So turns out, in addition to my at times crippling existential crisis over the new risk of nuclear war, thanks to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, ( I'm way into nuclear war as a horror genre, just thought it was more a relic of history, so it's uncomfortably close right now and freaks me out more than most probably. ) I get to add an impending stroke to the mix, as I finally went to the doctors, and for the first time in my life, I'm on medication for the foreseeable. Yup, my blood pressure was so high it was apparently just below the "seek emergency medical care" level. I didn't think it'd be that bad. Been on a diet for weeks anyway to fit into my suits for conventions, but looks like no fun foods for me for a while. Still, so many comic pros seem to be dropping, mysteriously, while only in their 40's of late, I don't want to add to the statistic.
So a good bit of a workout for my new health kick is the fulfillment phase of Original Hate. Yup. The books came! ( 3 shipments over 2 days. ) So far, only 4 slightly dinged copies. ( And this isn't all of them, I've already opened a bunch of boxes ). I think they came out great, especially for my first dust jacketed book.
I'm going through all the more complex orders first. As they'll take the most time and effort. All the sketch plates are done.
Almost all the T-shirts are here. Just waiting on some poly mailers to put the boxes in, as it turns out I was barely an inch off my measurements on the ones I already had ordered. ( I'm an artist, I don't do math well. ) which should come tomorrow.
So I'm getting everything packed. Then the shipping labels will start over the weekend, for the first shipments to get picked up. They'll go out in batches, rather than all at once ( my mailroom can only hold so much ) but provided there are no snafus, they should basically all be on their way out next week. ( Except a couple of ones I need to tweak/add special things to. Which is a logistics nightmare and why special requests are something I really can't do often, alas. )
And yup, I'm doing this all myself. Like I've always done. Partly because I'm a stubborn mule, prefer if anyone is going to screw up, it might as well be me, and the last time I trusted someone, it turned out they were a parasitic sociopath who cost me my life savings. ( Which I'm sure you've all heard me talk about a bit ad nauseam and is still something I’m in the tail end of. )
If you missed the crowdfunding campaign for this, you can still nab basic copies in the “indemand store” over at www.OriginalHate.com. That’ll be up until at least the end of fulfillment sometime next week.
Hail Squid, and thanks for bearing with me. Once the bulk of this is done, I’ll no doubt get back to all the other thousand things I have to do.
-Ben
I very badly need a copy