Journal

Thursday, June 05, 2003

not a poem

While Comic-Con covers 4 days, I can only attend for 2 days. I would like to be there when Neil is doing something so I can see him, he is the reason I'm going to this convention. I need to make my travel plans, get in on some reduced air fares, so please let me know which of the 4 days of the convention Neil is doing stuff. Thanks, Roxanne Fields.

Er... didn't I already answer this on Tuesday? (Checks.) (Yes I did.)

Anyway, I'm now swapping e-mails with the Comicon people about schedule. As far as any of us can tell, I'll be doing something every day, so it's your call. It'll be different somethings each day. There's also a possibility of a midnight reading as a CBLDF benefit. (I'm very tempted to read the whole of THE MONARCH OF THE GLEN, the new Shadow story from the new Silverberg Legends book.) That's most likely to be Thursday night, or Friday after the Eisners. The schedule still isn't set, except for the Mirror Mask panel.

(Incidentally, Mirror Mask started shooting in the UK on Monday. Dave McKean has shot the hospital sequence, and all the circus stuff. This is both extremely cool and extremely frustrating. It's my first feature film to be shot.... and I'm not there.)

Did my phoning people to thank them for buying over $500 of Fantagraphics stuff this morning, and it was fun. There is now a comics retailer in Halifax who knows the premise of 1602, because he wanted to know how he should order, and if it was the kind of thing that people would like, so I told him, and I think he seemed to think that it was and they would.

The word from Eric Reynolds at Fantagraphics is pretty positive:

This grass roots campaign looks to be a phenomenal success: if orders continue at close to the rate they have for the last five days, we project that by weeks� end we will have achieved our immediate goal of the $80,000 stated in this letter. This will get us over our immediate shortfall. If we exceed that figure, we can pay many patient cartoonists the royalties that we have slipped behind on since our previous distributor went bankrupt that much faster, not to mention a few other long-standing creditors whose patience has been understandably eroding. Gary Groth and Kim Thompson are gratified beyond words at the outpouring of support, both financial and moral, as am I personally (I love my job and can�t imagine having another; it is my home more than any place I�ve actually paid rent on in the last ten years). We thank everyone who has and continues to spread the word, and who has encouraged us to hang in there via e-mails and phone calls. Being at BEA this past weekend was, in many ways, the most rewarding experience I�ve had at Fanta, the moral support was unbelievable.

(Nicked from Alan David Doane's journal, via TCJ's Journalista.)

I'll keep doing the phone calls to say thanks for another week, so move fast if you want one. (You have to order $500 worth of stuff from the Fantagraphics site, and tell them that instead of the phone call where Gary phones you up to say thanks for keeping the wolf from their door, you'd like me instead.)