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Update By Brian Koscienski and Chris Pisano
Hmmmm. It's been a while since we last updated everybody about our shenanigans, hasn't it? Well, pull up a chair and fix yourself a cup of hot cocoa, because you're in for a treat. Actually, not really. But you should have learned not to expect too much from us by now.
Strategic Alliance
Being the business geek that I am, you knew I'd have to throw out the catch phrase du jour. Strategic alliance usually means one large company does something with another large company to create synergy. And synergy is just a fancy way of saying, "We're going to layoff a lot of people." Since Fortress Publishing, Inc. is NOT a large company and has ZERO employees, there is no fear of layoffs. We mean strategic alliance in its purest sense-- we have a project with Visionary Comics Studio.
Visionary is collaboration center founded and run by comic book greats Brian Augustyn and C. Edward Sellner. Their main goal is to find and cultivate talent (AH-HAHAHAHA! I once again implied that Chris and I have talent! Whew, that's funny!) by matching up artists and writers for specific projects. Visionary chose an exciting young artist named Raymond Francis to work on "Hell Patrol" with us. Raymond's style is edgy and flashy and he has an eye for great story telling. Plus, he draws some seriously kick-ass werewolves, which is a good thing since "Hell Patrol" has werewolves. Plus, vampires. As well as demons and angels. And a nun.
I feel very honored to be included in a pool of talented writers like Joseph Button, Bill Jackson, Mike Kingston, and Chris McCay as well as artists Amy Clark, Kirk Kugel, Rob Meier, Robert Spencer, and Jennifer Tanner. Visionary debuted at the New York comicon in February and plans on hitting some more major conventions. If you see Visionary's table at the next convention you go to, stop by and say, "Hi!" If you want to see Visionary right now, head over to www.visionarycomics.com.
D I Y-- That's Working
Do-it-yourself is all but mandatory for a small business. As you may remember we're preparing to launch a literary magazine devoted to genre fiction. Since we're small press and all but devoid of cash, we decided to print the magazine ourselves. Digest-sized is easy-- fold a regular 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper in half along the minor axis and WHAMO! you have digest size. Get some nice quality paper for the interior and photo paper for a cover and you got yourself a small press literary magazine. And since we're extra geeky, we'll call it a 'zine.
The 'zine is coming along splendidly. We've received some GREAT genre fiction stories that are just fun to read. We debuted it at the Pittsburgh Comicon (April 21-23).
D I Y-- That's Not Working
This may come as a surprise to some of you, but holding business meetings at Hooters sometimes yields bad ideas. Creatively, it's difficult for manly men like us (AH-HAHAHAHA! I'm on a roll today!) not to be inspired by the beauty of our surroundings. However, four pitchers of beer in three hours can only spell disaster when one of us blurts out, "Let's print our own comics!" Now, the truly sad thing is, even after we sobered up in a Tijuana jail cell, we STILL thought it was a good idea.
The one down side of being a numbers-geek like me is the complete lack of social grace. The second down side is I tend to see the world AS numbers. After crunching the numbers, the cost/benefit ratio was very favorable. Of course, crunching numbers fails to incorporate practicality. And it went a little something like this: We bought a new printer (HP 9800-- the only inkjet we found that can handle 11 x 17 paper) as well as some 11 x 17 28# paper for the interior. First problem-- the ink was soaking through the paper causing warping and rippling. However, simply reducing the volume of ink solved this problem. Whew! I then went looking for cover stock. 11 x 17 cover stock. 11 x 17 glossed cover stock. 65 pound? 80? 100? 8 point? 10? 12? I had no idea what the hell was going on! So, I pulled out the yellow pages and found a local paper distributor. The funny thing is-- it's one mile from my house and I NEVER knew it existed! Anyway, the representative I talked to explained that "point" is the thickness of paper and "pound" is the heaviness. He said there is no direct correlation, but 10 point and 80 pound are about the same. I then took some 10 point C1S (coated, 1 side) and tried it on the ol' inkjet. Didn't work. Grrrrr. Oh well, it's a learning experience, and Chris and I knew that the Journey wouldn't be easy…
Brian and Chris reside in south central Pennsylvania where Brian is often chased by angry villagers wielding torches and pitchforks due to his uncanny resemblance to Sasquatch while Chris can often be found in newspapers and magazines under the headline "Cro-Magnon Man Found." Their obsession with writing is pretty thorough; their compositions range from stories to novels to articles to comic books to poetry. They even went so far as to start their own publishing company called Fortress Publishing. Their main mission in life is to simply do what the screaming voices behind their eyeballs tell them to do.
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