Our hard deadline for finishing all the pre-production work on the PULPHOPE book is February 23rd, a little over a month from now. The book will be in print and in stores Spring 2007--and that's including the slow boat to China we'll need to use to ship the thing back from the printer. I can't believe it's taken so long to finish the design and editing on this monster, that's been one of the biggest suprises of the last year. If I was more analytical, I would've reminded myself the BUZZ BUZZ anthology I did in the '90s was about a third of the size and only in black and white, and that took over ten months to get together and in print. And I wasn't working on anything else at the time. This one has taken something more like thirteen months and counting. Chris Pitzer at AdHouse and I are now on the fourth round of editorial revisions. We're in the painful process of chopping out material-- we have probably 40% too much content. As it is now, PULPHOPE is nearing 250 pages, and the page constraint means only the best material is making the final cut. Best meaning most unique or most timely. We nearly have enough for a second book.
The book is comprised of almost entirely new and never-before-seen artwork, and a lot of the poster/design work showcased has never before appeared in book form. There will be some new comics material. There are two large double-sided gatefold posters in full-color. There is a pornographic sketchbook and other sketchbook pages. There are over half-a-dozen essays, each for a different section of the book, on topics ranging from Pornography vs. Erotica to the tradition of Japanese Ukiyo-E printmaking, to a biography of Japanese Pop Artist Tadanori Yokoo, to an essay on Child Art vs. Abstract Art, to an essay on the process of working for Manga publisher Kodansha. There is some typographic design, some clothes design, a partial bibliography, and a few other suprises.
Above is a version of a design I did for Canadian rock band The Tea Party's final album, The Seven Circles (most people don't know I was handling all the art and design for this project-- and slated to design/direct the video for their single "The Writing's On The Wall", but I was, right up until 40 days before the release of the album) (long story, no punchline, the band broke up within months of the album's release...).
The Spanish palindrome in the image above translates to, roughly, "Adam doesn't give in to Eve and God gives in to nothing".
