Beasts, Beastly, whatever you want to call it, it's on an indefinite hiatus.
A book beset by problems, I decided today something I think I'd decided when the initial problems happened - it's simply too expensive and too much hassle.
Some 'other setbacks' tipped the scales and made me decide that the project needed shelving until it could be re-assessed and rescheduled - probably early in 2015.
The problem with Beastly and the reason for that last estimate is that it's in a square page format, so I can't use any of the strips anywhere else, unless I use them together. It really hurts having to shelve the book, especially as people put so much work into it. I am investigating migrating the project to a European publisher, but all the other hassles aside, the cost kept spiralling beyond that of a viable project and, yeah I know, all that PR, the mention in the FREE comic (it had a whole page and a line saying it will be out in June...), it's going to look poor; surely I could have foreseen the problems?
Maybe I should or could have, but sometimes sh*t happens that you simply haven't taken into account and this was one of those moments. My partner would be saying, "Just hush it up; don't mention it; deal with individuals; don't give the public the chance to see there's been a deviation from the plans, especially as most of them will have forgotten by Tuesday." The thing is, in this 5 minute world we live in, I could give you an anatomy lesson with Hentai illustrations and it would probably have been forgotten about by the time I end this sen...
The money it frees up will enable me to publish two more books. It will also allow me to do something I promised then couldn't do, re-assessed and then backtracked on - well, now I think a compromise can be reached.
An old Internet buddy of mine, Regie Rigby had a saying - something about every black cloud having a silver lining. Sometimes it used to really piss me off, especially when I was in a grumpy mood. I thought of him and the saying today and wondered if I was possibly starting to become a glass half full person?
Heaven forbid...
Like I mentioned, the Free Comic will have a slightly obsolete page - but it isn't like some things that could have happened. The printer in Hong Kong could have effectively done the free comic for 50% less money than Berforts in Stevenage (give or take a few %), but it would have been on a boat now, heading to England, due a few weeks earlier than Hunger House and City of Crocodiles, and it would have had soooooo much wrong with it I would probably just set fire to them when they arrived...
A few days ago I wrote a rant that will likely never see the light of day; but to cut a long story short the Free Comic that would have gone to HK for the cheap deal would have been 16 completely different pages than what we ended up with.
Regie, if you can hear me, your optimism is now my muse!
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