New member / Project focus shifting

Another Italian member has joined, welcome! Roster currently stands at 14.

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OK, I have not been updating this as much as I should, and I've been a bit slow in scanning what has come in. Thanks for your patience!

I think the time is right for a shift in the focus of that this project is trying to do. I'd like to bring it back to how it was originally envisioned: a lot of small contributions to provide the capital needed to make a big purchase that no individual scanner would be likely to purchase on their own.

The reason for this is twofold: the first being that I just can't find the time to scan all these books. While it's great to buy & scan bulk for the project, I have a lot of my own books that need scanning and editing. I have a limited amount of time during the week that I can devote to scanning, and I'm not the fastest scanner around. With the nicer weather coming, I'm even less inclined to spend the weekends cooped up indoors scanning! I've gotten help editing, and while that has been greatly appreciated, even the time it takes me to raw scan half a dozen books is starting to eat up too much time.

The second is that I just really want to see some of these bigger books done, and we've reached a goal I had in my head about what people could reasonably expect for their contribution.

I've always thought that if things went horribly wrong and everyone lost all their money, I'd want to at least ensure people got their money's worth. We are at the point where the project has almost completed processing 34 books, which is to say that everyone paid less than a dollar per scan. Even if there were a few scans you didn't need or want, generally it was a good deal for everyone involved. I think we've accomplished that, so now is the time to start taking bigger "risks" by buying higher-priced books.

So what I'm proposing is that I finish scanning the books I have left (I believe there are 7 books unscanned at the moment), sell all the Project books remaining (16 total), look at the cash we have left and buy one or two big books.

This also means there might be some people who might want to leave the project now, and that's OK. Everyone came together with the idea of accumulating westerns, and now that we are shifting away from that, some may not be interested in what we're working on. Anyone who wants to leave the project should let me know and I will refund their current portion of the kitty once the last of these books are sold. I just did some quick math, and making an assumption that we'd lose certain amount of money on each book, I'm estimating that each share in the project is worth about $19 right now. It will likely end up more than that, but I am working with pessimistic numbers to be safe.

I am considering a few books at the moment. Suggestions are always welcome. I'm looking at books that can be purchased right now, but if you have some ideas on other books we should look for, speak up.

The Witness 001 - one issue Timely, mystery/crime. I know of two copies, one at $350 and one at $325.

Adventures into Terror 043 (001) - first issue, a copy is available for $130.

Sun Girl 002 - last issue to complete this Timely run, a copy is available for $270.

Project #4: More Westerns

I bought more books for the project last week. I had updated the scan_project file but never posted to the blog. Here's what's new:

Two-Gun Kid 016 - received, scanned, Gambit editing
Two-Gun Kid 026 - received, scanned, Gambit editing
Two-Gun Kid 028 - received, scanned, Gambit editing
Ringo Kid 004 - received, scanned, Tomander editing
Apache Kid 005 - received, scanned, Tomander editing

Apache Kid 012 - received
War Comics 015 - received
Battle 029 - received

Rawhide Kid 003 - (still waiting)

Project #3: Random Westerns (update #4)

Blaze Carson 001 - received, scanned, posted
Blaze Carson 003 - received, scanned, posted
Outlaw Kid 007 - received, scanned, posted
Ringo Kid 008 - received, scanned, posted
Ringo Kid 019 - received, scanned, posted
Slim Morgan mini-comic - received, scanned, posted
Journey Into Mystery 065 - received, scanned, posted
Two-Gun-Kid 002 - received, scanned, posted

Western Outlaws & Sheriffs 067 - received, scanned, posted
Two-Gun Western (1st series) 010 - received, scanned, posted
Outlaw Kid 004 - received, scanned, posted

Blaze Carson 005 - received, scanned, Tomander editing

Patsy Walker 030 - received
Wyatt Earp 005 - received
Wyatt Earp 025 - received

Two Gun Western (1st series) 009 CDN - received, won't be scanned
Western Outlaws 017 - received, won't be scanned

Project #3: Random Westerns (update #3)

Sorry about the lack of updates, I've been swamped with work, but I did manage to put some time into this project this week:

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Blaze Carson 001 - received, scanned, posted
Blaze Carson 003 - received, scanned, posted
Outlaw Kid 007 - received, scanned, posted
Ringo Kid 008 - received, scanned, posted
Ringo Kid 019 - received, scanned, posted
Slim Morgan mini-comic - received, scanned, posted
Journey Into Mystery 065 - received, scanned, posted
Two-Gun-Kid 002 - received, scanned, posted

Outlaw Kid 004 - received, scanned, currently searching for a replacement cover
Western Outlaws & Sheriffs 067 - received, scanned, editing imminent
Two-Gun Western (1st series) 010 - received, scanned, editing imminent

Patsy Walker 030 - received
Wyatt Earp 005 - received
Wyatt Earp 025 - received

Blaze Carson 005 - (still waiting)

Two Gun Western (1st series) 009 CDN - received, won't be scanned
Western Outlaws 017 - received, won't be scanned
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Some notes: I pulled Two-Gun Western 10 from Project #2 and dropped it in here so I could close the other project out.

