drew weing dot com

Eight

on April 5, 2005

So what have I been up to for the last couple weeks?

on March 31, 2005

Let’s see…

I got my six pager done for the You Ain’t No Dancer anthology. I think it’s supposed to be out for SPX in September.

Eleanor got an incredible infection in the tip of her nose, which caused it to swell up to a massive, clown-like size and color. I took her to the hospital where she was treated to posterior-type injections of antibiotics. Here’s a photo:

We then took a week-long trip to Tucson, Arizona and I met Eleanor’s parents. I’d never been that far west before, so the terrain was incredibly surreal to me. For the first part of the trip, we headed up to the Davises’ cabin in the mountains, in the middle of nowhere. I gawked at the immense piles of seemingly off-balance rocks that were just about everywhere. We hiked around in the woods and gulches, and poked our heads into a long-abandoned mine. I got stuck by a cactus once (one of the most alien things about Arizona is how incredibly prickly everything is… there’s almost no plant there without a liberal coating of thorns or spines.)

Eleanor and I, poking around
in Cave Creek near Portal.
Click for the big picture.

At night we built a bonfire and roasted marshmallows, and Eleanor’s dad broke out his telescope and showed us Saturn and Jupiter. On a small mountain in the middle of nowhere in Arizona, there were more stars than you’d think possible in the sky.

The next day we piled into Mr. Davis’s Isuzu Trooper. We took a dirt road through some prairie, and followed it up a rocky, wooded hillside. Partway up we stopped, and trekked up a little stream beside the road. The stream gradually cut its way into a thirty foot deep canyon, culminating in a beautiful little waterfall.

From top to bottom,
that’s me, Eleanor, Eleanor’s mom,
and Eleanor’s sister Leta.

Back in the Trooper, we continued up, as the road became progressively less road-like. At times we went at about a 45˚ angle, hanging over a steep drop-off. Mr. Davis seemed mightily pleased by our apprehension. At the top of the mountain we stopped, and poked about around in the foundations of what was apparently a large house that had been built in the thirties, and then demolished not long after. The builders had been pretty ambitious, as there was a run-down apple orchard at one end of the field, and an empty swimming pool. All on top of a mountain, miles from even the tiniest town.

That’s the apple orchard
in the midground.

There was a ravine nearby into which somebody had pushed an old car. There were a lot of 30’s era appliances tossed down there as well.

Eleanor and I looking at the car.

Afterwards we headed back down off the mountain, where Elo’s dad showed us an unusual sight. Stopping in the middle of the prairie, we walked up a dirt path. Near the top of a little rise, there was a gravestone.

Frank C
Caldwell
Murdered
July 26 1903

Apparently there had been a spat over a woman, and Frank’s rival had lain in wait for him on this trail. When Frank came up the hill, the rival shot him from his horse. Later he was buried where he had fallen.

The view from the top of the rise,
with the Davises’ dog Crispin.

The next week or so was busy. Eleanor and I biked all over Tucson, visiting her childhood haunts. We visited the school she went to, where her parents both teach. We drove out to San Xavier Mission, an immense adobe church built in the 1700s. We hiked a couple miles down a wash. We went to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. We spent one afternoon with Eleanor’s parents by clambering down a concrete embankment and looking around the effluent stream, where all the waste water of Tucson is treated.

Here’s me by the effluent stream,
for anyone who wanted to see
my newly acquired beard.

When we weren’t outdoors, we were at Eleanor’s house, going through their family’s huge collection of comics. And Eleanor’s parents took us out to a lot of nice restaurants. After (mostly) getting over my initial nervousness around Eleanor’s parents, I had an amazing time.

Since we’ve gotten back, I’ve working pretty hard on getting some comics done, some of which I should be posting soon.

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What’s up with my book order?

on March 30, 2005

THE BOOKS ARE IN! You should be receiving yours soon. Here’s a rundown of why they’re so late:

5/20/05 – Unless something goes wrong… all of the standing orders of Journal Comics are in the mail! So if you ordered one, you should be receiving it in a week or two, hopefully. The estimated time for delivery of media mail is 7 to 21 days, so let’s just say: if you haven’t received your book by 6/15/05, drop me an email. International orders may take longer.

5/17/05 – About a quarter of the book orders went out today. I should be dropping another 1/4 or so in the mail tomorrow. I’m trying not to give the post office ladies a conniption, as well as waiting for any last minute address changes. Get ’em in now, folks!

5/9/05 – I’m in the midst of getting books ready to send off (and finishing up a little something extra to include in the really late ones,) so if there’s anybody out there who’s changed addresses, and hasn’t already emailed me, please do. If you’re one of these people, I’ve got your updated address:

Randy Carboni
Jon McElroy
Rick Boven
Steve (in Toronto)
Jason McPheron
Jeffrey Barker

5/6/05 – The books are in! Just got the boxes today, and they look good! I’ll be spending the rest of today packing up orders.

