©Neil Gaiman, all rights reserved.

The print run of 1000 copies of “Before You Read This,” my new print written by Neil Gaiman, were sent to him in two halves for his signature. While he was signing the first half, using, as he reported to me, “tanzanite” ink, which has a purple/blue color, I was still painting the moon and candle flames on the second half. While he was signing the second half, I was prepacking the first half into mailing tubes, 300 single copies, and 100 doubles. When Neil was sending back the second half, he emailed me that they were “signed–with tanzanite and a respectable pen until I got bored, when I changed to Pelikan brown ink and a 1922 Watermans flexnib pen.”

This was fine with me, I was just happy to have them signed. When I got the second half back I went through them and found about 300 were signed in brown. I decided not to announce this, though (except to my mailing list), for two reasons. One, if I did, some people would want to choose their color, and in the rush of orders I was expecting the first day, that would have been nearly impossible. Two, I had all those purple ones prepacked and needed to send them out first to anyone who just wanted one or two of these prints and nothing else.

For those on the mailing list, I told them if they were ordering other things WITH Neil’s print they could choose their color, and a small number did. Otherwise they got purple if they ordered one Neil print and other stuff, one of each color if they ordered two Neil prints and other stuff. I did the same with all the orders like that I received, so some of you may be getting a brown print, and now will know why.

As of tomorrow morning I am allowing each person to order up to FIVE of Neil’s prints. If you already have ordered one or two, you can reorder up to that number, and specify your signature colors. I will fill those requests as long as supplies last. I have roughly the same amount of each color at the moment.

Sandman ©DC Comics, Inc.

I’ve also printed a new batch of the “Library of Dream” print on the same pale gray paper as Neil’s print. If you order at this point you will get a gray one, at least until I print more.

Processed 48 more orders this evening. If I received yours by 7:20 AM Monday, my time, it will go out tomorrow. I should be caught up with orders by Saturday morning, and after that be able to turn them around within two days.