Nick Craine's Line Work: 1994-2025 is a career milestone over 30 years in the making.

The book collects hundreds of Nick Craine’s best works from a lifetime spent as a freelance illustrator. These include book covers, graphic novel works, kids’ books, storyboards, conceptual illustrations … you name it, he’s done it.

The pieces have been carefully curated to map the development of one Canada’s top talents — from amateur zine artist to master craftsperson — with a breadth of image making approaches that defy category or genre.

Line Work is the career-long time capsule of a creative tradesperson whose tools are brush, ink and inner vision. The book is a beautiful showpiece with a narrative underpinning that is simultaneously singular and universal.

Presented as a deluxe 368 page 8.25x10" square bound book, full colour on high quality 60lb uncoated paper, with a soft touch matte laminated cover.

Includes The Cheese Heads Collection Digital Edition!

Fans of Nick Craine's 1990s black and white alternative comic The Cheese Heads will be pleased to know that we're collecting all 5 issues of the series into a digital edition. Complete with a brand new cover, the unpublished pages of issue 6, and selected Cheese Heads strips from its stint in the University of Guelph student paper The Ontarion, this digital edition is included with every copy of Line Work.

Backing the Project

If you've never backed a crowdfunding project, the process isn't that different than most online stores. Select the item you're interested on the right hand side of the page, and add it to your cart. You'll checkout after selecting the items you want. You can add several items to your cart before checkout, so if you want multiple copies of the book, you can do that before checkout. Shipping and fulfillment costs are applied during check-out when you support the project. At the end of the campaign, once we reach our funding goal, payments will be processed and funds will be collected.

Funding Goal

Our funding goal is $7000 CDN. These funds will be used to directly pay for printing and production of Nick Craine's Line Work, as well as for processing fees and additional unforeseen expenses.

Guelph Pick Up

Knowing many of Nick's fans also call Guelph home, we're excited to offer a local pickup option in The Royal City. Save on shipping and collect your copy in person once it's printed.

Risks

Black Eye Books has successfully funded and fulfilled multiple campaigns through Kickstarter and Crowdfundr, so we have plenty of experience with crowdfunding. Line Work is currently in the final stages of production and will be ready to print to ship in early October 2025. We promise to keep our supporters up to date with any news, including delays and uncertainties, as we work through the campaign process.

About Nick Craine

Born in Toronto in 1971, Nick Craine is a visual artist from Guelph, Ontario, Canada. His illustrations have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic and many more. In 2008 he was chosen as 1 of 6 Canadians included in the TASCHEN international anthology,  Illustration Now , a sampling of 150 of the world’s best illustrators. He adapted filmmaker Bruce McDonald's, Dance Me Outside and Hard Core Logo into graphic novels, the latter of which he was nominated for an Ignatz award in the outstanding artist category (1998). His books, 5 Minute Hockey Stories  and  5 Minute Stories for Fearless Girls are both national best sellers. Nick uses Arches papers.

About Black Eye Books:

From 1993–1998, Black Eye Books published such notable cartoonists as Jay Stephens (The Land of Nod, Atomic City Tales), Nick Craine (Dance Me Outside), Jason Lutes (Jar of Fools, Berlin), Tom Hart (The Sands), Jeremy Eaton (World of Trouble), Matt Madden (Black Candy), James Kochalka (Quit Your Job), Ed Brubaker (Lowlife), Brian Biggs (Dear Julia), and New Zealand's Dylan Horrocks (Pickle, Hicksville). Relaunched in 2019 by publisher Michel Vrana, Black Eye Books continues its pursuit of publishing eclectic and engaging stories told in the form of words and pictures, including the award-winning horror series Dwellings by Jay Stephens.