A few weeks ago, we were up in Stockbridge presenting at the Creativity Seminar at Austen Riggs. In the audience was a rather nice person who happened to be a librarian from Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. She was sufficiently taken with our work to deem it worth collecting, so on behalf of Yale, she purchased the entire back catalog.
Honored though we were to be deemed worthy of perpetual entombment in this lovely building…
…we were left with the somewhat daunting task of tracking down copies of our 33 books, albums, posters, broadsides, recombining cards sets, and other sundries.
But motivated by the lure of immortality (we figure that Yale’s not going away any time soon), we amassed the entire collection, which looked like this:
And now we get to think of our books resting comfortably in stacks that look like this:
Or possibly not. Possibly Yale reserves these lovely stacks for the works of Samuel Johnson and Alexander Pope and has an unlovable closet for the unpolished utterance of small barn-based presses.
But we can dream.
Mostly, we are pleased to know that if the barn and all our hard drives are destroyed by an unexpected comet, there will be a complete collection of our work somewhere that we can visit some day.
Note: the lovely photographs of Beineke were taken by a fellow named Richard Cheek. Think of him with fondness and respect as you admire his work.
Note: If you happen to be the representative of a major American research university and find yourself freshly inspired to purchase the entire Idiots’Books back catalog, we might be able to work something out. But like the pretty girl who invites you to the dance even though you’re undersized, pimply, and bereft of self confidence, Yale will ever and always be first in our hearts.
So we recently sent out Volume 27: Six Degrees of Francis Bacon. You can see some of the mayhem here. We just received an email from a husband and wife subscriber team showing us how they chose to display this admittedly rather unwieldy oversized poster, including the following explanation:
Attached is a picture of how we properly, we think, displayed the Francis Bacon poster.
Corner weights clockwise from bottom right:
Siguanaba – The mythical Salvadoran temptress who appears as a beautiful woman to tempt men and when the male succumbs she changes into an old hag and beats them unmercifully with her hard pointy tits.
The Mayan precursor of wack a mole, we think.
A Filipino lady nut cracker with perky breasts.
The missing author.
I have to admit, not including John Grisham in the web of authors was a major oversight. I also have to admit, the Siguanaba is my new personal hero.
Here’s a sneak peak at some key components of a book in the works.
You attentive parents might recognize these cheerful figurines as members of the Fisher Price Loving Family line. Though I’m hoping Alden will not take an interest in this plastic family, they will be the central characters of an upcoming drama about the state of family life in contemporary America. Rather than drawing, Robbi will photograph these figures in self-made dioramas. Perhaps it won’t work, but we’re going to try.
One of the things we’ve come to love about our book project is that we get to reinvent our style and approach with every volume. Most illustrators are advised to cultivate a recognizable style and stick to it, creating characters or an aesthetic that are consistent from project to project, so that art directors can begin to recognize one’s work and have it in mind so that when the right project comes along, they say, “This would be perfect for Robbi Behr!”
Only, so far, Robbi hasn’t subscribed to this strategy. Although there are definite through-lines in her approach to depicting humanity (the oft-cited gnarly fingers and pointy boobs, for example), in the course of illustrating our subscriber books, she has been largely free to choose a media, aesthetic, and approach that works best with whatever text I have advanced. In 3+ years of Idiots’Books, she has worked in pen and ink and watercolor, gouache, vector art, and, sumi ink. She has drawn on cardboard boxes, ticket stubs, hot-press paper, stretchedc canvasses, construction paper, sketchbooks, and rice paper. She has used clip art, collage, and digitally manipulated images. She has gotten to make saddle-stitched, wire-o, and perfect bound books. She has gotten to make posters, card sets, CD-jackets, and original letterpress prints. Stylistically, has ventured from the surreal to the abstract to the representational. She has gotten to do it all, never veering from her aesthetic core, but showing the full range of its application. And each new project affords an opportunity to try something new. Cops, as the new book is called, will provide a chance to try her hand at photography. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with.
It has been a difficult day in the barn. It seems two weeks of this is enough. I’ve gotten so much done, but there’s no one here to share it with. I’ve been working all day on a story about Homer (the epic poet, not the lovable consumer of Duff beer). I ran, I went to yoga, I did my pushups. But I’m operating in a vacuum. I need a hug from my Robbi, a kiss from my baby, a petulant episode from my two-year-old. The days are slipping past, but not fast enough for my tastes. On Saturday, I’ll head to Baltimore to spend a day with my good friends Christian and Emily. On Sunday, I’ll attend a dinner party with some friends in Chestertown.
