Elf~Fin: Hyfus & Tilaweed #1 Publication Date Announced

To our many readers who have been following us through our Facebook page or who have subscribed to our Black Mermaid Mermerings ezine, we thank you for your patience. 

Here is the information you've been waiting for for a long time – our target publication date for Elf~Fin: Hyfus & Tilaweed #1 is 1 May 2013. It will contain 48-pages (fully coloured) of story and eight supplemental pages of additional material.

We need your help in the decision-making process so we can get you what you want.

Here are our thoughts and intentions...

1. We would like to release the print series to a world-wide audience but need to go through Diamond Distributors to do so. There is quite a rigorous submission process involved in order for the title to be accepted, and we need to send in a completed comic book sample with the application. If Diamond takes on the book, then it would next need to be solicited to the retailers, In all likelihood, the book would probably not be available  until the fourth quarter of this year. We would probably get it printed in the USA or Canada and publish it on good quality stock in standard US comic book size. 
2. To get the book out immediately to our readers, we would like to release it in a Direct Exclusive Treasury Edition. This is a larger format than the standard US comic book size and measures around 13" (33cm) x 8.5" (21.5cm). It would be printed on premium quality glossy paper stock with glossy card cover, and would showcase Jozef's sumptuous artwork to its best advantage. It will contain exactly the same material as the standard book but is oversize and the retail price would be higher than the standard version. The postage from Australia would probably be quite high because we anticipate that the weight would exceed 500gm. Furthermore, any US readers would incur an additional surcharge of around $9 per parcel (yes, we know this is singularly unfair but blame the terrorists and the postal security system. See: "Postage Rates to US Rise Over Security Fears"). This means, that the postage to US readers would probably match or perhaps even exceed the purchase price of the book.

So with full disclosure and transparency and all this information in mind, we put it to you. What do you want? 

Here are your choices:

1. Purchase the standard comic book through a comics retailer
2. Purchase the Direct Exclusive Treasury Edition through the Black Mermaid Productions / Elf~Fin websites
3. Both.

Please vote on the poll in right hand column to give us your feedback. PLEASE ONLY vote once so we can get an accurate representation of demand and desire.

Thank you.