By the Time I Get to Dallas 1-4: ER doc apocalypse continues

The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. — Mark Twain
over 2 years ago – Sun, Nov 26, 2023 at 05:50:28 AM

Wow, October and November went by fast. While it has been a chaotic and difficult last few months for me and family, I have good news to report on all fronts. It took a lot of work, but we have my parents living much closer to me now and with the support they need. After a complex move out/move in process, I’ve finally gotten to decelerate over the last week, and by decelerate I mean sign, bag and board 400 comic books! That’s right, we have books!

The Trinity Project Vol 4 came in from the printer last week, so all the major components of this campaign are in house and looking great. Our friends at Comic Impressions did a great job with the printing, I think these are my best looking books yet. Yesterday I watched four soccer games in a row while building the Backerkit survey and loading all the books in bags. I did this on a breakfast of apple pie, ice cream and Guinness. It was a good day.

An aside on sealing comic book bags

One problem, I still have to tape the bags closed. Sure I could just slap a piece of tape on the flap like most people do, or even go a little fancier with a sticker. But then you would have to pick at the tape, the tape and bag can tear, and the tape can stick to the book as you pull it out of the bag. It’s a problem and it vexes me. So you’ll notice I double over one end of the tape to make a pull tab. Pinching over a tape loop for every book, over 400 times, is just one small example of the things I didn’t know I was in for when I started this project. My fingers were forty when I started writing, now they are fifty, and they ache just thinking about it. But we didn’t make it this far to start cutting corners, so pull that tab and think of me.

Backerkit Survey coming at ya

This week you should receive a Backerkit survey email from me to finalize your pledge, gather your address, etc. When you see an email from Backerkit, please open and respond--I can't fulfill your rewards without your response. Even for digital tiers, I need your survey. And if you are were an Early Bird backer (backers 1-154) and want your exclusive Early Bird Postcard #4, you definitely need to fill out the survey so I have your mailing address. 

One cool new thing, you can change your pledge level easily within Backerkit, as well as add on limited edition books, stickers and other swag from the add on menu. Backerkit can help you with questions right from the survey if you need (hit the help button), and feel free to reach out to me at [email protected].

Thank you for your support and patience. I’m itching to complete this fulfillment cycle, get you your goodies, and then dive headlong into finishing this story!

Thanks again,

Colin

Comics vs real life
over 2 years ago – Wed, Oct 04, 2023 at 05:37:03 PM

Where do things stand with fulfilling this campaign? I’ve had some inquiries.

The quick answer:

•  By The Time I Get To Dallas #4 is being printed this week.
•  Trinity Project #4 is being lettered this week, should be press ready in a couple weeks.
• I have to complete and send the Backerkit survey.
• Then I'll compile the various digital rewards. 
• I think I can send the digital rewards prior to the survey going out, but I forget, Backerkit is complicated.

The longer answer:

I’m doing the best I can with a lot on my plate. I don’t like to give excuses or delve into personal issues, I want this to be happy space where we just make comic books for fun. But you’ve all shown faith in me by supporting this project, and you deserve to know when you’ll get your rewards and why there is a delay. Since the summer there has been a big increase in the work required of my sister Dana, my wife Ethel, and me to take care of my parents, who live 90 min away. The free day per week I could sort of count on for doing all the lifestuff including comic work has not been available much the last couple months. I don’t know when it will be again. So I move the comic along with free minutes here and there. The things that take a bigger chunk of time, like the Backerkit survey, are harder to get done. Postcards, packing, shipping, etc. will be a slower process than usual. All I can do is the best I can, but I will get it done. I appreciate your patience and understanding.

In the meantime, you can see what I look like when interviewed for TV on two hours of sleep with this clip from the New England news show Chronicle. Not sure how they found me but it was pretty cool.

https://pitdocpress.com/interviewed-for-tv-on-two-hours-of-sleep/

 Thank you once again for your support, 

Colin

Production update: Production is being produced
over 2 years ago – Thu, Aug 24, 2023 at 12:24:49 PM

Quick update with good things to report.

By the Time I Get to Dallas #4 is complete. I’ll be getting it print ready as soon as I can and then, you know, printing. This batch will be printed digitally, which is faster than the offset printing I have done on the first three books. In addition, paper is a thing again, which helps with printing so I am told. I expect a much faster printing process this time around.

