Thursday, January 12, 2012

"Bad Clams" - The Book


A collection featuring over fifty new panels (half in full-color), plus sketchbook doodles and illustrations, from the creator of Alaska’s longest-running cartoon “Nuggets.” “LowTide” documents the artist’s perspective on his adventures and experiences around Acadia and Down East after migrating to Maine. 

Kind of excited about this project - going to try out Lulu's for the first time with a print-on-demand book that compiles the best stuff from the first year in Acadia. The majority of the cartoons selected for the sampler haven't yet found a home anywhere here in this neck of the woods, and so a handful of (appropriately themed) crossover panels were shunted up north to make their publishing debut rechristened as a "Nuggets." But for this specific collection everything will fall in situ under the new feature "LowTide." Probably half a dozen panels - sans header - have also run in Down East magazine, and the entire project concept pretty much springboards off last year's "Secret Harbor" MECAF minicomic. Regular readers will have seen everything already over the course of posting stuff here on Ink & Snow and in the Picasa web-albums (hence the decision to not bother yet with an "e-book" edition), but it's still a source of immense satisfaction to see 'em all coagulated into one physical object. Now all I have to do is get around to that limited "scratch & sniff" edition by marinating some copies in buckets of clam nectar. Which at least the cats will love...


"Bad Clams" tapped out at 36 pages and contains about 50-odd finished panels, approximately half of which are color cartoons paired with a black & white one - so two per page, excepting the occasional full-pager. Plus there's some miscellaneous sketches/random doodles and a couple pen & ink illustrations. The one massive, all-day layout session and a few follow-up editorial revisions were made infinitely easier with employing digital technology: culling the original artwork files, cleaning them up/reformatting etc. was a lot less labor intensive than the last compilation.
Aside from making a spiffy gift, this'll serve quite handily as a portfolio piece, and be something to have on the table for the next MECAF in May. Plus hopefully these will supplement an art exhibit as a sort of show catalog, maybe by also doing a book signing in conjunction... at the very least be an attractive addition to the sandwich board while standing out on a downtown corner.
Soon as it gets proofed I'll post more info on ordering...    

*Update: Special to readers of Ink & Snow! 
Here's a Direct Link to the page where you can preview and order copies. My proofs are in the mail, and I'll do a follow-up post on the results soon as I get a copy in my cold, clammy hands...

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