Yes, about effing time! Next week I will be mailing out everyone's thank you gifts. I would have done so sooner, but I ran out of paper for the Giclee prints! I dropped off the larger sheets to the printer today to be cut down and then taking those sheets to the Lab Digital for the printing. Thank you for your patience!

best,
raighne

It's been a little while here. SO, an update is in order. The book is done and off to the printers. Eric at the Lab digital is handling the cover sleeve, while the guts (inside pages) are being handled by Norm over at Peak Printing in St. Paul. This is going to be such a beautiful little package. I am really excited!

In just a few short hours I will be taking a look at the proof's and from there authorizing the full runs. The plan as of now is to try to get 100 or so complete for MIX and shortly thereafter to finish the whole run. The mini giclee prints are also getting printed with the cover sleeve at the Lab. By the end of the month (or very early next) everything will be going off to all the supporters. Speaking of the prints, as a new development all copies of the book will be getting 1 or 2 prints packaged inside! Sahhweet!

I also wanted to give a shout out to Tom K. at Uncivilized Books, whose submission came in this past Sunday (it looks great to boot!!)! For a while we thought we would be printing the book over at his label, but because we often publish and make art that fights the medium (colour and mixed media art versus easily reproducible line art-- it's stupid really, ah well.) we took it to Peak instead. Peak have done really well by us thus far, and I expect GMN4 to look great with their hard work on the printing side!

Well thanks for reading and supporting us!

Yesterday I ordered the paper that will be used as the interior of Good Minnesotan 4. It is Wausau's Exact Eco 100, which uses 100% Post Consumer Waste. Having taken another look at the budget, I think we have found a way to expand the print run to 500 copies, which will require about 10,500 sheets of paper. I haven't ordered that much paper since GMN2.

I have also begun putting the new book together, adding the newer content to the "Sunday" edition. The final page count is looking like it will be 168 pages! There is still one more story I am waiting on (but it will be worth it!) from a certain cartoonist, who will likely be printing the book at his studio. More on that in a future post.

While I am anxious to get this book completed and off to everyone, I know there is quite a bit of the book left to do. In the next week I will finish putting together the book in Indesign, Justin Skarhus, my co-publisher here at 2D Cloud, will 2-up it and I will post an expanded online sample (maybe the whole dang thing!) and then we can go to press!

I'll keep you all posted. Thanks!
best,
raighne

We made our goal! Thank you everyone! Your pledges mean so much to me! If you had any particular request, ie for a doodle or sketch in a book, a mailing address- not yet sure on how this works- or what your personalized sketch for the 2D Cloud Total Package thank you gift, email me at 2dcloud@gmail.com Or you can message me via kickstarter.

I will be getting the books and thank you gifts all mailed out by the end of August or early September (after the book is printed and sketches and packaging is finished).

Thanks again!

Best!
raighne

Due to everyone's help we have raised nearly $900, this is great news! Thanks to everyone's help! Unfortunately, we have somewhere around 47 hours to raise the rest of it. Though it is a small amount we need some last minute pledgers. If anyone knows anyone who might be interested in what we are trying to do here, please point them in our direction. Anything over our minimum goal would go to increasing our tiny print run. Please and thank you!

best,
raighne

Excellent news folks, we are now 80% of the way! Thank you so much to all our backers! We even got a few who threw down some much need cashola outside of Kickstarter! SO, again thanks a lot folks!!

I am hoping we can at the very least reach our goal in the next 10 days, but I sure would love to exceed it! Any extra money we can raise is gonna go to a larger print run. 250 copies is a decent number, but this is going to be a pretty little package and I have a feeling it's going to move pretty fast at $5. It is also very unlikely that we will be re-printing this, because if we were to re-print we would likely loose money at that price point. Which is why I am hoping to use an offset printer for the guts, since then we will have the plates already made and should we decide to re-print, we may be able to do so and keep that price.

