It's hard for me to avoid using the editorial "we" when I write about the stuff that Duck Soup Productions is putting out every month, and it sometimes seems nutty to keep on typing "we" and "our" when the one person doing the work is me, myself and I. The plural sounds more businesslike to me I guess... whatever the reason, it keeps creeping into these posts -- so if you run into it again just do me a favor and mentally switch the words. Although I could sure use a personal assistant and a full-time, dedicated marketing-type person, I don't have any of that and can't afford it, so as far as the eye can see Duck Soup Productions is me.
This has opened up a slot in my workday... and for the next week or so I'm going to use that slot to give all the websites a little love, updating and expansion. So expect some fresh content on nearly all of the mini-sites soon. I'll also be doing some much-needed marketing tasks that have kind of fallen by the wayside in recent months... yeah, wish me luck on that. Once I feel like I've made a little progress across all those fronts, I'll be devoting this hunk of time every day to producing volume three of QUIRK -- which will be the first volume in the series to include all-new, never-before-published-in-any-form material... including the special story written by my friend Bruce Canwell. Bruce is a writer and editor at The Library of American Comics... he and Dean Mullaney are publishing the best reprints of classic American comics titles ... not just currently, but the best EVER. Check them out. The concluding volume of Bruce's Alex Toth trilogy, Genius Animated, is coming on May 15...
Anyway... a long time ago when Quirk was a web serial, Bruce pinch hit for me, and wrote a story called "The Prunes of Ire." That story never appeared in its entirety at the time... Quirk v3 will see the print debut of the story, all spiffed up and complete. The book will be rounded out with a new story by me that sets the middle act of Quirk's Earth Adventures firmly in motion.
To accomplish this, I'm attempting to learn how to draw in Manga Studio using a WACOM tablet. It sounds like a breeze, but man-o-man, this is in NO WAY intuitive, and so at least some of the new story is likely to be produced the old-fashioned way: in paper, pen and ink!
But that's only a third of my workday. Late nights I work on my Tarot of the Zirkus Magi, and I'm happy to say that I'm nearly halfway through the Minor Arcana. Somehow, someway, somewhere, the full deck will appear complete in 2014! As always, you can follow its progress here.
And in case you were wondering what that graphic at the top of the page is all about.... my next novel (a partial follow-up to See Them Dance, my still-brand-new book for 2014) is Baxter Bunny Escapes. I'm midway through the writing, and starting to work on other aspects of the book, including, as you can see, the cover design. This will likely change in the coming months... Baxter Bunny Escapes isn't due until next year. But I expect to launch its website around the middle of summer. That will include any art and extras that I've developed, along with the first chapter of the novel.
Had enough? It goes on. I have three other books in the pipeline for this year (I hope!)... along with a third Oracle deck (this is a definite).
I'd call the DuckHaus "The House of Ideas" if Stan Lee hadn't already co-opted that phrase years and years and years ago. And while it may all come just from "me" and not "we" -- sometimes I wish for another Brain at the Breakfast Table who could help make that whole "we" thing happen..
-- Freder
www.ducksoup.me
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