Christmas In Cyberspace

Music: Hey Santa Claus: The Moonglows
Thoughts: Publishing and the unbearable state of the season

Alrighty gang...due to popular demand (this one's for you Sam!) I've decided to update this thing finally. First off, I've managed to finish not one, but TWO books which are on their way out to those I owe them to, just in time for the holidays!

First off, the third issue of Mondo Flod is done and out to the members of the BPP along with the long awaited BPP Jam comic!. Mondo Flod #3 is my lounge issue and filled with all sorts of useless information such as the origin of the cocktail and a look at such Lounge luminaries as Martin Denny and Trader Vic (among others). I had an interesting time trying to get both of these books printed as I decided to try a guy who does printing out of his house up in Lincoln City (those of you not familiar with Lincoln City, well it's about 12 miles north of my home in Depoe Bay and it's the first coastal town you come upon from the long deadly HWY 18 that makes it's way to Portland). What an experience THIS was....first off the guy only charges 40 cents for a double sided color copy on glossy stock....CAN'T BEAT THAT! So I figured I'd get my Flod covers done there and while I was at it print up the Jam comic (Adam Owen had already sent me the color covers for the Jam before I found out how cheap this guy was). So I go to ask him what he charges per copy and he says 10 cents a copy, thinking that his B&W would be a bit cheaper than that, I give him a frown and he says he'll sweeten the deal by putting the B&W on glossy stock too....I agree and ask for 25 copies of the jam book (all pages) and 25 double sided color copies for the MF cover.....well, the guy thinks like me and has to use a calculator to figure out what it'll cost for 25 books at one dollar per. OK, color covers $10 per 25 (SWEET!) books $25 per 25. Off I go to pick them up in about an hour. I get back and they aren't done...seems the guy ran out of toner! I can sympathize with this because it happens to me all the time. I agree to let him finish the job and come back the next day....well actually Natalie will have to 'cause I gotta work.

Next day I get home from work fearing the worse. Nat got the goods and the guy went so far as to shrink wrap the entire bundle of copies. Looking them over, the color covers came out GREAT! The Jam could have been better....too much line dropout probably because the guy ran out of toner halfway through and the guy put them on a 100lb glossy stock. I should have had him do regular stock, but even that came out kinda rough. So after counting all the copies, seems the guy only wrote down 20 of each instead of 25...but he gave me 24 color and short changed me about 30 copies of the rest. OK, I'm a patient understanding guy, so I didn't sweat it, went back today to get my extra copies and the guy said he didn't have any paper! Basically he shooed me out of there, but wrote me a check for 35 bucks! So I got the Jam books printed for free, my Mondo Flod covers (color covers inside AND out mind you) for free and kind of a funny feeling in my gut that this guy didn't want any business. He said he'll have paper in a couple weeks, so I decided just to do my color covers through him....you can't beat that deal, and do the rest of the book somewhere else.....Oh, and the luck of the Fates smiled on me more when I got an e-mail from my buddies at comixpress again apologizing for the delay in printing the AFE 2006 catalogs and overing to waive the setup fee and gve me 10% off my order! So, moral of the story, it pays to be patient.

So I go to the only print shop I can find in Lincoln City (other than the printer who reminds me of Christopher Lloyd) and walk into what looks like an office, actually, they do blueprints and CAD junk. Nobody really gets up from their desk except this young guy and I tell him I want 12 copies of the book (Mondo Flod #3) and ask if they have 24 or 28 bond. Nobody really knows what I'm talking about and they just tell me they have only standard crappy 20 bond or cardstock. Since I didn't want a cardstock book, I got the regular paper....and it came out ok but when I got home I noticed the copier setting could have been just a bit darker (again, that's just the perfectionist in me). But since I only had enough money on me for 12 copies and needed about 18, I decided to try something new and print up the rest on my laserjet. All was going smoothly and I got 4 of the 6 copies I needed when almost to the end of copying them, the paper jammed and so I have a bunch of copies that I have to figure out exactly which pages to print on the backs of them.....that'll be tomorrow's chore, as for me, it's time to head off to bed wish visions of half printed copies and crazy small bussinessmen dancing through my head......

CAIO'

F