The Gang

What more could there possibly be?  I had a great weekend of sun and quiet contemplation of things ahead.

I reviewed some video and determined I need a few fixed, meditative (the Euro influence) shots to allow my movie moments of varied pacing and breadth.

We do not want a video made up entirely of obviation and intransigence, do we?  Of course not.  We seek variety and tone-depth.

Now, to think of and compose those images.  Hmmmm....

Here at Round Bend we don't have an art department per se, unless you label that freak Buddy Dooley an artist.  RBP contributors are encouraged to submit their projects whole, i.e., with cover and text designs of their own making and a commitment to what they envision.

I am the designer of record for my books and a few others, but any time a writer or artist can do it on his own he'll have my blessing.

Mr. K.C. Bacon, whose Moon Over New Rotterdam will appear here next month, is a case in point.  Tired of what RBP offers in the way of design tools and imagination, he's found help.  Good help.

I've seen a mock up of the book's cover, and it is a winner.

I think back to other contributors who have seized the moment.  Mr. Charles Deemer turned to his wife, the artist Harriet Levy, for the cover of his Sodom, Gomorrah & Jones.  Nice.

Bill Deemer used his own clever drawing of a man with his head in the clouds for Variations. Also nice.

Consider what RBP really is.  It is not a publishing house in reality, of course.  The books go to big-boy printing outfits whose toes are dipped in several aspects of the publishing business.  Lulu will give you a design for a few extra bucks, for instance.

But I don't want to talk to their representatives.  They're salespeople selling a chunk of the publishing dream that I'm not interested in.  I have nothing against fancy-dancy covers and fonts, etc.  It's just that RBP isn't in a position to pay for them.

I've never used that big-boy application and never will.  I've settled for what some might consider mediocre covers and overall design, but at the time I made those editions I was working with the resources at hand--that is few and next to none.  And my own brain, such as it is.

To the point:  Round Bend Press is simply a platform, a website that has coalesced a handful of artists under a thematic umbrella.  They are free to submit their projects as they see them, using their own resources to their fullest advantage.

RBP has but one advantage.  It appears to be a gang.

A peaceful gang.

More to the point:  The writers and artists associated with RBP give it their all.  It's a very simple concept  And it works.


TS