blog: product announcements

Three important notes about the store today:

First, I am now selling FRAMED PRINTS. These are not chintzy ready-made plastic frames you might find at the drugstore; they’re custom-cut hardwood fitted with shatterproof Lucite and acid-free backing, sealed against dust and moisture, shipped ready to hang on your wall. Each print is signed and hand-assembled by me!

Second, I am now offering the option to upgrade your books to an “Artist Edition,” if you’d like me to add a sketch! (Something like this or this or this, perhaps.) Regular versions will still ship with a signature by default.

Third, Beards of our Forefathers is now available for purchase! It should land in your local comics shop tomorrow, or you can pick up a signed copy from me right this second! Not exactly sure when it’ll show up in bookstores, but it’s gotta be soon.

A special note to the folks who pre-ordered the book on Amazon and are still waiting for it (and who may have received a note from Amazon telling them it’ll be a few weeks yet) — I wish I could send you a free gift of some sort to thank you for supporting me with the pre-order. Unfortunately, the cost of a stamp to send you a letter or gift is about half of what I earn from the Amazon sale of the book. But I do want to thank you all profoundly — the pre-order numbers really convinced Dark Horse that this book was worth pushing, and the wonderful reviews that I’ve shown you already (and that we’ll hopefully continue to see more of) are thanks to Dark Horse supporting the project 100%. So thank you all, very much!

Also, submissions are now closed for the Make-Something Contest — thanks to everyone who took the time to enter! I’ll announce the results as soon as I finish going through all of your wonderful creations.

Some great announcements today about new products in the store! First, banded print sets — these are collections of individual comic prints, organized by theme and bound together like stacks of dollar bills, which I think makes for a snazzy presentation. Each set contains 13 comic prints and sells for $12 (or all three sets for $30). The sets are entitled ‘We All Have Problems’, ‘We All Have Problems at Work’ and ‘Even Animals Have Problems’. Savvy readers will be able to guess the themes. Check ’em out!

Also, Expendable DVDs have now been joined by patches and DVD/patch/poster collector sets! The DVDs have come down in price by a couple bucks as well. I hate to say it, but increased U.S. postal rates are probably going to spell some price shifting in the store soon, so if you’ve had your eye on something in particular, I’d recommend picking it up now. (Beards of our Forefathers doesn’t go on sale until July 1st, but its price won’t increase.) Ladies’ shirts are also still on clearance.

Finally, I just bought a longboard, and I am somewhat less than an expert at riding it. Won’t you give me some tips on the new messageboard?

At any given time I have about four to six new products for the Wondermark Store in various stages of completion. Occasionally I’ll have one or two ready for launch, but I’ll hold off making an announcement until I can announce several other things all at once — the logic being, that way I spend less time overall harping to you about the store and merchandise. The downside is that if some things end up taking really long to complete, earlier products end up languishing un-announced, sitting in boxes in my house instead of being sold.

In an attempt to solve this problem, I’m going to start announcing “Featured Item(s) of the Month.” This establishes a system for rolling out new products on a regular basis. Because I know that’s what you’ve been clamoring for.

The inaugural Featured Item for May is the Expendable DVD! (If you haven’t seen the movie I released earlier this year, you can watch it on YouTube here.) The DVD version of the film looks and sounds great, and the disc also includes over 30 minutes of bonus features including deleted scenes, A.R.A.C.H.N.I.D. promotional videos (some of which are previously unreleased), and footage from an early test shoot. I should also mention that these DVDs are FREE to film-industry types or financial types that might move us an inch or two closer to our ultimate goal of making a feature film — but to everyone else, they’re a great way to help support this independent project. All revenue goes towards reimbursing our production costs. Click here or on the picture!