I Don't Like Mondays #725

[doronjosama]

Today has officially been A Day.

Yubi is finally eating food with no coaxing and demanding her water be changed every time she wants a drink, like a little water princess. This shows a definite improvement in her health and behavior. So, big ups on that front, hoorah.

This morning, right after I woke up, I was called by our printer (Brenner Printing) and informed that as of March 31st, they were no longer going to be printing *any* adults only material, period. They were very apologetic, but needless to say, this was very upsetting and shocking news. We've been printing the adult books there for ten years now with no issues whatsoever, but apparently, the owner has suddenly decided that he doesn't want such material printed there any more. (This is also sudden and odd, because the whole time I was at Antarctic Press, they also printed adult comics...) I don't know how many other publishers will be affected by this new change at Brenner. The only ones I know of for sure who print there are Eros Comix (since they get their catalogs printed there and the occasional book), Avatar (since I always see their nude variant cover stuff there on the docks) and White Lightning (since I see Bootleg on the dock there when we go pick up our stuff). I know Drama Queen and Yaoi Press have also done adult yaoi stuff there in the past. Who knows what kind of schedule conflicts and snafus this new edict will cause- it is really sudden and it's kind of a pisser that they couldn't give us any advance warning that this was coming down.

Either way, this meant I spent most of the day on the phone (which I love, heh) getting price quotes and finding a new place to get the current issue of Milk printed (which was scheduled to go to press on the 9th anyway, but if it was to be printed at Brenner, we would have had more leeway on that date since it is local to us...). It looks like we have found a solution at the moment, hopefully it will work out in the long-term. Our future (far, far, far future) planned adult graphic novels will probably end up having to be done by Quebecor/Lebonfon now though, which means extra budgeting to cover the high cost of shipping things from Canada to Texas.

Other fires put out today: paid the rent and water/gas bill, shipped a Genus reorder to Diamond (since the L.A. warehouse seems to have mysteriously disappeared an entire box of their original shipment, again), got some restock from the storage, did a bunch of paperwork, and set up the appointment with the accountant to get the taxes handled. Now I am off to do more work.

Comments

[rkbwrites.livejournal.com]

Damn, that sucks. Sounds like printer just found the lord...

[doronjosama.livejournal.com]

It's more likely they found the Lord's money. ^_^; They have been doing increasing amounts of Christian-based printing- pamphlets, tracts, self-published books, etc. But they've also been doing increasing amounts of non-religious printing stuff, like newspaper circulars, grocery store stuff, beer and liquor advertisements, etc. So, I don't think the owner got religion of a sudden, or all the big Bud Light cardboard cutouts probably wouldn't be there either... XD

[martes.livejournal.com]

I dunno. Christians are a lot more down on porn than they are on booze, unless it's a Mormon. I don't think a hard-core Christian would reject liquor ads unless they involved a wet T-shirt or something. But I've known more than a few Christians who merrily chuck out their beliefs when it comes to making money (Like the animator who violently rejected all fannish activities because he said he didn't want to hang out with 'sinners,' but seemed to have absolutely no problem hanging out with sinners in a work enviroment. Of course, I'd believe his piety a lot more if he ditched the job altogether and ran off to be a missionary to the heathens in some horrible 3rd world country)

[doronjosama.livejournal.com]

Oh, we have a lot of Baptists here in San Antonio, and they are really down on booze and dancing.

But eh, who knows what caused it? They weren't very forthcoming about it.

[anderson-t.livejournal.com]

Did they say 'x-rated material' or did they mean, all material intended for mature audiences? Mature doesn't always equal porn. Though in the case of BL, it does seem that way. ^^;

[doronjosama.livejournal.com]

They were kinda vague, but they said anything adults only. That is, anything with any nudity. Not sure how this will impact BL stuff, since a lot of it isn't exactly poles & holes heavy, but is often deeply erotic...

It'd be nice if they had a definite line drawn, though.

[anderson-t.livejournal.com]

I'll say, because as it stands, Roulette is the most explicit title in RUSH right now, and Brenner is our printer. 0_0

[poinko.livejournal.com]

Well poopbuckets, that's a shame to hear about the printer situation :( Hopefully you'll find a printer replacement quickly(and cheaper!). ALso, good to hear Yubi is bouncing back! :D

Also, kind of late, but I wanted to thank you for the contrib copies of Black Cats. I got 'em about a week or so ago, but I'm kinda late with the tanks on that ^^; I hope to see you guys at A-Kon this year as well!

[doronjosama.livejournal.com]

Yay, I'm glad your copies got there!

Wow, I am so not even prepared for A-Kon yet... :O

[chasecorbeau.livejournal.com]

Yay for Yubi! ^__^

I just found out one of my mom's cats has a tumor, or something bizarre. He has a large growth on his shoulder/neck area. It was hard to notice at first because of his fur, but he's definitely lopsided. He's fairly old, though, at least.

[doronjosama.livejournal.com]

Oh no, not a tumor! D: That's still icky, even if he is old. :(

[kadaths-realm.livejournal.com]

Oh that freaking sucks, hon. I can't believe your printer would just suddenly pull that on you. It's also too bad only a place in Canada would actually print adults-only material (or at least AO furry)...what is the US coming to, huh? :/

[doronjosama.livejournal.com]

Oh, we found a place here in the US that will print the "pamphlet" style comics (as they are called these days... the basic 32 page jobbies), I guess I wasn't clear in my post! ^_^; I'm also just paranoid about announcing things until I know they will work! A-heh!

We'll definitely be doing the trades (those far far far future trades) in Canada though. ^_^

[kadaths-realm.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's good. I hope it all works out for you, then. If you had had to get all your comics printed and shipped through Canada, I can't imagine how much that would end up costing (not to mention, if you got half of the comics back...I've heard plenty of stories about the Canada/US border confiscating furry art).

[jameshanrahan.livejournal.com]

Yubi Upgrade
Just kidding. You have to get to a much higher level before you can get this pet

It sounds like probably that Brenner does enough non-comics stuff that they can be more picky about what they print. Now they do not have to suffer the embarrassment of explaining to their other clients what all those pallets of adult material are.
Maybe this will be a good step forward for the paysite as more stuff can be funneled into that, encouraging more customers to hit that and also cutting down on all that overhead generated by the paper (the printing, the shipping, the mail, the storage). I know that it isn't an instant solution but I think it might propel the site a bit more.

Brenner Printing

[the-mouthpiece.livejournal.com]

Huh. You don't say? I guess money isn't anything but if I were them I would have put the cutoff period further ahead for existing customers.

Anyway, I used to deal with Michelle over at Quebecor. Granted, we don't publish porn comics, I can at lease pass on that he was a pretty stand up guy w/ us.

[superhappy.livejournal.com]

Crazy. If Slipshine ever started printing books, I was planning to go to Brenner, but I guess I won't now.
We're allowed to ship porn from Canada now? I'm not really up on their crazy customs rules these days.

[dustmeat.livejournal.com]

Crap, Brenner really knows customer loyalty huh? What made them change their minds?

[beelzebozo.livejournal.com]

Sounds like some of their Christian customers put their foot down and told Brenner that they won't do business with a place that deals in adult material. So I'm guessing they decided to chuck the lot of you rather than lose the Christian business.