Hi, everyone!

It has been a little while since our last update -- hope you're doing well! We are in San Diego for Comic-Con this week, but we wanted to report some exciting news that occurred last night -- you may or may not have heard that the original DRACULA/FRANKENSTEIN Boxed Set from this campaign had been nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Publication Design this year... well...

We were thrilled just to be in the room with all of the massive talent surrounding us, but when they called our name... the walls of reality collapsed and I frankly don't remember much after that. I vaguely recall stumbling up to the stage to receive the trophy from Mike friggin' Mignola and Jill freakin' Thompson, and I think I stammered some nervous thanks into a microphone, but I can't be certain of anything at this point. All I know is THIS PRODUCT IS NOW AN AWARD WINNER.

And it came about because of YOU and YOUR SUPPORT! THANK YOU!!!! 😊

Hi everyone!

This month marks a full year since the DRACULA/FRANKENSTEIN campaign ended, and what a month it has been... The wife and I took a much-needed trip abroad for 12 days, which was wonderful but exhausting, and then somewhere on the trip back I caught the dreaded Covid... So that was another 10 days down and away from the desk... This month just disappeared on me...!

As we're getting ready to launch another campaign on Tuesday (more on that below), I came here to post an update about it and realized -- to my SHOCK -- that the update I thought had posted on March 2nd NEVER ACTUALLY POSTED! 🤦‍♂️

Here's a pic from that unpublished post showing the first batch of golden bookplates that went out to early slipcase backers waaaay back in March:

Those of you who were among the first 500 to pledge for a DRACULA/FRANKENSTEIN slipcase, you should already have received your golden bookplate by now. The handful that didn't go out are heading to backers inside of other pledge packages for campaigns they've since contributed to. If you have a package coming your way for MIDNIGHT ORDER, CASSEGRAIN, FRONTIER, NO FUTURE, or MONTE CRISTO, yours will be in there. If you didn't pledge to any of those follow-up campaigns and didn't get yours yet, please email us at [email protected] and we'll get it sorted for you. 

We were surprised to find out in January that Georges was nearing completion on a third horror classic in the same style as his beautiful DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN: an adaptation of Victor Hugo's haunting THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME! And it is as gorgeous and detailed as you would expect from the master!

We're running this follow-up campaign on Kickstarter this time for a few reasons, not the least of which is to approach a new audience who likely missed the original DRACULA/FRANKENSTEIN campaign.

This new campaign will offer the new book along with DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN (for those interested backers who missed the first campaign.) WE ARE ALSO OFFERING A NEW, LARGER SLIPCASE THAT FITS ALL 3 BOOKS!

The slipcase will be the same design as your DRACULA/FRANKENSTEIN box but with the addition of HUNCHBACK among the titles on the front and spine. Otherwise, the boxes will be identical. You don't need to feel obligated to replace your original slipcase; we are just offering that option for those fans who would prefer all 3 books inside one box.

We mean it this time. We will produce however-many HUNCHBACK+spacer boxes that previous backers may order, but there will only be 500 complete box sets available. We will not be adding another 500 or so like we did last time. That got complicated. This time, when they sell out, they sell out. We promise.

We hope you'll check out the new book on Kickstarter this Tuesday! Georges really knocked it out of the park again -- this tragic tale is absolutely horrifying and heartbreaking, a true testament to its ageless appeal.

Hi everyone!
By now, the vast majority of you should have received your items... thanks for your patience, and for your messages! We love to hear how much you all have been adoring these books! 😍

A few of you have messaged us about some shipping issues -- if you have something you'd like to report, please email us at [email protected]. We were traveling for most of the holiday, and getting caught back up with all of the current business after returning to the desk was like climbing out of quicksand... but we're just about back on solid shoreline again!

In getting caught up, we discovered a few things that needed addressing and follow-up. The first was THE DIGITAL WALLPAPER PACK promised for hitting 1000 Backers! We humbly apologize... we completely forgot about that freebie incentive! But that's fixed now, and you all should have gotten an email notification from Backerkit just now alerting you to the Digital Wallpaper Pack that is now waiting for you to download from your Backerkit page!

