r.i.p "fred 42"

May 10, 2008

I’m sad to report the premature death of my good friend, “Fred 42”.
This happened earlier today, when my pen exploded.
It happens.
All is not lost. I already have a New Evil Plan. Hurrah! I’ll let you see it when it’s ready.
I spent about twenty minutes being really bummed, then said, “To Hell with it. “Fred 43″ will be EVEN BETTER.”
It’s all good…

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Robin Blandford

16 years ago

Bet Fred 42 sells for more than Fred43.

Tim (@Twalk) Walker

16 years ago

Hemingway lost a satchel by leaving it in a Paris taxi. The bag was full of story drafts for which he had no other copies. One of his more senior writer friends (I forget which French writer this was) told him not to worry about it; rewrite the stories from what he remembered, and likely he’d remember the best parts, so that the stories would turn out even better.
So, yes, expect Fred 43 to rock the Casbah . . .

Rodrigo

16 years ago

I don’t see the problem at all. Great work. There is something in your art–do you mind me calling your cartoons art?!–that capture my imagination.
When are you going to try colour?

Mike

16 years ago

> rewrite the stories from what he remembered, and
> likely he’d remember the best parts, so that the
> stories would turn out even better.
That usually works for tweets too. Sometimes when I am struggling to distill something down to 140 the browser refreshes for some reason or another and I lose what I was writing. Then when I enter what I remembered, it magically fits in the character limit.

16 years ago

I’ll echo Robin’s comment: I bet it does sell for more. Why? It has a great artist story behind it: sweat and toil for days, almost-near vision perfection being reached near the end, and then BLAM! The pen explodes!
Disappointment. Anger. Frustration. Loss. Mourning. Growth. Renewel. A new beginning. And that’s where the truly great art is made — out of the ashes comes the phoenix!
Never toss the mistakes. Put them in the vault. Auction them off later as the catalysts for your other great pieces after they sell. This is a part of your personal art history.
Do you know the book “How to Survive and Prosper as an Artist” by Caroll Michels? You knows so much about sales and marketing already that much of it might be a repeat of what you know. But it might be worth a skim — it has some very practical gems.