click on the image to get a larger view!

I’ve done most of my scanning and working on finishing up the book this week. To answer some questions, this book will be P.O.D. for this first run. It’s really the most logical way to put out the book because I can put out a quality product that anyone online can order and I’ll make a modest profit which will definitely help me out right now. I’m leaning heavily in the direction of one particular online P.O.D. service but would love suggestions/ideas from anyone that’s had more experience with this sort of thing. The book will be retail $10 (plus whatever shipping and handling is when you buy the book online). I’ll be buying copies to sell at cons, etc. as signed editions for the same price) and the page count right now is sitting at 64 pages and will be quite a nice little package. I’m getting excited!

So I’ve been in the middle of going through all my old files on the server, cleaning things up, pulling together design pieces that might be good to put in the portfolio section (I’m going to update this within the next few days with samples of my professional design work in case I actually do find a job). I’ve run across remnants of inkwell past and this particular design showed up. This was the site’s front page circa 2001.

A very ambitious layout. The “inside” of the site featured a tabbed browsing that was difficult to put together using the primitive tech of the day (no GoLive or Dreamweaver for me! All hand coded, baby!). I had to actually rebuild the html for this page and I think the background was only a solid color. The only links that work are the “store”, “xtras” and “links” (both of which were “coming soon”). The really interesting thing is that the “store” section contains links to my very first cafepress pages… one for the original (pre-ModernTales) Whimville and one for Magic Inkwell! The interesting thing is that I haven’t touched these designs since setting up these stores back in 2000-2001. The Whimville store is particularly interesting because it contains the only surviving images from the original Whimville strip, including the original drawing/design for King Righto (king of the land of imagination). Some fine looking shirts in those stores and a great blast from my cartooning past!

I was always unhappy because you could never read the bumper stickers on the car in the first panel of this strip. I hardly ever draw cars (and with good reason). I totally lightboxed this. I don’t draw cars very often for good reason.

Bumpersticker Index: Flying Fortress, Mack White, Worst President (ever), Cthulhu(and actually several memes going on at once there), on the license plate: CCS 802 , Who would Jesus Bomb?, this strip, the peace symbol, and Vader has a posse.