News

This is the e-newsletter I just sent out to all my readers. If you want to be on the mailing list, please send me an email at fierystudios@hotmail.com and I’ll add you right away.

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Hello, everyone, after a terribly long absence. My archives tell me that it was sometime in 2003 when I sent out my last newsletter — nearly four years! I’m blessed to have such patient readers — I hope the new book will be worth the wait. The good news is that there’s lot to talk about!

On to the news:

1) The new book, Vögelein: Old Ghosts, will be making its debut at the American Library Association Annual Conference in Washington DC on June 21-27, 2007. After that, it will be available from select local comic stores in Michigan, and it will also be appearing for order in the May PREVIEWS from Diamond, for shipping in July. I will send out order numbers and further information as soon as it becomes available. Also, watch the News Blog at http://www.vogelein.com/vogelein/news.shtml for updates as they happen.

2) I regret to say that I cannot take preorders for this book. Last time, I had the book done and off to the printers and had the luxury of a little free time — this time around, I’m going to be running right down to the wire and will need all my resources just to guarantee that the book comes out on time. Hopefully I can do autographed/illustrated editions after the book is out. However, if you still feel moved to preorder yourself a copy of the book, the absolute best thing you can do is to order it from your Local Comic Store — that way you both support your LCS and show my distributor that I have lots of wonderful readers. If you don’t know where your nearest comic store is, please either visit The Master List or call the Comic Shop Locator Service at 1-888-COMIC-BOOK.

3) There will be release parties and signings, plural. I haven’t yet set a date or locations, but I have spoken with the proprietors of certain local establishments, and things are in the works. I’m hoping for at least three — but I want to get the book finalized and off to the printers before I make any promises. Again, I’ll let everyone know dates, locations and times as soon as I know.

4) I also hope to hit a couple of shows in the summer. Spring Motor City is probably out, because the new book won’t be back from the printers yet. Wizard World Chicago is looking like a better possibility, as is either SPX or Stumptown, but both of those will require plane tickets to get to, so we’ll have to see how the financials look. Fall Motor City’s probably a lock, though.

5) I will be doing another 25-copy special remarqued edition of the new book. Again, I can’t take orders yet, but if you’re interested, drop me a line at fierystudios@hotmail.com and I’ll put you on the short list.

6) In going through the basement, I found 9 unbound copies of the remarqued edition of the first book. This means that if you wanted a copy, and didn’t get one (one per customer, please!) that you can still order one. If you’re interested, drop me a line. One caveat, though – they no longer make the paper used to bind the first edition, which looked like this:

Book Cover

Book Cover 2

Book Spine

Now, we will be using a similar, handmade marbled paper that looks like this:

Paper from Hollanders

The book will still have a composite-leather spine and corners, and should look very similar to the earlier pictures, and it’s still being made by the exquisite craftspeople at Bessenberg Bindery in Ann Arbor. The books should be done within the next month or so — drop me a line at fierystudios@hotmail.com if you’re interested.

7) A web preview will be coming soon, probably within the next month or so. I know I’ve been promising this for literal years now, but the art and script are both still moving targets in many ways, so I don’t want to release anything that’s not really close to finalized. I also made a promise to a journalist friend that she could have the scoop on the art, so I don’t want to release anything before she’s had the chance to write her article and get it out there. Again, I’ll post that info as soon as I have it — just know that it’s in the works, really for real this time. Really. Promise. Pinky Swear.

That’s all for now — I’m sorry the news couldn’t be more precise, but I promise to let everyone know the exact information as soon as I have it myself. Thanks to you all for being kind readers and fans all these years. Without your help and encouragement, I wouldn’t have found the courage, time and strength to finish this new book.

Well, after an hourlong conversation yesterday with my Diamond Rep, it looks like I’m going to pull a hail-mary and put Vogelein:Old Ghosts in the May PREVIEWS, for shipping in July. You heard it here first!
Since I won’t be doing pre-orders, the absolute bestest, kindest, most wonderfullest thing you could do would be not to order from me, but from your Local Comics Store. That way, you support your LCS, you support me, and you show Diamond that there actually are people out there who like my little faerie books. Plus, I’m going to be way too swamped with promo work after the books get here to ship anything out. Maybe I can do a special autographed / remarqued edition later, but for right now, my main focus is on getting the book out, period.
I’ll post the order codes as soon as I get them. YAY.

I had a really wonderful visit at the Bacon Memorial Library in Wyandotte last night. Lots of people showed up and we had a really fun, productive evening. I really hope they’ll have me back again someday, because the attendees were really eager and ready to draw and everyone participated really well. It’s so much more fun when the audience gets into the act with you!
In other news, I’ve completed the forward narrative. I spent the weekend scanning in the last twenty pages and adjusting them on screen with Photoshop, then finalizing all the dialogue balloons. I got about 90% done, and tonight and tomorrow I hope to place the dialogue balloons on the images, flatten them, and get them slotted into InDesign. There’s still quite a bit of work to be done, but I think I can see the finish line. Granted, I have to use binoculars, but I can still see it.

It was ten years ago this month that Vogelein was created.

Yeah, it took me a while to wrap my head around that one, too.

Set the wayback machine to February of 1997: It’s cold and gloomy, and my buddy Jeff and I were both in the post-collegiate pre-real-life doldrums. We decided to cheer ourselves up by making a recipe from the “Llittle Irish Cookbook” — the kind displayed at the bookstore cash register, designed for impulse buyers. The recipe in question was “Dublin Lawyer” and its preparation is the stuff of legend: sharp knives, gore, and lobsters that refused to die, even after being split in half, and split in half again. We also lost our common sense somewhere along the way and, doubling the recipe, used a full cup of cheap irish whiskey for the sauce. Yeah, you can see where this is going.

