Sean Kleefeld Review on Time for Frank and His Friend

We've been quite busy before, during and now after the WonderCon. So much so that we just found out about this wonderful review that Sean Kleefeld of Kleefeld on Comics did on our new book Time for Frank and His Friend on March 19, 2012.

The best thing about going to trade shows, besides interacting with the public and getting out of the studio, is seeing people's reactions to our products with our own eyes. We spend so much time making these products that once they are out there in the world by their lonesome selves it's important that they can live the lives they are intended to. I know we produce quirky products, and they are not for every one. But the people that get what we are doing they get it in a split second and as their eyes start glowing you hear a giggle. Well that is a wonderful payoff.

Sean Kleefeld gets it! We never met Sean but he was one of the first to order our first book Finding Frank and His Friend after we presented it at the San Diego Comic-Con back in 2010, when we also introduced Curio & Co., and was also one of the first to order our latest book. In both cases we got a wonderful review (Finding Frank and His Friend review). And it gives such a sense of fulfillment reading the reviews, specifically because he unveils details of the product. Details that took extra time in the production did not go unnoticed. And the best part, we did not have to explain the premise of Curio & Co. It's the pat on the back that lets me know that we are doing something right and that products can find good homes with people that love them.

Sean thanks for the review!

Secretariat Costumes on Disney Lot

We got a heck of a boost when we stopped by the Disney Lot last week.

After we met up with some friends for lunch, we made our way to the Frank G Wells building for a cup of joe. In the main lobby they usually have different things on exhibition, during our visit of last week it just happened to be costumes for some of the features that the Disney Studio has been involved with, along with some really cool models (I'll post those soon). Well we had to do a double take when we noticed that they had costumes from Secretariat, produced by Mayhem Pictures, the studio with which we signed to turn the Gadabout into a live action feature. Kirstie and I looked at each other with big smiles on our faces. It was no surprise that Disney was involved with the production of the film, we knew that, but it was great to see that they chose those costumes for that exhibit when we were in town. They must have wanted to impress us or something, hee hee. Needless to say. The smiles are sill on our faces.

Curio & Co. - Ready to for WonderCon 2012 Crowd

We are all set to see you at the Anaheim Convention Center starting tomorrow at 12:00 noon. Stop by at SP 56 and say hello.

A LITTLE MORE NEWS: On Saturday March 17, James T. Walker will be signing his book Drawing from the Left at our table after the panel The Myth of Nostalgia (5:00-6:00) if you can't make it to the panel stop by and hear some of his stories of how he made some of your favorite nostalgic memories. Mr. Magoo, Scooby Doo, and recently, Batman. Peter Maresca of Sunday Press will also be at our table and will be able to show off some of his impressive work that brought you back Little Nemo an many other classics.

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.