Re: note from Paris.
SUN, 2/3/02, 1:55 a.m. - In Response To: note from Paris. (Travis Charest)

Hi Travis,

What a pleasant surprise! Thanks for your note here. It's very nice of you.

It was good to see you again. I had a GREAT visit in France. Definitely my most enjoyable trip to Franch all around. Thanks for hanging out with us in Paris so late. It was good to talk with you. Maybe we'll have a chance to speak more some time when we are not so tired. But Gabriele and I and everyone there certainly enjoyed your company! And we are all big fans of your art. Hope to see you in San Diego.

David

Hello David, I just wanted to say I enjoyed meeting you again although we didn't really get a chance to talk, and please excuse the chain smoking, it's a nervous habit which only gets worse when I met someone that I admire. Hope to see you this summer in San Diego and I hope you enjoyed your stay in France.

my friends are being dorks and they want to know if you're going to be in novi, michigan in may. i got them all into kabuki...and they're all getting other people into it...it's a chain reaction! and they all love you!
peace love and <expletive deleted>
cato

Thanks a lot for introducing so many new people to my work!

DM

I really appreciate so many of you posting a note on the board here. Thank you very much for coming to my signings in France (Paris and Angouleme) and making it such a friendly, enjoyable and succesful visit for me.

I had a fantastic stay in France! And I look forward to it again next year. All my readers from France seem like great people and were very kind and helpful.

Merci!

DM

This was a great trip! First of all, the French Language edition of the Metamorphosis Hardcover is amazing! Marvel France really did a superb job of presenting this in an amazing format.

So after flying to Paris, having a coffee and chat with Bruno and Numa from Arkham comics, catching our train to Angouleme, we were greeted at the train station by Sebastion (Editor and Chief of Marvel France) who was holding the New Metamorphosis book so we would recognize him!

This book is produced exceptionally well, in a very interesting format. And we were delighted when all of the copies that Marvel France had sold out on the First day of the show! This is good news, because it means Kabuki is very successful for Marvel France, and they will be able to do all the other Kabuki books in this format. It also looks like they will invite me back to Angouleme for next year and also have an exhibition of the original Kabuki art at the show.

The French collections of my Daredevil books are also very handsomely produced.

But the real fun of this trip was meeting and spending time with some great people. All the people from Marvel France were fantastic. They made this an amazing trip. The readers at the signings were also great. And I was able to spend some time with other artists. At the Marvel France booth I signed with Jae Lee and Jose Villarubia, who were also staying at the same hotel as Anh and I. So we were able to often have breakfast and dinner together and get to know each other better than the usual hello’s at U.S. cons. This hotel was great by the way.

John McCrea also signed at the show and it was good to speak with him again. I met Italian artist Gabriele Dell’otto at the con and he, his girlfriend, and Anh and I spent a lot of time together sightseeing in Paris. This guy’s art is great and it was fantastic to meet such a good friend as well. You will be seeing a lot more of his work in the states if I have my way. I intend to get him as much work as possible here, and I plan to collaborate with him on something.

We had a great time in Paris. We visited the Louvre, and a traveled all over the place by subway. Signing at Album and Arkham in Paris was a lot of Fun. I signed with Stan Sakai and Jeff Smith. All the people from the stores are great people. Olivier from Album is an old friend, and I met Jean-Cristophe from Arkham who posts on this board.

I did a lot of interviews for French magazines like the French Wizard, and Anime magazines. I participated in a panel of other French comic book writers. That was bizarre.
Travis Charest who lives in Paris stopped by to visit with our little group at some bar in the middle of the night.

All in all it was a very magical trip that I really can’t begin to describe the details of. The best part of course were the people. Before it was over, I was actually considering living in Paris for a bit. The appreciation of art by the general public is great. They actually have public posters for release of new comics by new creators in the same way that you see posters for new films and music. The open general appreciation for comics as an artform and an essential part of the culture is refreshing.

The people were great, we had great lunch and dinners with everyone each day and we were pretty much laughing the entire time.

