Thursday, July 23, 2009

i have books

I wasn't sure how to follow up my previous post, as it was so serious. It seemed like anything I could possibly write would seem shallow compared to it.

SO I'VE DECIDED TO SHAMELESSLY PROMOTE MY WARES!

I started an etsy account, it's a more public means of selling my books, over my website's store. I have my four comic books for sale, The Trugglemat, Spitting Pennies, What is This? and Alpha City Comics Issue One.

I've also changed how I am producing my books, i used to sew the interior pages together, and then use rice paste to glue the covers to the pages. Every time I would glue my books, I would get nervous, thinking my recipe was somehow wrong, and the books would fall apart. They never seemed to fall apart, so I kept on making my books that way. Then finally, at MoCCA this year, I put a BUNCH of copies of What is This? together, to give away, and show off. Sure enough, some of the covers started to fall off, and I was super embarrassed handing them out to people. One woman ran up to me at one point waving the book, telling me how much she liked it and as she opened the book...crack! I could hear the brittle dried glue breaking.

While I was in New York, I decided to stop using glue on my books. And as if the Universe wanted to make sure I meant what I said, it drove the point home: My favorite pastime on the way back from a convention is to sit on the Amtrak train, and read read read all the comics I got at the show. So, I sat down in my seat at Penn Station, and opened up my first read of my trip, Kazimir Strzepek's The Mourning Star, Vol. 1 (which, by the way, is AWESOME). As I read the book, the glue gave, and chunks of the book dropped one by one into my lap. I pulled out my needle and thread, and went to work sewing it back together, which took me until Albany.

So short story long, I'm sewing all of my books together now, and I think they look and feel better than ever. Alpha City Comics now has a shiny foil tape spine. And Spitting Pennies will eventually get a black tape spine, if I can find some good black tape. I'm also making a more conscious decision about what color thread I'm using for each book. I'm far more satisfied with the finished product.

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