Art needed for new Catholic Children's Magazine

Dear artists of the Catholic Illustrator's Guild,

My name is Bill Powell, and I'm helping to edit a new Catholic magazine for children, St. Mary's Messenger. We've had two issues so far, but they appeared as individual, special supplements in Catholic Digest. This Christmas, we are finally launching as an independent, full-size quarterly magazine, offering yearly subscriptions.

As far as I know, there's currently no other general-interest Catholic kids' magazine in America. The closest was My Friend, from the Daughters of St. Paul, but that project closed down years ago. And My Friend, if I remember correctly, was mostly or entirely catechetical. We want St. Mary's to be more like Highlights would be if it were run by Catholics -- articles about Christ and the saints and the Church seasons, yes, but also jokes and activities and adventure stories, and articles about frogs that can freeze in the winter without dying.

And awesome illustrations. So, here at a hub of the Catholic illustration renaissance, I'd like to ask for your help.

Do you have favorite pieces that you've never got around to publishing? Or favorites that you'd like to see in print again? Beautiful or whimsical little spot art that could grace the interstices between features? Or do you want an excuse to finally do that unique scene from the Bible or the saints that no one ever thinks to do? Send them my way! editor@stmarysmessenger.com

I'm excited that Ted has graciously let me talk to you all. The work you share here is so impressive.

Now about the details. Good news: we want to pay (see our submissions page). Bad news: since we are trying to make a magazine, not a brochure, almost all of our funding will come from subscriptions, and of course we are only offering those just now. So, here are the current payment options:

- donate your work to help us launch, and get paid in Heaven (and for future submissions, once we have the subscriptions up)

- offer your work on "conditional" payment -- we will pay you as soon as we get the subscription income to do so, but if everything goes terribly wrong, you'll still get paid in Heaven

- offer your art for payment as usual, and either we can pay or we don't get to print it

I am confident that after the first marketing push, and the first issue or two, we'll have more than enough subscriptions. Kris Weipert, the project head, has worked hard to partner with New Hope Publications (they also publish Inside the Vatican, among other things), and also Catholic Familyland, which will feature some content in each issue. So we'll be getting a lot of exposure. Plus, we have our own mailing list which we've built up over the last couple years.

You can see sample pages from our last issue on the home page. (The news of the launch isn't public yet, so don't let the outdated "news" confuse you.) If you have a look at those pages, I'll welcome any suggestions or critiques you offer (I'm also the layout guy).

The deadline for this first Advent/Christmas issue is rather soon; the sooner you let me know, the better. I should really have all art by Oct 8.

But if that's too soon, we're already thinking about the Lent/Easter issue in the spring, and the summer issue, and so on.

Thanks for reading this! I hope to hear from you.

Bill Powell
editor@stmarysmessenger.com