So thanks to all the readers, Marvel France crew, Album, Arkham, and our artist friends for making things so grand. I’m looking forward to next year.

is in the current Previews magazine. All 8 Scarab issues are collected together with a gallery of the covers, intro by Paul Pope, afterword by me, and a few more goodies. It's a pretty big book (close in size to Circle of Blood), and I'm looking forward to this being collected.

Just make sure that you ask your retailer to PRE order it from the Previews magazine if you want one. If not, the stores may only order enough to sell out the first day. That seems to be what happend with the Dreams Hardcover in many stores that I check on.

Asking your retailer to Pre-order from the catalogue is a must. It lets them know how much of something to order.

Reflections #4 will be offered in next month's Previews catalogue.

It was great to see so many readers from this message board show up in France! Claire traveled to Paris from England, Virginie from Scotland, and Arie Bras from Holland! It was good to see all of you! Thanks for the gifts!!!

Also there was French titi bolt, Mosieur Jean, Matthieu-David, and a LOT of other French lurkers from this board, who don't post, or post less often!

Well, it was great meeting Ahn and you, David. I'm sorry that I couldn't drop by Arkham on tuesday like I told you, but I had huge things falling in my lap (good things, don't worry). Anyway, I'm glad that the experience was good for you too. See you next time, I'm keeping the head of you-know-who for a special dinner celebration next year !

Thanks for taking us to the Louvre and for the great hospitality. You are very funny. We had a great time with all of you at the show!

It was good to do the interview with you. Please send me a copy of our Wizard interview when it sees print.

Best wishes in your work in the theater!

DM

David I loved the book but i was trying to figure out who the model for the new story was. If you could help it would be great still looking for that book you told me about. By the way I talked to Andy and I think that Marvel should have list his name for the solicitation for Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #15. just my opinion but if you could help with info regaurding the model question I'd be grateful.
Thank you for the awesome vision,
-Daut

If you are referring to the Kabuki figure in the photo and collage pages of the new story, that is Anh. I had a great time on that story.

Thanks for mentioning Andy. I'm real curious as to how that whole book is going to come together, with Andy, Rick Mays, Bendis and me each doing our part.

Any comic book store who wants your business will be more than happy to re-order any of my books for you. I go to a lot of effort to make sure that all the trades and hardcovers are constantly in stock so that the retailers can always reorder the books and make them available to new readers.

Your store should be eager to make it up to you by reordering the book and getting a healthy supply of extras to keep in stock in the store for new readers. I always urge readers to try to get my books through your comic store. And I try to make it very easy for the comic stores to do this.

If for some short sighted reason, they do not want your business and they refuse to order my book, do not let that stop you from getting it. You can always order it from me directly.

In fact if anyone needs to do this for the Dreams Hardcover, I'll make you a SPECIAL OFFER as a consolation prize for anyone refusing to order it for you. You can order it directly from me (cover price) POSTAGE FREE in the U.S.
Just send your order to the address on the Kabuki Checklist in the back of every Kabuki book.

Try to got through your store. We want to keep all of the stores in business. But if someone refused, here is your safety net. I'm not going to let that stop my books from getting to my readers.

I preordered the book back when it was originally solicited. So, I go to the comic shop Wednesday, when the new books come out. And I ask if the Kabuki Dreams HC that I preordered came in. Their response was, "Well, we misplaced your order form" and that they didn't order any other copies because of thier idea that they wouldn't sell it (funny story though, none of the comic shops around here sell A Distant Soil either, but you can find it easily at Borders, something that Colleen said that she makes more sales of her books at places like Borders than actual comic shops). This wasn't the first time that happened. They sold the copy of the Red Star HC that I preordered. But, I went to every other comic shop in Indianapolis and none of them even preordered it.

Believe me, I was pretty pissed about it. I really wanted to get that book.

But, I am going to give my preorder sheet to a different comic shop and hope that this doesn't happen again.

But, this just kinda reinforces my movement to buy more of my TPBs at places like Borders than the comic shops around the area. The places like Borders has a better atmosphere anyways.

But, I'll probably order the HC from you when it is in the order forms on future Kabuki issues.

But I am glad you had a great time in France. I really hope to make it to Chicago this year. Every time I plan to go, something happens that causes me not to go.

Best of luck David
~Dave