Trapping

"Trapping" is an obscure but interesting part of the pre-press process. When a color picture is printed using four colors of ink (cyan, magenta, yellow and black, or CMYK), each color is put down on the paper via a separate pass through the press. If the paper lines up perfectly with each pass, all the colors align and you get perfect registration. Very often, though, if you look at four-color printing closely enough, you can see that the inks are just a bit off. You'll see a colored halo on one side, or colors slopping out of their black boundaries, or a gap where colors don't meet up.

Good registration (left) and bad (right)

Trapping helps minimize registration problems by spreading out the non-black colors a few pixels so that, even if registration is a little bit off, they still have some "wiggle room" to fit and overlap as intended. With Photoshop, trapping is as easy as pushing a button (I can't imagine how anyone did it pre-digitally, or whether they bothered at all). Coincidentally, a private cartoonists' board I frequent just had a long discussion about trapping.

That discussion came in handy when I got word late last week that the printer wasn't happy with my color registration. It wasn't coming out right. Not lining up. Within half a second I realized the problem: no trapping. When I submitted my final image files to Abrams they were trapless. Trap-free. Bereft of trap. My trapping had shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain, and joined the choir invisible. The subject never came up and I never thought to ask. My bad.

So I spent a few hours this morning speedily trapping the 26 color pages scattered throughout Mom's Cancer. I envisioned the overseas printer tapping his toe, glancing nervously at his watch, paying overtime while the presses waited in idle silence for my upload.

Assuming my trapping worked, I should have first proofs to review in a few days. Next book, I'm hiring a high school kid to take care of this.

The Back Cover

Abrams has turned in our final digital files to the printer, with the first real printer's proofs expected back in a couple of weeks. Below is the back cover and spine of the book. I'm very, very happy with it. Whoever thought of putting those wordless panels of Mom across the top was inspired. (Yeah, I drew the pictures for the book, but I didn't think of laying them out like that for the cover. It was either my editor or Abrams' art director, and they don't remember who deserves the credit.) I also drew the little Eisner Award at lower right just for the heck of it; my editor surprised me by finding a place for it here.

By the way, the price shown here is what it will be: $12.95 ($17.95 in Canada), which I think is an exceedingly reasonable price for a hardcover. We want Mom's Cancer to be an affordable "gift book." If folks want to buy two or three of them, I'd be all right with that, too.

Vote of Confidence

I got some exciting news from Abrams this morning. My editor just presented Mom's Cancer at an internal sales meeting that went so well Abrams decided to greatly increase my first print run. I'm not sure I'm free to report the numbers, but it's a big jump that I take as a big vote of confidence. They expect the book to do well. I reminded my editor that if they all end up sitting unsold in a warehouse it's his fault, not mine.

Strategery

I've just approved a promotional "Sell Sheet" that Abrams will send out to book buyers. It's a nice piece; if I can get permission to post it on my website I will. I see that they're not just trying to promote the story, but the story behind the story: how Mom's Cancer began as an anonymous webcomic on the Internet, the long odds against it being noticed and becoming a book, the Eisner win. We're not just selling pictures printed on paper--we're selling me and my family. I get that.

It'll be interesting to see what bookstores make of Mom's Cancer. I really hope they've learned from previous graphic novels that they don't all belong on the comic strip shelf (not that there's anything wrong with that...). I think the fact that my book will be hardcover and smaller than most graphic novel/cartoon books will help it stand out and could be the best, smartest decision my editor made.

The Front Cover

Yes, that's the book cover design below: the culmination of many weeks of work. We went through dozens of potential cover sketches before arriving at this. I like it, Mom likes it. I'm especially thrilled with the title font found by Abrams' art director.


Designing the cover was an interesting process. My editor gravitated to this image (which is a close-up of a page in the book) right away: the horizontally split panel instantly communicated "graphic novel" to him, and there's some (deliberate) symbolism in the mind-body separation. Some have worried that the cover may be too bleak. We tried even more depressing images, uplifting images, abstract images, images with the whole family. We kept coming back to this as the most direct, honest summation of what the story is about. Mom's Cancer isn't a gloomy tale of torment nor a hap-hap-happy romp about a family dancing into the sunset. It's a true story about slogging through.

The thing about covers is they're at least as much about marketing as they are editorial. A book cover is a billboard. We need a strong image to catch the reader's eye and sell the book, and Abrams has a committee whose job is to figure out how to do that. An interesting insight I've had while working on the cover is that decisions like this rarely come down to Good Choice A vs. Bad Choice B. Much more often, we're trying to decide from among Good Choices A, B, C, D, E, F and G. That's a tougher challenge.

New Proofs

I returned comments on a second set of proofs to my editor today. These preliminary proofs are printouts of how the book pages will actually look when printed. This is the place to fix mistakes, because any additions or repairs become increasingly costly as we move toward press. This thing is actually starting to look like a book now, though we're still fussing with how to best organize it. We're making final decisions about details such as font size for the front matter and afterword, spellchecking for the thousandth time (and still finding errors!), and tweaking the art files to look their best.

I now have an ISBN, the barcode number by which distributors, bookstores and libraries will know Mom's Cancer: 0-8109-5840-6. I find that fact oddly thrilling.

The Eisner Awards

The comics industry's Eisner Awards, named for pioneering writer and artist Will Eisner, are given as part of the annual Comic-Con International convention. One of the largest conventions of any kind anywhere, Comic-Con drew more than 90,000 people to San Diego, Calif. in July 2005 for a four-day celebration of comic books, comic strips, movies, video games, toys, animation, and anything loosely connected to science fiction and fantasy. It's huge.

The Eisner Award is commonly referred to as the industry's "Oscar," given for excellence in 26 categories in addition to special awards for humanitarian work, the Hall of Fame, etc. Eisners go to writers, artists, colorists, letterers, retailers, one-shot projects, limited series, continuing series--and, for the first time in 2005, digital comics. The Eisner judges defined "digital comics" very precisely so that, for example, most animated work would not be considered. In early 2005, Mom's Cancer was nominated for Best Digital Comic.

This was my first Comic-Con, and it was overwhelming. My wife and two girls came along and we found "Kid Sis" (the true comics geek in the family) at the event. I got to meet in person some people I'd come to know on the Internet, make some new friends, and shake hands with some childhood idols. I encourage you to seek out the work of the following creators, even if you normally wouldn't, because justice demands that good people be rewarded: Otis Frampton (Oddly Normal, a very charming character and series), Frank Cammuso (Max Hamm, Fairy Tale Detective), Raina Telgemeier (Smile, The Babysitters Club), Eric Shanower (Age of Bronze), and Ted Slampyak (Annie, Jazz Age Chronicles).

The awards ceremony is traditionally held Friday night in a large ballroom. It is structured much like the movies' Academy Awards, with noteworthy presenters giving the awards a few at a time, interspersed with special presentations or recognitions. The evening seemed to move very quickly until the Best Digital Comic category and then very slowly afterward. What happened in the few minutes between is a blur. When presenter Scott McCloud read the list of nominees and announced that Mom's Cancer had won, my priorities were to move quickly, remember to mention everyone important, and not make a fool of myself. I am told I largely succeeded.

The Eisner Award is a tremendous honor that I never expected to receive. It's extremely gratifying. Much of the success of Mom's Cancer has come because readers found it online, connected to the story in a very personal way, and recommended it to others. I appreciate that most of all.