In the Works for a Flong Time

I’m happy to announce the launch of my latest book, Flong Time, No See! This book is a collection of reported work and essays I’ve written over the last seven years about topics as disparate as how a New York Times printer had a job for life for over 50 years, when magazine publishers thought they could replace typesetting with typewriters, how to find and eradicate type lice, and how boilerplate transformed from a literal piece of metal into a metaphor.

The book comes in print and ebook editions (simulated previews)

There are over 12 stories in all, including the flagship essay on flong, a printing mold used to cast metal plates that helped speed up print production, leading to newspapers with more pages and more editions, and which was a driving force in comic strip syndication.

For more information, take a look at the campaign page, which

Podcasting

The Talk Show: Episode 420

I appear on the latest episode of John “Daring Fireball” Gruber’s The Talk Show podcast. John and I talked tariffs, hegemony and colonialism, and mother loving iPhones on mother loving cargo planes. Also about typesetting, printing, and crowdfunding.

Bookselling

Testing Out New Kickstarter Features

Kickstarter has had long periods in which it has changed little about how to build, run, and manage post-campaign details. These lulls have been punctuated with major changes. When I got ready to launch the campaign for Six Centuries of Type & Printing earlier this year, I noticed that the company had added and tweaked lots of features. Some may have been in place for a year or more, but I believe only one was available when I launched How Comics Were Made in February 2024.

I started using Kickstarter to fund my book and art projects about 15 years ago. Six Centuries was my 11th! My 9 successful campaigns have ranged from raising $3,000 to over $165,000. I also managed the project for Shift Happens, which brought in $750,000 in its crowdfunding stage. I’m always looking to see what I can test and what I

Books

2024 Year in Review

Every year, I like to recap what I did professionally in the previous one. This year built on work and events already planned and in progress, so I have less to report in volume despite having a quite busy twelve months.

How Comics Were (and Are) Made

The most significant thing I did in 2024 was to crowdfund and publish How Comics Were Made, my book digging into the production and reproduction of newspaper comics from the 1890s to the present. I took the book to Kickstarter in February, where it raised more than enough funds to proceed and then shipped it in October, the promised month! Between March and October, I sold hundreds of additional copies and I’m on track to sell out in early 2025 of remaining copies in this first printing.

You can buy a copy of this edition and

Books

Last Copies of Six Centuries of Type & Printing

I’m down to the last 50 24 copies (as of September 2024) of my book Six Centuries of Type & Printing. If you were interested in a copy, now is the time! The price includes the letterpress edition, an expanded book edition (which features a full bibliography), and U.S. shipping.

Interior spread of Six Centuries of Type & Printing

Back in 2019, when I launched the Tiny Type Museum & Time Capsule project, I envisioned a short edition of a book to include with the museum. The museum would have artifacts, uniquely created items, and a “curator’s manual” specific to what was included, the book would have a broader scope. As always, I was probably too ambitious to build out the museum and book at the same time—even with project partner Anna Peterson née Robinson, the fine woodworker who built the gorgeous cases. But when the pandemic

Bookselling

How Comics Were Made Reaches ITS Goal!

Updated 26 March: I have passed the 100% goal with a couple days left! The campaign rewards remain available for pledging through 28 March at 9 am PDT!

Original post:

A short update on the crowdfunding campaign for my book How Comics Were Made: A Visual History from the Drawing Board to the Printed Page: we just hit 50% today, an exciting milestone. Based on Kickstarter data, about 80% of campaigns that fund halfway reach their goal by the end! So while there’s plenty of room to go, 50% in 10 days with 20 days left feels achievable.

If you’re interested in comics history, printing history, or the way in which stories are told through technological transformation in both analog and digital dimensions, I think you’ll love this book.

Cartooning

Are We Having Flong Yet?

I vaguely remember when I first encountered the “Zippy the Pinhead” comic strip. I am sure I was in my teens, when I was reading some underground stuff, though my interest was largely mainstream. Zippy was in the middle: started by Bill Griffith as a character and then a heavy focus of his underground/alternative work, the strip was picked up by his local San Francisco paper and then, not long after, put into syndication by King Features nearly 40 years ago. It blew my mind: something this surreal and not-at-all-square (except the panels) in regular newspapers?! Zippy scratched an itch in my head similar to when I discovered Dada and surrealist art when I was a little older. I became a lifelong fan.

