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Finder by Carla Speed MacNeil

 
 
FinderWolf
19:12 / 09.06.03
Has anyone read this book? I saw MacNeil's art in the new issue of QUEEN & COUNTRY (which is a TERRIFIC!! book, by the way, if you like espionage stuff and/or Greg Rucka) and it's really cool. Made me curious about FINDER -- but the ad they put in the issue doesn't really tell you ANYTHING about what it's about. So now I'm curious.

And is "Speed" really her middle name or is it a nickname that sort of morphed into being part of her 'business' name?
 
 
Jack Fear
19:34 / 09.06.03
Speed is Carla's maiden name: but so many people have assumed it's a nickname that she's started answering to it.

FINDER is... well, the reason people find it hard to describe is that it's hard to describe.

It's leisurely-paced anthropological science fiction, with a lot of interesting things to say about family, gender, memory, childhood, the clash of civilizations, and a host of other things.

It's densely imagined and beautifully drawn.

There are four TPBS out so far.
Links to ARTBOMB reviews:
Book One
Book Two
Book Three
Book Four

Carla's own site is here: you can read entire issues online.
 
 
sleazenation
19:40 / 09.06.03
And for the UK based 'lither there is a real treat in potential because Carla Speed MacNeil is going to be making one of her rare trips over to the UK to attend Caption Oxford (and Britain's) annual alternative comics convention.
 
 
mondo a-go-go
10:56 / 10.06.03
I'm sure there are old threads about Finder here. But anyway, since the best person to talk about it is herself:
 
 
No star here laces
11:19 / 10.06.03
I'll add my voice to the finder luv thang. Also point out that if you get one of the early issues you get to see a letter to the author from the lovely Mr Fear himself...
 
 
Jack Fear
15:56 / 26.09.05
Announced this weekend at SPX: the paper version of FINDER will be going trade-paperback-only. The serialized pamphlets will cease publication as as of issue #38. New installments will available for free on the Web before being collected into trades, which will continue to appear regularly.

Now, this makes perfect sense. The real money is in TPBs. I wouldn't be surprised if Carla had been losing money on the singles—FINDER often sold less than 2,000 copies per single, while the trades sell very well and generate a tidy profit.

But it's a ballsy move—and probably long-overdue for the industry, which is still married to an outmoded distribution system. Even as more creators "write for the trade," publishers have been loath to go all-out behind OGNs. They take a massive financial hit on singles, but they keep putting them out in the belief that they're necessary to build an audience for the inevitable collections.

Carla's model is splitting the difference. Uncollected material is going out on the Web in advance of the trades, and if she's not making any money on it, at least she's not losing any.

If the big publishers are wise, they'll be watching FINDER's fortunes very closely from this point on. This, at last, could be the beginning of the end for Diamond and the direct market.
 
 
madfigs #32, now with wasabi
19:14 / 26.09.05
This is great news! I prefer the Finder TPBs anyway, they have these awesome footnotes that provide a lot of background information about the culture and history of the world in the story. I've been buying the monthlies, but I will be more than happy to switch to the trades in this case.
 
 
sleazenation
19:33 / 26.09.05
Out of interest, has Mystery Date (CSM's previous short series) ever been collected?
 
 
Mark Parsons
21:14 / 26.09.05
This really is an AMAZING series of novels. You need not begin at book # 1 either. I began in the middle (Talisman, about a writer who lost a beloeved, talismanic book as a child which lead to them becoming a writer).

Barbelitheans everywhere should buy them, borrow them, check them out from libraries.
 
 
madfigs #32, now with wasabi
21:39 / 26.09.05
Why yes, Mystery Date is collected! I don't know if it's still applicable, but Carla used to include a rough pencil page with all the orders from her website.
 
 
mondo a-go-go
16:47 / 30.09.05
Technically speaking, Mystery Date wasn't the "previous short series" -- the original two-parter came out during the early part of Sin Eater, and was never intended as a separate thing. It's very much entrenched within the Finder universe, and Carla has returned to Vary et al in an issue of the regular Finder series (which is also included in the TPB).

I'm really looking forward to the next arc, the one about Jaeger's relationship with women, which will then be collected up into a book with a couple of single-issues stories on the same subject that have already come out (Beware of the Dog etc). If there's one thing Carla can do well, it's write relationships. Actually, two, she knows how to draw anatomy, too, which helps when she's depicting sex scenes. She's one of the few artists who can do that (at least that I know about, but let's not derail the thread with a discussion here).

If you ever get to meet her, jump at the chance, too. She's the greatest raconteur with a brilliant way for telling stories.
 
 
Jack Fear
17:24 / 30.09.05
Indeed she is. I was kind of in love with her for a while—which is why we don't correspond any more. We were e-mailing back and forth every day, sometimes twice a day—it was honestly getting out of hand. There were tearful confrontations with my wife and everything.

It seems like forever ago.
 
  
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