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Actually $440 since I just pledged $10 for a copy of Elijah Brubaker’s Reich #12. If there is any company which deserves the preordering help that Kickstarter uses its Sparkplug, now run by Virginia Paine following the tragic death of founder Dylan Williams. The Kickstarter covers Reich #12 and a collection of William Cardini’s Vortex.

Paine writes:

Hi all! This is Virginia, owner/showrunner of Sparkplug Books.  I’ve been managing Sparkplug since I took over ownership a year and a half ago.  It’s been fun/busy/hard but I’ve had a lot of help.  And now we need YOUR help.  Sparkplug needs funds to publish our next two books I’ll get to those later and so, we are kickstartering our fall publications.  If it goes well, we may even be able to fund a third!

I know Sparkplug has meant a lot to a lot of people over the years.  I’ve done my best to keep Dylan William’s vision alive and publish underappreciated, idiosyncratic comics by really awesome folks.  We’ve been struggling financially since Dylan passed, but I think it’s important to keep going and finish at least one of his projects, and create another that he would approve of.  With your contribution, you can be a part of this legacy of amazing comics.

 

The two books offer something for everyone.

Brubaker’s Reich is a meticulously drawn and researched biography of psychologist Wilhelm Reich, inventor of Orgone and many other crazier than fiction theories.

Vortex, by contrast is a crazier than life fantasy epic told in the Fort Thunder style. They’re both the kind of bold projects Sprakplug has always been known for. And some good rewards, like an acrylic painting by Cardini:

Here's a great story that was just passed along to me from one of our sales reps.

Our rep, Jim, was at an appointment with a media specialist. Jim and the media specialist were sitting behind the circ desk, looking through samples, when a fourth-grade boy came in. "Hi," the media specialist said. "Can I help you find a book?"

"I only read Stone Arch," the boy said. He repeated himself a few times.

The specialist laughed and introduced him to Jim. "This is our Stone Arch Books salesman!"

The kid was thrilled. He immediately marched around the circ desk and--without asking--started digging through the samples Jim had brought on the sales call. He told Jim his favorites of our sets were the Vortex books and the Jake Maddox books.

I love it! These stories always make my day.

Yesterday I spoke at the Southdale Public Library to a group of parents, kids, and teen library volunteers. I talked about my mysteries and scary stories, including Curtains! and The Book That Dripped Blood. We had a great discussion about monsters, poisons, and Agatha Christie – your basic library discussion when eager young readers are involved, right? Then, a mother of two young boys asked me, “Do you have to be a good speller to write books?” Hmm. I answered that no, you don’t. But -- and this is a big but -- anything you submit to a publisher should be as polished and professional looking as possible.

Weirdly enough, a few days earlier I had been working in my office at home and came across the results of an old Myers-Briggs test that I had taken. Remember, those? They helped you identify the way you processed information or related to those around you? I was labeled as an INFP: introverted, intuitive, feelings-centered, and flexible. In the M-B universe, there are 16 basic personality types. The INFPers, however, are the only ones pegged to make great editors. And that group consists of a mere 1% of the population. In other words, it’s not easy to find a good editor. The publishing industry has known that for years.

Good editors are not simply good spellers. They are good readers and listeners. They are sensitive to the way a character speaks, and how a scene is described. Like a skilled stand-up comedian, they have great timing. They know when and how events should occur on the page. I work with a terrific team of editors at Stone Arch. We have discussions on phrasing, pacing, shifts of tense, if a joke bombs on the page, when to introduce a villain in a story. Yeah, I know, it sounds geeky, but it’s lots of fun. For those of us in that 1% of the population, this is the stuff we dream about at night. We might not have nightmares about poisons or books that drip blood, but we can wake up in a sweat wondering if we used an adverb correctly. Or accurately. Or precisely.

Hello again, and welcome back. October is a busy month for me, but I am currently waiting for an approval on some sketches. So while I wait over the weekend, I'm having lots of coffee, writing a blog entry, labeling/stamping my new mailer, and getting a little personal drawing done.

