Time for Frank and His Friend - Ready to Go

Time for Frank and His Friend is ready to go. The books are stamped, the certificates embossed, all paired-up and ready to go for their WonderCon pre-release this coming Friday.

The embossed certificates of authenticity.

And, the hand stamped curio seal on the back cover is how you'll know that the book came from our shop. The little extra that I was talking about in one of the previous posts.

Civil War Reenactment

Here is a picture I took over the weekend. We were at a Civil War reenactment hosted by Civil War Alliance for the battle of Gettysburg. It was a heck of a thing! I never thought that people would go so in detail about it all with such attention to everything. Even the shoelaces need to be to period correct. (Leather only.) And of course Lincoln was there and at the end he gave the address.

Curio & Co. on L'autre Monde

In January we were at Festival International de la Bande Dessinée D'Angoulême, AKA Angoulême, and it was a heck of an experience. After all, it is one of the largest shows in the world, and we met wonderful people. The public at Angoulême really has an astonishing appreciation for the comic arts, and I really mean the Art of it, the products are really handled differently, and one can understand why France has such a large comic book market. A very different experience than we had in November at Lucca Comics and Games, where the comic book crowd leans much more toward cosplay, and the Japanese market really found a friend in Italy.

To get back to the original idea of the post, we were at Angoulême and my partner Kirstie Shepherd gave a radio interview on L' Autre Monde (a french radio station), where she had the opportunity to explain what we do at Curio & Co.

Here is the interview for those of you that are interested: Here

How fitting it is that a radio station whose name means "the other world" interviews us, a company that makes things from another world. Simply a perfect match!

Frank and His Friend - Pen & Ink for Wonder-Con 2012

In the future, I'm hoping to have more time to devote to creating more one of a kind pieces for the shop, regardless of their form: sculpture, drawings, watercolors,… original art work tied to Curio & Co. properties. Here are some of the 4x6 pen and ink drawings that I did for the WonderCon, we'll have them for retail along with some of the Spaceman Jax drawings at our booth SP 56.

Happy Monday!

Time for Frank and His Friend - The Books Have Landed

The new books Time for Frank and His Friend made it to our destination, no questions asked. They all look good and they are so much lighter then their predecessor Finding Frank and His Friend. I have to say it was an excellent choice to go with the paper that I chose. Not only was the paper the perfect match for the paperback that we were aiming for, but it's also lighter to carry the boxes from show to show, the customer has less weight to carry around at the conventions, and we can ship with much cheaper shipment costs.

Now we need to prepare the books for Wonder-Con, stamping the book's inside cover and adding the certificate, which are all embossed and ready to go.

Silkscreening the Gadabout covers

The Curio & Co. production of the Gadabout time machine user's manual was no easy task. I always supervise each of the production steps for our products; I would be a fool not to. For this production, not only were there 5 different contractors that took part in the production (and each one gave me hell!), but there was the unusual binding, the unusual paper for the cover, and the unusual weather!

What does the weather have to do with things? Well, I was just reminded about this as I was going through some photos on my hard drive. It was the week we skilkscreened the cover; it was HOT! So hot in fact that the company that was doing the job couldn't get the paint thick enough to get a good solid matte white. It was translucent, so after wasting 2 hours, valuable special order paper (causing a reduced number of books produced), I came back to my hot studio. The good thing was: I was there and I was able to halt production till the weather cooled down, and get a good print.

This was one of the incidents that took place during the production. For any of you planing to do a production run of anything: do your research, know the company you'll be doing business with, make sure they respect you (you are the client), and always have a plan B, and if you can have a plan C as well. Murphy's Law is always around, looking to strike.

Having said all that... In the end we got a good looking book, that I'm proud of.

Time for Frank and His Friend Race!

The certificates beat the books! - In delivery. The first of the final material for Time for Frank and His Friend has just arrived.

Like all of our products, the books sold by Curio & Co. will be hand stamped and have an accompanying embossed certificate of authenticity so that you know you have an original fake. This is an extra bonus, only for who's purchasing from our site, or at our trade-shows (the next show is at Wonder-Con at the Anaheim Convention Center in 2 weeks time; we'll be in Small Press 56).

Now all we have to do is some serious hand embossing. Stamp, stamp, stamp... Then the books are next.

Anyone want to help?!? ;)

Dylan Dog meets Curio & Co.

Now that Time for Frank and His Friend is behind us, the books should be on our doorstep in 2 days. I can start focusing on the next project. Hence me posting about Dylan Dog.

