Them idyots at Top Shelf

Tita asked:
”I have the three Alec series from TopShelf and am still wondering if they publish them in different sizes on purpose.”
I don’t know what I’m going to do with those boys.
Actually, I have to confess it’s all my fault. I think I had some idea about a 'book' comic being such a different model from the old style floppy comic-book that I should go to lengths to undermine the idea of it being a series. That is, no volume numbers (I’d already done that with the Bacchus books) because with volume numbers you can’t get a customer to take the third one if he doesn’t have the first two, and stuff like that. So I went to lengths to make sure the message got across, by making each one a slightly different size, and gave each one a different price, completely ignoring the convention of ‘price points’. I carefully calculated each according to page count, which tended to vary. What I never considered was all the time that would be wasted having to check the goddamn prices all the time, and then packing them in boxes, all the repacking and stuffing that would be needed to make sure the corners of those sticking out wouldn’t get ‘dinged’ (that may be a top shelf word, we don’t know it around these parts).
Ah, the practicalities of publishing. My pal Staros always says he can explain the Bacchus backstory in five minutes but it takes him half an hour to explain why Campbell published volume 9 in between volumes 3 and 4, and why although there are ten in the series there are only nine books because Campbell collapsed volumes 7 and 8 into one book

Same drill as before. The small original above: first to put their hand up in the comments can have it in the mail. Give me an email contact so I can get your address.

Mikel Midnight wrote:
" One strip I've been waiting for years to see? The final 'Ace Rock & Roll Club' which was apparently done in watercolours. I keep hoping for a Campbell color special which might squeeze that in.”
I pulled it out and had a look. It’s the story I redid into black and white and it was included in the 1993 Fantagraphics collection in that form. It was of course drawn some 27 years ago in 1979 and the the color work leaves much to be desired, alas. There are maybe a handful of panels I’m not unimpressed with. Here are a couple.

I find these days that virtually all of my work is in painted color. There was this year’s Fate of the Artist, and there will be next year’s Black Diamond Detective Agency (more on that very soon as I hope to have a copy in my hand by end december though it won't be officially released till next june) and a new one that I am 30 pages into and have not mentioned once in public until now. There was also Batman: The Order of Beasts, a 48 page special in 2004. My pal Evans suggested the witty title. Then the 13 page Escapist story of 2005, A Fair to remember, a play on an old movie title , suggested by my co-writer on that, my pal Best. It’s a good job I’m surrounded by geniuses, as I’m really dumb myself. With all this stuff I have to steal, my nom de plume should be Alexander Dumbass. Actually, I just pinched that one from Stephen Fry. It’s a good job nobody is fussed about plagiarism in these modern ti-
Wait a minute, the phone
“uh…what?... they are? Since when?... shit no.
okay, thanks for roning.”