Weekly Update #75: My Right Hand

1.  Welcome to the LIVE TEST of Dave Sim's right hand, which took a dramatic turn-for-the-worse last Friday around 8 pm and which I have been resting since.  I've written about five cheques and typed VERY SHORT faxes to John and Sean as necessary. I've also done some paste-up with my left hand.

2.  This is, I'm pretty sure, the end of my CORRESPONDENCE days, the-every-other-Friday 1 am to 7 am mail answering, followed by two hours of typing the Update, followed by answering whatever more mail I picked up that afternoon. For the foreseeable future, typing will have to be restricted to "end of life" issues which need to be "on paper" but I'm actually pretty far along with that.  All letters will be answered with a form letter explaining what's happened.

3.  This shouldn't affect the Kickstarter autographing.  Signing my name isn't "targeted" or "specific". It's a general shape that lands where it lands.  I'm not bearing down when signing my name.  That will be tested next week when I sign the 850 HIGH SOCIETY bookplates, but I'm not anticipating any surprises.

Okay. That's the EMERGENCY INFORMATION in case that's all the hand would take and it's further than I thought I was going to get today. :)

4.  The question right now is: to what extent does Aardvark-Vanaheim "consolidate" around my autograph.  i.e. that's all that I CAN do and since that's what generates the money, that's all it makes sense for me TO do.  I'm preparing a structure, mentally, around that which will involve a big boost in hourly rates to Dave F. and Rolly S.  Basically: "Okay, your right hand no longer exists. NOW what do you do?" It's a big job, mentally, but not an unsolvable one, I don't think.

5.  I'm not sure how this affects THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND but "negatively" seems obvious.  I just don't know HOW negatively.  The biggest problem with my hand is tracing and transferring traced drawings.  Which is most of what SDOAR consists of. I might have to get someone to do that for me, under my direction.  Which I'm hesitant to do because I've done everything on SDOAR until now solo.  Today is just about testing my capacity for typing.  About half an hour so far (forty minutes now that I'm doing final corrections).  Tomorrow I'm going to try inking for the first time in a week and then see how long it takes to do the next full page when I get there. That will tell me How This Is Going To Go, I think.

6.  This might be the last TYPED Update.  I'm going to talk to Fisher about posting either AUDIO or AUDIO VISUAL Updates which won't require my right hand except for turning the camcorder on and off.  We'll see how the next week goes.

7.  I'm not a medical science guy.  My mother went through this with her hands and went for the "steroid junkie" option.  Pregnazone (sp?). Basically steroids just mask symptoms -- which they do really well:  check out Stephen King's NEEDFUL THINGS the movie or the book if you want to see what the effect looks like --  so when they wear off you need to get another dose and a larger dose. And then you find out why steroids are such a bad idea.  But, by then you're a junkie and you've been using your hands carelessly and worsening them.  So you need MORE steroids. And then you find out what those things REALLY do.

Okay, that's about all I'm going to type this week.

God willing, we'll see you all next week in one form or another.

John's been updating me daily on the Kickstarter campaign. It's interesting watching the CANO vs CANT vs CAN3 patterns.  I wouldn't rule out the Hardcore Cerebus Readership actually breaking the $42K record!  They're an amazing bunch!