My hands, August 10th 2013
The result of sawing down and cutting up that huge bush, and putting up a bamboo screen and making a few smaller sections of bamboo screen with my own bamboo poles to fill out some gaps.
I didn’t notice any of the injuries when they actually happened, because I have a notoriously high pain threshold, especially in my hands and arms. It was just, “oh, where’s all this blood coming from again?” One of the band aids was partly pre-emptive (tying string very tightly a few hundred times when making the screens gave me blisters, apparently, as I realised after the first two had broken and started bleeding). I have no idea how/why I got three scratches from my saw on the back of my right hand. Oh well.
Anyway, most of it has healed by now …
So much nicer with the screen, even if it’s not totally opaque. Can’t wait for the vegetation to grow back a bit (next year …?). Maybe the small bush in the center, that was quite sad the first years I had this garden, but picked itself up a bit this year, will make a big comeback now that it gets more light?
My day off
Wednesdays I don’t go to my dayjob, because there are too many people in the office and no space for me. So I was looking forward to finally being able to draw comics today …
But last night there was another heavy storm over Brandenburg, and when I woke up I discovered that a large bush in my garden had collapsed.
Noooo …
It was kind of cozy. :3 So nice to have the middle part of my garden completely sheltered from my neighbours. Maybe some day it will really be like that, when/if the cypresses grow up.
To save the cypresses, I started to cut down the fallen branches …
The other half was still standing. My neighbour came to inform me that he had arranged for a guy with a chainsaw to cut it down in the afternoon. It made sense to cut it down, of course, since that part was leaning a bit against the fence and the next storm might pull it down, and if the wind was from the wrong direction it might even damage his roof. (Nothing got damaged this time, luckily.)
I was a bit annoyed that he just “informed” me that it was going to be cut down and didn’t talk about it with me first, but oh well …
I called my mum to whine about it and she gave me some pro tips about how to handle stupid older men who think you don’t know anything … V^(oo)^;V (Be cool and serious, calmly and assertively make sure that things go as you want them to.)
In the afternoon the chainsaw guy came by. Actually there were no less than FIVE guys who just had to participate … My neighbour, a friend of my neighbour (?!), a serious guy who acted like he was in charge and got annoyed at my meddlesome neighbour, the chainsaw guy, and then a random fifth guy who didn’t really do anything (??!!).
By all means, I could have done it by myself with my little handsaw, but it would have taken a little longer. So I guess it was kind of helpful … V^(oo)^;V
So after they cut down the other half of the bush I sawed up those branches too.
The bamboo shrub next to it had collapsed, too, so I might as well harvest all the dry poles from it.
Wood, bamboo, leaves.
That’s only half of the leaves – the first half I already put in the hedgiepiggle hideout. The hedgehogs will have an epic hideout this winter. :3
Hello, neighbour’s kitchen window. :os
My neighbour wanted the front part of the bush (with the whitish leaves) to be cut down, too, but I made sure it stayed …!! V°(oo)°;V That part is no danger to anything, dammit.
… And that’s what I did on my day off from work.
The test copies of Driftwood arrived from Lulu …
I’ve already decided to print most of the books with a “real” printer (and it’s those books that you will get if you pre-order now!), but I’ll make a print-on-demand edition, too, which might be good for readers in Oceania and the Americas, since Lulu Books has local printing facilities in the US, Europe and Australia.
With Lulu you can also get distribution through Amazon, so that they print and ship the books and you don’t have to do anything, and that’s another plus for my lazy self.
Lulu only makes standard sized books. I made test copies of “US Trade” (6×7 inch) books in paperback and hardcover, as well as “Crown Quarto” books (about the same format as Cerebus books). They all have shiny covers, which is a bit annoying, but there is no way to avoid it with Lulu.
