OK. I don’t do this frequently, but there’s something I need to rant a bit about.
I don’t get e-mails like this often, maybe (MAYBE) once every couple of months, but this kinda really got to me.
Since i’ve followed the Dork Tower book almost religiously since issue #1, I feel obligated to inform you that due to my growing disappointment, I will no longer be supporting John Kovalic in any of his future endeavors. The reasonings:
1. The book doesn’t seem to come out on a regular basis anymore.
2. The price seems rather high when less than half of the book is actually Dork Tower.
3. The point of the book has changed from a book about a group of gamers to a book that advertises all of the other Dork Storm Press titles.
I’ve been hoping things would improve for quite some time, but I can’t justify using my hard earned money anymore because I’ve grown tired of being consistantly disappointed.
I do hope that you continue your work and try to concentrate more on your product. I also wish you the best. I apologize for the negativity of this email, but I had to get it off my chest. Thank your for your time.
-chad
OK. For a start, let’s leave out the fact that there are HUNDREDS of FREE cartoons on the website, which nobody needs to spend dime one on. For goodness sakes, you can even get Dork Tower as a LiveJournal feed, so you don’t have to look at one single ad over at dorktower.com!
What I really want to talk about is this “less than half the content is DT” thing.
Chad, I’m truly sorry for your disappointment, but there is as much Dork Tower in the book as there’s ever been. Save for issue #25 (a 94-page book, with (I think) about 30 pages of DT), there has always been about 20 pages of Dork Tower in every comic book. Sometimes 19, sometimes 22. But more or less, the page count has always been about the same.
I just want to make that point again:
Always…about…the…same…number…of…Dork Tower…pages.
The price has risen four cents since the VERY first issue, years ago, which was $2.95. Well, OK, Dork Tower 25 was $3.99…but in that, there were two free Dork Tower games (one in full color, both of them GREAT), along with a wonderful Mike Stackpole Dork Tower short story. As I tried to make clear in the book, this price rise was a one-off thing.
Everything else that’s extra in the comic book is free. ALWAYS. If you don’t like it, feel free to rip it out and throw it away. Shred it. Recycle it. Use it for gerbil bedding. But for the most part, the Dork Tower backup stories are by cartoonists I admire and want to help support, by getting the word about their work out. I could be putting out a 24-page comic, like many other indy books, but I really want to try and give people more. (MAN, by the way, I thought Alex Robinson’s “One Gold Coin” in DT 25 was AWESOME!)
If everything else was dropped from the book, there would still be 20-odd pages of DT per issue, as there always has been. If Lethargic Lad, SnapDragons and Dr. Blink disappeared, there woudn’t be 12 more pages of Dork Tower. The book would simply be 12 pages smaller.
The 20-odd pages of Dork Tower content is still there, and, despite five years’ worth of inflation, the price of the book is still $2.99.
Maybe I should just put out a 24-page comic (instead of 40 or 48), like so many other indy comics. It would sure be cheaper and easier…
John
PS. As to the frequency of the book, yes, last year was a bad year, as I’ve noted several times. But we still managed to get five issues out, one special and one trade paperback. The book is now back on track, and should be on its regular bimonthly schedule for a while. If things go well, there are even plans to perhaps put it out more frequently in 2005.
PPS. I don’t rant well. I don’t like ranting. As a ranter, I suck. I’m off to work out again, now…not rant…