola + Snicket’s ‘Pinocchio’ Kickstarter approaches $400K

Beehive Books has added another tier to the campaign featuring prints of three new Pinocchio paintings by Mignola.

Beehive Books‘ latest crowdfunding campaign is sitting at just under $400,000 as I write this, and no doubt it’ll pass that milestone soon. And it’s no surprise, since it involves the talents of both Lemony Snicket (A Series of Unfortunate Events) and Mike Mignola (Hellboy) putting their own unique spin on the story of Pinocchio.

This new edition of Carlo Collodi’s beloved novel is currently up on Kickstarter for the next six days.

“I’ve been in love with Pinocchio as long as I can remember,” said Mignola. “Probably starting with the Disney film and then really drilled into me when I finally read the Collodi novel. It’s just so brilliantly strange—very very funny and also heartbreakingly sad. It’s one of the two books (along with Dracula) that I think sort of make me do what I do the way I do them.When Beehive Books approached me about doing a book… Well, at the time, the last thing I wanted to do was take on another project, but once I started thinking about doing Pinocchio I just couldn’t say no. The challenge was to come up with MY version of Pinocchio—much harder than I thought that was going to be but in the end I think I got there.”

Not wanting to rest on their laurels, Beehive has added a new tier to their Kickstarter campaign featuring prints of three more pieces by Mignola.

The full-color paintings were created by the artist as part of a Society of Illustrators exhibition, live now in NYC, which features a full portfolio of yet-to-be-published Pinocchio illustrations, including all the drawings done for the book and additional art not included in it. The exhibit will be open to the public until July 8.  Take a look:

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‘Wishless: A Graphic Anthology’ debuts on store shelves today

What if Pinocchio’s wish was never granted, and he never became a real boy?

Wishless: A Graphic Anthology
Sho Uehara was at work when he turned to a fellow employee and said, “Hey! I have this great idea! What if Pinocchio never got his wish and he was just an empty immortal wooden puppet forever?” Nick Johnson thought it was brilliant, and the two of them started spit firing ideas back and forth until they realized they had an anthology on their hands. Wishless: A Graphic Anthology was born.

Wishless is independently created by Calgary artists including Nicole Brunel, Jillian Fleck, Jackson Gee, Joanne Leung, Lyndon Navalta, Nick Johnson, Jarett Sitter and Sho Uehara. Today marks their official launch party and book signing at Shelf Life Books in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Wishless creators Nick Johnson and Sho Uehara

“When we realized how intense and how many possibilities there were, I was like, ‘You know, this might be the perfect thing to unify in an anthology,’” Johnson explained. “I wasn’t really into doing anthologies anymore because I had done a bunch already, but by doing one where everyone was tapping that same idea and seeing where they would go with it got us both really excited!”

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