I'll tell you what...if we come back and they're all slaughtered, I owe you a Coke.

[dolari]

One of the things about (1) being poor and (2) finally having money, but bills that wipe out 80% the paycheck, is the reliance of hand me downs.

My sister had a Deskjet 722c printer that she never used, and when she got her laptop, she tossed it completely. I inherited it from the trash, cleaned it up, put in new cartridges a few weeks ago in preparation for the fest, and everything was working fine.

This morning, I set up all my prints to print out, and ran off to do some errands. When I got back, I was pleasantly surprised to see they had all printed. And then I flipped through them, and noticed the further along in the print, the less yellow was in each print. It didn't hurt many of the pictures...the last two prints were the most affected, the Abaddon/Hanna print has a purple cast to it, the Hanna/Han'a print came out very badly because the gradient was streaked with yellow, and finally the print of the actual book cover came out dingy grey.

Thankfully, HP has these neat little faqs online, and they narrowed down my problem mightly quickly - clogged nozzled on the card. I followed their directions to the T, even this one, which I wasn't too keen on - using a moist cotton swab to clean electrical contacts. Water and electronics are a REALLY bad idea. But HP says to do it. So I did.

I waited TEN minutes for it to dry instead of just five. I went to print a test page...heard the head get into position...then it turned off...then I smelled the familiar smell of burned electronics.

RIP
HP Deskjet 722C
1997-2006

That's a scanner, camera and printer, all replaced in a few months. This is getting expensive.

The whole idea of printing it myself was that I'm out of money. For the paper fiasco and the cutter, I seriously ate into the money I saved for rent and bills. I could go to Kinko's direct the print job myself, but all my money is spent. I have no more. And with only one day off between this very second and the Comics & Zine Fest, the preview book is cancelled. Enjoy your PDFs.

And before any of you volunteer to print the books for me, know that I'm a total control freak when it comes to printing, would want to sit in front of your inkjet printers myself to check the paper quality, and will loudly complain if they're not up to snuff. I mean, today, I went out for errands while printing, and look what happened.

You know, all my attempts to make money off these comics have failed specacularly. The most "successful" thing I've done is make those posters which netted me a grand total of $1 in profit. Maybe I just need to get straight back into the comics, and stop trying to make money with it. Get back into the spirit I started with: "Just draw."

Next paycheck - new printer. At least I still have some Trinoc CDs and Trinoc prints to make up for the non-yellowed prints. Anyone want the preview book covers? They came out fine....

What a waste....

Comments

[soltice.livejournal.com]

Aw, crap.
*sends a memo to the Universe to stop with all the ass-kicking already*

[jenndolari.livejournal.com]

Last time I did that, I sold two of ten originals. They went for $5.

After the Comics and Zine fest, I'm giving them all away, including the one poster I have left. After that, nothing more.

[faerie-gift.livejournal.com]

*huge hugs*

I think LJ ate my last comment. Sorry if this is a repeat.

[chrysalis.livejournal.com]

It really sucks that you couldn't make this work.

Even though you're having issues making money, at least you're making people happy.

[audaciousd.livejournal.com]

Try Big Lots, Goodwill, or Craigslist for a free or cheap printer? It may not be top-of-the-line, but neither was the one you'd salvaged from the garbage. :)

Slurm. Ride the Walrus.