A CLAPTRAP Update…

July 20th, 2021 | Posted in General

I’m sure most of the followers of my blog know about the crowdfunded book project longtime MAD scribe Desmond Devlin and I are working on. If you don’t, briefly it’s called CLAPTRAP, and it will be a hardcover book featuring twelve original movie parodies in the MAD tradition (with a few of our own twists) plus some other film related goodies. It’s projected to be well over 100 pages, was funded via Indiegogo, and was projected for a 4th quarter 2021 release.

All of that is still 100% accurate except for the last part. We have been working hard to try and meet that “before the end of the year” shipping goal, but we have had to come to grips with the fact that that will not happen now. I am confident we’ll have the book DONE by around the end of the year, but it takes over two months for printing and shipping before the books are here and ready to ship. That puts shipping towards the end of the 1st quarter of 2022. Des and I are sorry we won’t be meeting the original shipping goal, but we wanted to be up front about the timing and give everyone a bit of an explanation.

There are a lot of reasons for the delay, but three are primary:

  1. Both Des and I have had some health issues to deal with in our immediate families. With Des it’s one of his parents who has required attention and care from him since the end of 2020. If you follow me on social media, you’ll know my youngest daughter was diagnosed with intestinal cancer in the spring, and we have been dealing with her treatment, surgery, and recovery for the last several months. Life can get complicated rather suddenly, and family always comes first. Both Des and have been doing our best to keep up, but we have not had as much time as we’d like in the last several months.
  2. Other jobs have gotten in the way. While the financial backing of our contributors has been awesome and we are really REALLY grateful for your support and are planning on delivering a great book to all of you, the actual amount of income we are getting for the book cannot possibly cover our living expenses for a whole year of work. Just for perspective, after printing and production costs and Indiegogo’s cut of the amount we have raised, Des and I are so far getting about 1/3 of what our rates would have been if we’d done this same work for MAD… and of course in that case the magazine’s staff would have done all the layouts, production, editing and book design which we are also doing. Believe me, we are NOT complaining… this is exactly what we expected going into this project. I’m just trying to illustrate why we HAVE to accept other jobs as they present themselves to continue to earn money to pay our bills. In many cases we’ve had to regulate work on CLAPTRAP to what would have been our down time when working on other projects. I personally had a huge corporate ad job that literally took me all of April to complete, and my project for CNN’s “History of the Sitcom” took another two plus weeks out of my life. I have actually turned down several smaller projects and commissions just so I can get more time in on CLAPTRAP, which is tough on the wallet when the bills come due. Both Des and I have sacrificed some other work to try and keep on track, but we are now too far behind our projected timeline to realistically get the book back from the printer by the end of the year.
  3. Finally, the really big reason for the longer wait is that we are refusing to cut corners and rush the work we are doing. I don’t know about Des but I don’t have enough fingers or toes to count how many parodies I drew for MAD where I had to bang out the finals in a week of all nighters and wish I’d had another few days to really put some polish on the work. I refuse to hold this book in my hands and wish I’d taken more time with some aspects of it just so it gets out a few months earlier. Both Des and I have been making sure the work we’ve been doing represents the best we can do. That takes some time. Doing twelve full movie parodies, all of which are averaging several pages longer than the standard MAD spoofs, PLUS extra content PLUS doing all the production, design, editing and art direction in only 12 months was going to be a herculean task even with nothing else for us to do. It was probably unrealistic to expect a 4th quarter 2021 release in the first place.

We don’t want anyone to think we are making excuses here. We absolutely understand that our backers expect us to deliver exactly what we have promised… a terrific book full of laughs and great content. You have placed your trust in us with your pocketbooks that we will deliver, and we intend to… and then some. I’ve had conversations with a number of our backers, and virtually everyone I talked with is much more interested in getting a top notch book that getting it too soon for it to be top notch. Des and I hope the majority of you agree.

Once the book is done and in your hands, we hope you’ll not care that you waited a couple of extra months for it. We want it to be something we are proud of, something that you really enjoy, and we want you to feel your money was well spent. Bear with us, we are on this journey together.

Comments

  1. David Lubin says:
    July 20, 2021 at 1:41 pm

    Tom, you and Des take whatever time is necessary. I’m sure I speak… or write, for everyone when I say we all look forward to a great book and know it WILL be, so don’t worry about it. With everything else going on, it amazes me that you guys can still hold it together. And it can’t get much worse that the “When We Went Mad” movie timeline, so just CHILL! Thanks for the update!