5/2/05 – After a couple of emails, I finally got an ETA on the new shipment of Journal Comic collections. The guts have all been printed, and the book is hopefully going to binding tomorrow, and shipping on Wednesday. I’ve got my fingers crossed!

4/19/05 – I got yet another proof book from the printer, but this one looks pretty good! So I think the tiffs did the trick. I told them to go ahead and proceed with the full run. Hopefully it won’t take more than a week or two.

4/8/05 – I got an email from the printer, saying that the new files I sent have made a significant improvement in the print quality, and they’re sending out a new proof book. So, awesome. But I’m not celebrating until I have the actual book in my hand – hell, until I have the actual boxes of books in my hands.

4/4/05 – Well, none of the 4 proof books were right. They all still had the pixelization problem. I’ve given up on trying to send the printer pdfs. The only thing I can think to do iss to save all of the pages as individual, 600 dpi bitmapped tiffs, and burn them onto cd. I send the disk off to the printer a few days ago, they received it, and said they’d get to work on it immediately.

2/28/04 – The printer just sent off a new proof book for the Journal Comic collection. If this one is right, maybe we can get the new print run by next week.

2/22/04– Well, here’s what happened. Late last week, FedEx dropped three big boxes on my doorstep. I cracked ’em open, and there they were: the 2nd printing of the Journal Comic. Immediately I grabbed one and flipped through it. There was a problem. The interior artwork was all pixelated. Not enough to be unreadable, but enough so it didn’t look good. I grabbed another – same problem. All of the books had pixelized artwork. So obviously, I wasn’t happy.

I dropped an email to the printer, and within hours they had apologized and offered to reprint the book at no cost. They’re very nice guys.

I want you guys to have the best-looking books. But that means yet another delay. I don’t know how long this time. Hopefully not more than a week or two.

2/7/05 – Just heard from the printer…

The second printing of the Journal Comic is supposed to be shipping at the end of the week. Which means we should be able to finally start sending out orders at the beginning of next week. I’ll be sending them out in order of receipt, so all the people who ordered months and months ago should be getting theirs first.

So, hooray for that.

1/26/05 – Thanks to those of you who helped me out the other day. I think I’ve almost got the problem worked out, which means that the day when book shipments can continue draws nigh!

1/24/05 – Does anybody out there know a lot about pdf settings, prepress, and the like? I’m still trying to iron out some problems with the second printing of the Journal Comic collection, and if I could get some tips on saving pdfs for print, it would really hasten the process.

12/19/04 – Well, I’m almost out of books. So if you haven’t received yours yet, there’ll be a slight delay while the second batch gets in from the printer. I still have a couple tucked aside, so if you need your book immediately (for Christmas reasons, etc.) let me know and I’ll send it your way. First come, first serve. Sorry about this folks, I underestimated demand. Please don’t worry, if you ordered a book, you WILL get it.

12/3/04 – About 20 book packages have gone out so far, so if you ordered your book in the first couple days it went on sale, you’ll probably be getting it in a week or two. More books are going in the mail soon.

11/28/04 – The packing of orders proceeds apace. It should be no problem to get these orders, and any others that come in the next week or so, out in time for Christmas. Maybe I can get Eleanor to come over and help me.

11/24/04 – The mailers came in earlier today, so I’m going to see how many books I can get packed up and ready in the next couple days, in between family time and coupon work. It’s going to be a busy couple of days!

11/19/04 – Dang it, books are coming. I decided to order some sample mailers, to make sure they fit the books and avoid a repeat of the last fiasco. I finally found one that’s big enough to hold the book, but not so big that the book sloshes around and gets damaged. They’ll probably get here in a day or two. Unfortunately, I’ll be heading out of town for the memorial service tomorrow. Hopefully they’ll be waiting when I get back, and I can get cracking on getting these books out.

I really apologize for the long delays. If I had any idea so many wrenches would be thrown into the works, I would have held off on the preorders until I had the books and mailers actually in my hands.

Once I have this system smoothed out a little, I’m hoping to open a more expansive shop page, not only for my own comics but for Eleanor’s as well. It’ll be awesome. I’m telling you.

11/16/04 – I should have been able to start sending out the majority of the Journal Comic collections this week, but the big box of padded envelopes that I got yesterday turned out to be about half an inch too small to actually fit the book into. Figures. I guess I can use them to send out minicomics.

I should get new mailers before the end of the week. I’ll try to send out as many books as possible before the 21st, which is when I have to head back to Virginia for a couple days, for a memorial service being held at VMI. I’ll only be away for a couple days, so most of the books should hopefully be in the mail before the end of the month.

9/18/04 – I got a proof of the Journal Comic book back from the printer. It looks so snazzy… man! If luck is with me, this thing WILL be out on time for SPX.

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