The three books which have been scanned but not posted are 90% complete; I've scanned and cropped them, I just need to run a color edit and they'll be posted this weekend. The Outlaw Kid 004 has a clipped cover. I thought I had a high quality cover replacement, but the one I have isn't that hot. I don't really want to, but I will post it this weekend with both covers-- the lower quality complete cover and the higher quality damaged cover. At some point down the road I will release a fixed version.

I haven't bought anything for the project because I hadn't scanned these books yet. I have about half of them listed on ebay this week (ending sunday), so we'll see how that goes.

I have been in touch with the seller of Blaze Carson 5, and he assures me it's in transit.

I hope to have the final 3 books scanned and edited this week.

Project #2: Random Westerns (update #4) COMPLETED

Project #2 status: COMPLETED

Tex Taylor 003 - received, scanned, distributed, SOLD
Two Gun Kid 005 - received, scanned, distributed, SOLD
Wild West 002 - received, scanned, distributed, SOLD
Rawhide Kid 004 - received, scanned, distributed, SOLD
Tex Taylor 007 - received, scanned, distributed, SOLD
Two-Gun Western (1st series) 010 - moved into project #3

Project #3: More Random Westerns (update #2)

A quick update:

Blaze Carson 001 - received
Blaze Carson 003 - received
Blaze Carson 005 - (still waiting)
Outlaw Kid 004 - received
Outlaw Kid 007 - received
Ringo Kid Western 008 - received
Ringo Kid 019 - received, scanned, Gambit editing
Slim Morgan mini-comic - received, scanned, posted
Western Outlaws & Sheriffs 067 - received
Wyatt Earp 025 - received
Journey Into Mystery 065 - received, scanned, posted
Patsy Walker 030 - received
Two-Gun-Kid 002 - received, scanned, posted

Two Gun Western (1st series) 009 CDN - received
Western Outlaws 017 - received
Wyatt Earp 005 - received

Some other stuff: if you had the 4shared page bookmarked, you'll have to bookmark it again, as I changed the page. Turns out the download hits we were getting were because 4shared automatically indexes the contents of shared folders for their search function. I received an email from some random guy who told me he loved the scans best of all the comics he found on 4shared. I did a few searches and found that other people were pulling our files and posting them on their 4shared spaces (search for "Pmack" or Rawhide Kid 015" to see what I mean). There is an option to turn the indexing off, which I did, but it's also likely that people had the old page bookmarked. All files have been moved to the new space; there's nothing different except if you happened to have the specific 4shared paged bookmarked.

As you can see from above, a few new files have been posted, including an update to the project and checklist files.

Project #3: More Random Westerns (update #1)

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been really busy these last few weeks with a big work project.

Here's the latest on this project:

Blaze Carson 1, received
Blaze Carson 3, received
Blaze Carson 5 (still waiting)
Outlaw Kid 4, received
Outlaw Kid 7, received
Ringo Kid Western 8, received
Ringo Kid Western 19 (still waiting)
Slim Morgan Brings Justice to Mesa City mini-comic (still waiting)
Two Gun Western (1st series) 9, received
Western Outlaws 17 (still waiting)
Western Outlaws & Sherrifs 67 (still waiting)
Wyatt Earp 5, received
Wyatt Earp 25 (still waiting)
Journey Into Mystery 65, received
Patsy Walker 30 (still waiting)

I kind of made a hash of this batch of books, sorry. Turns out Western Outlaws 017 has already been scanned, Wyatt Earp 005 has been scanned and posted this past week (although I am going to rescan it), and the Two Gun Western 010 I bought a few weeks ago turned out to be the Canadian version of TGW 009 which I bought last week. Details of the book are contained in the update post for Project #2.

I haven't gotten a chance to scan any of the books yet (the Blaze Carsons will be particularly difficult since they have taped and restapled spines), but hope to do so this week. Raws will be made available and I'll post when they are ready.

Also, check out the updated scan_project excel file, we made a (small) profit selling this week's books! Huzzah!