That leaves tomorrow as the last official day of this sabbatical. I’ll review all I’ve written, making changes and improvements. It has been a good two weeks. I’m sure I’ll look back and think I could have done more. But I guess I’ll have to be content knowing I did as much as I could.
For months now, you have been hearing us yammer on about the Makers Tile Game, a series of illustrations commissioned as a companion to the online release of Cory Doctorow’s novel Makers. The 81 illustrations are interchangeable tiles that can be put together into one big puzzle or recombined in seemingly endless ways.
Last week we sent the Tiles out to the subscribership as Volume 26 in the Idiots’Books series. Yesterday, the Makers Tile Game hit the big time, landing on popular media and technology blog BoingBoing to great fanfare and praise from Cory Doctorow himself (he called us “insanely creative,” and we blushed appropriately).
Not only was yesterday the single greatest day in the history of Idiots’Books e-commerce (we got orders from 24 states and seven countries), but in just one day, more than 4,100 people around the world have watched the Makers Tile Game promotional video that Robbi made. Here it is. Watch and dare not to tremble.
Those of you who are freshly inspired to own the Makers Tile Game for yourselves may do so by clicking here. At only $12, the Tile Game is a pretty cheap date, especially considering that it offers more permutations than there are atoms in the universe (as determined by the fine mathematical minds at Williams College).
In our last subscriber mailing, we announced a contest. We will award a fabulous prize to the person who sends us a photo of the most innovative or wonderful use of Makers Tiles. The current frontrunner is this submission by the great Steve Haske.
I’d really like it if someone else could do better. Subscribers, show us how you are putting your Makers Tiles to use for the world. Surely someone out there has invented something fabulous, made some mindbending art, or leveled a wobbly table.
For those of you who are already enjoying your Makers Tiles, please send Robbi’s video around to others you think might be interested. We aim to start a Makers revolution (especially since the Cross-Eyed Zebra t-shirt revolution seems to be falling squarely on its face).
It’s 1:45pm. Robbi has just marched Alden around in the sun to get her good and tired. The child is now napping, as is her brother.
We have applied the stamps and printed the mailing labels.
A large pile of Makers Tiles sits waiting to be stuffed into envelopes.
Those subscribers among you are mere dozens of hours away from receiving your very own copy. Those of you who are not subscribers will spend the next few days bitterly cursing your bad fortune. Unless…
There’s never been a better time than this very moment moment to sign on for a full year of absolute happiness. Just $60 for the next six books we make. Reward yourself for having such nice teeth. Pamper yourself for the difficult Wednesday you’ve had. Or order a subscription as a gift for a recent college graduate, easing the sting of the discouraging job market with some provocative printed material.
Whatever your reason, we cordially invite you to take the plunge and subscribe.
If you do, all this could be yours.
Ok, perhaps “all” is overstatement. You will only get one set of Makers Tiles. But it sounds more persuasive than “one of these could be yours,” don’t you think?
We recently sent in an application to be included in the newly established Baltimore Slideluck Potshow. It seemed like a pretty neat event – slideshows by various creatives rotating while everyone enjoys a potluck dinner. Apparently this has been done in other cities, but this was Baltimore’s debut.
Our first submission was literally just a slideshow. We thought that if we were accepted, we would be able to narrate in person. It turns out that that is not the way it works. Slideshows were to be accompanied by music or some sort of soundtrack. Since we were planning on reading one of our books, we couldn’t just send a clip of some music and say “press stop when the slides are done”. So this, of course, led to a series of all-nighters where I tried to remember how to use iMovie (btw, has anyone on the planet figured out what they did to iMovie HD to turn it into the completely worthless “upgrade” iMovie ’08? Other than take out all of the useful things that it does and make it totally inscrutable? Sheesh, I say. SHEESH!). Someday, I will have an intern do this.
Once I figured out iMovie, it seemed the slideshow ought to have a little more pizazz, a little something about us for the uninitiated. So we recorded a little intro, I drew some pictures, and the ordeal went on for several more sleepless nights.
In the end, though, we have a nice slideshow. Too bad we didn’t get selected for the event. But that’s okay. Now I know where the “import” button is in iMovie, and we have a little promotional piece to share with, well, whoever wants to have a look.
BTW – I hate the sound of my voice. But because I like you guys and trust you won’t write a bunch of comments like, “Robbi, you sound like you have peas in your nose,” and “Robbi, did you just have oral surgery?” and “Robbi, those braces you wore for all those years didn’t fix a thing,” I am posting it anyway.
I type this from the 17th floor of a hotel in downtown Toronto, not far from the shores of a really large lake.
