Legendary comic artist John Paul Leon's THE WINTER MEN Artist's Edition fundraising initiative is live on crowdfunding platform Zoop

    LOS ANGELES, CA, October 19, 2021 /24-7PressRelease/ -- THE WINTER MEN, a passion project for late creator John Paul Leon, is getting a deluxe Artist's Edition treatment, supported and completed by some of the renowned artist's closest friends, including Tommy Lee Edwards, Bernard Chang, Bill Sienkiewicz, Lee Weeks, Duncan Fegredo, Sean Phillips, Walter Simonson, Denys Cowan, Kim Jung Gi and Joe Quesada (who are all contributing brand new art prints) in celebration of an astonishing and inspiring body of work.

John Paul Leon's THE WINTER MEN Artist's Edition - edited by Scott Dunbier, with the Artist's Edition handle used with permission by IDW - features 184 pages of full-size 12 x 17 scans of all of the original comic art pages, along with never-before-seen concepts, sketches, and unused art. The project is officially live today on fandom-centric crowdfunding platform Zoop, and has already crossed $20,000 in funding.

"John Paul Leon was a former student of mine SVA in New York City. He was brilliant, and he only got better. I'm honored to contribute a drawing based on his work on The Winter Men," says veteran comic creator Walter Simonson, who contributed an illustration of The Rocketmen to the project, done with Pigma markers, as Leon would. In addition, a pin-up by John Paul Leon's close friend/studio-mate/superstar artist/project organizer Tommy Lee Edwards will be included in the book and offered as stand alone 11 x 16 high quality giclee art print, signed and numbered.

"It's an honor to be the platform for this important project," adds Zoop Co-Founder and CEO Jordan Plosky. "On behalf of my Co-Founder Eric Moss, and the rest of the Zoop team, just seeing the outpouring of love for John Paul, and his impact, made us realize this is a worthy project, and a way to bring the comics community together to honor one of the greats."

Originally published as a 6-issue series by DC Comics imprint WILDSTORM in 2005, THE WINTER MEN was the co-creation of John Paul Leon and writer Brett Lewis. Taking place in the now-collapsed Soviet Union, the series chronicles the subjects of a super-hero experiment who must pick up the shattered pieces of their lives and carry on while determining who or what is the deadly threat that's stalking them all. THE WINTER MEN Artist's Edition will be available exclusively through ZOOP, the first end-to-end full service crowdfunding platform created exclusively for the fandom community. Founded by comic industry veterans Jordan Plosky (founder of ComicBlitz) and Eric Moss (former head of Business Development at IDW Publishing and Project Manager of BRZRKR, the year's biggest selling title).

The crowdfunding initiative for THE WINTER MEN is officially live today. The campaign page can be accessed here. Sign up for more information.

About John Paul Leon

Best known for his critically acclaimed work that envisioned and redefined the entire MARVEL COMICS universe in the maxi-series EARTH X, JOHN PAUL LEON's bold and dramatic work has influenced many of today's young talents. Some of his other notable works include the critically acclaimed THE WINTER MEN, LOGAN: PATH OF THE WARLORD, THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF CYCLOPS AND PHOENIX, CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN, and cover artist for DMZ.

About Zoop

Zoop is redefining crowdfunding by making it easier than ever for you to support the campaigns and creators you want. Zoop allows supporters to purchase as many different items as they want during the campaign. With a cart system, just like you would make purchases on any other traditional e-commerce site, you are free to mix and match the items you wish to purchase all in one transaction. Zoop handles campaign management, marketing, printing, fulfillment and other services for their clients.

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