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| Hearsay: |
A Toronto printer cites tolerance differences between an author and their other clients, apparently mostly religious types, in their note turning down the business of printing his new graphic novel. The Torontoist has extensive coverage.
Local author Adam Bourret recently wrote a 126-page graphic novel, I’m Crazy. It’s autobiographical and, to quote his website, deals with “histories, secrets, obsessive compulsive disorder, drugs, gay romance, hallucinations and insanity.”
Though Bourret—the boyfriend of a Torontoist staff member—is serializing the novel online, he wanted to make a few hundred print copies. He approached Harmony Printing for an estimate, but it balked after looking at his sample pages:
Unfortunately due to the content I am going to have to respectfully decline. The reason is we have a lot of long standing clients who are religious organizations. They are in our facilities all of the time and cannot risk having this content out in the open during production. Please understand that this is not a slight against your artwork or the message that you are trying to convey to your audience. I wish you all the best and I hope you can understand our position.
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May 22nd, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I’m just wondering what those religious clients are doing wandering thru their facility all the time.
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:40 pm
It’s his right to turn away business, but it’s bad business to turn it away.
He’s making excuses for his own faint heart, perhaps. Either way, he’s a schmuck.
May 23rd, 2009 at 8:42 am
Paul is correct that it’s the printer’s right to not work with someone. I think the printer’s response was phrased properly and respectfully for what he was trying to say. We have 200 events a year at Aqua Books, and I always retain the right to decline the use of our space depending on my mood. (I mostly reject far-right religious groups, yogic flyers, and truly terrible self-published poets.)
May 26th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Agree with Kelly Hughes. This was handled professionally and inflamed because of a personal vendetta on the part of Torontoist, as the author is “the boyfriend of a Torontoist staff member”. Also, the writing must be great if it’s being serialized online and the author is shopping it around to self-publishers.
May 26th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Reactor: clearly poor work is the only reason anyone would choose to work that way. I mean, look at that hack Scott Kurtz!