Drexler: Ships Of The Line 2013

2 min read

13 years ago T'Bonz

A change in publishers was in order for the 2013 Ships of the Line calendar, which has just been completed.

Even though a change in publishers from Pocket Books to Rizzoli meant a shorter lead time for the Ships of the Line 2013 calendar, fans should be pleased when it comes out, and they will have Doug Drexler to thank for not being stuck with a rerun calendar due to that shorter lead time.

“Rizzoli is the new publisher,” explained Drexler. “Pocket Books is not continuing on. I don’t know exactly the reason. All I know is that their licensing agreement with CBS came up again and it didn’t survive through that. So, Rizzoli has picked it up. Their publishing schedule is totally different from Pocket Books’. If it was Pocket, we would have until March to finish the image. But Rizzoli just got the license and there wasn’t enough time. Their thought, was, ‘Let’s do a Best of…’ issue.”

But Drexler wasn’t happy with that idea. “Now, frankly, when you’re making a transition like that it’s really important how you look when you come out the other side,” he said. “You can’t look like a retread. So I talked to my buddies who work on the calendar and I said, ‘Look, they want to do a rerun thing. Personally, I’m not going to do that; I’m going to create new art for the rerun price, and you guys are free to do that as well if you want. I hope you will.” And everyone just jumped in. We actually got the calendar together in about three weeks. I think it’s one of the best-looking calendars yet. So, sometimes extra-cool stuff comes out of adversity. I’m real excited about it.”