So, heady with whiskey fumes and post-Valentine’s Day angst, we sat around and brainstormed up our newest story: a clockwork faerie. The rest, as they say, is history.

I wish I could be like one of the cool kids and do a bunch of neat promo images, or a fan art contest with spiffy prizes, or even write something more philosophical and erudite, but the truth of the matter is, if I take my eyes off the finish line for even one minute between now and June, the new book will not come out on time. And I figure, the best thing I can do for my fans is to give them a new book as soon as possible. So I hope you’ll forgive me the lack of fanfare and celebration and cool new images.

Still, it’s a really big deal for me to know that I pushed two entire books through to completion in ten years. That’s pretty awesome, and is one of those things I always hoped I’d be able to do. Hooray for stories, hooray for characters that make you want to write, hooray for good friends who set the ball rolling.

Ten years. Wow.

I’ve got the penultimate batch of pages on my desk; a group of six all pencilled and inked and awaiting toning. This is the end of the forward narrative, and the one pickup page I had left. Once these are done, I’ll finish scanning, cleanup and lettering, then drop them into the layout program. After that it’s writing notes, adjusting earlier pages for text and content, and completing the cover image.
And then the pesky final scene. I really hope my resource comes through soon.
Once that’s in the bag, we’re off to the races. Beta readers, watch your inboxes!

Thankfully, this has been an extremely productive month for me. I’ve got seven or eight pages pencilled and four inked and painted. Last night I cleaned up three half-finished pages and completed their pencils.
This means, by my count, that I only have two more pages to pencil, and the forward narrative is finished! I could be done by early February if I get a move on!
Then I still have to go back and add an extra page, and at least one extra clarifying panel, and complete the one remaining scene, and I’m done. All told, probably only 10-12 more pages to go.
Then I get to scan and letter the last 20-30 pages, slot them in InDesign, print it out, and start going over the complete manuscript with a big red pen. I’ve got all my beta readers’ notes, as well as some of my own, and that process of hemming and hawing and redacting and tweaking will probably take a few weeks. I’ll also write the notes, design the cover, and finalize the pinups and photographs that will be appearing in the back.
I hope — and maybe I’m being overly optimistic here — I can get it done by the end of March, and have it in hand by mid-May, which will leave me April May and June to work on promotional stuff.
Lord help me, this summer’s gonna be a wild ride.

So, it’s official. Paul, Jim Ottaviani and I just booked ourselves into the ALA Annual Conference in DC. The booth alone — not counting the carpet and table rental fee (!) — costs more than my first two used cars did. Put together.
Now I really have to get the new book done.
Panic: It’s not just for breakfast anymore.

Having just completed the paints on my seventh page this month, it is hereby time to celebrate. I was hoping I’d get four pages done, what with the holidays and all, but heavens to Betsy, I’ve nearly doubled that.
My thumbnails indicate I’ve got another six pages to go in the narrative, minus the pickup scene. Good Lord… I might have this bad boy finished ahead of schedule.
Oh. And happy New Year!

I plotted out the last of the book last night. I think I have maybe another 15 pages to go chronologically, and then I have to go back and add one scene to the middle of the book that I’ve been putting off, waiting for a source to get back to me. There are a couple other pages and panels I’m going to add, one for clarity’s sake and the other to lengthen a scene and give it some more weight.
I feel a lot better now that I’ve had my beta readers go through it — and the response has been overwhelmingly positive, so that’s good. There are a lot of corrections — adjustments, spelling errors, suggestions: all of them necessary — and hopefully I’ll have time to get them all done before the end of May, when it has to go to the printer.
Wish me luck… I think I might just pull it off.

I had to order a couple things from Dick Blick last night (shut up. the last art supply house in town died an unhappy death two years ago. It’s either that or brave the hell of Hobby Lobby and their sanctimonous uberChristian propaganda.) and so I did a quick scan through the site to see if there was anything else I needed — and I found it.
The Brush.
The Brush that I instructed Paul to buy a dozen of if he found them in New York. The Brush I’ve used, and favored, faithfully for fifteen years. The Winsor Newton Sceptre Gold II Series 101 Short-Handled Pointed Round, Size Three.
See, all the crazymaking stemmed from the fact that for the last four years, the size three was completely unavailable. Every store I went into had sizes 0, 1, 2, 4, 6. Every catalog: 0, 1, 2, 4, 6. I scoured the internet — and I’m good at that. No luck. I considered contacting WN directly. They apparrently still made them; they were featured in their catalogue. The size 2 is too small. The size 4 is too big. The size 3 is just right. Perfect, snappy, sharp, capable of holding enough paint to blanket a whole panel, and still small and pointy enough to turn right around and do tiny detail work. If you have a size 3, you don’t need any other sizes — it does everything. It’s four-dollar brush that holds up amazingly well against the twin punishments of acrylic paint and a lazy artist — I can usually get five to ten pages out of one before I have to relegate it to paint-mixing tasks, as opposed to fine detail work.
So I ordered five. If the quality’s there, I’ll order another dozen. I’m not kidding. I know what tools I like, and which ones perform, and when I can’t get them, I get grumpy.
And no one likes a grumpy Janer.