Trinity Project #4 is completely drawn, colors are underway. With a week off I was able to get a page written each morning and the ending cliffhanger presented itself so the book could wrap at a tidy 20 pages. Greg Woronchak banged out the pages steadily and here we are. I’m excited for you to see how our stories start to intertwine with this installment. I get nervous as I try to lay out how it all will go, but when I relax, close my eyes and just imagine just what the next panel of the next scene needs to be, I seem to find the story. In those moments, the writing is super fun.

For reasons that are not entirely clear, I will be on television in the New England area on the Chronicle new magazine show. They are doing a series on people with interesting day jobs+weird side hustles. How they found me is unclear, they said they had me “in our files”, which made me feel weird. Don’t have an air date yet, will update you when I do, and it will eventually be online I think.

Here is my original timeline from the campaign. It is no longer accurate. 

• 3.3.23 - 3.24.23 Kickstarter Campaign
• 5.15 Dallas 4 to the printer
• 9.1 Trinity Project 4 to the printer
• 9.15 Digital rewards
• 10.1 All material back from printer
• 8.21 Early Bird Postcards sent
• 10.15 Books shipped to backers

I deliberately built a lot of cushion between sending Dallas to the printer and getting it from the printer, but with paper supplies in better shape and changing to digital printing, it should be much much faster than planned, and if so then I’m not that far behind really. Trinity Project will be slower than planned so shipping to backers will be later than estimated, but not by that much especially if you consider a geological timescale, which you should with all dumb projects of mine. This is with the major caveat that I have a large amount of craziness and adult responsibilities going beyond the medicine/comic book thing, so just getting a single comic task done per day is a victory. But these books will get to you and I promise they will be cool.

Also, regarding postcards, I’m writing them with my spare moments but pushing those back until I have reward surveys back so I don’t have to bug you twice for addresses. Backerkit Survey will be coming, I’m hoping in the next month.

Thank as always for your support. Have a great last few days of summer!

Colin

PS Super cool thing! Netho Diaz, guest artist for this book 4 variant cover, has been assigned a little Marvel title called Daredevil. Dude, that's THE Daredevil, the Man Without Fear, my favorite superhero comic ever! So yeah, I found Netho BEFORE Marvel did, and now look at him! If you got this book in your reward tier, good job! Follow him, he's awesome and going places. And I promise to rope him into this book again, if I can afford him...

Mid-summer Production Update: Rome wasn't built in a day...
over 2 years ago – Wed, Jul 19, 2023 at 11:00:08 AM

Hello and happy summer! 

I hope it has been a good one for you and yours. It’s been a fun, busy, challenging one for us, with a high school graduation, a trip to Italy, work, family, all sorts of stuff. This is a quick mid-summer update on the state of this comics project.

•  By The Time I Get To Dallas #4 is almost done. One more round of letter edits and the interior cover is all I need. If all goes well I could have it to the printer, gosh, pretty darn soon.

•  Trinity Project #4 has 10 pages drawn, 15 pages scripted, got to get it to 22 pages or so. Me and my team of Greg Woronchak (art), Jason Finestone (colors), and Jaymes Reed (letters) will be cranking to get this one done by the end of the summer, more or less.

• By the way, let’s give a big congratulations to Jason for his coloring work on The Savage Strength of Starstorm, published by one of the world’s biggest comics publishers, Image Comics! That’s right, his work is in books all over country right now. Way to go, Jas!

•  All the other stuff: Postcards are printed but will probably go out around the time I mail the books once I have addresses from the Backerkit survey (see below)
•  All Star Bundle: Got get that together.
•  Backerkit Survey: This is the email that lets you finalize your order, make add ons, etc. I’ve learned to wait on this until the book are close to ready, I’ll be aiming for end of summer.

Where are we in terms of my timeline? Honestly, I don’t remember, but I know that every day I’m getting something done on some aspect of this project, and if I keep that up it will get done and be good. Stick with me, and I’ll stick with it.