  2. PAUL MORALES says:
    July 20, 2021 at 1:52 pm

    Family first! No rush here Tom. This is an historic endeavor and we have your back.

  3. Terry Elliott says:
    July 20, 2021 at 2:22 pm

    Thanks for the update, Tom. We can all wait a little bit longer. And thanks for not cutting any corners!

  4. Hal says:
    July 20, 2021 at 2:37 pm

    Agree with everyone above. Family first! Waiting for this awesome book is no big deal at all

  5. Dee DeLoy says:
    July 20, 2021 at 2:49 pm

    Tom….. in this day of surface relationships and “little white lies” to try and make the client compliant, you and Des’s honesty and upfrontness ( is that a word?) is very refreshing. Who could fault you for not only being honest but also living on this planet where unknown things happen almost on a daily basis ?
    I think that all of us will agree that eventually enjoying a book of major art and writing far supersedes the extra time to get it published right. Being an illiustrator for 40 years has taught me that far too many people will ever know the amount of time, creativity and effort that goes into such a huge project as you both have untaken.
    At the end you and Des will most likely see things that you wish you could do better….because that’s just the way artists are… but everyone else will be BLOWN AWAY!!! Rest assured that your integrity and talent will be celebrated when everyone gets this book in their hands. Thanks for putting so much into this fun project, Tom.

  6. Matthew JLD Rice says:
    July 20, 2021 at 3:42 pm

    A quality project is worth the extra wait. And I will echo the above by saying that family comes FIRST. I am bummed to know that you’re netting less than you did at MAD. Word of mouth will hopefully spread like wildfire! Thanks for the update!

    • Tom Richmond says:
      July 21, 2021 at 8:29 am

      Thanks, Matthew. Again, Des and I knew it was more than likely we’d not earn enough profit from the project to reach the level of pay we’d have gotten doing the same work for MAD, but we went ahead and did the book anyway. However we can hope our backer/presales funding is only part of the sales we’ll do with the book. We have included funding to print more copies of the book than we need to fulfill all our advanced orders and backer perks, so we will have some inventory that will be available for purchase for a while after those preorders are filled. Many people just won’t prepay for a book that is not ready for delivery. Once we have copies in hand, we’ll probably sell a bunch of copies to buyers who want immediate shipping. Every copy we sell brings our page rate up a little bit! Maybe in the end we’ll even exceed our MAD rate (which wouldn’t be hard… the cheap schmucks.) Regardless, we’ll be giving the book the same maximum effort we’d have given any MAD assignment.

  7. Arthur Armstrong says:
    July 20, 2021 at 6:31 pm

    I was excited to have the book by the end of the year, and I am just as excited about having the book by the end of Q1. Take the time to do the job the way you and Des have envisioned, and may all be well with both of your families.

  8. David Levy says:
    July 20, 2021 at 11:49 pm

    The best things in life are worth waiting for, I think that’s the old saying. And when it finally arrives I’m sure we’ll all be blown away😊. Thoughts and prayers to your families.

  9. Tom Richmond says:
    July 21, 2021 at 8:20 am

    I just want to thank everyone for the support and understanding. Des and I know you’ll appreciate the results of our extra time taken!

  10. Peter vd Merwe says:
    July 21, 2021 at 10:18 am

    Wow! So sorry to hear about your and Des’ personal challenges.

    I am a longtime fan and follower of your work.

    I am wondering: I’d love to order a book, however, I live in South Africa.
    Many moons ago I ordered a print of your “Bats in the Belfry” as I am as big BatFan as you are.
    Sadly I never received it. No fault of yours! (I guess our local Post Office/delivery people are less than adequate, too put it mildly.)
    So, I could not get involved (sadly) in the crowdfunding exercise, not knowing if the book would be allowed to find it’s way here.

    Any alternative suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

    Best,
    Peter.
    petesplacetoons@gmail.com

  11. Robert Burke says:
    July 23, 2021 at 8:33 pm

    WARNING – Cliché Alert: All good things come to those who wait. Hope things work out for all.

  12. nikster61 says:
    August 6, 2021 at 10:03 am

    Hey Tom, you and Des need to take care of the important things first. I am looking forward to the book but whenever you guys get it done we are good. When the books are gone your family remains.

    Best of wishes you guys. I can wait.

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