We love it here. The people are nice. They serve vinegar with their french fries. Crepes are readily available. And donuts abound at every intersection. But I am getting ahead of myself. We have not posted here for a few days, and that is because getting to Canada takes some doing.
We set off on Friday morning, car full of books, hearts full of hope and expectation.
As I am wont to do when I drive, I continually pointed in the direction of Canada, in part to look the part of heroic family leader, and in part to make sure we did not forget where we were going.
The drive was long and unremarkable, except for this building in Syracuse, to which Robbi was drawn like a small town girl to a building with more than three stories.
Because Canada is practically a different country, the weather was entirely different there.
We had been parading about in shorts and t-shirts in Chestertown, but Canada called for full-on gloom-resistant garb. Anything that prolongs the reach of winter is a-ok with me. I despise sunshine. I am in heaven in Canada.
As instructed by our Canadian neighbors Donald and Ann, the very first thing we did upon crossing the border was stop at Tim Hortons, a donut shop that, as advertised, puts Dunkin Donuts to shame.
Full of donuts and inspired by the gloomy skies of our host nation, we went to bed in anticipation of a busy Saturday ahead.
We woke up and immediately headed to Tim Hortons for more donuts. Not until we were thoroughly full did we turn our attention to the business of the day.
The Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) is held at the Toronto Reference Library, a spectacular building in the heart of downtown.
It has a vaulted ceiling, recessed lighting, and architecturally interesting stairwells.
Behold the good citizens of Toronto, on hand to browse and buy comics and other sorts of beautiful small press book items.
We spent a few hours setting up our booth, and then we stood at full alertness, waiting for the good people of Canada to come affirm us with their beautiful Canadian money.
The first few hours were marked by passages of hope and despair. We had come a long way, and so we wanted to be well received. At first, we thought we were. We would look across the crowded room and notice people walking toward us with great determination. “My god,” we thought to ourselves, “That man is really determined to come over here and buy some books.”
But then, as we prepared welcome him to our table, the man would walk by with purpose and conviction, not even stopping to glance at our wares. I must admit, it hurt our hearts. Until we made an important discovery:
Our table was right next to the men’s room.
This realization behind us, we soon learned to separate bathroom-based rejection from the other kind, of which there was still plenty. Our books simply don’t mesh with the general aesthetic of most comics. Our covers are generally more subtle, for one, and our books’ interiors, lacking speech bubbles and panels, are unfamiliar to someone browsing for the latest and greatest in the world of comics.
The first few hours passed without a single sale, and we began to despair and doubt ourselves. At 10:45, we were called off to sit on a panel about the comic as an art object.
Because Kato’s social network in Toronto is still somewhat thin, he decided to join us.
The panel was fun. We got to talk about what we do in front of a room full of interested people. What can be better than that?
We returned to our table with heavy hearts, wondering if we’d be able to cover our mounting Tim Horton’s donut bill.
And then it happened. Canada discovered Idiots’Books. From 9-noon, we sold perhaps four books. But starting at noon, a great wave of Canadians came and feasted at the Idiots’Books table. Makers Tile Games, t-shirts, After Everafter, Ten Thousand Stories, and The Baby is Disappointing were the most popular items, but there was enthusiasm for the full range of Idiots’ offerings.
One woman even requested to come into our booth, that she might be photographed with Robbi while Robbi signed a book for her.
Another enthusiastic book buyer requested that Kato get into the act. It’s hard to tell from this blurry photo (taken by me, of course), but this is his first official autograph.
Amid all the blistering commerce, the afternoon flew by. Suddenly, it was 5:00, and we were asked to leave the Toronto Reference Library for the night. Set adrift on the streets of Toronto, we did the only thing we knew how to do.
We went to Tim Hortons of course.
I kid you not, these are some serious donuts. Especially this bad boy.
Tim might call it the Candy Bar Supreme. I call it breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Because we are now officially people in their mid-thirties with two children, we did not attempt to “live it up” or “paint the town red.” Instead, we took our donuts back to our hotel, climbed into bed, and watched Napoleon Dynamite and Pretty in Pink back-to-back.
Lest you were tempted to otherwise glamorize the nightlife inclinations of international bookselling Idiots.
Off to the library now for more of the same. And then the long drive home.
After much anticipation, the Makers Tiles have finally arrived!
We won’t get into the fact that Chestertown is so small and our barn is on such an uncomfortably wee street that the delivery truck refused to come to our door, and so Matthew had to drive up to the main thoroughfare to meet the driver who commenced to chuck the boxes to the ground with such alacrity that Matthew had to stop him and ask him to treat them gently, to which the delivery man replied, “They’re just books,” to which Matthew replied, “They’re MAKERS TILES,” which compelled the delivery man to treat them with much more care (or was it the fact that Matthew started snapping pictures of the whole process for posterity?) after which the driver went on his merry way and we kept the 19 boxes in the back of our van until a kindly neighbor from Chester River Press offered to store them with their recent shipment from China of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey in original Greek and in translation by Alexander Pope with beautifully wrought illustrations. The Iliad and the Odyssey have never been in such fantastic company.
