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Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2012 10:17 am
by ctowner1
GABE! wrote:I didn't back the Dave Sims Cerebus Kickstarter, but I know a few here did.

High Society Negatives lost in fire.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/08/24/ ... d-by-fire/
I was just about to post this! Bummer!

Is he still has the original art, I guess they can rescan those - right? What are "negatives" Were thoose originally made from the original art when the comic was produced?

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Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2012 11:00 am
by ctowner1
ctowner1 wrote:
GABE! wrote:I didn't back the Dave Sims Cerebus Kickstarter, but I know a few here did.

High Society Negatives lost in fire.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/08/24/ ... d-by-fire/
I was just about to post this! Bummer!

Is he still has the original art, I guess they can rescan those - right? What are "negatives" Were thoose originally made from the original art when the comic was produced?

e
L nny
I asked this question on the Cerebus board and was told:
The negatives are pictures taken from the original art work that are used in the production of the comic. You can see more about them here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/189 ... sts/241603

No, Dave does not have a complete set of the original High Society art as he sold most of it during the early days of Cerebus. If anyone has original art from High Society, please look into getting a high resolution scan of it done to help out. For more info on that see:
http://thecerebusartcollection.com/index3.html

As to what this means to the kickstarter? From a comment on update #76 from Aug 13:
Creator John M. Scrudder on August 13
Sandeep here: Just finished scanning in the first 200 pages of High Society from the negatives. The negative scanner is working great and the pages look fantastic; George agrees. We're getting ALL the detail in the drawings from the negatives, more than you can see in the High Society phonebook. The final digital version will be superb quality. "It's like seeing it for the first time!"

The first 200 pages goes into issue #35.

--
Take care,
Margaret
http://www.cerebusfangirl.com
Wow - so that's terrible. That would mean that there's no way they can complete this project unless they track down the last 300 pages of original art! (I'm assuming the digitized files of the first 200 pages survive somewhere? Hopefully they had a backup in a location other than the apartment where the fire occurred!).

And what does this mean in terms of the kickstarter project money? Given that they will be unable to do what they committed to in the timeframe promised, does all the money revert back to the donors and they'll have to resolicit the money once they have the goods?

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Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2012 12:02 pm
by ctowner1
Here's a little more on what this means for the Cerebus Kickstarter project with respect to my question on how many pages have yet to be scanned:
304 pages to be exact. But that is an update from Aug 13, 10 days before the fire. I'm sure Sandeep probably did some more scanning during that time frame. Plus if you look at this page:
http://thecerebusartcollection.com/index2.html
And count all the green pages past #35 (assuming Sandeep was working in chronological order), which are pages they've got scans of original artwork, that is 123 pages. So 181 pages to go (out of 504 pages, not including covers and all the extras like letters pages, notes from the publisher, etc, which they've got scans of already), not to mention what Sandeep might have scanned in that time frame..

So I would say it isn't looking as bad as it could be - we just need to spread the word of getting those pages that they do need scanned and getting Sandeep some help:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/cerebus ... 128348735/

But I can't answer your questions about the kickstarter, only Dave can, and he probably will since he has been so open with the kickstarter via the updates.

--
Take care,
Margaret>>

Well that certainly sounds better! Do we know that Sandeep backed up the digital files somewhere though? (like do YOU have the backups, perhaps???). Is there any chance that the digitized files were all lost in the fire as well?

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From Sandeep: "issues 26-40 were scanned and uploaded to George's server,leaving issues 41-50. Of those, Dave has about half of the original art, so we're probably looking at about 100 negatives lost that weren't scanned."

So while it is (bleep) that the negatives were lost, it sounds like a small hill to climb over rather then a mountain. . .

--
Take care,
Margaret
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L nny

Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2012 5:49 pm
by BobBretall
It's pretty bad that they lost so much in the fire, but it could have been worse.

Since we're talking about a digital project, they could always release it with "placeholder scans" of comics instead of originals on schedule & then allow for an incremental re-download at a later date when higher res stuff for the last 100 pages become available.

