9:00 a.m.
John is out at the L.A. convention, and Ralph doesn't know how to use technology (this is not an insult, but a fact), so I am solely responsible for seeing Dark Tower 3 out the door and to the printer. Much of the work is done, granted; much of it is being done by people other than me. I just have to see to it that it gets put together properly.
Yesterday I took a look at the stack o' Dark Tower stuff that John had left for me just so I could sort out where everything stands. Here's what I have before me:
--Three cover sheets with different approval signatures on each one
--A black and white copy of the lettering with handwritten corrections all over them, including Stephen King's (which does give me a kind of geeky thrill, I'll grant you).
--An old version of the recap with handwritten corrections; plus the corrected version that Kate from the bullpen has given me
--The article for this issue, which is all done except that it has black and white spot illustrations, which need to be replaced with the colored versions
--A transcript of the Dark Tower panel from the New York convention, with photos of the panelists; this still needs to be proofread and reviewed for design elements.
None of the pages are numbered in the order in which they'll appear in the book, and none of the ads seem to be ready.
So I do what I always do in situations in which I am overwhelmed with information: I make a list!
Then I do what I always do next: I realize that the list is useless, and discard it!
But now that I know what I have in front of me, and the status of each piece, I am in much better shape to proceed.
10:30 a.m.
Kate comes by with some revisions she's made to the panel transcript. Our intern, Jon-Michael, takes it upstairs to be proofread.
I check to see if Richard Isanove has uploaded any new pages to Marvel's ftp (file transfer protocol, which we use to exchange large files). He has. I give them to Chris Eliopoulos, who is compositing the book (putting the lettering and coloring together into one glorious mélange).
11 something
Marvel's production manager Sue Crespi asks me when we're getting the rest of the color files. I tell her Richard is sending the pages of the comic one by one. Sue asks, what about the color for the spot illustrations? I tell her those are coming too.
12:30 p.m.
Back at my desk, I realize that we've had the color files for the spot illustrations since this morning. I get 'em over to the bullpen fast – that's one more segment of the issue that can get finished.
12:50 p.m.
Kate brings the article, now with color illustrations in place, and with that, this segment is complete.
Meanwhile, our intern Jon-Michael helps me pick out some pieces of the issue-in-progress to scan for the blog. Thanks, Jon!
2:40 p.m.
I call Richard Isanove to check on the status of the remaining pages. He's still working on the last few. He hasn't slept all week. He fell asleep for two hours but it was by accident. If I were him, I would have been a lot angrier.
Now that we're well into the afternoon, I decide to submit this blog entry to the website, since this saga might not conclude for a while.
This is where I'd look out the window, gaze at the freezing hail that has been barraging New York all day, and think of something philosophical, but I don't actually have a window. I hope John is enjoying California.
