The idea behind the 100 Artists Project came from the 1000 Journals Project. The idea of getting a large number of people involved was appealing and so it was brought up on the comic art creation message board Penciljack as a way to possibly collect art and donate the funds from the sale of the art to charitable organizations.
The charities we've chosen this time around are the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and The Hero Initiative. Both these foundations help comic book and cartoon artists and they are both non-profit. Once all the art is collected and either auctioned or sold at a print-on-demand store, all the proceeds will go to these groups.
The project consists of a couple phases:
- The Big Mailer - This is the original idea and also the most ambitious. We take one sketchbook and mail it to 100 different artists. Each one adds to it in their own way and then mails it along until all 100 pages of the book are filled. The book is returned and each page is scanned. The sketchbook is auctioned off and the buyer pays directly to the foundations through MissionFish. Next, the scanned art will be sent to an online book binding and POD store front (more than likely Lulu) where it will be assembled, bounnd and sold at their store front. Again, the sales will be sent via Paypal directly to the funds.The Single Mailer - This part is simpler and was called for when we realized the Big Mailer could take years to finish and has a higher possibility of not being completed. In this phase, the 100 artists send in a single page of art. The art is sent to a binder to create a single book. After that the process is the same and the book is auctioned and then after the auction it is sold online.
The idea is the art is worth more because it's traveled so far and the books are wroth more because they are not just assemblings of different pieces of work, but work that's traveled a distance and done knowing that a good cause awaits them.
We decided two projects were needed because, while we're all honest people, there is the likelihood that a single sketchbook will either not survive 100 mailings or be lost or stolen. We're padding the project with the less problematic Single Mailer so we can actually get something done.
Eventually, we'll have smaller books that folks can sign up to work on. On the Sign Ups page there will soon be an option to sign up for the Single Mailer, the Small Mailer or the Big Mailer. As long as we can keep the project rolling, we can keep funds going to these great organizations.