Baby, Baby, Baby, they’re Out of Print

Mainly due to the YouTube video made by In Praise of Shadows, my entire stock of all three Strangehaven graphic novels are now sold out and indeed, out-of-print – the first time this has happened since Arcadia was first published in 1998.

I’m going to get into some of the technicalities of publishing below, so in case you just want to know when the series will be available again, the answer is…I don’t know quite yet. I *am* working on it, but it may take a little while, so please sign up to my newsletter for any news as it’s announced.

So, what happened? And what’s next?

Way back when my US-based storage facility closed their warehouse, I had them ship me as many copies of my books as I could afford. Diamond Comics Distributors also took some additional inventory, but the remainder were heartbreakingly pulped. It seemed like plenty at the time, but I couldn’t have predicted an instance of sudden internet virality many years later.

So when the YouTube video, The Comic That is Impossible to Finish, was posted this April, it sparked a sales rush that wiped out my entire remaining inventory within a couple of weeks. 

And since then, I’ve been urgently considering various options to get the Strangehaven saga back into print. 

To reprint the three 176-page graphic novels in large enough quantities to keep the unit price down to an affordable level would require a huge financial investment and isn’t feasible in terms of cost vs demand in the short term. Crowdfunding is an option of course, but there’s the time and effort it takes to plan and run a campaign, plus all the administration, shipping and storage implications. And of course, there’s no guarantee that I would meet the required target.

Working with a publisher might appear to be the most straightforward option to get the series back into print, but publishing lead times can be long, and signing an agreement with a publisher inevitably means compromising on certain rights.

To complicate matters further: I have always been determined not to make any decisions about how volume four, Strangehaven: Destiny, would be collected until it was finished. And as it’s finally nearing completion, I have to consider that element as part of the long term publishing plan now that all previous three volumes are sold out.

So, while I hunker down and beaver away at finishing the final batch of pages for Strangehaven, I will also be talking to friends, readers, retailers, publishers, and confidants, and carefully considering the various options in order to get the entire series back into print and concluded. There are some complex and potentially very difficult decisions to be made; possibly the most important decisions I’ll ever make in regards to the future of Strangehaven, so please bear with me.

I wish I had more concrete news at this time, but it will come.

A final reminder that if you want to hear as soon as any announcements are made, please sign up to my newsletter if you haven’t already done so.

Thanks to you all for your support, love and patience.Keep the faith!