Six different designs in three common resolutions, each featuring some of Georges Bess's beautiful line art.

Just log into your Backerkit Account (which you can reach at https://horror-classics-by-georges-bess.backerkit.com/ and you will see that .zip file listed alongside your other digital rewards.
ENJOY! 😊

The other thing that came to our attention was that the Golden Bookplate promised to the first 500 slipcase backers appears to have been overlooked during the packing process. 😖 The warehouse is aware of this unfortunate omission and we're arranging to send these separately soon. We may find that we'll have to stuff those 500 envelopes ourselves (my wife and I), so we're looking for the most efficient solution possible. But it will be sorted and you will have yours soon, we promise!

We're so happy to finally have these books in your hands after the extra (and unexpected) 3-month delay. It's a great way to start the new year: with a (relatively) clean slate! Thanks for your support and patience! We have some more exciting stuff coming up shortly, so stay tuned and have a great, positive start to your 2024!

Hi everyone!

Hope you had a great weekend -- we were hoping to have confirmation from the warehouse on Friday so that we could have posted this sooner, but they didn't get back to us until just this morning. Fortunately its good news -- !

They (the warehouse team) are fully aware of everyone's expectations and the urgency we've been drumming into them for the past several weeks, and with the pressure rising, they called in staff to work the weekend. We're grateful for them for making that call, and grateful for your support and patience as this special project wraps up. None of us expected this to take as long as it has.

I'm now waiting for some confirmation or access to the individual order status/data so that we can answer any order-specific questions. Some of you may have already received notification emails with tracking numbers -- keep an eye out for an email from "Magnetic Press LLC ([email protected] via alerts.efulfillmentservice.com)". Since most of these were packed over the weekend, the courier service and post office may not have updated the tracking status yet... but they are indeed moving! Barring any other factors outside our control, you should hopefully have your items in hand by the end of this week.

Again, we greatly appreciate your patience. Out of 30 successful campaigns to date over the last 10 years, we've only run into 3 situations where circumstances beyond our control caused a significant delay in fulfillment like this. In this particular case, we're shipping 2.5 months later than expected -- in comparison with the majority of Kickstarter/crowdfunding campaigns, that still puts us in the top 10% of project delivery. 😉 We'd like to be on time (or even early, if ever possible) with every project, but unexpected things happen, and we can only ask for your grace and patience while we work through those snags to the best of our ability. We understand if this unfortunate turn of events has you thinking twice before backing another of our projects, but please know that we learn from each challenge and improve with each lesson. According to Backerkit's data, we have "a total of 19,975 passionate fans from 34 crowdfunding projects," with over 60% of those individuals having backed more than one campaign. (There are quite a few truly passionate supporters who have backed a dozen or more...!) Those repeat backers can attest to our earnestness and desire to deliver on promises to the best of our ability. 😊

A few of you have requested refunds/cancelations in the comments -- if we are still able to catch your package before it goes out, we can accommodate you. If it has already left the warehouse floor, however, there's not much we or they can do to recall it. If you are adamant about such a request, please email us at [email protected] as soon as you can and we'll see if it is not too late.

Hi everyone!

We hope you had a great Thanksgiving holiday (for those of you in the US)! It seems like we've been addressing a lot of, let's call them "very excited" questions lately about the status of shipping, and understandably so. We did admittedly report 15 days ago that packing was to begin last week, but being a short holiday week, we were told by the warehouse that didn't happen as planned, and that due to some staffing shortages, they are a bit behind on projects ahead of us in the queue. As much as we can push them with eagerness to get these out the door, we are frankly at their scheduling mercy... believe me, we want these in your hands as much as you do! 😊

As of our call with them yesterday, we have been informed that the "assembly line" for packing is being prepared now, and they sincerely expect shipments should start leaving their dock by the end of next week. That is their estimate, however, so please take that with a grain of understanding of the processes involved. We have no insight into their staffing or layout requirements -- they are in a completely different state from us -- and we have to trust they are doing everything they can to get these turned around as quickly and efficiently as possible. They've been doing this for several decades, and successfully fulfilled our last three campaigns, so we trust they are doing their best in this busy holiday season.

