color?

I am to say the least a little bored, and a little burned out and a little stagnant right now.  This is pretty common when you go from the largest comic book convention in the world back where everyone thinks you are awesome back to a crappy duplex where your neighbor thinks you’re a jag.

I had been looking over the upcoming issue as it sits now, and it’s pretty damn good…but also kind of average as far as Arsenic Lullaby goes.  Every couple of issues I wonder if I should color the thing.  Common wisdom among other publishers and distributors and stores is that it would not be worth the extra money I spend on printing.  That people like my sort of book for reasons other than it being “eye candy”.  This year I have been thinking…well, when is the last time someone actually tried it?  When is the last time a black and white Indy book actually tried color?   The last one I can think of that took that leap was in like 1999.  Well, the landscape has changed.  Color printing isn’t nearly as difficult as it used to be and since the continuing struggle is separating yourself from the sea of crap…wouldn’t the extra effort and cost be worth it?

I did some number crunching and found out that if I tripled readership that I wouldn’t even have to raise the price on the issue. 

“Triple readership huh?  Just like that?”

Yeah, just like that.  Let’s be honest…I haven’t REALLY given a full court press to promoting a book in awhile because the readership always grows on its own.  These days I focus on the quality of the book and let the word of mouth do the rest.  BUT…a few things fell into place differently this year.  Comic-con International came a week earlier and Independence Day was smack in the middle of the week and while that screwed getting a new cartoon done all to hell, it did give allot of breathing room to the new issue.  With getting the new cartoon done in time for CCI being simply a mathematical impossibility double effort was available for the book.  (New cartoon still coming by the way…don’t you worry about that)

With that being that, it made more sense to use CCI as a place to plug upcoming projects rather than a place to move current projects.  The long and short of it is the new book won’t be in your local stores advanced order catalogue until 8/27 which is going to give me allot of time to actually do interviews, get it reviewed, send out promo stuff…all the things I am usually only able to do about 25% of what I want to be doing.  AND it gives you all plenty of time to pitch in.

Basically here is the situation…if readership (orders through the stores) triples the next issue will be out in FULL COLOR…and not half asses crappy full color like most books.  5 years of doing color for Mad Magazine has taught me a thing or two about how to color this book without bright, harsh, eye throb inducing colors that would ruin the masterfully inked lines I am famous for. 

Here is what we need from you for right now…e-mails and addresses of stores, e-mails of comic book clubs, e-mails of comic book websites  (I said E-MAILS…not web sites…E-MAILS) and of course YOUR e-mail addresses.  Adding friends to my FB page would help a bit too.   I said MY fb page, not the fan page.  -Douglas paszkiewicz illustrator- is my page there in case you didn’t know. 

don’t worry, I have all but completely moved all of my hairbrained  opinions to ww.astrangersvoice.com (podcasts have been moved there also in case you where looking for them).  So you won’t be sending people to a comic book FB page that is full of everything except comic book stuff.

Don’t worry about raising hell about it yet…until 8/27 this is just the planning phase…recon..more news and what you can be doing in a couple of weeks.