The one that looks best/almost worthwile is the hardcover book. (Apologies for the crappy camera phone photos in this post …)
Also, the hardcover is the only edition of Driftwood so far where any printer has managed to center the spine. (On the Swedish edition and both of the two softcovers from Lulu, the spine is off center.) Congrats to the hardcover binders!!!!! V^(oo)^V ♥
As you can see above, the front cover is not positioned very well. That’s because Lulu’s “cover designer” is a bit frustrating, and only now that I have the actual books in front of me I can tell where the front and back cover designs need to be centered. For some reason they won’t tell you all the necessary measurements on the site. And the preview image is so small that you can’t really see anything …
Also, the covers are printed in pretty low resolution, and I’ll have to remove, or modify the colours of, some elements that have much too fine lines.
Anyway, the biggest problem is their 90g paper. It’s extremely thin and transparent:
The US Trade paperbacks are all printed on cream coloured paper, but that one is just as transparent. And perhaps Driftwood looks somehow crappier on this yellowish cream paper, maybe because of the colours of the cover.
What makes the hardcover worthwhile in spite of the crappy paper is that it’s a hardcover, so it looks nice and feels durable. It opens up easily enough so you can read the pages properly. (The spine is glued, though, not sewn.) Also, it doesn’t feel as disappointingly thin for a 400 page book as the softcovers. :op
Of course, Lulu seems to be notoriously careless at handling the books, and some scratches and bumped corners are almost mandatory.
The Cerebus sized softcover is by all means nice because it’s the same format as Cerebus because it’s a bigger format, and its more square dimensions fit the format of the comic better. But it’s “only” 4.29 € less expensive to make than the hardcover (12.55 vs. 16.84 € for one copy – of course, that’s all quite a lot compared to non-POD printers X_x), while the softcover makes it feel a bit cheap, and the spine creases easily.
* * * * *
P.S. I’m printing most of the books with Pozkal in Poland. They do digital printing for small editions (like my 100-300 copies), custom format, some choice in paper, with quite affordable prices. But if you only ever need a dozen or so copies for yourself, and want to sell your books mainly online, Lulu might be a better option (as long as you’re okay with their paper). Among POD services they are not bad at all. (I personally just have pretty high demands because I work with comics publishing companies and I’m a perfectionist …)
Driftwood English edition crowdfunding campaign is on!
Now that Driftwood is finished, I’m printing it as a book. It was already published in Swedish last year. But the English edition is even better. Heh.
I’ve also put together the book Flotsam and Jetsam, with all the side stories, lots of sketches and illustrations from all the 17 years I’ve been working on Driftwood, and deleted scenes. There are also articles about what influenced me to create the story and the characters, and notes about interesting details such as Eva’s mysterious breast expansion between chapters 6 and 7, or how telepathic powers aren’t really a supernatural thing in my experience.
Anyways, the actual cost of printing the two books is 2220 €. I have some money put away … although I put it away in order to cover for medical and other emergencies if such should ever happen to me. But who cares about that when you can print comics!!
However, you can help me with the funds by pre-ordering the books.
You can also get both books as digital copies in PDF format. Handy if you don’t like to be burdened by too many worldly possessions and don’t mind reading books on your computer, or if you’re not quite sure if you like it enough to get a printed copy.
I’m also making T-shirts that will look like this:
“No leashes, no masters” … I’ll post actual photos after I get the test shirts. They’ll be printed with Spreadshirt, and available in women’s fitted sizes, women’s plus sizes, and men’s sizes. (And guaranteed no American Apparel sexist crap!)
Post-hacking
So today my website got hacked and all the contents wiped out. I’ve been restoring it from an aged backup, but some of it (like Dog Island) I have to rebuild pretty much from scratch. Whee!
The hacker also changed the login database, so I couldn’t access the WordPress admin, but thanks to these instructions I was able to change it back, with a new password. Just mentioning it here in case the same happens to somebody else …
Update, Sunday:
Okay, now it should all be as before. If you should find some missing graphics or broken links somewhere, message me!
