Kickstarter

It's the Friday of an unexpectedly stressful week. The nearest city to me is in lockdown because there's a crazed Caucasian running around. People are saying stupid things on social networks about subjects including but not limited to: the Eisners, Boston, gun control, and Margaret Thatcher. Worst of all, it might rain. Which means today was the day I rolled out of bed into a crashing wall of ennui, struggled out a music video treatment, then sat down with a huge pot of finest oolong tea and signed 1,000 tip-in sheets for Smoke/Ashes. Blessed, blessed brainless activity. What do 1,000 tip-in sheets look like? Glad you asked! There's a pic below of the very, VERY large pile I just signed.

Everything else moves apace. Mack Chater is still calling his Royal Mail depot in Newcastle every day asking them to find the box containing the artist-signed bookplates and the two other very overdue parcels he is expecting. Hoping his new postie hasn't just chucked them in the bin. Another week it doesn't turn up, we'll reprint and start again.

There were a couple recent interviews with me about Smoke/Ashes and other projects (two of which have grown out of the Ashes collaborations). If you, too, are feeling rudderless and lost today, might I suggest you have a look? Here is the big chatty one and here is the slightly more sensible one.

tl;dr: When will I get my printed book? MID SEPTEMBER. I've decided I want to read it digitally right now. Can you re send my Comixology code? SURE, MESSAGE ME. Help, I moved! DON'T WORRY, I'M EMAILING EVERYONE IN LATE AUGUST TO CONFIRM ADDRESSES.

The eagle eyed among you might have seen the below in today's Dark Horse July solicits. I'm delighted to share with you that Dark Horse will be printing our great big fat book (424pp!) and getting a trade edition out to a wider audience. The book will be in stores and with you around 18 September.

There is mention of a limited hardback in the solicits, too. That is just the rump 250 of our 1,000 copy Kickstarter HC run that isn't pre-bought by all of you or set aside for participating artists. You'll notice that the street price of the cased HC is a whopping $59.99, so a lot more than you paid for the book! 

Your books will be arriving pretty much the same time as they hit stores. I asked Dark Horse to quote me air-shipping them as soon as they came off the printer in China and the price of doing that came to (gulp!) about $4,500 for all 750, or (still gulp!) $2,200 for just 200 for retailers. I just can't afford that. I am so, so sorry :/ I really wanted you to get them sooner.

The good news is, every book will be signed by me (see the cute Top Secret tip-in sheet that we designed!). There will still be 200 of the super rare ones signed by all* [EDIT: MOST OF] the artists (see cute piggy bookplate designed by John Coulthart!).

And because nothing with this book can be without drama, we might just have lost the first lot of bookplates, after Bill, Colleen, Richard and Carla signed them. And by "we", I mean "Royal Mail in Newcastle". We're checking this weekend (Mack has been calling the post office like EVERY DAY) and if indeed it is irrevocably lost I will reprint the bookplates bigger (they were too small, to be honest), get a Fedex account like a grownup, and start the bookplates circulating again. 

Dark Horse have been really amazing during this whole process and I am so, so happy that a proper, experienced production department prepped this baby and proofread it and are doing trade marketing and will let me crash their big shiny convention booths for singings.

As always, if you have questions, comments, or really funny jokes, contact me! I remain, your humble servant, &c.

First, the tl;dr bit: All backer-only digital issues are out. Go, read! The print book will be a 450+ page cased hardcover containing both Smoke and Ashes, and you will be mailed it in SEPTEMBER.

Second, the reader participation bit: Below are two versions of Tomer Hanuka's awesome flip cover for the book. Which do you like better: the all-grey one, or the grey and red one? 

Hopefully.

Enjoy.

Thanks.

Because NOTHING can ever go smoothly with this book! Seriously. ARGH. The people at Comixology in charge of posting Ashes (which is a rather tricky post, given its subscribers-only nature) changed recently and the new folks made a mistake and Issue 7 is not showing in anybody's purchases. I triple-confirmed it was definitely coming out yesterday, then after one backer emailed yesterday morning to say he couldn't see it I immediatley asked them about it and they thought it was an isolated issue with one subscriber. But no, apparently it's everyone. We're all obviously super embarrassed and they are looking into it and hopefully it will be fixed ASAP.

In the immortal words of A. Hellboy Esq, "Aw, crap."