Who
is... Donna Barr? Donna
Barr has been drawing since 1954, writing since 1962, published since 1986,
and publishing since 1996.
She has a Bachelors' Degree in German, and
is a veteran of the United States Army (1970-1973).
Readers worldwide
follower her THE DESERT PEACH, STINZ, BOSOM ENEMIES, HADER
AND THE COLONEL, among others.
She is recognized by her peers as
a pioneer in the field of drawn books and their use in new technologies of distribution
and reproduction. She is a contributor to the world's largest webcomics site,
moderntales.com, and its affiliate
sites.
She achieved her lifetime career goal in 2004 when her life's
work -- past, present and future -- has been accepted as part of the San Diego
State University's Library's Special Collection, and will be available to students
and professors for research, and to the public for exhibits.
She can
be emailed at barr at stinz dot com (remove spam barriers). She answers. Keep
the sentences short.
Is THIS what happens when nothing torques me off in the commie book industry for about three months? I don't write articles? Somebody said all my stuff is rage-based. That pretty much proves it.
So I guess it's time I do as I promised and start writing about things I do like.
Like Diamond.
(Short pause while those of you in the audience who fainted or nearly choked on their *Hello Kitty strawberry flavored Pocky Sticks get their selves picked up off the floor and the room stops spinning).
Diamond is FINE for what Diamond does. Diamond ships large orders for large or established companies. And backorders. Period. They don't do anything else. If you go through Diamond and they won't ship your 25 books to Bosnian coffee shops, you really shouldn't be surprised.
I commonly ship through Diamond but I bet they think of me as that Annoying Sealybark Terrier Bitch who will NOT go away (Comics Journal) until somebody throws her the turkey bones from dinner (see Inkpot). I've been around a long time, with a constant (if slightly off-kilter) readership, and Diamond knows it can make money off me.
Come on, people. It's HARD out there for a pimp. I may not be the finest Horse in the Stable (German street slang) but I'll get out there and TROT. With me, the market's in the continuing market, not the ready volumn. I'll bring in money for the gold chains, even if I don't cover Sparkly Daddy's rent.
Too many people expect La Diamant to be something other than it is. Or think that it's small enough to keep track of things all by itself. One guy was bitching to me:
"Diamond hasn't paid me yet!"
"When did you bill them?"
"Bill them?"
Yes, you have to bill them. You're a business, right? Just write down all the numbers and keep track of the paperwork. At least one of the Diamond dropship offices is totally disorganized when it comes to shipments, but if you keep sending them the tracking numbers, they find the boxes.
On the other hand, there are more opportunities out there for those of us who have to stand on street corners in inclement weather wearing nothing but a tight sweater, a pair of tights, 4-inch heels and our number-2 brushes.
Fer instance, there's Ian Shires's Small Press Association.. Ian has (to continue the metaphor) been working his tail off to set up a site that covers books, publication, printing, even animation, AND a very useful forum. All for the small press publishers in our art form.
Ian's got a lot of plans, but if you want to know about them you should be joining the SPA. I don't know how much information is Insiders Only. But I like what I see. There's much good stuff there that makes the SPA a dream wagon for an author who wants to maintain control over all aspects of her work (Not always a good thing, when translating between programs add artifact garbage to a prose manuscripts, and computer crashes destroy the original PageMaker documents the PDFs are based on. What? You didn't hear the screaming?).
I've only got one gripe with the SPA: it's a very paranoid gated community. I appreciate all the work Ian does to maintain security, but that's what security programs are FOR. I've been trying to get it through Ian's head that one nice little miochardial infarction on his part, and my plans to dump everything I've got, from website to back issues, onto his site, is going to leave me out in the cold. I'm not really happy with the idea of having everything I do depending on the health of one guy. They have notoriously dicky tickers.
Maybe I'm going to have to use that 15% discount from Iomega I've got for a backup hard drive.
*New goal: To taste all pocky flavors before I die.
SCHILL TIME: Shipping from Diamond in June, 2006: The Desert Peach #32 – Keeper. $7.95, 64 pages. Color cover, black-and-white internal. Printed by Dimestore Productions. After a long hiatus -- during which she published several issues of Stinz and Bosom Enemies, and published a full-color customer-only Desert Peach #31 at http://www.lulu.com/desertpeach -- I'm announcing issue #32.
Keeper takes place long after the Desert Peach is dead. Or, more correctly 'dead -- short for "Afterdead." After several self-inflicted millenia in Hell, Pfirsich Rommel discovers that his new afterlife is other people's everyday life. But did it have to be in an updated version of the Third Reich? A narrow reading of caste classification -- as a cyborg -- at the citizen registration bureau makes it necessary for him to be placed in the control of a Keeper, a tiny horse-headed man whom Pfirsich describes as "Udo with no shame."
The little guy, nicknamed "Ham," keeps telling Pfirsich that nobody cares if he's gay, but as the book progresses, everybody keeps asking, mostly to find out if he's available. Most salvaged cyborgs -- also called "Keepers" -- aren't as cute as this one. The Peach discovers, much to his despair, that he's a Nazi-party member, because otherwise he wouldn't have been able to get a cell-phone account.
A future issue will introduce the man for Pfirsich. In this life Pfirsich gets to be the carefree one, mostly because his new love is so damaged and needs a lot of care and attention. The afterlife doesn't promise to be any easier, if less lethal. And there's always bubble tea.
With this issue, I'm collapsing all my titles -- Stinz, Bosom Enemies, and even Hader and The Colonel -- into one book, under the Desert Peach title. Old characters will show up with new roles that dovetail into their own worlds. Short stories in the main book may reflect back on those older worlds. It all depends on what the characters want to do.
I've often been asked if any of my characters could meet, or if their worlds crossed over. I realized that the reason I was getting more frustrated with all the series was that they were original concepts, just all split up and scattered. This way they'll be back together, as they belong. And I can bring the book out under the same name, more often, and nobody will have to go hunting for it.
The Stinz series itself will come to an end in May, 2006, with Tribals, a 64-page book of story, guest gallery and special treats. Also shipping from Diamond in May will be a black-and-white version of the color issue, Pithed. Both books will be 64 pages, for $5.95. And yes, the name of the issue is a tip of the hat to Carla Speed McNeil's wonderful series, Finder.
This is what happens when I don't get back to this column for a while:
Clifford Meth wants you to know:
The project is called METHo.d. It was originally titled MEAN LITTLE STORIES, but Jim Steranko, who designed the cover (which is sensational) suggested the new title and it's hard to say no to Jim. Especially when he's doing your cover.
METHo.d. is in the January Previews for titles shipping in March. It's available from Aardwolf Publishing. The author is available for readings, signings, interviews, and fistfights with anyone approximately in his weight class or whose name rhymes with Groth.
