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This weekend! San Francisco!

I am positively glommuxed to be visiting San Francisco this weekend! I’ll be at the Bazaar Bizarre craft fair, held at Fort Mason, this coming Saturday & Sunday.

I’ve been to a BazBiz event once before, at Maker Faire earlier this spring, and I was absolutely glommuxed by the wonderful crowd and the kind response to my wares. I’ll be bringing Monocle Poppers holiday cards, as well as the usual complement of books, shirts, posters &c., so be sure to stop by and say hello!

Also here is a brief interview I gave to the BazBizBlog:

…My list of things to do grows faster than my list of things done, which someday will be a problem and I will be crushed by teetering, top-heavy stack of projects full of pointy ideas and deadly ambitions.

If I don’t see you there I will become fiercely and violently glommuxed

A note about “Glond.”

In a recent strip about Boggle, I used the word “glond” ostensibly as a made-up word, a word so obviously silly that no one could take it seriously, but yet which could be argued to be somehow real.

Well, here is a note from Marksman Nikolardo, who sends the following pictures to support an argument I would not have believed without documentation. This dictionary is used in the Nikolardo family for both Boggle and Scrabble:

And in this dictionary, there is a certain page…

And on this page there is something miserable:

GLOND.

Now, then: Nikolardo points out that the bottom section of the page, where “glond” is found, is a special space for “words which were variants and/or archaic at the time this dictionary was printed, which was 1918.” So it can be argued that “glond” is not really a word. Not anymore.

And what is glond? “Awlwort” or “Cowherb.” THOSE ARE NOT WORDS EITHER.

Due to this overwhelming evidence I am going ON THE RECORD as declaring “glond” NOT A WORD, either now or EVER IN THE FUTURE. Glond is BLACKBALLED from the English language FOREVER.

What a glommox we have made of this situation! (Thanks for the pictures, Nikolardo!)

Sweet new posters! And STOP FIIIIGHTIIIING over my new shirt!

You may remember this piece I made for Brandon Bird’s Law & Order-themed gallery show earlier this year! It features an incredibly historically-accurate account of curious and suspicious murders. It has been newly colored by the kind and fruitful Marcus Thiele (whom you may also recognize from his wonderful illustration in Machine of Death), and I have made it into a brand-new poster! I think it looks great on any wall and hopefully you will too.

The Homicides poster is the first of three brand-new TopatoCo products I’m offering this holiday season. (These are separate from the holiday cards and calendars in my in-house store.) The second is a new poster version of “The Matter of the Envelopes”:

Just choose “The Matter of the Envelopes” from the drop-down menu here. Now, each individual episode is already available as a single print, like any other Wondermark comic, but since Comics #670-674 were a single story arc I thought it’d be neat to combine them into a large poster as well. Over at the Poster Shoppe I offer large-format versions of all the larger comics, plus #463, the Back to the Future parody.

And a new T-shirt as well! Based on what may be the most popular comic I’ve ever done — certainly in the top ten. Hooray!

These are the only new TopatoCo products I’ll be releasing this holiday season so there’s no need to wait; please commence gift-buying for all your cleverest friends and relatives. TopatoCo has posted holiday ordering deadlines as well.

I say it often, but it bears repeating: thank you so much for your kind patronage year-round. It allows me to spend all my time making fun and interesting things for you, and I love every second of it. You are the best!

A note about the calendars! I’ve been posting some work-in-progress shots on my Tumblr, and I expect to be posting a bunch more over there next week as we gear up for actual physical production.

Since I announced the pre-order on Tuesday, we have sold an amazing 117 units — meaning there are only 58 left! At this rate, not everyone who wants one will be able to get one, so don’t delay. Order yours now.

2011 Calendar pre-order! Plus new cards and more.

Thank you kindly for the great advice regarding my plastics conundrum! I have been in touch with several kind individuals and I hope to have the situation well in hand forthwith.

I am also pleased to announce that the 2011 Wondermark Calendar is now available for pre-order!