First, lets speak on the subject of promotion yet again. I received my next run of postcards yesterday, and I am very pleased with the quality. I have seen/used cards from many places, and cards from uprinting.com are comparable to anything else. This company is a little different, though. First, you can choose your delivery options: the longer you give them, the less it costs. Obvious, right? Well, with uprinting I went with 1000 color front/black back card (14pt, glossy) and a six-day turnaround for $86. Almost $20 less than my previous supplier, and almost $100 less than a certain popular west coast printer. I did a rough count,and I think there are even more cards than I ordered (around 1150). And the BONUS of uprinting: they will do custom pieces i.e. they will do non-typical printing sizes to meet your needs. Very cool; it really opens up the possibilities for unique marketing material next year. But for now, I'll be getting 1000 cards out on Monday. Wow, I am usually a week behind on these mailers.

And I guess I would still have been if the sketch approval I'm waiting on had come yesterday. Sadly, the art director was out of the office so I had to send the sketches to another designer who was not familiar with the project. The sketches were shown to the client who specifically liked one, but I could not get approval until it was signed off by somebody else...

So I get the weekend off (sort of). I try not to take any days off so I'm pushing through this mailer, updating lots of spreadsheets (taxes, deductions, income, client list, etc) and online images on the site and ispot, and trying to figure out how to push my artwork farther as I feel its getting a bit monotonous. My buddy, Scott Brundage, turned me onto the website of Frank Stockton who talks alot about pushing the style and trying new things while still satisfying the clients needs. So I think I'm going to play a little, maybe some holidays gifts!

I have also spoken with Nate about the November show, and it is being pushed back to January which is a bit of relief as I am feeling a little overwhelmed with work and social expectations (especially with the holidays coming up). Monday, I'll talk with Dan at OpenSpace to see when he will need prints for the December show. I'm wondering how this works as apparently its a "salon style" show with prints in acetate sleeves; I do not know if each sleeve will hold numerous prints for immediate sale or just a single print. If numerous are needed, that may be a large financial drain at the worse time (over the holidays). Eh, gotta spend money to make money!

And speaking making money, I provided artwork for the Boston Business Journal's 2008 Biotech insert yesterday. The art director contacted me after receiving an email promo that I had sent out at the beginning of October. The subject dealt with how the biotechnology industry has lost $5 billion since 2003. This was a project where the art director and editors had a concept they liked before contacting me. Normally, I do not like working that way, but it is a good concept that I thought I could make unique. They wanted various "biotech items" swirling in water that is heading down a drain. In terms of layout, the art director requested that the illustration be circular, and he provided a pdf of a temporary layout.
The sketches:

The first sketch was pretty straightforward. Various pills, syringes, test tubes, money swirling around. However, I felt this sketch lacked something so I decided to try to the old comic book technique of "moving the eye" in the second sketch.
Now this is more like it. I have always loved that moment in movies where the video camera gives the audience a split view of both above and below the water. In fact, I think I may want to explore this more. I was happy with this sketch, but I decided to try a concept outside of the art director's suggestion just to explore the possibilities:
This concept had potential, but it feels very "photo friendly." One thing I try to do with my illustrations is to make them "unphotographable." What I mean is that I do not like to provide an illustration that could easily be a photograph. So I was hesitant to show this sketch, but I was confident that it would not be chosen when shown with the other two.

The art director chose the "vortex" sketch, but there were a few concerns. He was afraid that the circular format was actually working against the image, and he wanted the surface of the water to be bursting out of the circle. After some discussion and layout testing, we actually decided to lose the circle completely and bleed the image behind all of the type elements.
The final:
The blue at the bottom and the black at the top bleed to top/bottom with the logo and text over them. I think it worked out well, and the art director seemed very happy! Here is a little jpeg I made with the temp pdf he sent:

I think we both felt that we took both the image and the design to a level higher than the initial concepts. He is sending me both a pdf and issue samples upon publication; I'm starting to accrue a library of published work on my bookshelf. Mom will approve.

So thats the week. Next week, I will (maybe) be doing a piece I am very excited about! Hopefully, the sketch will be approved with no revisions :)

Until next time, I bid you adieu.
Enjoy the Day,
Chris
chris-whetzel.com