Calling All Cerebus Collectors!

Sean Michael Robinson:

Greetings!

Paper to Pixel to Paper Again is on hold this week, as I'm swamped with Cerebus in Hell? related work, namely, preparing the first four one-shots, working with the printer scheduling Cerebus in Hell? #4's delivery date and final details, and writing and fielding long bag-related faxes from Dave.

Bag-related?

So, sometime after the first one-shots appear, Aardvark-Vanaheim will be soliciting a trade to collect the mini-series of Cerebus in Hell? all under one cover. And that trade will include a signed Cerebus in Hell? Christmas card (as the plan currently stands), included in a bag that tightly hugs the trade and keeps the card in place.

Cerebus in Hell? TPB Christmas Card Mockup

Well, it turns out that matching a trade paperback to a snugly-fitting preexisting bag is a tougher chore than you might think.

How snug can you make it to ensure the contents don't shift? How loose can you make it for easy packing, and to ensure that books that are trimmed just a bit large can still fit? And where's the mid-point between these two positions?

Marquis, our Cerebus in Hell? printer, kindly made up some dummies for the project, i.e. blank versions of the book with correct paper and binding, trimmed to a size that I guessed would be perfect for the supposed dimensions of the bag, and sent them along to Dave.

Too tight a fit. 

So, now they're off to Alfonso Espinosa, who will (hopefully!) use his hydraulic cutter to shave slices of the book off until he arrives at the perfect size.

Last week I sent a fax to Dave suggesting that, for the sanity of all involved, we try a completely different path instead. Why not a heat-sealed bag, standard in the book packing world?

Hello Dave,

10-4.

Not to beat a dead bag, but--

My suggestion on the heat-seal bag is this--Marquis (or their bindery) will most likely have access to a broad range of heat-seal products and size, so it's possible (I can ask them now if you'd like) that they could do it at any trim size at all. Because the heat-seal bags are also heat-shrink bags, so the fit isn't an issue. They just put it in whatever" one-size up is, with card, and stick it in the heat shrink whatever-it-is, and then it's done.

That's my understanding of it, anyway. I've never used or seen the industrial versions of this, only the hand-held, one-at-a-time versions. 

Once I hear back from you (a quick "NO!!! Is great :) ) I win forward your fax to Sandeep and Alfonso.

Best,
Sean

Dave's lengthy response (excepted below) came back within the hour.

Hi Sean!

The problem with heat-seal in any form is “collector psychopathology”. If you're selling a book in a plastic bag with an autographed Christmas card the most psychotic collectors (which is who you are selling to, your primary market) will use the fact that they can't have the whole thing in pristine mint as an excuse not to buy it. It's in pristine mint if all three elements, the book, the bag, and the card, can be retained in perfect condition. If the bag is heat-sealed you have to “de-mint” it (in fact, actively destroy it yourself) in order to access the book. And if you leave the book and card in the heat-sealed plastic (psychotic collectors know from experience) the bag will shrink over time, de-minting the book and the card.

That's a later issue: what do you use to seal the bag? Unless it's resealable—and designated as such, resealable in such a way that the sticker or whatever it is can be unsealed and resealed as many times as you want without losing its own pristine mint quality then you have the same problem: a psychotic collector won't buy something that can't be unsealed and resealed repeatedly without damaging the seal. And they're going to err, mentally, on the side of “it doesn't look as if it can be resealed” (i.e. because of bad experiences with permanent seals that they HOPED were resealable and proved not to be: if they see a seal on a package they anticipate an unhappy experience and use it as an excuse not to buy whatever it is).

Alfonso has the Golden Age bag marked as resealable but I'm not seeing it (I'm not a psychotic collector myself but I do understand their psychology).

This is why I'm starting on this in April and trying to go one step at a time. I'm guessing that every step of the way I'm going to have to explain psychotic collectors and why we nave to do things my way. If the Christmas card fits snugly into the bottom of the bag WHERE THE PSYCHOTIC COLLECTOR SAW IT WHEN HE BOUGHT IT and can be put there smoothly and easily and the bag resealed into the same state it was when the psychotic collector unsealed it, then the psychotic collector will have had a happy experience with our package and the next time that he sees a CIH? collection with an autographed card in it, he will know that it's possible to keep it in pristine mint condition and will purchase it with confidence.

If that doesn't happen: if we force him to destroy or damage his pristine mint package in any way, he will have an unhappy experience with our package and probably won't purchase any future book-and-card combo if he sees them in a shop. OR will at least have a persuasive argument for himself not to do so.

And fit's not just collectors, this holds true for speculators as well. They will be more apt to buy 3 if they know it's going to stay in pristine mint condition which they will know won't be the case if the plastic bag is heat-sealed OR sealed in such a way that it can't stay in pristine mint condition.

You might want to post this to AMOC and see if we can't get verification from psychotic collectors that that's the case...

Dave

So! Collector types! Speculators! I know you're out there, and we need your opinion!

If you saw a lovely Cerebus in Hell? trade paperback with an enclosed signed Christmas card, would your interest in such an item be affected by the type of bag it's packed in? By the way that bag is sealed? What type of bag would be ideal, or does it matter to you at all?

Thanks in advance for your input!

Edit: I thought this was some interesting insight into the thought processes that are involved in creating a worthwhile package on all levels. Is this thing aesthetically interesting? Is it functional? Does it cause unintentional rage and/or regret in its target market? I think the Cerebus Archive Portfolios are excellent examples of the higher end of this calculus, making a package that serves as many purposes as possible while remaining a worthwhile object.