Tuesday 27 April 2021

The Making of a Bookplate

 Carson Grubaugh:

"Thank you," to the fans for keeping interest in this project alive through the ups and downs, and years of waiting. Even after five years of working on the book I am ultimately one of you, a massive fan of Dave's work, a ginormous fan of the glamourpuss material, someone who has been eagerly awaiting being able to own a copy of SDOAR since it was first announced. My involvement was always about helping make sure this amazing piece of comics history saw shelves, and...

The time is finally here! 

The Strange Death of Alex Raymond Kickstarter will go live at 1 pm EST on Weds April 28th!  

(Yes, the book is available through Diamond and Amazon, but you can also get it directly from Sean and I, thus cutting us in on a bigger slice of the profits, which will allow for a larger print-run.)

More important, for all of the hardcores, we are offering a Limited Edition of 301 copies (yes, Seiler, this is 100% for your sake; a legitimate #301 of  301! How is that for fan service?). 

The Limited Edition will include the hardcover SDOAR, plus a bookplate illustrated by myself, signed by both myself and Dave, as well as a special 80 page booklet that collects all of the collage mock-ups I received from Dave for v2 and v3, as well as all of the "technical notes" Dave sent along with those mock-ups to explain what I was looking at. 

The cover of the 80 page booklet, Dave's cover design for V2:



















 

 

A sample page from the 80 page booklet, a page of mock-ups for V2:





















...............................................................................

Now, a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the bookplate!

My initial idea was to have something that picture me and Dave with word balloons we could sign our names in. Something humorous. The hope was to have Dave draw a portrait of me, with me drawing Dave and anything else that needed doing.

Dave declined to jam on the illustration so I set about designing it on my own. 

My poor memory told me there was a photo out there of Dave giving someone a noogie. I wanted to use that to make a drawing of Dave giving me a noogie while saying something playful. I was also hoping that if I wrote some piss-poor dialogue it would spark Dave's creativity and he would create some actually funny dialogue for the drawing.

Margaret Liss couldn't think of any photos of Dave giving a noogie, but did send me a set of Dave fighting Cerebus:



That last one looked pretty great, very dynamic, so I rolled with it and took a photo of myself that would lock in with Dave's pose.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and mocked up an idea in Photoshop.


I was very happy with how "cool" and dynamic the image was but not so thrilled with how adversarial it looked, so I sent it to Dave to see if he would approve it as is or if he had any ideas for dialogue that could help lighten the mood.

Understandably Dave took it as a "dick" move on my part and rejected the idea, suggestion I focus instead on Raymond and Drake. 
 
Duh...

Using some old practice drawings of Raymond and Drake I mocked up this image (with very bad types-manship. Doh!).
 


Dave requested that we lose the dedication, move the figures up, and throw in a '56 Corvette at the bottom.
 
Needing reference for the car I stumbled around the net and into an Episode of Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, in which he takes Jimmy Fallon on a ride in a 56' Corvette. What an amazing resource that episode is for '56 Corvette shots. Thank you, Jerry!
 
I settled on this screen capture.


And proceeded to produce this image.

 
Approval granted I went ahead and made my standard Photoshop tracing, deciding to use a different photo of Drake while I was at it. It just felt more "Drake."
 


That got printed out in pure cyan ink and the final inks were done directly over that print out.





















There was one round of suggested changes made to the faces of Raymond and Drake in the Corvette that got us to the finished piece shown in the image above. 

No one will ever see the absolutely abysmal Raymond face that was there the first time around. Thank goodness for whiteout.

This bookplate will be signed by both myself and Dave, and will be affixed to the inside back cover of only 301 copies of SDOAR. These copies are available exclusively through the Kickstarter, so be ready to order yours on Wednesday, April 28th! 

.............................................................

Once again, thank you all so much for sticking by this project through the years. It is your enthusiasm that has pushed it forward to the forthcoming release to the general market. We thank you ahead of time for this last show of support!

Best,

Carson Grubaugh

25 comments:

Brian West said...

Thanks for sharing some of your process, Carson. Feel privileged to be able to see it.

Bill Ritter said...

Carson, this is exciting and something I have looked forward to for many years. Cannot wait for Wed 1pm!

biglou said...

Looks great! Any heads up on what the Price will be?

Jeff said...

Put me down NOW for #301, cost be damned!

And, thank you!!!

Larry Wooten said...

How to time it for Backer #11... hmmmm...

Sean R said...

We'll reserve any CAN backers their numbers! Otherwise first come first serve for the signed and numbered ones.

Tony Dunlop said...

Thank you for offering this, everyone; ordering through Diamond at a comics shop is a hassle if you are not already a "pullfile" customer, which I haven't been for a very long time.

Blake Bell said...

Looking forward to grabbing #37! Please pass on my best to Dave. 👍🏻

Margaret said...

Carson - I love that image of you and Dave exchanging blows. Reminds me of good times at a hockey game. I'm sad that Dave wouldn't let you use it. . .Can't wait to jump on board for the kickstarter tomorrow!

Travis Pelkie said...

Glad I happened to look here. I swear I signed up to get the early notice about this on both Kickstarter and by signing up for the Living the Line email list offered on that site, but I don’t think I got anything from either yet. Hopefully that was just a minor blip with everything else you’ve had to worry about with launching.

I’m also glad to get this direct from you guys since I haven’t had a regular comic shop recently, plus I can get my CAN number?! Cool.

I look forward to pledging for this.

Carson Grubaugh said...

Thanks, everybody! We are so excited to finally get this out there!!!

Jeff,

301 is your. I wasn't joking when i said we chose that number entirely based on your history with it. No extra fee. Just a thank you.

