Wednesday, 17 March 2021

Swords of Cerebus In Hell? HARDCOVERS

Benjamin Hobbs:

As I write this, we're awaiting the final quote from our printer for SWORDS of CIH?.  It looks like it will be possible to do a limited print run of 150 Hardcovers. These books will have dust jackets and, hopefully, stitched binding.

The cover of the Volume 1 Hardcover will look like this:

The AV bullet needs to be added to the top of this cover. 

The covers for the first 15 volumes will feature a prominent character from that volume.  The list I have currently is:

1) Cerebus 2) Batvark 3) Super-Cerebus 4) The Unbeddable Vark 5) Dr. Varkhatten 6) Fiendix or Canadian Vark 7) Cerebus Woman 8) Iron Manticore 9) Vark Thing or the Varking Dead. 10) Super-Cerebus Girl 11) Spider-Whore OR Hermann OR Zombie Glamourpuss 12) Cerebus the Duck 13) Spider-Vark 14) Covid-19 15) Dante and Virgil OR the break out star of the early 2022 books.

Here's some of the mocked-up covers:

 
I'm still determining the exact price point and venue to sell the books.  
 
How much would you pay for a limited edition hardcover? Would you prefer to buy it on eBay? Or Kickstarter?  Which character should appear on which cover?!? Let me know in the comments!

Next Week: The revised Volume 2 and 3 covers.  Honest.

20 comments:

Birdsong said...

It seems to me that there is an obvious, non-woke, dogiest anti-Jingles theme here. We're all animals and your anti-canid bias is shinning like the glare on an old white guy's bald head.

Mouse Skull Entertainment said...

Darth [REDACTED] and Baby Yoda Cerebus.


Manly

Anonymous said...

My thought(s)...

Whether eBay, Kickstarter or IndieGoGo...I think it comes down to what the desired campaign and outcome is.

1st: If a basic "Buy This Now" campaign is what's going to be done, I thinkg picking that service with the least cost at sale.

2nd: If the campaign is designed to only be the book - no add-ons or stretch, eBay is likely the easiest (both from a sale and from an awareness perspective). This presumes eBay cost isn't egregious. eBay: set up listing for "125 available" and let the sales happen. There is also the benefit this can last longer duration (although that could be a detriment, and without the incentive get now or never sales might be less...)

3rd: If the campaign is going to have add-ons, I prefer Kickstarter. I'm not sure if this particular offering would be worth the extra effort or cost with add-ons.

Jeff said...

How many reprint issues per book? Any new stuff? These figure into the price point.

Jeff said...

Eddie Khanna, please call or email or text me so that I can forward a photograph via you, to Dave. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

I'm in for these. I would prefer to buy them as direct as possible. Matt makes a good point about the buy it now. If there isn't another existing AV/AV-related vehicle.

Rich from Peoria.

Anonymous said...

$40 to $60 shipping extra (keeping in mind I have no clue about printing costs). Do a Kickstarter with a small minimum to fund, option to get multiples, then sell the rest direct through a website (AMOC or whatever), saves a bit on ebay fees if direct.

Tony Dunlop said...

Wait, wait, wait. CIH? is worthy of hardcover editions, but Cerebus isn't?

Illogical...Illogical...Norman, coordinate...

https://youtu.be/QqCiw0wD44U?t=28

Tony again said...

A clickable link to the above

Mouse Skull Entertainment said...

Tony wins!

(I just KNEW somebody was gonna say something about the lack of Cerebus Hardcovers...)

Anyway, Tony, the problem is one of scale. The Swords hardcovers are 4 issues for something in the neighborhood of $60. A 25 issue hardcover is going to be exponentially more expensive.

Manly
(And what does Tony win? He should email momentofcerebus@gmail.com to find out!)

jonbly said...

+1 to Tony. I'm not buying CiH HCs when I don't have Cerebus in HC.

Tony again said...

Well, I haven't been buying CIH? anyway, since I don't think I've found any of the freebies posted here to be funny.

RSS said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
RSS said...

Edit: I think the 'Bronze Age' metallic 'spearhead'/chevron imagery/sensibility (religion) is very fitting/telling; certainly echoes our local Victorian Hills decor (where grunts, gesture, superstition are mainstream)

Birdsong said...

The hardcovers are a boutique item for sure at only 150 copies. There is a copyright and credits page at the beginning. Other than that it's four issues in each volume including Front and Back covers as well as Inside Front and Inside Back covers. All in black & white. The covers are in color on the cover of the paperback editions (and maybe on the back of the hardcovers? I don't know yet). Dave has stated several times that this is for those that missed out on the early issues, completists and the AV team to hold onto some for archive purposes. It looks like $60 is right around what these limited numbers of hardbound copies will sell for so that Benjamin (who is paying for then to be printed) can make his money back and hopefully a bit of profit for his hard work.

As for hardbound copies of the Cerebus series, the first one, High Society, just sold out recently via Waverly Press. From now on Waverly Press will offer hardbound editions of each phonebook as they are reprinted. Next up should be Form & Void.

Tony again said...

Well, that's more like it! hmm, what's left...Guys, Latter Days, The Last Day...what else?

Michael Grabowski said...

Flight & Women

Michael Grabowski said...

Rick's Story, too.

Tony again said...

And Melmoth. I'm definitely going to aquire me a hardcover remastered Melmoth.

Matt, I wrote to the gmail address but haven't heard back. Did you change your mind, or are you just busy? Or did the message dissipate in the Interwebs aether?

Brian West said...

I would purchase a hardcover of CIH? with THE VARK KNIGHT RETURNS #1 in it. Has got to have the funniest strip I have ever read in CIH?, BATVARK's wedding vows. Laugh everytime I read those pages.

$60 dollars sounds about right for a CIH? hardcover. That's just 10 dollars more than the actual retail price for a DC Archive Edition. So, that's a fair asking press from a indie publisher, I think.