Copies of the prospectus for Jim Westergard's Oddball series have gone out. Jim sent us 27 copies of the Hunter S. Thompson portrait, which is featured as the sample spread in the notice, so 27 copies were printed, sewn into wraps, and numbered. Initial response to Jim's work has been - no surprise - enthusiastic. One correspondent in the U.K., however, thought the content wasn't right for a clientele with a too "Eurocentric" focus. We agree, and this is, of course, why we were attracted to the series in the first place - Jim's ability to inject humor and perversity into a medium that too often takes itself terribly seriously. As Barry Moser says in the introduction:
“Wood engraving is a dark medium...I don’t know how Westergard does it, but he has an uncanny ability to pull humor out of that dastardly valley of shadows. Despite the dark odds against him, he manages, again and again, to wrangle some of the funniest wood engravings I have ever seen.”
While printing of the various oddball biographies is underway, we continue to play with ideas for the title page. Below is a quick digital sketch of an idea we had, incorporating "thumbnails" of all 40 oddballs in the setting, but the size reduction is too great and they'd end up looking like thumbprints. Nonetheless, the concept we still like, and we're talking with Jim about other illustrative options...
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