This is drawing test that I did over the summer. No, I will not be drawing Dylan Dog nor will I be working for Sergio Bonelli Editore, at least not for now (no one ever knows what happens in life). But Curio & Co. will be developing a new property in that style of comic book. Meaning the characters and story will be ours, but the format, the spirit and time period will be reminiscent of Dylan Dog, Martin Mystère (Martin Mystery in the US), and since I met Mr.Fabio Civitelli at Lucca Comics and Games last year, one of the great draftsman for Tex (the oldest series of the Bonelli collection), I will have to say Tex as well. I should be fair and say that the entire project is not only going to be solely looking at Bonelli but also at other Italian comics like Diabolik.

The character and premise of the comic has been in and out of our idea drawers since we started Curio & Co., but the time wasn't right for it. This project kept on nudging me; I'd find myself doing research, logo design and character design on weekends, buying books about guns of all things - and I don't like guns - and, on Saturday brunch we'd be having hours' long discussions about how and what the character should do.

Now the time has come to let the cat out of the bag it has been meowing long enough.

PS: In 1968 Diabolik was turned into a movie Danger: Diabolik. In a weird way it's fascinating. This is a much better poster then the one that IMDB is using.

Frank and His Friend - Many Thanks

This is a drawing I did a couple of months back (Christmas). It was a for a couple that has been giving us loads of support in building Curio & Co. from the ground up. It was only fitting that I would say thanks. Well, Frank and His Friend did the saying.

Designing Brigadier Buffalo - Curio & Co.

For whatever reason, we (Curio & Co.) tend to simultaneously work on many different projects until we set a release date for any one specific product. It then becomes the focus until completion.

The many projects are not just creative in nature, unfortunately, they may be web updates (recently speaking of coding), contacting distributors, research on packaging and shipping...

Brigadier Buffalo is one of the many creative projects that we have on the burners is Brigadier Buffalo another fake animated TV show, produced by pud Film, and designed by our famous but fictional Philip La Carta, the same character designer that brought you, Spaceman Jax and the Galactic Adventures. What you see here are some concept sketches I did for the project.

SUPERMAN ALWAYS HAS A JOB!

This one was done on Saturday morning, before heading to brunch. We (Curio & Co.) are planing a blog post on Superman and needed an illustration that fit. I don't usually have the time to do illustrations for the blog, but when I can squeeze the time to make it happen, … I sure enjoy a simple and free assignment like this one. Plus I woke with the image in my mind, and 3 hours later… there is the result.

Arctic Paper - Pamo Super, the paper for Time for Frank and His Friend

CPI Ebner & Spiegel Paper storage - two days worth of production

What led me to CPI Ebner & Spiegel for the production of Curio & Co. new book Time for Frank and His Friend was the paper options they offered. I was looking to produce the book on a specific stock of paper, Pamo Super, produced by Arctic Paper.

I really like Arctic Paper and my dealings with them have also been really positive. They are professional with what they do and, as I was looking to print on Pamo, one of their paper lines. It was their sales rep who put me in contact with CPI Ebner & Spiege . One of our corporate goals is to be environmentally friendly and Arctic Paper produces environmentally friendly paper, which has a really nice feel to the touch and an appealing color and structure. The previous books were also done on Arctic Paper, but with their acid-free Munken Pure line, allowing the books to be archival quality. The paper is more expensive but worth the money. I constantly get positive remarks on the paper stock of the book. As an aside, just for the cost of the shipping they will even make a dummy book for you, or send you paper samples. Check out their dummy shop. Those of you who make books know how important it is to have a book in your hands, to properly judge for the weight and feel. Technically making a book is product design, and having studied product design for a couple of years at the university, it left a impression on how I think and work. I really need to feel and see the material; it's part of the experience.

When I took a look at the CPI Ebner & Spiegel facility they also showed me their temporary stock room. Temporary, what do I mean by that? With their production volume they go through all of what you see in 2 days worth of printing, their presses run 24hrs/day with Sunday for repair and maintenance. I call that impressive! But what does this mean for you? This means that you have access to paper stock that you'd ordinarily have to order 10 tons of, or you would be out of luck! Sure you can order 10 tons of paper, but where are you going to store it? One of the paper rolls you see in the picture is about 1.2 tons. I say YAY temporary storage! Plus, this also means that there are people out there who like books as much as I do.

