The Big One

and

I told you so…

First, for the ladies

I happen to have allot of female readers, possibly due to my good looks, possibly due to the fact that I don’t draw books about 70 year old superheroes punching 70 year old villains for the 600th time. Hey, spiderman…you suck at your job. You have ben trying to stop the hobgoblin since 1963. If I took up the violin 4 decades ago and still couldn’t play a tune…I would stop.

 “With great futility comes great need to move onto something else”.

 Anyway you ladies often complain that I “don’t have your size” or “don’t have anything for girls”. Well if you go to our online store right now we have ladies fitted shirts that I printed up beause you all complained..that are collecting dust AND an all NEW product. NECKLACES! Each with a hand drawn, hand inked peice of original art under glass in a little…uhm thingy. Below is a poorly taken picture of one with nothing alongside it to give you scale (nice work Joe…appreciate it.)) But there are others to choose from each one of a kind…just for you and you alone baby. The thingy is about the size of a quarter. HOW can I put such detail into something so tiny?! Motivation, I did it for you…for YOU. You deserve the moon, but alas I cannot give you the moon so I drew you a… tiny bat, or fetus, or alien face.

www.arseniclullabies.highwire.com

 

Now then…Comic-Con International is just around the corner. This year we will once again have a “Exclusive Product”. A 32 page advance ashcan edition of “The Big Stall”.

 

The most common question now is…what does that mean/what is that.

Let’s start with the comic itself. “The Big Stall” is a collection of ALL NEW Arsenic Lullaby comics. It will be 50 plus pages and out in all it’s glory late 2012. The bulk of it will be published for Comic-Con International in a 6 1/2 by 9 inch sized collectable. It has a Baron Von Donut story and a bunch of other stories that all reach or surpass the Arsenic Lullaby standard for despicable yet awesome. It is a limited run of 400, all signed and numbered and there is room on the back for a small sketch.

As for what is a Comic-Con International ( hereby referred to as CCI) exclusive. This is an item that sports the CCI logo and can ONLY be distributed at CCI. It took a bit of doing to get accepted this year, but pleading a case based on quality and reputation our latest work will be included in this CCI program. To quote a CCI official who will remain nameless ” It was really funny, I really enjoyed reading it”. As I understand it they are tightening the reigns a bit on what is allowed to have this logo, and this turned out to be one of those cases where is it better to be good than lucky. Three major award nominations, countless critical acclaim, and the standard pleas, questions, demands, and threats from fans to make sure we will be at this years show make it pretty tough to exclude A.L. from anything.

*pay attention all you young bucks out there who ask me how to survive in the comic book business- be really really good.

*pay attention you fans- people complain all the time, it is more rare and effective to spend you time praising things you think are good. A handful of you thanking a convention or store for having Arsenic Lullaby makes a huge difference. HUGE.

…back to what “exclusive” means. This can only be distributed at CCI. You may see other “CCI Exclusives” for sale at shows after, or on web sites before. This could be for one of a couple of reasons. 1- It is an exclusive but not really an exclusive…let me explain… Filling out the form and sending in the required info can get you listed as an “exclusive” on the CCI website, but that does not automatically mean you get to use the CCI logo. Use of the CCI logo has an extra hurtle or two and comes with a contract that must be followed i.e. distributed only at CCI. 2-The publisher got special permission. big bad ass folks like Marvel can probably work things like this out. 3- they are breaking the contract. Now …I have ben known to ignore the rules and jerk promoters around from time to time but there are two instances where i do not. First they are so big I dare not screw with them ( that would be CCI) or they have earned my respect so I follow their rules ( this would ALSO be CCI). Now…if some loophole presents itself or I figure out how to get special permission maybe there will be another chance for the rest of you to get a copy but with a run of only 400 I sincerely doubt I will have the chance.

 

and let me ask you people something…where are all my pictures?! I’ve had my picture and the picture of my booth taken like a zillion times…how about sending those pics my way huh? maybe I would like a pciture of the convention, and my readers…ever think of that? Hmm? It’s not all about what you want y’know. I nevr have time to take any pictures and always go home with nothing so…cough them up.

douglaspasz at gmail 

Which brings me to the “I told you so” part. When I say something is going to sell out, I am not doing that for the sake of sounding cool or stirring up interest. I don’t need to bother with those shenanigans, that’s rookie stuff. I have a good idea of how many readers I have and what the growth rate is every year and I produce stuff accordingly. I make my cash and move onto the next book, shirt, DVD. I have a small apartment see …I have no interest in half a ton of books in my garage. That by the way is also how you survive. Better to sell out and make more next issue that have all your capitol invested in last years edition. If I had printed up 50,000 copies of Arsenic Lullaby no.1 would they have all eventually sold? yes, but EVENTUALLY would mean that the money I invested in that printing would have been tied up leaving me unable to print new books and keep moving forward. Are allot of people sad that they don’t have a copy of no.1? Sure but that is only because they found out about A.l. when no.16 or no. 17 came out. If I was still trying to recoup the investment in no.1 a year later there would never have been a no.16…follow me? “pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered”.

Why am I telling you all this? Because you need to understand this policy when I say things like MAKE SURE YOU PRE ORDER “THE BIG STALL” WHEN I TELL YOU TO (I will give you info on that in August) And when I tell you thinings like “the Hardcover will be sold out after CCI this year”…which I am telling you now.

The hardcover collection will be sold out after CCI this year.

It would have been sold out six months ago but I had a couple boxes labeled wrong, so if you don’t have a copy yet you should heed my advice, and get one before CCI. I have zero plans to reprint the hardcover. ZERO. printing up collections of old work annoys me. The collection is over 450 pages of our despicable best, has an awesome cover, and is one of those things you see later and think “Fuck I should have gotten that instead of brand X which I can still get now, will be able to get next year, and is easy to find.”

There are also a few “collectors coins” left, but I don’t seem to have any pictures of those (thanks a ton Joe) so just go to www.nsnart.com for info on that.

AND ANOTHER THING…If you order something off of our webstore and want it autographed or sketched on YOU HAVE TO TELL US. There is no extra charge, but if we don’t know you want a sketch we don’t include a sketch. Some people don’t, some people order it as a gift or order it and want to bring it to a show to watch me sketch in it and get a picture. We don’t assume anything. You want extras, ask for extras.

www.arseniclullabies.highwire.com

Speaking of “i told you so” The original artwork form the CCI cover will be up on ebay NEXT SUNDAY. This cover turned out fantastic, my covers are rare, it is CCI exclusive, and it features Cthulu. I hope you have been saving your money. People constantly come to our booth at shows looking for original artwork…well, these days you don’t get to wait that long. By the time a show rolls around the artwork you are looking for is usually long gone.