Sean Michael Robinson:
Greetings everyone!
Some notable activity in the past week, mainly, getting scans of much of the amazing art collection of the generous Jim Guarnotta, which netted us another 30 (!) interior page scans, and some lovely one-off art as well. More information on that next week, when I'm back in town with access to the files again.. Thanks so much to Jim, and all of our Art Dragnet contributors so far!
So, now that High Society has been released, I've been thinking about the "revision" process we went through with that book, and how we can best tweak it for future volumes.
Dave and Mara and I proof-read High Society in a pretty comprehensive way, for the first time since it left Dave's art board. As I've mentioned before, Dave rarely made any changes to the books after the artwork was shot for monthly publication. I can only recall a few changes so far-- eliminating "cut lines" at the edge of a PMT in some Cerebus interior narration, adding/extending the art in the "BOOM!" double-page spread in Church & State I to maintain the bleed that was present in the monthly book. Re-shuffling the "Goat" pages to fit the format/page order of the first HS collection.
So, as we embark on a similar analysis of the Church & State I material, I thought, what better way to go about the process than asking you, as the patrons of this work-- what changes would you make to Church & State I to make it a more cohesive reading experience? After all, it's a process that served us extremely well when revising the "Goat" pages in High Society. (thanks again, Scott and Tom!)
Things we'd be looking for--
1. any spelling errors or punctuation oddities that might be lurking somewhere (only a handful in High Society by the way) (I'm looking at you, Jeff S!)
2. Any instances of MISSING TONE from Cerebus, or the dreaded "TONED TEETH." (i.e. instances where Dave or Gerhard missed cutting out the teeth from the letratone)
3. Any other visual abnormalities along these lines
4. Any suggestions you, the fans and patrons of this book, might have regarding artwork print size and margins/gutters. We didn't end up making any changes to HS, but it's very doable this time. Any designers in the audience want to take a crack at this puzzle? I'm personally working on the problem of re-instating the full bleeds on the "Mind Game III/IV" that were present in the monthly book, and in a few other issues as well. How best to do that? How much can the artwork be expanded, and in what way, and at what cost, without changing the actual physical makeup of the book?
5. Are there any elements remaining from the monthly publication that distract from the reading experience of the whole? Banners, "...continued"s, footnotes, etc...
6. What would you like to see in the back matter of the book, besides CANO names and art dragnet contributors? Production artwork? Enlargements? Another essay?
This is your time for feedback, and any and all suggestions, so pull out those Church & State I volumes, and let's hear what you have to say! I'll talk to Dave and see if we can scrounge up some prizes for all involved. Please leave a comment with your feedback.