What Harry Potter, Monsters Inc. and Time for Frank and His Friend have in Common

The printing company that produced our Curio & Co.'s new book Time for Frank and His Friend is CPI Ebner & Spiegel, one of the largest in Germany, and one of the companies that besides producing the Dan Brown books like The Da Vinci Code also did J. K. Rowling's HARRY POTTER and the Deathly Hallows. Do you remember the whole frenzy of being a best seller before the book was even finished? The whole production had to be split into 3 companies just for the German market, 3 million copies had to be produced for its first release. CPI had to solely focus on printing Harry potter for 2 weeks straight, and produced 1,000,000 books. Our book was on the same press as Harry Potter, to me that is exciting.

Yup! on this press.

I took the time to be there at the time of printing and got to see the production facility. It was a treat! So many cool things to see, the whole automation and management of the company. It was my first time seeing a WEB press. Let me tell you it is impressive on one end you have a roll of paper of about 1 meter (3.28 ft) in diameter and on the other end you have the folded signatures, ready for binding. Specially when it's something that you worked on.

I was taken to the storage where the books not yet bound are stored, and it looked like this.

CPI Ebner & Spiegel signature storage

Pixar's Monsters Inc. came to mind immediately when I was through the door. And let me tell you the picture can't do justice to the experience of seeing it first hand. Just like the Grand Canyon needs to be seen first hand, so does this. I'm not saying that a storage room is in the same league as the Grand Canyon, just that you have to see it with your own eyes. Simply cool!

I can happily say that working with them has been a really pleasant experience. They are professional and look for solutions to make things work for your product. If any of you are looking to do a production run for europe, I would suggest you contact them. See what they can do for you. I'd be happy to pass on the contact to anyone interested, just send me an email.

Signing Off on your New Gadabout TM1050

Some of the hidden things in the Gadabout…

I thought of sharing how we sign the Gadabout. We only break character when we, as Curio & Co., art dealer of pop culture collectables, are at trade shows and are face to face with the public. On our official site we don't even work there (but boy do we work!) but other fictitious people do, like Mr. Druthers the head of the company, (he's been there since he's taken it over from his father a long long time ago), and Margie the Office Manager, without whom the company could not function. By the way if you write them they will write back! This was a little needed back story…

Now, every car manual has a Warranty Voucher just like every time machine, and this is no different fro the Gadabout TM1050. I personally wouldn't buy such a machine if it didn't come with a warranty. Unfortunately for all of us, these types of machines require maintenance, and yes I agree with you I have much better things to do then maintain a piece of machinery.

In addition to a warranty I would strongly recommend purchasing these types of machines from an official dealer. Would't you be skeptical purchasing a BMW from a dealer that sells second-hand Yugos and didn't give you some sort of proof that they knew what they were selling! After all, you are paying good money for that equipment. Pg 86 of the Gadabout manual takes care of that! There's proof of Delivery Inspection. Since we are the manufacturers and also dealers we have the right to stamp and sign the manual in that location, hence the official stamp. So, we do. And, that's how we sign the manual for those that know us and what we do.

But wait! There is a little surprise coming for the San Diego Comic-Con 2012. For those that have purchased the Gadabout in 2011 and have gotten the Delivery Inspection, I think it's time for you to bring your units in for some FREE scheduled maintenance. Bring your Gadabout TM1050 manual to our booth P5 at the San Diego Comic-Con July 12-15 and get your manual stamped for your Shake Down Diagnostics! And please let us know how the Gadabout has performed for you up to now. I hope you didn't try traveling to the Triassic Period, the machine is not designed to withstand such long journeys, and it voids the warranty. If you did, I sure hope you remembered to activate the Emergency Beacon.

If you'd like to have your copy signed make sure you include a note about it in the "special request field" at the time of checkout.

Time for Frank and His Friend - Ringer Publishing Paperbacks

Like everything that we do at Curio & Co. there's loads of back-ground work to build a product. Unfortunately a lot of this material that never gets seen so I figured I'll take the time to share some of it. With our last publication we had to bring to life a fake publishing house, the name had to be narrowed down form a long list of suitable ideas with an appropriate brand integrity (how big, the philosophy,… everything that a corporation should know about itself). The above logos did not pass our test for the corporate brand. Fortunately, I'm the one that does the design so I can be as hard as needed on my own work, never the less the selection is done between my self and Kirstie and

we do argue our choices quite a bit. In fact until we both say "I'll buy that!", as an argument or idea, practically until it feels real to us.

In the end Ringer Publishing Paperbacks was the chosen publishing name for our fake publishing house. So back in 1979, in the Curio world, Ringer Publishing, with one of its many publishing arms, Ringer Publishing Paperbacks, released Time for Frank and His Frank.