This wouldn't work for a print copy, but works OK in the digital world.

Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2012 8:54 pm
by GABE!
BobBretall wrote:It's pretty bad that they lost so much in the fire, but it could have been worse.

Since we're talking about a digital project, they could always release it with "placeholder scans" of comics instead of originals on schedule & then allow for an incremental re-download at a later date when higher res stuff for the last 100 pages become available.

This wouldn't work for a print copy, but works OK in the digital world.
Is your page from the High Society story line, Bob? I've never read or really been exposed to Cerebus, so I have no idea. But it would be cool if you were able to lend a helping hand.

Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 12:00 am
by BobBretall
GABE! wrote: Is your page from the High Society story line, Bob? I've never read or really been exposed to Cerebus, so I have no idea. But it would be cool if you were able to lend a helping hand.
No, my page is from #17. High Society ran from #26-50.

BTW, I scanned my page & sent it in, so when they do the 1st volume, my page will be in there.

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 1:25 pm
by torchsong
I had a Kickstarter jones over lunch and backed the following projects:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/908 ... arty-comic

Looks to be a cool marriage of RPG and manga. What really sold me is the combination of ink and pencil art on it. Scroll down and check it out, it's really looking to be something cool. Plus if you back it at the $50 mark and they make enough, some of the stretch goals are really nice.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/189 ... he-bad-guy

Guilty pleasure book. It's funded but I have some stuff by Hillinski already, so I figured why not throw more support his way?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/263 ... heroes-die

It just sounded sick and twisted enough to be something I might enjoy. Sprung for the more expensive variant cover because...well...the other three aren't that good and if I hold onto the book at least this one looks cool. Hopefully the preview isn't indicative that this is a snuff book, and more of the black comedy it sounds like it's trying to be.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/206 ... egalopolis

Simone and Calafiore. 'Nuff said there.

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 11:35 am
by BobBretall
It's been a while since I backed a comics Kickstarter, but I REALLY love JK Woodward's art. Story sounds pretty cool, and if you're a JKW fan like I am, you know you'll love the art.....

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/166 ... an-oceanic
Human: Oceanic is a 160 page, digest sized, Hard cover with dust jacket, Original Graphic Novel written by Phil Smith (Witchblade: Due Process, Trinity: Blood on the Sands) and illustrated by J.K. Woodward (X-Men Origins:Beast, Peter David's Fallen Angel, and Star Trek/Doctor Who).

Human: Oceanic is about humanity in the near and far future, driven to an extreme to survive by war and disease where Human rights are sacrificed for the greater good. The story focuses on a human test subject code named Bellerophon.

Human: Oceanic is the story of future where human experimentation has become accepted by the worlds nations, giving the benefit to some and damning others to a life of forced servitude and torture. Of course it does not stop there. With the doors to Human experimentation blown open the Military Industrial complex initiates a series of trials secretly called "Human: Oceanic." A research project designed to give soldiers on the front lines the ability to predict enemy actions in both hand to hand combat as well as higher level precognitive abilities at the command level. The project has an unintended side effect opening up the subject's conciousness to past and future realities as well as the path of particular lives. The conciousness splinters as the subject's mind travel's various paths into alternate pasts and futures.

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2012 8:35 am
by torchsong
A couple more I'm backing (still in progress):

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/181 ... k-archives

This is a no-brainer. I was (and still am) a big Earthworm Jim fan, and TenNapel is an amazing artist no matter what he's working on. $50 backing and you get an original page from his sketchbook? Done and done.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/502 ... c-volume-1

This looks to satsify my "Never got to start on Avatar: the Last Airbender when it came out" jones. Artwork looks great, and I whet my appetite by reading some of the online comic (don't want to spoil anything).

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 2:39 pm
by ctowner1
Fred (Johnny Hiro) Chao's new book:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/214 ... -day-robot

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Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 10:03 pm
by BobBretall
ctowner1 wrote:Fred (Johnny Hiro) Chao's new book:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/214 ... -day-robot
I don't want to rain on Chao's parade, but the cheapest contribution to get an actual copy of his 64 page kids book is $50..... That seems excessive to me.