A few of you have also commented on the apparent availability of the books on a particular website, as well as availability of the .cbr on some pirate sites. To address the latter first: there is nothing we can do to prevent pirates from posting our titles. Our best defense is to not make our titles available digitally at all, but they'll just scan the pages themselves eventually. Or -- as we currently do -- we can make sure that they are made available to backers FIRST. You all were the first and only people to receive digital copies of these titles two months ago, so you can rest assured you had the privilege of reading these books before ANYONE else. (We hope you have enjoyed them!) Frankly, while we haven't seen them ourselves, it is quite possible that the pirated file(s) traveling the net originated from a backer's copy, as they are the only digital copies we ever created or released. (We haven't even put them on Kindle yet...)

As for the physical availability of the books through online sites, we have been discussing this with our retail distributor. We had requested they be held until early December (after fulfillment) so that they are available before the holiday crush. That date is usually set 6-10 months in advance, but can be slightly adjusted 6 weeks in advance. Once the books have reached our warehouse, it takes 2 weeks for the Purchase Order to be drafted and shipped. They then require two weeks to receive and check the books into their system before they can ship the titles, and then the books can appear on sites/shelves at any date up to two more weeks from when they have left the distributor. Neither they nor we have any control over those specific retailers' sale date -- synchronizing a channel-wide release date is reserved for big titles by big publishers (Harry Potters, etc). While most comic shops will put books out the (Wednes)day they receive them, most big-box stores (B&N, Amazon, etc) have their own lengthy stocking process that can take two seeks. All we can do is request a ship date and hope that the distributor gets it right. (And there have been many times when they haven't, releasing titles sometimes a month or more prematurely...) So we apologize that our fulfillment warehouse hasn't been able to beat that retail timeline in this case. It is rare, but it does happen.

It is precisely because of that occasional uncertainty, however, that we intentionally design our campaigns to be filled with exclusive items that will NOT be available at retail -- slipcase editions, stretch goal bonuses, etc. We make no secret that the "vanilla" version of our books will eventually be sold at retail, so our campaigns are always meant to showcase the exclusive reasons to support us during the campaign. We are a very small operation, so your support during the campaign is literally 250% more valuable to us than purchasing our books at retail. Without your direct support, we could not continue to bring even half as many awesome titles to the table. 😊

We understand that this may sound like "excuses" to some of you (and we appreciate the excitement underlying that understandable frustration), but we can only do our best to assure you that the delay in getting these to you have not been for lack of trying to get them out sooner. The first delay was the extra time the books and slipcases needed to print (with the extra curing time required for the sweet foil gilding) -- out of our control, and the product of a stretch goal achievement.  The next delay was waiting for the coins to arrive -- also out of our control, also the result of a stretch goal, but they turned out really nice! At that point, it was a matter of getting in the warehouse's queue for assembly, and it turns out they had a lot of catching up to do ahead of us, much more than expected. We are now on deck, with packing in preparation there. They understand the urgency (as much as we can instill in them), and are committed to having these out the door as quickly as possible. Having these in your hands as far ahead of Christmas is everyone's goal. We hoped that would have been at least a month ahead of Christmas, but... the aforementioned complications.

While this was our first campaign on Backerkit, we want to assure everyone that we have run and successfully fulfilled over 30 campaigns over the last 10 years, and we do take this seriously. Those of you who have backed previous campaigns of ours can hopefully attest to our efforts and the ultimate quality of goods once the items have arrived. We aren't a fly-by-night con operation. 😉 If you are familiar with crowdfunding campaigns, you probably know from experience that very few campaigns ship on time -- of the 237 campaigns we have personally backed, NONE of them have ever arrived in the month promised. Zero. NONE. Most ship months (sometimes years) after their initially stated delivery date. While we have had some unfortunately long delays on some of our campaigns in the past (longer than this current delay), we pride ourselves on having one of the best track records on the platform with some of the shortest delivery delays on Kickstarter. We are far from perfect, but we do our best to improve our estimations and get as close as we can with each campaign improvement! 😊 As with everything in Life, the unexpected can always occur, however... Man plans, God laughs...