You should be receiving your Backerkit surveys today, if you haven't already. Packages will start going out next week.
And we're still happy to fulfill extra orders, just send people to https://zaks.backerkit.com/ and we'll take care of them. We have a limited number of the convention special, when they're gone, they're gone.
Thank you for your time and patience!
PS: You may enjoy this piece from the New York Times last week, "Can You Spot The Copyright Infringement?" I suspect you'll enjoy our response even more, which you'll be getting in the mail.
At last!
about 1 year ago
– Sun, Feb 26, 2023 at 11:01:25 PM
Hip hip and hooray! We can finally say
That our lawyers have given the green light today!
Our manuscript's perfect, so no more delay—
Your ordered rewards will soon be on their way.
You'll hold them in your hands, so close and so near,
And smile with enjoyment, with no more to fear.
But hold on, there's more, so here's what you must do:
A survey from BackerKit will come to you.
You must pay for shipping and taxes, you see,
Before we can ship your books to you with glee!
And when they arrive, oh what a delight!
You'll read and laugh and you'll have a great night!
We're sorry for the prolonged silence
over 1 year ago
– Fri, Jan 13, 2023 at 09:11:22 AM
We apologize for the lack of updating. We hope we can explain, but want to state up front: If anyone wants us to refund their order, we will immediately do so. We appreciate your support, and you shouldn't have to pay for our problems. Contact us and we'll reverse the payment.
Problems, you say? Well, yes. We find ourselves in a somewhat unique situation, where we have to be extremely careful about what we publicly post until the book ships out. This is due to a certain entity watching this campaign who has a history of threatening vendors to prevent others from criticizing them or making use of intellectual property that they believe they control.
This also means that to determine what we can talk about, including what else will be in the book and when it will be available, we usually have to take it past a lawyer first for our own protection. (You talk less when you have to pay legal fees to vet everything you say.) As soon as we can tell you more, we will.
So what can we safely talk about? Things that aren't related to this book, but that are related to us:
Attorney Ken White, who gave us assistance for our original book and the ensuing mess, has been running a podcast with journalist Josh Barro called Serious Trouble. Here's a recent episode, which talks about how to be a good client for your lawyer. If you listen, you may rest assured that we have been following his advice of constraining what you talk about.
While this Kickstarter campaign has been delayed, ComicMix has been involved in untangling over twenty (!) other Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns due to the passing of It's Alive! founder Drew Ford and the chaos left behind. We've been able to make greatprogress to insure everyone involved is made as whole as possible while we help wind down the mess.
David Gerrold has become a grandfather for the second time! On December 23rd, Layla Rochelle Friedman made her unexpected first appearance on the world stage. The family is healthy and happy.
Ty Templeton has announced that after 17 months of treatment, he is now cancer-free. While he still has some more recovery to go, he's feeling much better, is happy to get back to drawing again, and plans to start doing conventions again this year. He even felt so much better that he recorded a Christmas tune this year. Take a listen, it's really good.
And finally, we are saddened to report that during a recent NPR podcast Amanda Beeman, the assistant director of communications for Olentangy Local School District in Ohio, abruptly stopped the reading of the Dr. Seuss book "The Sneetches" to a third-grade classroom after the students realized that the story had something to say about race.
“It's almost like what happened back then, how people were treated … Like, disrespected ... Like, white people disrespected Black people...,” a third grade student is heard saying on the podcast.
Robek keeps on reading, but it's shortly after this student's comment is made on the podcast that Beeman interrupts the reading.
“I just don't think that this is going to be the discussion that we wanted around economics,” Beeman said on the podcast. “So I'm sorry. We're going to cut this one off.”
Censorship is a horrible thing, whether it's done to Dr. Seuss or whether it's Dr. Seuss's heirs doing it to someone else.
A Banned Book Week update
over 1 year ago
– Wed, Sep 21, 2022 at 08:41:33 AM
We apologize for the prolonged silence. There have been a variety of reasons— some supply chain related issues, and some legal events such as this filing from Dr. Seuss Enterprises for an upcoming Supreme Court copyright case which made us update some of the additional material we're including. Rather than try to rhyme everything, we're just bringing you the details quickly.
Since there has been some confusion: we released a preview of the book, a convention edition that we did was not a complete book. It only included six stories from Dr. Seuss, and none of the background material. We released it to make sure there were copies in San Diego for... certain parties interested in our work... and Worldcon as we are not allowed to sell copies of the book outside of the United States. (If you'd like a copy of this convention preview, it's been added as an add-on to the Backerkit page and will be available until we run out of the few remaining copies. Backerkit surveys should be going out this week, as soon as we have printing hiccups locked down.)
The good news is that we are now happy to report that the final book will have a total of nine Dr. Seuss works, not six. We won’t be revealing what the additional works are until the book actually ships, but suffice it to say that they have not been seen in a while, and there will be some that will be a genuine surprise that we're publishing.
We anticipate that the book will be in backer’s hands before Halloween, and to have copies of the full book available for sale and debut at the Baltimore Comic-Con at the ComicMix table, October 28-30.
In the meantime-- today is the start of Banned Books Week in America. The battle against those who would remove materials from libraries, schools, bookstores, and the Internet continues. Through the participation of thousands of bookstores and libraries across the country, millions of Americans learn about the critical importance of free expression and of the perilous threats to rights that exist in our country today.
Banned Books Week draws attention to the danger that exists when restraints are imposed on the availability of information in a free society. The message goes beyond the freedom to choose and to express one's opinion; the message of Banned Books Week is the importance of ensuring the availability of viewpoints and knowledge, even unorthodox or unpopular, to those who wish to read them.
And there are many reasons for banning books, including that some people with money just don't like being made fun of.