Big Lou,
You can get the book alone for $40 and the Limited Edition for $80

Margaret,
Haha. I didn't think about the hockey aspect. Maybe we can make a deal on a private commission? ;)

Travis,
We did post an update to all YDKJ backers. Maybe it got filtered into your spam folder?

Tony again said...

Carson et al., what about sending a message to Archive backers - not all of whom, I assume, bought YDKJ?

Sean R said...

Tony-- will do! And you should have received a little Living the Line test email :)

A LOT to do the past few weeks!

Lee Thacker said...

Yay! Just bagged one! Very excited!

Travis Pelkie said...

Ah, I did see the YDKJ update, and that update I opted in for did just tell me you just launched. And mind you, I’m not saying you did anything wrong. I just would generally prefer to know a few days ahead. But that’s me and you can’t please everyone, as I see from skimming the Spawn 10 stuff here 😁

So yeah, I’ll be pledging soon. Hope I didn’t come across as too picky!

Sean R said...

Hey Travis,

Not picky at all, I totally understand! I'll endeavor to get more notice through ALL channels for future campaigns.

(I kind of prefer the surprise. But I think I'm probably mostly alone in that!)

Mouse Skull Entertainment said...

That's IT Robinson!

Nobody's gonna take your "surprise" crap anymore!

We're switching. YOU'RE gonna deal with the mob and Spawn #10, I'M gonna remaster the phone books...

Manly
(Say, before we do switch, what tab is "fix all" under in photoshop, again?)

Sean R said...

Matt:

Ctrl- FU I believe.

Dan E. said...

Hey, Carson!

Any reason for the orange and cyan cover?

Mouse Skull Entertainment said...

Dan E.!!!

Believe it or not, I asked him and Sean the same thing, and forced, I say FORCE, Sean to write a short essay about it.

I'ma post it as soon as I can. (Tomorrow is Mags and s Notebook, Friday is Dave's Weekly Update, Saturday I'm doing the Spawn #10 take 2. Sunday is Oliver. Monday WAS gonna be the unpublished Cerebus story, but I guess I can push that back...(

Manly

carson said...

Hi Dan,

Sean's idea. I liked it. It is very hard to design an impactful cover for a book that is full of teeny-tiny, black-and-white art. I think Sean did a lovely job that is thematically on point.

I am sure the loud colors bothers the heck out of some people. I get it.

Damian T. Lloyd, Esq. said...

Haha! Poor Dave is so sensitive.

So here's Carson G. offering SDoAR through comics shops and Amazon before running a crowdfunding campaign. That is ... not the best way to do that.

I am not pleased with the professional calibre of Cerebus marketing. It seems to have taken a downhill trajectory of late. We've got things like: Dave offering his own flash sale of the Spawn issue in a venue where no Spawn fan would see it; Waverly Press lurching out in every direction at once that smells like money; Dave's complete abandonment of the audience in favour of milking his True Front-Facing Believers. This does not seem to me to be a recipe for ensuring the work's legacy, but rather the opposite.

Dave used to be a very canny marketer, from his earliest decisions to do Cerebus ("to make myself rich and famous") to the first High Society phonebook to his various World Tours to things like the biweekly reprints or Number Zero issues when those were trends. Even his work for others featured his character, thus promoting his book. His recent actions seem unwise in comparison.

-- Damian

Anonymous said...

Lol! Oh that’s good:
“Dave’s complete abandonment of his audience”, “I am not pleased with the professional calibre of Cerebus marketing.”
From the guy who doesn’t purchase any of the items, contribute to the kickstarters, patreon, etc., but posts replies here ( and probably on Facebook and twitter) more than anyone else. Like why would anyone care if you’re pleased or not? Who cares?

Didn’t you once say Dave doesn’t deserve any of your money (or something to that effect)?
Thanks as always for the laughs.
- Eddie

Damian T. Lloyd, Esq. said...

You're welcome, Eddie! Good to see you're as erudite as ever. "Who cares?" Hee hee! I picture you as Lucy, yelling as she walks away after Schroeder didn't get her a gift for Beethoven's birthday.

So you're one of those weirdos who thinks that, just because I bought something from a creator once, I incur an obligation to buy everything that creator puts out? As I said here before, that attitude is so foreign to me as to be ludicrous. I bought the Cerebus issues. I bought the phonebooks. I bought the remastered phonebooks. I didn't buy the Kickstarters because I don't care about original art. I don't buy Cerebus In Hell? because I think it's not funny. I preordered Carson G.'s SDoAR.

And in spite of your objections, I plan to continue my policy of buying things I enjoy and not buying things I don't enjoy.

But as you object to my language, and not my point, let me be blunter: some of the marketing decisions around Cerebus have been fuckin' dumb. (One of them may have been entrusting Dave's "Museum of Me" to some guy named Eddie K. ...) Seriously: Dave put out a remastered Spawn ten precisely because it would appeal to Spawn completists and let him rake in a few bucks riding someone else's coattails, and then he announced a flash sale in a venue where Spawn completists were guaranteed not to see it. There's no way to spin that. And, as I said, Dave was usually a canny marketer. So what's been happening lately?

-- D.

Carson Grubaugh said...

Damian,

200 backers and about 20 grand in less that 48 hours. Over half of the Limited Edition sold already. You should nab one before the are gone.

Trending twice as high on the Amazon best-sellers than we were before the campaign. Even saw the book listed on Target's website, which means my mom can finally be proud of me. Hahaha.

I think it is working out just fine ;) Sean and I can only say THANK YOU ALL. You are the core group that kept the hype alive all these years in the making. Much appreciated.