Transfuzion sorta official now....

Transfuzion Publishing is more or less official now as the first two books shipped out. OF SCENES AND STORIES and JACK THE RIPPER should be in stores next week followed by GHOST SONATA and SAINT GERMAINE: TALES OF AN IMMORTAL about a week or so after that. The books got off to a late start due to a death in the family which delayed things and I'm trying to make sure I staggered the releases so not everything comes out on the same week. Two more books, DEADWORLD: BITS AND PIECES and ORALK: REDUX are waiting to ship and then SINERGY, OZ: BOOK 1, and WITNESS TO WAR are already to go. Lots of stuff in the pipelines. The orders for the books weren't very good for the direct comics market but that was to be expected. Most stores are only ordering what their customers ordered on small publishers because reorders are so much easier to obtain. I don't have a problem with that. Being a retailer in the past, I certainly understand that you got to limit your financial outlay and stores seem to be overwhelmed with choices. So, I understand the dynamics. Of course, we're not setting up Transfuzion to be reliant only on the direct market although it certainly makes sense to form a good relationship there. Just had the books go up on Amazon (some for advance orders only at this point) and already got a number of orders in (in just one day). So, that seems encouraging. Here's a link to my page on Amazon which has the new books in addition to my previous listings. AMAZON PAGE FOR GARY REED. There are some books that I've done that are not listed in that Amazon page. Some trades are being redone so no sense listing an out of print book when a new one is coming. I didn't include the role playing book I did for Palladium as it was a fun project but not a graphic novel. I found it a bit odd that I wrote a role playing game based on Robotech when I didn't ever watch Robotech or engage in role playing games. But I also did a video game and outside of AGE OF EMPIRES, I really haven't played video games either. Transfuzion will be at just a few cons this year. Motor City, perhaps and likely Wizard World Chicago. I was toying around with attending other shows but I figured I'm not paying to go to conventions when I don't really enjoy them. Plus I have a couple of trips lined up this summer...a family vacation out west (working on the details) and then a trip to Europe which is business oriented but has some "play" time built in. That takes a hefty chunk of time out of the schedule especially since I have a couple of deadlines to meet this summer. It seems that the initial launch of Transfuzion has sparked even more foreign printing opportunities so I'll be figuring out all the details of that but likely will have the agency that represents me handle all the Transfuzion stuff. There seems to be quite a bit of interest in the upcoming Lovecraft and Oz books. Speaking of Oz, Hip-hop artist Pras Michel of the Fugees has optioned film and TV rights to comic series to Dark Oz. Here's the link for the full information. In some other news, Guy Davis and I are in discussion about another collection of the complete BAKER STREET because the previous edition has gone out of print and has limited availability due to the death of Bryon Preiss, the publisher. The estate is mired in bankruptcy so there is some talk of another publisher picking it up. More news as it develops and hope to hear something soon. Quite a lot going on about a Marvel artist swiping artwork. burning up some of the message boards. I'm not going to name names but it was a former Caliber creator and I'm going to reserve a standard "no comment" on the whole situation. I am shocked at how many people say its okay to swipe as long as the "picture looks pretty"... (well, not exactly those words but that's the flavor of their comments)...which I find quite disturbing. I'm a bit surprised how many people are shocked that direct swipes from magazines (especially fashion ones) are used so often. We used to see that all the time at Caliber and we often challenged the artists on it when we found out about it as it was also our reputation on the line. I don't make a big deal of it but it should be noted that not everyone that left Caliber did on their terms for greener pastures and other opportunities. Some were politely told to go. You would never know that from reading what some have to say (not just with Caliber but other smaller publishers) but it's not always so clearly delineated as some creators make it out to be. In May, coming from Desperado Publishing will be a brand new full length (24 pages) SAINT GERMAINE tale. It deals with Falstaff, the character from Shakespeare's plays and is drawn by James E. Lyle who did the Casanova story for Saint Germaine. It's in Negative Burn #21 which comes out in May and is available for ordering right now. Last thing is I want to bring your attention to a book that's coming out in June. No, it's not one of mine but it is from a friend of mine. R. G. Taylor illustrated a series of stories told by various narrators on the importance of comics when they were growing up. Aptly called, "GROWING UP WITH COMICS", the book is coming our from Desperado Publishing (www.desperadopublishing.com) and even though there is just a blurb about it on the website now, it will be spotlighted next month when its time to order it. A very, very cool book that you should check out and the Desperado site will have some preview pages. Don't forget that if you want to discuss anything I'm doing to be sure and check out the COMICRELATED.COM forum boards. Since I do most of my work currently through Desperado and Transfuzion, this is a great site as it hosts both of those two companies on their message boards.