Vanessa Santato

Vanessa Santato (born in 1977) is a painter, comic artist, and character designer of promotional mascots. She’s the author of the original webcomic series Pleasure Bon Bon, written, designed and coloured by her since 2003. She has won several design competitions in her home country, Italy.

Born and raised in Italy, Vanessa studied art in secondary school and received her graduation from the “Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma”.

First drawings and comic

In the ‘90s she attended international exhibitions with traditional painted artworks. At the same time, her passion about comic arts & illustrations grew. She then began working as a freelancer for advertising agencies as a character designer for anthropomorphic mascots.

Since 2000, Vanessa has been invited to attend (as an author and colourist) to Italian Comic cons by publishers of children's books & comics like Monster Allergy and Tea Sisters. She sold various signed copies of her comics and original prints at these events.

During her secondary school studies, she started to draw her first comic mini series Dillinger Derringer (4 chapters out of 6) which she self-produced and published on paper. Dillinger Derringer was available through the PAN distributor (Panini) in comic book stores throughout Italy.

This humorous comic, set in Italy, deals with the paradox of anthropomorphic animals evolved in a world similar to Humans. Cultivating the utopia of civilizing themselves and trying to hide their animal instincts. Dillinger feels different. She tries to exploit her feline skills to follow her dream being the first police cat in history, to demonstrate her skills, and being accepted according to her nature. Friendship, diversity, and discrimination is some of the underlying themes for the story.

The comic was published in black and white and sold worldwide from 1998 to 2003 by the site www.dillingercomics.com (with a CD containing all the English translations plus studies and concept art for foreign customers). The success of Dillinger Derringer was rewarded by the Italian furry community in 2000; stating Vanessa as the first Italian furry author.

Around this time, she had started to reach out international communities by selling Dillinger Derringer comics, commissions, and prints. She also started being recognized and cherished for her NSFW drawings of OCs, especially the Pleasure Bon Bon’s pin-ups. In 2004, she won the contest for a new mascot for Furbid_FS website with her original character, Rachele Racoon.

Pleasure Bon Bon comic period

In 2003, she began her collaboration with partner Ronald Trang (a Vietnamese naturalized American living in California). Through the internet they collaborated and worked on creating the first site of Pleasure Bon Bon, until 2017. The website became a hit among the furry community due to the originality of the comic and the NSFW contents (pictures, games, forums, etc.).

In the same year Vanessa shows PBB in Italy. Coniglio Editore, an Italian editor specialized in erotic publications, decides to publish the first chapter of PBB in the monthly comic magazine for adults BLUE Magazine. These magazines are found at newsstands all over Italy. Vanessa begins to publish PBB also in her country, for the first time printed on paper, in italian language. But the publication stops after the first chapter by request of Ronald.

Pleasure Bon Bon reboot and Patreon page

In 2017, due to a collapse in the sale of website subscriptions stemming from an obsolete paywall system, and problems with Vanessa’s partner, she decided to create a Patreon page and to change her approach with her readers. This is done by creating free content that could be supported by her Patreons donations with no expensive memberships needed, and all the proceeds would go straight to her (without the need to share the profits with her partner).

Once Ronald found out about Vanessa’s Patreon page, he decided to dissolve their partnership and sharing of the earnings of the site with her. Consequently the old story of Pleasure Bon Bon ceased production after chapter 16. Currently there are no new chapters of Pleasure Bon Bon on the old website.

After the break off the development for the reboot of Pleasure Bon Bon began. The reboot called, Pleasure Bon Bon Next or PBB-Next (mature content +16) is now being developed by Vanessa. Together with her friend Gianluca, the new website www.pleasurebonbon-next.com is created for the pages of the new comic to be released for free, with a slight delay for which her Patreons would get early access. The site also contains exclusive content to her Patreons. These exclusive content include (but are not limited to) the e-books of “Pleasure Bon Bon Legacy” (NSFW +18), unpublished material such as concept art, illustrations, and videos.

PBB-Next has a new design style. The comic is also presented in a higher resolution than old series called "PBB Legacy". The reboot tells more about history and new events of the world of Pleasure Bon Bon, rather than just showing sexual and explicit content in the old story. PBB-Next will conclude the saga. PBB-Legacy remains unfinished for now.

Another improvement from the new website and using the Patreon model is the direct communication Vanessa now has with her Patrons. This keeps her fans and followers up to date with news updates about the website and new PBB-Next content. It also allows Vanessa and her fans to exchanging opinions, something she could not do before on the old site where Ronald was handling the correspondence with all the members. Now there is direct contact with the author and her readers.

Disputes

In Italy Coniglio Editore decide to publish the first chapter of PBB in the monthly comic magazine for adults BLUE until Ronald asked Vanessa to interrupt the publication, because (according to him) the website couldn't make any profit from outside sales.

Thus began the first bad tension between Vanessa and Ronald, but she continued to collaborate with him on the promise of sponsoring her a work contract that would help her obtain a VISA and have her come to America. This promise was never kept.

For 14 years Vanessa created all the art contents of the site, while Ronald uploaded the updates and programs the games (which all of the art assets have been drawn by Vanessa). He took care of the accounting/finances of the website, all the user passwords, and correspondence to the members of the website (due to the Vanessa not being fluent in English). He sent Vanessa 50% of monthly shares of gains of the sales, until 2017.

Since Vanessa has opened her Patreon page (due to a collapse in the sale of site subscriptions) Ronald had blackmailed her with his intention to deny her copyrights of the Pleasure Bon Bon property, and to stop paying her royalties if she didn't continue to send him the new content from Patreon. He added that he was unable to provide the visa and denied her a contract anyway.

So there is no license agreement or copyright transfer to Ronald Trang signed by Vanessa, but he interrupted the gains derived from PBB subscriptions as have copyrights to the Pleasure Bon Bon Property. He used this as a way to continue to sell memberships on the website, while Vanessa has never granted him the rights or a license to do so. Therefore Vanessa declared to feel cheated and robbed by her rights of the old website.

She currently only works thanks to Patreon's donations.

Vanessa has repeatedly stated that (at the moment) she cannot sue Ronald for lack of money due to her residing in Italy and him living in California. However she hopes to one day obtain her rights of the old website and her share of earnings from the old website from him.

Vanessa continues to dissuade her readers from paying subscriptions to the original PBB site because only Ronald will receive the funds, and the site has not been updated since December 2017 (with no future updates being planed either).

She invites her fans to support her work only on Patreon where her work continues with new content.

References

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