Or is it the other way around?
At any rate, we rejoiced.
Kato was left at home, hanging woefully in front of the bay window, waiting for us to return with our loot. He managed a few mildly enthusiastic hops upon our return.
As supervisor and general quality control man, he also pointed out that it was lucky that we actually got what we thought we were getting, given that it looked like they were delivering “Markers” tiles, and that our name had once again been misspelled.
We are starting to think that perhaps we shouldn’t have tried to be so damned clever when naming our stupid company. If only Kato had been around then to warn us.
Anyway. We have kept one box out of storage so that we can arrange its contents pleasingly on our counter.
We will be sending them out to subscribers in the not-too-distant future, after which they will be available for purchase here. But not until then. Subscribers always get the first crack at these things. Because we love them. Because they so foolishly parted with their money already.
If, however, you are interested in purchasing the fantastic, beautifully produced, and very scholarly Iliad and Odyssey for that Classics major you know who has everything, go to Oak Knoll press and buy away. The fewer copies there are surrounding our Makers Tiles, the better our Makers Tiles will look.
Yes, it’s true. We chronic avoiders of social media have finally relented and have joined the tweeting masses. If the spirit moves you, it is now possible to start following our inane, no-longer-than-140-character utterances on Twitter.
If you’re ready to take the plunge, just follow this link and enter “idiotsbooks” in the search box (no apostrophe). If you’re already a Twitter user, you just have to click that you want to “follow” our tweets. If you’re new, it’s pretty easy to set up an account.
“And why would I want to do this?” you say with outrage and the kind of self-righteousness that only a seasoned Luddite can muster?
Here’s why: we’ve decided to use Twitter as a publishing forum for a new book project that will be published in 365 tweets over the course of a year. Twitter’s strict character requirements allow for about two sentences per day. So you won’t have to skip breakfast or lunch to follow along.
More on this to come. We’ll probably get started in a week or two. But for now, we wanted to get the word out, so you have time to come to terms with your Twitter aversion. Just remember what the mean kids said in seventh grade: “Come on, everybody’s doing it. If you really loved us, you would do it. It will only hurt a little.” You shouldn’t have bowed to the pressure then, but you did, right? And you will now, too, right?
Here’s that link again. We’ll continue to pester you in the days ahead, so you might as well just bite the bullet now.
As usual, we have failed to give you much notice, but the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Arts Festival (otherwise known as MoCCA) is this weekend in New York City. For those of you who do not know, MoCCA is an annual gathering place for those who create or otherwise appreciate work falling into the independent comic or alternative press realm.
Here’s the poster for this year’s show.
As we have for the past four years, Robbi and I will be manning the Idiots’Books booth, selling our books, shirts, and other miscellany and meeting the wonderful assortment of readers that mills through the place throughout the weekend. Here we are at last year’s show.
See how much fun we’re having? Don’t you want to have that much fun, too?
Here’s the link to the MoCCA site, which provides all the information about the wheres and the whens, but the basics are as follows:
When: Saturday and Sunday, April 10-11, 11:00am-6:00pm both days.
Where: 69th Regiment Armory, 68 Lexington Avenue
You can also save a bit on the ticket price by buying online in advance.
For the last week or so, we have been furiously getting ready for the show. Although our most recent books have all been professionally printed, we bring the entire back catalog to the show, and so we have been making hundreds of copies of various books, including 80 copies of our perennial bestseller, The Baby is Disappointing.
All three of these books require heavy lifting from our trusty OffiWire machine.
As we speak, covers are rolling off the printer.
I suspect we have a long night of binding fun ahead of us. There’s that fun again. You know you want to have some. Come see us at MoCCA. Kato will be in attendance, though after last year’s failure to contribute positively to the MoCCA experience, Alden will be left at home for the weekend.
It’s probably for the best. Lately, she’s been far too interested in defying the laws of gravity to have any interest in parents, books, or fun.
2010 Small Press Expo - One of the top alternative press events on the east coast, with over 450 exhibitors. Come see! On 09/11/2010, which is in 1 day and 09:58 hours.
AWP 2011 - The Association of Writers & Writing Programs is holding its conference in DC this year. We'll be there too. On 02/02/2011, which is in 145 days and 09:58 hours.
