Hi Colleen,
I just wanted to let you know that I got my books in the mail today, and they are awesome! I didn’t realize that they had wooden slip covers- I can see what you meant about them being too big and bulky to bring to comic con! Really, they’re just so beautiful- I can’t wait to show them off to my friends. Anyways, I’ll see you on Saturday, and I’ll pay for the second book then. See you soon!

Best Wishes,
Sue

You’re most welcome, Sue!

Lettered state editions of A Distant Soil are about as rare as red diamonds.

I originally intended to do 24 (one for each letter of the alphabet) copies, bound in leather with hand laid in hand made marble endpapers and handmade custom boxes. For each book, I drew a full color character portrait. This I made available for $200.

That seemed like a lot of money back in the day, but it quickly became apparent that my retail price was too low. Shortly after beginning the project, the manufacturing cost on the books increased.

If I were to have them made to the same standards today, they’d cost about $500 per book just to make! To sell would cost $1,000.

So, all the people who ordered the books at $200 may have had to wait for YEARS to get their orders, but I finally finished them all off. I had a few copies of volume II left over and will offer those for sale someday, but there will be no more of any of the others. They really are beautiful, but even I don’t have copies now. I had to use my reserves to fill the last orders.

I listed a lettered state for future volumes on all the A Distant Soil GN limitation sheets just in case I was able to find another manufacturer. I doubt this will ever happen, if for no other reason than the days of my being able to take time to do sketches like this may well be over.

Those who were able to get their orders were very happy with their books, and even though it took forever, I am so relieved to be able to finish them off and ship them out! There’s only two more left to ship, and after I pack them later this week, I will post the art for them as well.

c

PS: Brian Holst: you have books shipping, too.

A preview of the new graphic novel Gone to Amerikay at Comic Book Resources’ Robot6 blog, with pix. Story by Derek McCulloch, art by me.

Sarah Jaffe blogging about Men are from Krypton, Women are From Paradise Island, the very popular panel at NYCC featuring me, Barbara Kesel, Jimmy Palmiotti, Abby Denson, Jamal Igle. Much fun was had by all.

The Financial Times on the relationship between comics and film, centering on the upcoming Watchmen movie, which had New York City plastered with posters everywhere one looked. Everyone is watching the Watchmen because you can’t help it.

To nourish that urgency, there is nearly always in action comics or graphic novels an elemental contact with reality, even when disguised or encrypted. Never mind that these stories are fantasy, or in 300 fantasised history. The best of them feed on the actual or parody-actual, like meat grabbed through the bars of the frame. Watchmen makes extraordinary reading today, and must have done 20 years ago, since author Moore proposes a doom-ridden America governed into the 1980s by Richard Nixon. Gerald Ford is a supporting character. Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan might never have been born.

Another lettered state edition drawing in colored pencil, this one for Sue McLoughlin.

Things went very well at NYCC. I did better than last year with A Distant Soil graphic novel sales up a bit, which was heartening. Up by a third, I think. But it was nerve wracking, as most buyers were waiting for last minute Sunday bargains, so for awhile I thought I was going to get stuck shipping home boxes of stuff (nope.)

Here’s a con overview from The Beat.

I didn’t bring much to sell at the show anyway, since I knew I would have a very bad location (great for enjoying the show with friends and doing deals, bad for sales.) I also shipped the wrong box of art, the one with the Captain Atom pages and like works which don’t have much of a market, so comic pages didn’t move.

Still I had completed a number of advance commissions and everyone who ordered their drawings picked them up at the show, so lots of art sold in the end. I have never been asked for so many commissions before. I have raised my prices, but that didn’t slow down requests. I was unable to do them, alas, unless people asked in advance of the show.

I skipped most parties, but for the first time in my life, someone tried to hit on me AND a male companion simultaneously at the CBLDF gathering, which was quite a shock.

Rantz Hosely (who is attractive, yet married, I must conclude we looked decorative together) and I were talking quietly with one another at the bar when two very aggressive men approached us and asked, “Do you swing?”

While I stood there and blinked at them trying to process what had just transpired, Rantz quipped, “Sure, I like ’50’s music.”

Good times, good times.

At the DC party, I arrived very late and two men came to my table to sit with me.

Party crashers.

In short order, their ignorance of the event and what we were doing there became apparent as I tried to explain to them that yes, people really do draw comics with their own hands. Freelancers couldn’t get into that party, but by golly, these two dopes claimed their cousin got them in. They didn’t even look like they were the same species, much less cousins.

They asked “What’s this party for?” so that was a clue they had crashed it, see. It’s pretty bad when you don’t have market penetration at your own party. I got up to go to the banquet to get some food and they quickly gathered their things and left, but not before they had scarfed down some free eats.

Yes, I got sick again. I left the show early, and would have left even earlier had I not had a commission to deliver. The customer didn’t show until late on Sunday, and then I was out of there. Nothing major and horrible like last year’s bout with whooping cough, just annoying. And I sound like a frog.

There was one retailer selling buy one get TWO FREE graphic novels, and I did just that. I also bought an Aquaman doll from Tonner and I await delivery as they had sold out at the show. It was on sale 2/3 off.

Oh my God, it’s gorgeous. I’ll post a pic as soon as I have it.

Looks like conventions are the way to get uber-bargains. I am very much looking forward to Charlotte Heroes Con, because if the sales are anything like last year, I am going to have to back up a truck to the door to haul goodies away.

Bad news: very few vendors selling art supplies. Blue Line, where were you??????

c