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a message was posted on the Skunkworks A.M.A group, a letter from Jim's mom it seems:
"I have been in contact with Jim's Mom and she asked me to help spread this letter around. Please send this letter to all of Jim's fans.
This letter is addressed to several fans of Jim Hardiman’s art work that have voiced concern about not having received their Shunkworks graphic novels Volume 1 & Volume 2. My name is Pauline Hardiman and I am Jim Hardiman’s mom. First of all, I sincerely apologize for the unusually long waiting time for those who have paid for and are still waiting to receive their graphic novels. Instead of going into an extremely lengthy letter of explanation please let me attempt to do this in bullet points Kickstarter began in 2012? • When this Kickstarter project began, Jim had every intention of completing it and making sure every person that contributed received a commissioned art work. • I assume you all know about Jim’s health issues that left him blind in one eye and his double organ transplant in 2007. Jim’s health started to decline in 2013 but really took a turn for the worse in 2014. • To be blunt, medication changes made by doctors affected his ability to draw. • I helped Jim at Confurences’ from 1995 going forward but other than that I was not involved with his art business. • Jim and Jason Canty had talked about doing a graphic novel of Skunkworks. (I did not know what the content was going to be other than it was Skunkworks related. Just certain pictures or comics?) • When Jim was dying, he asked me to promise him to see this project through with Jason’s help and to make it happen. Jim was a man of his word. I promised him. Jim died 8/29/2014. • Obviously, after Jim’s death I was not in a good place emotionally for quite a while. I don’t even remember when (what year) I got in contact with Jason and started scanning Jim’s art. • I do remember that when I started going through Jim’s art there were hundreds, maybe thousands of pages of artwork. Completed originals, unfinished sketches, prints, so much art! • I had to sort through all this and separate all the Skunkworks art. • Organize by date drawn and start scanning each picture, label and save. I had no idea what a huge job it is to create a graphic novel! I scanned over 300 pages. • Had to rescan 200 pages because my scanner was not picking up Jim’s signature. My younger son came over to adjust my scanner. • There was so much art! Single page art, portfolios, stories, single page comics. • After everything was scanned and labeled, we had to figure out how we wanted it all to be arranged and then create an index. This had to be done for each book. • We also got some added assistance from several artists as you will see noted at the end of Volume #2. Much thanks to all of them. • After all that was done, Jason added his artistic magic touch to it with special framing and or title work. This project would have never happened at all without the loyalty of Jason Canty as Jim’s friend and his unbelievable patience with me! I am electronically challenged to say the least. • We double checked everything and sent it to the printer and waited to receive the digital copy and one printed copy that would be sent back to us. • I was organizing and scanning Jim’s Skunkworks art after sifting through an enormous amount of artwork, still working full time and missing my son every day. • When Jason received the copy from the printing company, we went page by page over the phone, to verify everything was correct and in its proper place. All the art and/or stories matched to the index. Corrections were made. • With Jason’s editing knowledge, experience, talent and patience we finally completed this very large project. Now the problem…. ….unbeknownst to me this was supposed to be a graphic novel as in one book. At the time, I did not even know what a graphic novel was. I had scanned over 300 pages of Jim’s Skunkwork art. I am guessing Jason did not have the heart to tell me the book should only be 150 pages. As a result, the graphic novel became two books. Of course, it cost twice as much to print, as twice the paper and twice the ink. Jason never said to me, we need to cut this down. I am surmising he thought he would hurt my feelings as this was my son’s work. Jim’s legacy so to speak. Thank you to Jason for his kindness. Mind you, we DID NOT go back to the people that had already paid the $250 for the graphic novel, the dakimakura (large pillow slip) and commission art or anyone else that had prepaid for books, to tell them the cost was going to be more. We pressed on, but the books that were printed used all the Kickstarter funds. 300 books – 150 Volume #1’s and 150 Volume #2’s. Most of the orders were filled but there are around 20 people that are still waiting for their books. Again, my sincere apologies. Since Jim died, I had to go through his belongings and sell his drum set, his 4 motorcycles etc,, complete this graphic novel project, I have had three surgeries, I sold my house, and moved to a much smaller home in another state to be closer to Jim’s brother, my youngest son and his family. All the family I have left. I am so sorry for the inconvenience to those who have yet to receive their books but I am working with Jason Canty at this very moment to remedy that situation. Printing Company Issue… The previous printing company no longer prints adult comics, so Jason is in contact with someone that is working on finding another printing company that will do this for us. When we locate a printer, a contract will be drawn up and we will go forward. We will incur the additional cost for the people that have already paid and have been waiting for these graphic novels as that is only right and fair. My goal is to have the book printed and shipped by the end of this year or sooner if possible. However, going forward, the cost of the printing will increase due to the added costs for printing both books. I believe one book is 150 pages and the other is 187 pages. For those who have been complaining and harassing Mr. Canty, you know who you are, know that even though you have had to wait a very long time for this, you have paid less than what it should cost…and also NO profit was made on this project. NONE. This project was a project of Love from a mother to her son to fulfill a promise I made to Jim in the last days of his life. He was a man of honor and he wanted to make sure his fans got what they paid for. I think you got much more. If you knew my son or ever spoke with him you would know the kind of person he was. I hope when all the people that are waiting finally received their books, they will be happy with them and know you have a big part of my son’s life on those pages that you are looking at and reading. Hours and hours of creativity and work and comedy. The ideas, the sketching and resketching, the final draft, the inking and coloring, all by hand to get his work to the level of perfection he held himself to. His sense of humor was awesome and I miss hearing his laughter every day. Enjoy Skunkworks. Love to you all, to everyone - From Jim’s Mom."
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