Brian Kong is a name familiar to most collectors, especially those who collect sketch cards. He is one of the original sketch card artists in a field that now includes hundreds, if not thousands of artists, and has worked for nearly all of the card companies.
One of Kong’s passions is baseball. We recently learned Kong has started a new baseball-related Kickstarter project with writer Jon Lindenblatt. Kong and Lindenblatt are hoping to secure funds through Kickstarter for a book entitled From Dodging Trollies to Pirating Players: How (Major League) Baseball Teams Got Their Names. This illustrated children’s book will feature baseball stadiums, mascots and other fun facts about Major League teams got their names. According to the project page, the book “celebrates America’s national past time by providing the origins of team names for each major league baseball team.” The book will supply the answer to the first question many young sports fans ask about a team: “Why do they call them that?” It will also inform youngsters about the city’s each team play in.
Brian Kong at Pop Art Con
Many people are familiar with Kickstarter projects but for those who are not, Kickstarter is a way creators are raising funds for their projects. The way it works is there are a variety of donation levels and for each, the donor gets more benefits. In the case of Kong and Lindenblatt’s project, donations start at just $5. For a $10 donation, you get your name printed in the book, for $25, you get your name printed in the book and a hardcover copy. It goes on from there the whole way up to a $5,000 pledge, which includes all of the items in the previous levels plus a full page in the first printing of the book to dedicate to anyone or anything of your choosing (within reason, of course). There are many more levels in between. One of the great things about Kickstarter is that if the project does not reach its goal (and we hope this one will), the money is returned to the backers. More than 20,000 projects have been funded this way.
Kong has been a friend of Non-Sport Update for quite some time and has done the Philly Non-Sports Card Show on numerous occasions. Kong recently exhibited at our new Pop Art Con artists’ show. We hope you’ll take a look at the project details and consider backing it. There are many more details on the project page.