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 8:25 am
by ctowner1
BobBretall wrote:
ctowner1 wrote:Fred (Johnny Hiro) Chao's new book:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/214 ... -day-robot
I don't want to rain on Chao's parade, but the cheapest contribution to get an actual copy of his 64 page kids book is $50..... That seems excessive to me.
Yah - I saw that, too. Although it is a HC and you do get other stuff, too. But for $5 you get a pdf of the book (plus some other stuff) - that seems a reasonable deal, at a minimum.

Question: I don't have an ipad or anything like that - but is getting a pdf of a book very different from getting a digital copy? Is it that there are extra feature you have in a digital copy (like controlling if you view it page by page or 2 pages at once, and stuff like that)? Or is there more? If he's giving you a pdf, is that essentially 90% as good as a digital copy? Or a lot worse?

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Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 9:07 am
by BobBretall
ctowner1 wrote: Yah - I saw that, too. Although it is a HC and you do get other stuff, too. But for $5 you get a pdf of the book (plus some other stuff) - that seems a reasonable deal, at a minimum.
This is a kids book. Theoretically you'd want to read it to a kid, maybe for bedtime.

Hey, let's curl up by the computer to read this PDF before bed! Lame..... (not everyone had an iPad)

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 9:10 am
by BobBretall
ctowner1 wrote: Question: I don't have an ipad or anything like that - but is getting a pdf of a book very different from getting a digital copy? Is it that there are extra feature you have in a digital copy (like controlling if you view it page by page or 2 pages at once, and stuff like that)? Or is there more? If he's giving you a pdf, is that essentially 90% as good as a digital copy? Or a lot worse?
A PDF is a digital copy, it's just one of the possible formats for a digital copy.

Normal comics are not formatted that great for a normal landscape format computer screen. Different for people with an iPad/tablet with a big screen.

I don't particularly like reading PDFs on the computer.

My preferred format for reading digitally is via Comixology.

For the Sullivan's Sluggers kickstarter, they sent out a PDF & it was OK, but they ALSO provided a Comixology code. IMO, the reading experience in Comixology is substantially better.

Comixology does a great job formatting comics to present them and make them readable even on a small device like a cell phone. They make the viewing optimal regardless of the device you use, to their credit.

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 9:26 am
by boshuda
ctowner1 wrote:
Question: I don't have an ipad or anything like that - but is getting a pdf of a book very different from getting a digital copy? Is it that there are extra feature you have in a digital copy (like controlling if you view it page by page or 2 pages at once, and stuff like that)? Or is there more? If he's giving you a pdf, is that essentially 90% as good as a digital copy? Or a lot worse?

e
L nny
Executive Summary:

If you think $5 is a reasonable price to pay for this book on Comixology, then $5 for the PDF is probably just as reasonable.

A pdf is a digital copy of the book.
I prefer PDF files to other digital formats of books (aside from .CBZ or .CBR). You can read PDFs on pretty much any platform, and they're generally not DRM'd in any way. This means you can back it up and be pretty sure you'll be able to read it for a long, long time to come. The main drawback is that PDF readers can be cumbersome applications, and the files can be huge. However, the filesize is usually a result of the compression level of the internal images, so other forms of digital comics can be just as large.

Many PDF readers will allow you to zoom, view 1, 2, 4, or more pages at a time, bookmark your progress, etc.

There are numerous free PDF comic books out there
if you're still not convinced. Download a few, try them out, and determine if you like the format.

Here's one from Mark Waid that actually seems designed for PDF format and looks pretty good even in-browser:
http://markwaid.com/wp-content/uploads/ ... -Final.pdf

I was having difficulty locating a PDF comic book that wasn't obviously pirated, but Previews is available online:
http://www.mailordercomics.com/preview-catalogs/. That will give you a pretty good idea of how a no-frills PDF acts. Try it on a standalone PDF reader like the Adobe Reader that's probably installed on your computer right now. I wouldn't recommend viewing this in your browser.