Hi folks,
I am in very great need of art from A Distant Soil for our digital archive. I require good quality scans of the art for the future editions of the print books, as well as the upcoming digital editions.
If you purchased A Distant Soil original art, I would be very grateful if you would get in touch with me via the above contact page. I would be especially grateful if you would either scan the art to my specs, or loan me the originals for scanning. I will reimburse you all your expenses, as well as send you a little something nice extra. (At first I thought I only needed pages sold prior to 2008, but some of my early scans are quite poor. So, no matter what you have bought, please let me know.)
I need 1200 dpi greyscale, or 600 dpi greyscale. I prefer the former.
If you have color originals, I prefer 600 dpi CMYK. RGB will do.
Please do not email me with any large files until I have determined I actually need the pages you have. The most critical pages required at this time are from issues 1-12.
I have roughly 80% scanned from the originals here in my archives. But some of my early scans are of poor quality, and need to be redone. Some art was sold before I realized our printer had chucked our negatives!
That was a very wrong thing to do, Mr. Printer.
As most of you know, back in the day, comic books were published from film negatives. Well, not anymore.
It became obvious that I needed to digitally archive all of the art from A Distant Soil some time ago, and I tried to hire someone to do it. Unfortunately, the results were poor, and in one case, the client walked off with the art for two years. And I didn’t get my scans, either.
I finally knuckled under and bought a top of the line scanner. For a long time now, I’ve been scanning and restoring my work from the originals. My early scans are not good, and have to be redone. Thanks to my very kind and wonderful colorist on Gone to Amerikay, Jose Villarubia, I’ve received excellent advice on how to properly scan and restore the early A Distant Soil art. If we had the printer negatives here, naturally we could scan from them. Also, I have finally learned to get good results scanning directly from the books. But for best quality though, the original art is necessary.
I am personally restoring each and every page. All the lettering from the early volumes will also be redone digitally in my personal style.
I have nothing against our very good original letterer Bob Pinaha, I merely wish to create a holistic style and make this as clean and attractive a final edition of my series as I can.
Here is some of the restoration in progress.
BEFORE
AFTER
BEFORE
AFTER
I sincerely apologize to all my readers for the long time it has taken to do this work. I know you are waiting for more A Distant Soil! Archiving and restoring 1000 pages of art is no party.
As you can see, the art is significantly cleaner and more precise than the art as shown on this website. I’m doing everything I can to bring you a beautiful new edition of the book, and a top quality digital edition. Bad moire patterns are eliminated, the tones, all originally done by hand, are smooth. Surface flaws on the paper have been eliminated. Some of the originals scans were so bad, you could not see anything but blobs where people should have been!
All readers would very much appreciate it if you would kindly contact me to help create this digital restoration, all of which has been financed entirely by sales on this website. I will have a graphic novel sale in late August to help finance further restoration.
My very kind and patient publisher Image Comics will produce the digital editions and the continuation of the comic book series, as well as new editions of the graphic novels. We will announce details in the coming months.
Thank you so very much for everything! I can hardly believe that, yes, it is finally coming to an end!
I am truly grateful for your incredible support and kindness!!!
c
UPDATE: Folks, two years of asking netted nothing, and after nearly going blind trying to restore this art, I did a Hail Mary pass and gave it one more try. The printer informed me today the files were found. THANK YOU MR PRINTER, I TAKE BACK EVERYTHING I EVER THOUGHT BAD ABOUT YOU. And I am doubly glad I did not name and shame, because I’d be eating tasty crow pie right now.
Stuff happens, someone didn’t forward my inquiry, or maybe something got misplaced. At this point I do not care. It’s found.
I anxiously await the return of the files, and some kind of “de-archiving” bill (gulp) so there may be a very, very immediate reason for an A Distant Soil sale on the website pretty soon.
Anyway, I will let you know what happens when I get the files. I will be going through the nearly 1000 pages. All by my lonesome. Holy cow.
Thank you so much.
SECOND UPDATE: We got the negatives back, and it looks like the celebration was premature. The “volume I” turns out to be a pinup book, not the archives for our first graphic novel, of which no negatives remain. There is also nothing from issues 13-15. We have some negatives from later individual issues, and we are awaiting digital files, which should cover volume IV. But alas, this was not the save we had hoped for. It’s better than nothing, but there is still a lot of work to be done. Thanks for your help.