Say that reminds me, with two more installments to finish this By the Time I Get to Dallas/Trinity Project story, I have a question for you, my amazing and patient backers: should I do the last two installments, books 5 and 6, together as one big Kickstarter, or continue to do them one book at a time across two more launches? The upside of skipping a launch is it would cut out the interruption of a crowdfunding cycle so I could stay in full-on production mode until the story is complete. The downside of the one big launch is it realistically would take me 18-24 months to get it all done, which is a long time to be away from the hearts and minds of my readers. Maybe there would be other ways to keep you guys involved during that stretch, with behind the scenes updates, videos, etc? I’d love to to hear what you think with this quick poll:

https://forms.gle/YWpS5HQMawLshxHT7

Thank you and have a great summer!

Colin

Production Update: In the thick of it
almost 3 years ago – Wed, May 24, 2023 at 10:37:10 AM

 Wow, we wrapped the Kickstarter two months ago and it sure went quick. Here’s what I’ve been up to and where things stand.

By The Time I Get To Dallas #4: I need to make final lettering edits, which I avoid because it is the last time I can make any changes to the text, and that makes me nervous. We had a brief scare when we thought Jaymes, our letterer, had lost all his lettering to a hard drive crash, but a computer dude recovered it. I’m pulling together the back matter, inside covers, etc. The front inside cover is always a collage/Photoshopped tie-in to the Trinity Project, because that’s the hard way. I think I’ve got the concept for this one, next I need to pull together the elements, physical and digital, and stick them together. Yes, a black page with some credits would be easier, but why waste a perfectly good page?

Trinity Project #4: I’m writing pages and getting back art from Greg Woronchak, trying to keep ahead of him. The story exists in skeletal form in my mind, unlike Dallas which is more or less scripted to the end. It is hard to switch gears from busy work and logistics to writing, it requires carving out quiet time, we know how easy that is. But I’ve written 15 pages of what will be around a 20 page book so I’m getting there. I love this page I just got from Greg today:

Wicked Con: Meanwhile, I got to table my first ever comic book convention, at Wicked Con here in Boston at the Hynes Convention Center. I’ll do a longer wrap up through my blog, but the bottom line is it was a lot of work, a lot of standing, a fair amount of boredom (doing a show solo is tough), but super cool getting to introduce new people to the story. Here is my first ever convention sale:

This young sportsman bought the first book, read it in the lobby and came back to buy up pretty much everything I’ve printed. So that felt good. We covered the cost of the table and more, unloaded a box of books, made some new fans, grew the mailing list, I learned the ropes a bit, and got some ideas to hone the pitch for next time. It won't be an every weekend thing for me but I'd like to do one or two shows a year.  

And here’s our set up, which looked pretty damn good. My daughter Virginia took over the booth for a while on day 2 and did a great job selling, freeing me up to schmooze a bit. I got to met up with my cousin's husband, frequent Dallas backer and droidmaker extraordinaire Elly!

Cameo Prints from Book 3 finally went out. These take bit of time but are fun to pull together:

And I've got postcards to sign and collector's box prints to color. My hope was to do these at night this month while watching the Bruins make their Stanely Cup run. Alas, I need a new plan. 

Hey that reminds me, if you’re one of those folks who followed the campaign but missed it, you can still order the key goodies at the preorder store:
Https://Pitdocpress.Com/Preorderdallas4

In non-comic book news, I don't know where to start--Virginia is graduating high school, we are soon going to Italy for a long awaited vacation, many thing going on. I did climb onto the 5th floor roof of our building to do some pigeon proofing, to prevent them from pooping on our first floor grill. Later my friend Todd told me about "l'appel du vide,"  "the call of the void". It is a useful term. I did not succumb to it, because I have pigeons to vanquish. 

So, the comic moves forward. I’m not sure where I am in relation to any timeline, and the only person I can yell at to work faster is myself, which I do on a regular basis. In the meantime, I suggest you grab a book by someone else like David Taylor.  I’ve told you about David and his work many times. His latest Kickstarter is running right now for his cracking story Wild Nature (edited by Dallas editor Claire Napier). With this campaign you can get the complete epic about blood sports in a dystopian near-future Miami. I know a bunch of my readers are into this story, and if you haven’t checked it out now is the time!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dftaylor/wild-nature-1-3-the-complete-graphic-novel-series

Thank you as always for your support. Have a great spring! 

Colin