2011 Wondermark Calendar

This will be the fourth year I’ve offered the calendar, and every year they sell out. The calendars are produced by hand and are individually signed and numbered! They’re mailed in the order that they were ordered, so the first buyer will get #1 (which is already gone!) and the last, #175. To get the lowest possible number, order now! Do the numbers matter? Not to me. But maybe to you???

Last year I wrote a very detailed explanation of how we create the calendars. I looked back through it today and I’m really pleased with how it reads! If you missed it last year, definitely take a look. I think it’s pretty interesting!

IN OTHER NEWS

Here are three brand-new Monocle Poppers™ holiday cards I’ve created just for you:

These add to my existing catalog of holiday cards to make nine designs total! Plus the various blank notecards, thank-you cards and the all-powerful Every Occasion Card. And remember that you get steep discounts for multiple cards! Basically what I am saying is that I got you covered. If you need cards, I am your man.

SPECIAL NOTE: The calendars will ship later in December, but I know you need holiday cards in-hand earlier so I’ll be sending all card orders out ASAP. Feel free to combine both in one order, and I’ll send the cards out right away even if the calendar has to follow later on.

(Non-US customers: Priority Mail is always your better bet in terms of expedient shipping. International First Class simply cannot be predicted nor guaranteed.)

FINALLY

Here is a new offering in the ol’ dry-goods concern: loose pages from old books for use in crafting, collage, or really anything you like (I won’t judge):

These are the lovely remnants after I have mined old volumes for their usable images! I am making them available in packs of about 100 pages each. See, I’m starting to fill box after box with these pages and I figure someone else can put them to better use than I can! They’d be great for all sorts of craft projects or just lining a drawer in that armoire you found on Craigslist.

Some covers are available too, for your journal or what-have-you! You do what you like. I’m just the enabler.

AND A BRIEF NOTE

Regarding Wondermark books, posters, shirts etc. from TopatoCo: that fine institution has posted its holiday ordering guidelines which I recommend taking a hearty peek at! However I will also mention that I do have one brand-new shirt in the TopatoCo pipeline which has yet to appear — hopefully that will show its face soon.

SO THAT’S WHAT I GOT

“One word: PLASTICS.”

I am uneasy with my fortunes resting in the hands of others.

As you may know, every year I design a hand-printed, limited-edition calendar. My wife and I use a RISO Print Gocco screenprinting press to create the actual pages. The trouble is that Gocco supplies have been discontinued by the manufacturer, and inventory on the secondary market is dwindling rapidly. Thankfully, however, enterprising and crafty folk have managed to create workarounds — one of them involves these aftermarket plastic frames. A savvy fellow in Germany manufactures them as replacements for the original Gocco supplies, and (in a fairly savvy business move) he has limited the distribution of them to a single retailer in the US.

Long story short, I am in the market for 38 of these frames for this year’s calendar, and the US retailer charges what I consider an exorbitant price. My question to you is this: how hard are these to make?

Are you involved in plastics manufacturing? Do you have access to a laser-cutter or a water-jet or a die-stamper or whatever would be appropriate to use to make these? I would be willing to manufacture a few hundred of these frames if it meant I would be assured of having calendar supplies for years to come. They’re pretty thin material, maybe 1/16″ or so, and I don’t think the specific plastic used even matters — they just have to be this very specific size so they fit the Gocco equipment.

I’m shifting calendar creation into high gear (watch for the pre-order going live next week!) and would love to somehow get a batch of these rapidly…or if nothing else, find someone who can make them for next year.

Would you like some business, Plastics Manufacturer Who Reads Wondermark? Email me please! Tell me how this process works. I want to seize control of this; I am tired of other people dictating how I can make my things.

UPDATE: Thank you for the kind emails, comments and suggestions! I am currently following up on several different options.

Now then! If you’re not in plastics manufacturing but you’ve still read down this far, here is your reward (hat tip to Kevin McShane):