The second edition of Kirby At Marvel is now live at Lulu.com and Amazon.
new content
At the end of each chapter I’ve added tables showing Kirby’s stories with known data including whether pages are known to exist as original art and what that tells us.
I have pulled assorted information from the Endnotes, and organized and expanded it under a number of topics in the Commentary section.
The book now weighs in at 343 pages and is fully indexed.
differences
I typeset this edition myself using free software. Lulu handled the published file with aplomb, and the result is perfect. The images I used have sufficient contrast in black and white to show what I need them to show.
The Amazon KDP process gave me a much harder time. Shown at the top is the cover as required by Amazon, with an extra border added in the bleed edge on the back cover because the process couldn’t find the edge when it was just white.
The initial upload of the manuscript got me the error that Amazon doesn’t accept output from the free software I used. A flattening procedure needed to be applied to deal with things like embedded fonts (Lulu does this automatically). I applied such a procedure to the file from the command line and the file was accepted. Alarmingly, the PDF was reduced to a quarter of its size, making me wonder what kind of information was filtered out.
Unlike the finished Lulu book, the pages of the book from Amazon are slightly less white. The book doesn’t lie flat while it’s resting: the pages of roughly the top half buckle to create a split that looks like the book has been stored down face down, open in the middle (even though the spine is still square and flat). The images are muddy and dim and show far less contrast, so the all-important pencilled lettering in the panels is harder to make out. This may be a result of the flattening process; I’ll experiment.
Depending on where you place the order, the price of the book should be the same or similar at Lulu or Amazon. We cancelled our Prime account in March, and if you’re not particularly attached to free or smaller shipping charges, please consider getting it from Lulu. It’s a superior product.
accordingtokirby 