This is the logo that we ended-up going with. We felt it carries enough of the 60's and 70's to give a feeling of an established company, and corporate enough that it would pass as a "real" corporation.

Curio & Co.'s Books In Diamond's Previews

Here is a little something that put a smile on our faces when we got it in the mail box. We knew we were listed in Diamond's Previews but now we actually have proof!

This smile I'm talking about has a couple of people to thank, so let me start with...

Here is a how we got connected to Diamond. Last year we attended the WonderCon in San Francisco and on the fist day of the show Jackie Estrada, who's in charge of the Eisner Awards for ComiCon International, stop by and told Kirstie (my partner) that our first book Finding Frank and his Friend was selected for the Eisner 2011 - Best Graphic Album New. What a ways to start the show! But it wasn't official, so we had to keep our mouth shut. It was really painful. I did do let out a loud WOOOOHU in the middle of the exhibit floor, heads turned and I might have looked like a freak after I broke into a happy dance. But, I had to celebrate some how.

The show came to an end and the day after completely exhausted from the show, we come back from a leisurely and relaxing breakfast with some friends with whom we were staying, and our phone we found a message from Bill Schanes, VP of Purchasing for Diamond Comics Distributors, Inc. Saying that he heard about our book from Jackie Estrada and Brian Hibbs of Comix Experience and he would like to see a copy for review so that they could possibly include it in the catalog.

Well the rest is history Diamond now carries all of the previously published books (Finding Frank and His Friend, and the Gadabout) and decide to carry our upcoming release Time for Frank and His Friend.

For this Curio & Co. has to thank: Jackie Estrada and Brian Hibbs for liking our first book and to Bill Schanes to have given our first product a chance.

Thanks you guys!

Curio & Co. at WonderCon 2012 - SP 56

We just got the our space location at WonderCon.

We'll have the new books Time for Frank and His Friend, it will be a sneak peak, we'll start shipping them on the 28th of March. If you'd like to have a signed copy and a little sketch in it I'll be at Curio & Co. booth SP-56. I'm also making some new pen an ink drawing of Frank and His Friend that I'll be bringing these originals at the show.

See you there!

Curio & Co. Releases "Time For Frank and His Friend" on March 28, 2012

The official release day for Time for Frank and His Friend by Clarence 'Otis' Dooley (me) is March 28, 2012.

This is the book that I've been working on since I got back from San Diego Comic-Con 2011, well not just this book. There was a list, list, list, list, and other lists of other things that needed babysitting, and technically I did some drawings for it while I was working on the Gadabout TM-1050 time machine user's manual, that was really when the idea for this book started. Those of you who know me might remember seeing some of the preliminary work at the SDCC. Regardless, the book is done and being pressed as we speak, and Curio & Co. will preview it next month March 16-18 at WonderCon 2012 (Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim, CA). We'll be in the Small Press area again so if you are in the neighborhood stop by and see us.

The book is a 128 page pocket sized paperback, perfect bound, with colored edges. Designed to resemble the old paperbacks comics collections. Here is a bit of a backstory on the book. (This is all made-up – in character with Curio & Co.)

It’s January 1979 and Ringer Publishing Paperbacks releases Time for Frank and His Friend, the first collection of Dooley’s comic not tied to his newspaper work. The content is completely new – not just a collection of previously printed strips – and Dooley has created it just for the paperback. The result of this is that Dooley feels that he has had more control over the product and more freedom in his work. (Even saying, “Who knew I’d love page layout so much?”)

Well, it’s not 1979 anymore, but we’ve got first edition “deadstock” copies of this best-selling comic paperback. And it’s just as terrific as you remember!

Unlike the rest of our products, this book is not archival quality, so we’re handling them with extra care.

Like the Gadabout TM-1050 and the Eisner nominated Finding Frank and His Friend, Time for Frank and His Friend will also be carried by Diamond Comics Distributors, I imagine it will be in Previews in the next couple of months. That means, you'll most likely see it in the comic book stores in 3 months or so. The copies that ship from our store will also carry a little info sheet (as certificate of authenticity) and an official Curio & Co. seal hand-stamped on inside book cover. After all, Curio & Co. sells collectables and as an art-dealer it's only fitting that it provides the products with the fitting paperwork.

For those of you interested, Time for Frank and his Friend retails at 14.95 USD from March 28, 2012 but we are offering an 11.95 USD price for pre-orders until March 27, 2012 (online only).

I'll put a period on this blog entry with some sample pages of the book.

Cheers,