Calling the Grammar Police
Hard to believe, but my book The Mad Art of Caricature!- A Serious Guide to Drawing Funny Faces already needs to do a second printing. This is not going to be a second edition . . . there won’t be any new material added. It is merely a second run of the original book.
That said, I do have an opportunity here to correct a few of the stray typos and errors that snuck past my copy editors and myself the first time around. Believe me, the fact that these errors are so few and far between is a testament to the hard work and expert knowledge of my editor (and damn good caricaturist) Celestia Ward and the additional input of Emily Anthony, also a terrific caricaturist. One thing Celestia told me right away . . . there is no such thing as a perfect book. No matter how many eyes you have looking it over, something will always slip through. I have found a (very) few so far, mostly misspellings that got past editors and spell-checkers both. These will be corrected, as well as a quote on page two that will now be properly attributed to John Kascht.
To this end, I thought I’d appeal to the thousands of people who have gotten a copy of the book…here’s your chance to play grammar cop. If anyone has noticed any typos or misspellings, please email me privately and let me know. Please don’t use the comments here. Send me a personal email.
Oh . . . and thanks to everyone who has ordered a copy and helped me to sell out the first run. That is awesome…I am so glad so many people are getting something from the book!
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I love this book ! It’s been great at correcting my bad habits I’ve developed. Like a pitcher/hitter in baseball,QB in football etc. who all have coaches to work on their mechanics and starting from basics. I’m trying to do the individual teeth-especially during live caricature gigs. I was one of those who made the teeth a white space unless subjects had the big gap in front.
Tom’s an awesome drawing coach and in book form always there to help you out of your creating-execution slump.
No surprise you’re in your 2nd printing Coach Tom and congratulations on that success mark. Well deserved !
Tom,
Just curious about a little behind the scenes. Did you track your sales percentages via your website versus Amazon and other sources? Probably not interesting to a lot of folks but I remember you bringing up the inclusion of Amazon into your sales and was wondering if they pushed you to the second run.
Love the book by the way,
Doug
The vast majority of sales of the initial print were direct sales, but that’s because of pre-sales and a big run in October/November after it was released and because it was not available anywhere else. For a while I was going to the post office every day with boxes full of packages. After sales started to cool off, I listed the book on Amazon in November. In November and December, direct sales still beat sales on Amazon. However, as the book climbed in the Amazon search engine, sales picked up. The last two months, more copies were sold on Amazon than I sold direct, and I am still doing a decent number of direct sales. So, yes, Amazon’s sales activity definitely got me to the reprint point faster than otherwise.
Zoo dat meens wii R learnning et hall grong?
I have not gotten through the whole book yet, so I have not really noticed any typos. On that note, I must again say thank you for writing this book! From what I have seen and read so far, I am redoing a toon of a model friend that I had been having a hard time with lately. The inspiration provided by the book has helped with that.
hey tom you could add a little key up the top left and top right corner … of a face … which has bits colored and grey … so if it is the eyes section, the head would be all grey except colored eyes… if its nose, all grey except nose.
Might make it easier flicking through the book?
Can’t do that. That would entail revising every page and that would mean a totally new set of films and set up costs. This is just a second printing, not a revision.
Hey Tom, we all love typo’s etc it just means we that have them got in there first and have a “special edition”. The book is great it is never far from me whenever I am drawing , sketching . Great to hear it sold out well done.
Tom, I just want to thank you for sharing your knowledge. The book was not only a great investment for me as an artist, but it is also a wonderfully entertaining and beautiful book.
I know you will deflect the praise, but you put a lot of hard work and care into your art and your fans appreciate it. I have always been a fan of the “Mad Style” of art, and being able to have a peek at your processes, tips, techniques (not to mention a place to interact with you) is fabulous. I wish you nothing but the best in the future.
Keep those printings coming!
Tom,
Thanks for publishing your book.
I wanted to learn how to draw caricatures since I was a kid, but never found somebody to teach me. I took some painting classes, but I got out after painting fruit on a table for a couple of months. Now I am 32 and I am glad I have found what I have been looking for all those years. So thanks for sharing your ideas about drawing caricatures.
(on a related note, could you add a little bit on this forum about the dimensions of the hands and body? How big should they big in relation to the head?)
Carlos
Well, he already said this is not a revision, but maybe he could do a blog post on it. I was kinda hoping the book would go a bit more into this myself, despite being focused on faces.