In preparing to launch How Comics Were Made: A Visual History from the Drawing Board to the Printed Page, I knew that Bill would be a

Bookselling

How Comics Were Made: Get a Copy on Kickstarter!

Years in the making, How Comics Were Made: A Visual History from the Drawing Board to the Printed Page launched this morning on Kickstarter! (Watch a replay of a live session in which I answered questions and showed printing artifacts.)

The book is based on research into the history of printing I’ve been in engaged in for the last several years coupled with visits to libraries and archives and dozens of interviews with cartoonists. It covers 130 years of newspaper cartoon history, showing original art, printing artifacts, and newspaper reproductions, examining how an artist’s drawings make their way through the production and reproduction process into print. I hope you’ll take a look!

Working with designer and cartoonist Mark Kaufman, we have a preview of a full chapter of the book for your downloading and reading pleasure.

This two-page spread from the preview chapter gives you a sense of how I’ll tell the story of cartoon artistry, production, and reproduction. Download the whole chapter for more . — This two-page spread

Publishing

How We Crowdfunded $750,000 for a Giant Book about Keyboard History

I’ve just published a massive essay on Medium detailing how I helped Marcin Wichary run a $750,000+ campaign on Kickstarter for his book Shift Happens. I explain our strategies, hard-won lessons, unexpected problems, and budgeting within the parameters and fees collected by platforms—and making sure you consider a post-campaign service to help deal with the actual job of managing deliveries. (The book sold out its final tranche of copies on 8 February 2024.)

The tweet that set off a several-year project, culminating in a three-volume set of books, Shift Happens

Typing classes in the 1800 and 1900s, from a spread in Shift Happens

Sheets pulled from the press in Maine while the book printing was underway

Glenning

2023 in Review

Last year was a rare exception among adult years in it that it was a little quieter. This year was a return to “normal”: busy, fulfilling, and new projects a-blooming, although with a far tighter focus than almost any year in my career in which I didn’t have a part-time or full-time job or the equivalent contractor position.

Shift Happens

After several years of editing and project planning with my author client, Marcin Wichary, his book Shift Happens finally went from bits to atoms. Shift Happens recounts the history of keyboards, with Volume 1 devoted mostly to typewriters and similar things and Volume 2 covering keyboards from the dawn of computing through the glass and mechanical masterpieces available today. Every chapter is a story about some piece of history or aspect of keys and keyboards. Marcin did a wonderful job of researching, writing, photographing, and designing this massive work.

Cartooning

An Upcoming Book: How Comics Were Made!

I’ve just launched a website for How Comics Were Made: A Visual History from the Drawing Board to the Printed Page, a book that I’ve been cooking up writing for a few years. On the heels of editing and projecting managing Shift Happens for Marcin Wichary (thus part of raising over $750,000 in that campaign), I am excited to get back into print and share the comics and printing history I’ve been assembling for the last six years.

Preliminary cover of How Comics Were Made , designed by Mark Kaufman

I’ve already started prep, and hired Mark Kaufman (of the recently late and forever-to-be-lamented The Nib) to design and illustrate the book. He’s created a preliminary cover that we’ll be refining as we move towards a Kickstarter campaign in February 2024. The book’s expected publication date: October 2024. I’ve done a far

Crowdfunding

Type Matrix Replicas Now Available

Back in November 2021, I funded a small project to create 3D scans of a few historic type matrices—molds used to make single pieces of metal type—and then produce a high-quality model and prints. That project is now complete, and the rewards for all backers are in the mail. In the process, I made a lot of 3D-print tests.

A variety of 3D prints of two originals—the originals have copper inset areas in their brass frames.

If you’d like a replica piece of type history, you can order one now! I’ll also be releasing the 3D models under a broad Creative Common license in about four months as part of the intent of the project.