I will be posting another update shortly as we are likely to have a couple more last minute contribs dropping in. This is going to be such a fat little book, probably closer to 160 pages when all is said and done. I'll know the exact numbers soon. Before we reach our deadline, I would like to have a large preview of the book (with just about every page) viewable online, so everyone can get an even clearer idea of how wonderful this final volume is going to be.

Thanks for reading and for letting folks know about our project!
best,
raighne

Maybe this is getting silly with all the exclamations, but we have our first review for GMN4! AND we are nearly 60% of the way to our goal! Wahoo!

Matthew Dick of Exquisite Things had some nice words for us regarding our fourth effort.
"If you’re looking for easy comparisons, Good Minnesotan sits neatly alongside the likes of Kramer’s Ergot and Mome, but with a healthy dose of DIY attitude."

The review is, I would have to say pretty positive. Read the rest here:
http://exquisitething.blogspot.com/2010/07/good-minnesotan-4-anthology-in-making.html

Thanks again everyone who has made a pledge or gave us a shout out! We are getting closer and closer.

I forgot to mention Tim Sievert in the last post. He also made it into GMN4 with some top notch stuff! This little book is going to be crazy-stupendous, but we need some more pledgers. We got a little over three weeks to get there. And thanks in advance to all those who have already thrown down some moolah and helped spread the word!

More links:
vale of tears/ghettosatisfaction:
http://ghettosatisfaction.blogspot.com/2010/06/kickstart-this-fucker.html

Actually that may be the only that I can find in this tired brain of mine.

Half way there folks! Thanks so much to a couple new pledgers! We have another new artist confirmed for GMN4, Joseph Nixon. His comic was a bit of a collab betwixt myself and his self. Joe's got some great work and I think you will really dig it.

We have a few more links as well, one by Lupi, one of the 1st contributors to GMN4. She turned her comic in for this volume about a year ago! So thank you Lupi for your patience! Her link is below:

http://lupiloops.wordpress.com/2010/06/17/anthologies/

The other link is blog I have started to discuss art and comix. The first handful of posts will be dedicated to small Good Minnesotan 4 interviews with the artists. I am currently in the process of re-organizing it, but feel free to take a look. It's interesting stuff!

http://itchykeen.blogspot.com/

Thanks again folks! And if you know one that may be interested in what we are trying to do here, please point them are way. We need all the help we can get. Best,
raighne

Hello again. SO, we are almost at 40% of our goal! Thanks everyone for continuing to get the word out about Good Minnesotan 4. We still have a ways to go, but I think we can make if we can get some more backers.

In the coming weeks we will be posting some small interviews with some of the contributors to GMN4. I think it will be an interesting read. When the interviews are up, I will post another update here. In the meantime here are some links to some contributors blogs and kind thoughts by reviewers (no full reviews yet..):

Big Time Attic:
http://bigtimeattic.blogspot.com/2010/06/good-minnesotan-no-4-sets-sail.html

Soft and Fleshy:
http://softandfleshy.blogspot.com/2010/06/tiny-baby-update.html

Sinew and Bones:
http://softandfleshy.blogspot.com/2010/06/tiny-baby-update.html

Artistic Rocket Fuel:
http://tallsean.blogspot.com/2010/06/good-minnesotan-4.html

OK, now show me some pictures:
http://lilric.blogspot.com/2010/06/really-big-spiders.html

File Under Other:
http://fileunderother.blogspot.com/2010/06/check-out-kickstarter-for-good.html

Midnight Fiction:
http://www.midnightfiction.com/blog/Small_Press_Comics_News_6_10.htm#gm4

Thanks again folks!

Thanks everyone, we are a quarter of the way now! If we can keep this pace up we should have no problem reaching our goal. With that said, we still need every bit of help we can get. If anyone has a blog, twitter account or any sort of readership, please re-post our link. Thanks!

In other news we do have some new confirmed contributors. They are as follows:
Neville Mckinnie, Vincent Stall AKA King Mini, Sean Lynch, Eric Schuster, Zak Sally, Dan Moyer. My mind is a mess right now so I may be forgetting some people and we may have a few more on the way.

I'll keep everyone posted on any news here.
Best,
raighne