Friday 18 June 2021

Letter from Stanstead, PQ (Dave's Weekly Update #395)

Hi, Everybody!

KICKSTARTER:
Friend to the Blog Steve Peters is running a campaign that I have art in and if you really loved me you'd back it right now.

It's not just me in there, there's Art from Cerebites in good standing: James Windsor-Smith, Lee Thacker, David Branstetter, Michael Anthony Carroll, and Corey Bechelli. (I recognize, most of them guys...) He needs another $582. It's like twelve bucks for a copy, and it's a damn fine book.

Kickstarter:
Over on the Strange Death of Alex Raymond Kickstarter, Your friend and Mine, Sean Robinson said:
Hello everyone!

Sean here with a quick update.

Things are proceeding quickly. We had previously booked press time before the start of the campaign with Marquis, a Canadian printer who I've worked with on many of the restored Cerebus titles. Unfortunately, we hit a hurdle in the shape of the ongoing paper crunch. The uncoated paper stocks favored by Dave, Carson and myself have been less and less available over the past year, causing a price crunch, and production times at the paper mills to increase in accordance. In this case, had we used the exact paper we had been planning, it would have bumped our delivery back to sometime in late August at the earliest.

Fortunately, after some hunting, Patrick at Marquis was able to find a secondary supply, moving our delivery date to a much more manageable July 23rd 2021.

So, the short version -- books are heading to Diamond and Alabama (Carson's home and "fulfillment center") on July 23rd. And Carson will be fulfilling the entirety of the campaign in a marathon session the week (two weeks?) they arrive.

I hope to update you all in another week or so with an update on the secondary books, both the layouts book and the preliminary one, both of which will be printed digitally by a trusted short-run printer.

In the meanwhile, thank you again very much for your support!

Lastly, Carson and I have been continuing our new YouTube channel with two videos a week, one video discussion of a book of interest, and a second video wherein we both attempt to recreate a single panel from the book in question. Our latest two videos center around Barry Windsor Smith's MONSTERS, and our panel recreation attempt was a real doozy!https://youtu.be/ibzlsYdIhKg

Drop by and give us a watch, a subscribe, and let us know what books or comics you'd like us to tackle next!

All the best,
Sean Michael Robinson
Living the Line Books
And:
Hello everyone!

I have two quick pieces of news for you as we slide into the weekend.

RIP CEREBUS ARRIVES IN KITCHENER

Click for even bigger

After a long vacation somewhere at a postal hub in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, Carson's portion of the Rip Cerebus collaboration has finally arrived in Kitchener, Ontario! Here is Dave holding the artboard currently featuring Carson's half of this one-off collaboration.

Dave will be penciling and inking his portion as soon as he is able, and we will keep you updated on his progress!

EDDIE CAMPBELL AND CARSON GRUBAUGH (AND SOME SEAN ROBINSON GUY) ENTERTAIN THE LIBRARIANS

As featured panelists of this year's American Library Association virtual get-together, Carson, Eddie Campbell, and I will be jawing about From Hell? , Strange Death, and pretty much whatever ELSE we feel like talking about, in a one-hour live public Zoom call, hosted by the ALA conference, and Diamond Book Distributors.

And, yes, this means that YOU can JOIN US!

On Fri Jun 25, 2021 2pm – 3 pm (Pacific Time) (5pm- 6pm Eastern Time) that there link right below here will take you straight to our conversation, where you are welcome to ask us questions, heckle us in the text box, and be a general public nuisance!

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86930178942

I kid, I kid. I know you folks will, as always, have something interesting to ask about, and we're hoping that you all will pack the virtual room to capacity. The only REAL question is, how can the three of us POSSIBLY keep our conversation to an hour? Carson and I have barely been able to keep our video book overviews from crossing the 2.5 hour mark, and Mr. Campbell is a legendary conversationalist. Which is to say, they might have to drag us out of the conference by our fingernails.

We hope to see you there! Please do spread the word, as you're able.

All the best,
Sean Michael Robinson
Living the Line Books
And Dave let me know:
The items from the SDOAR KS that are from Kitchener have been signed by Dave and those packages have been mailed today!!




Kickstarter:

And the Reads Cerebus Archive Kickstarter is still a rolling. If you're a Swordfish, and have a Lee Thacker problem, sent an email to momentofcerebus@gmail.com, and I'll hook ya up. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, there's no help for you...

Dave's Weekly Update:

_________________
These are ending soon, and there'll be new ones soon!

Heritage has some interesting "Dave Sim" bits (Page from issue 5, and two (count 'em) TWO! Beavers strips! And an original Diamondback deck.)
Up to 35% off site-wide:
June 23 – 27
Tell your fans! Remind them that everything will be up to 35% off -- that means $13 tees, $20 phone cases, $30 hoodies, and way more!

Next Time: Stop me if you've heard yadda yadda yadda part four.

6 comments:

Damian T. Lloyd, Esq. said...

Any word on what this means for the Amazon orders of Strange Death?

-- Dame

Jeff said...

Re: Weekly Update.

Dave Sim is THE most generous person I have ever known, and that's definitely saying something (if you knew the other generous people I know).

AND, Dave does it without calling attention to himself. At least, not very much. He has been extremely generous to me over the years, and you guys don't know the half of it.

Anonymous said...

Carson & Sean, (Matt?)

1) Is Dave still working on his own version of SDOAR?

2) Is a paperback version an option down the road? I figure "no" unless sales are way up there and even then it may not happen.

3) Even if Dave is still chugging along on SDOAR I plan on picking up this hardback version through Amazon.

Thank you,

A Fake Name

Carson Grubaugh said...

Damian,

I don't know what the exact numbers are but I was told that Amazon called our pre-order numbers "insane," meaning they were not used to seeing so many pre-orders that far before a book drops. Whether that holds up through the delivery date or not we shall see.

We have been jumping up the rankings pretty far recently, so orders must still be coming in. During the Kickstarter we were usually around #100,000 as of right now we are at #37,558, and if you check out a graphic novel with the same release date, and an equally respected creator - a book I am SUPER excited about - Dave McKean's Raptor, coming from Dark Horse, you will see it is currently at #516,371. So, all signs point to "HOLY CRAP!!!THANK YOU ALL, EVERYONE!!!"

AFN,

1) As far as I know he makes commentary on Rip Kirby strips and does research if and when he has free time, or if a fan donates funds to buy him free time. the $10,000 donation that came in a while back funded a few Rip Kirby story-lines worth of commentary, and - I think - some page "dialogue" but no layouts or anything.

I won't be part of any further effort on Dave's part. So he would need to find a new artist, or recover his drawing had.

Point being, I wouldn't plan on anything past this release, except for the annotations site Eddie is working on, SDOAR.com.

2) If we hit a second printing doing a half hardcover and half paperback makes sense to me.

3)THANK YOU!

Damian T. Lloyd, Esq. said...

Thank you, Carson G., for your reply. Good to hear that the book is selling well. (And thanks for the giggle. "Equally respected creator" -- hee hee hee!)

-- Dame

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the answers Carson; I didn't know there's a SDOAR.com in the works.

There's a slight, wistful feeling of what could've been regarding TSDOAR but what can ya do? I'm sure it was a lot of work bringing this to completion.

So congratulations on completing it and getting it out to an audience! I'm glad its doing so well in the pre-order stage.


cheers,

A Fake Name