An all-new Sword & Sorcery magazine, made with love for the classics and an inclusive, boundary-pushing approach to storytelling.
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Hello!
You may recall two things from our May 18th update. One is that I'd found a way to cut some time off our schedule and optimistically hoped to be getting our final files off to the printer by early July.
WELL
The bad news is that assorted Life Events slowed down various staff & contributors so as to make that goal unfeasible. The good news is that our original goal had been the very end of July, maybe August 1st, and that the way I found to cut some time off our schedule has at least kept us on schedule!
The other thing you may remember from our May 18th update was my progress charts that were steadily filing with green. They are exceptionally green now! As with before, I've trimmed out contributor's names so as not to accidentally shame anybody. First up, our author editorial progress chart:
The two long, black bars at the bottom are for things I myself have to write, those "Letter from the Editor" pages you'll find at the start of each issue. I've started one and have plenty of ideas for what to discuss, but if you want to comment with suggestions for items to be covered in one of the letters, my ears are open.
Meanwhile, here's our art progress chart:
WOW! It feels great to be so close to finishing.
We've learned a lot on our maiden voyage of producing TWO issues while working with a professional printer, and are already applying a few lessons to next year despite us not quite being finished with this year. Mostly these have to do with making the editorial process will be less grueling, and that the turnaround from Kickstarter to backers receiving their issues will be shorter.
One very cool thing about working with a professional printer is you can order what's called a "dummy" proof of just eight pages of your choice, rather than having to wait until the book or books are completely finished. As soon as we could we sent eight sample pages off to them, chosen to test various configurations of text & image you'll see in the magazine, and just this weekend I got the printed proofs in the mail!
As a beloved backer, you'll get to see these a little further down. They contain three art previews for your enjoyment.
If you don't want any spoilers, DO NOT SCROLL BELOW THIS DACHSHUND
Okay, so here's the interior proofs all up on my corkboard!
TOP LEFT: A two-page spread done by Simon Underwood, showing the return of David C. Smith's characters from issue #0. The final version will have the title, author, and illustrator credits (likely set in the sky on the left hand side).
If you have a physical copy of #0, you'll see our two-pager by Simon Underwood had to be split down the middle with some white space. Unlike Amazon POD, our new printers can print right into the middle of the book, allowing for a true two-page spread!
TOP RIGHT: Our TOC and thank-you page for backers who supported us at the physical tier levels. You maybe able to see I'd already made some markings when I took this picture. Let's just say it's a good thing we ordered these proofs as they've done their job in helping us spot some goofs.
BOTTOM-LEFT: There is an illustration by Ursa Doom aka Björn Magnusson, for a tale by Jacqueline Kawaja. You can see with it that we've started playing around more with the possibilities our three column format allows us, wrapping the illustration around a 2/3 length column of the story.
On the right hand side you can see a kind of "bits & bobs" page likely to go at the back of the magazine, featuring a fun cocktail inspired by Jirel of Joiry, cooked up by our clever social media maven Kevin Beckett, an ad for the wonderful Occult Detective Magazine (which I suppose is getting some extra love by being featured in this post!), and a rough fill-in for a Content Warning list. The TOC at the very front will alert people to the existence of the list and where to find the list it. That way it's easy for those who'd rather not read the list (perhaps to avoid vague spoilers for the stories ahead), and those who do want to read the list will know where to find it.
BOTTOM-RIGHT: A straight-forward full page of text on the left, worthy of a test as these new issues will be .25 inches taller (8 x 11.25 instead of the 8 x 11 inches of our Amazon POD issue #0), and on the right you can see a complete title page for Kirk A. Johnson's story, illustrated by Daniel Vega. Unlike Simon's piece in the top left, this is more or less complete, having the title, author, and - something we regretted not including at the start of stories in issue #0 - artist credits.
Those funny little squares and small marks you can see around the edges of some of the proofs are to do with measuring things, checking if they're properly aligned etc. They won't be there in your copies.
COVER?: We did get proofs of the covers for #1's soft and hardcover formats. I'm really glad we did as a dominant color that looked one way on the screen ended up looking very different in print! But we're not going to reveal these yet as cover reveals aren't really something you can do twice, even if the first time was only for backers, you know?
That said, we may share the proof version of issue #1's cover once the final version is out in the world, so my fellow process nerds can enjoy seeing the differences.
That's all the news for now! The next time you hear from me it will be to let you know the final files are safely off to the printer.
Thanks again for backing this project, which has been such a joy to assemble over these past few months. I can't wait until we can finally hear your thoughts on the end results.
Sincerely,
In an interview that went live today, at around the 40 to 45 minute mark, Michael Moorcock mentioned he's nearly finished an original Elric story "for a new Sword & Sorcery magazine in Canada". Have I mentioned I live in Toronto?
Yes, we are lucky enough to be getting sewn into the grand tapestry of the White Wolf himself! This story will be found in issue #1, illustrated by Sapro, and those who missed out on the Kickstarter can pre-order here.
Meanwhile, there should be another, longer update tomorrow if I get something very cool in the mail...
I hate the idea of spamming you with lots of updates, but it's been over two months since the last one and I figure you may be wondering how it's going with production of NESS #1&2.
A few days ago we sent out our first payment to a NESS author. It felt great! Thank you so much for making that possible.
We've paid a couple more since then, which is extra cool because payment is a sign of progress. I've been tracking that progress in an Excel chart whose left column I'm going to crop out so I'm not shaming any of the authors who aren't finished yet.
And the art progress bars look like this:
We're chugging along nicely! The earlier, far left, columns represent the most time-consuming work, and the process tends to speed up once you get past the first couple. Our goal is to have these bars all glowing green by very early July, at which point we will be sending files off to our printer.
The process of printing, sending, receiving, and reviewing proofs, plus the actual official print run that follows, and then shipping that print run to our fulfillment person in Chicago...will carry us through to early or mid-October, assuming all goes smoothly. From there we'll begin mailing out everybody's issues!
When we send our finished files to the printer - again, early July is the goal - I'll post another update to let you know how things are going.
Until then!
Sincerely,
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.