Posted In: comic

Sorry for the filler. I’ve been so incredibly angry the last few days that I haven’t been able to get anything done at all. I finally calmed down tonight, partially by channeling my rage into this comic.

The short story? After getting ripped off by my long time book printer ICGEEKS I took the Modest Medusa Coloring Book job to a company called Moxicopy, a print company boasting a 3 day turn around time and free shipping. They were recommended by a friend of a friend. It turns out they’re the worst printer I’ve dealt with in my 10 years of small press publishing. As of last Thursday afternoon (a full week after my initial order and a day after the project should have shipped) they still hadn’t started the job.When I asked them to rush the order and offered to pay for 2 day FedEx shipping (as opposed to their free shipping). I was told that they wouldn’t be able to start the job until next week, and that it would probably take at least 5 days. And that if I wanted a rush (to get the job completed 3-5 days after it was supposed to ship) I’d have to pay an additional fee, and even than I shouldn’t expect to see the books till after Christmas… or possibly after New Years. I was than told this was my fault because I had apparently filled out part of the submission form incorrectly. They later told me that they had figured out the problem immediately, but since they assumed I was too stupid to understand the process and terminology they decided not to make me aware of the problem and instead put the whole project on hold until the day the books were supposed to ship. After hearing all this I requested a refund, but I have yet to hear back from anyone at the company. EDIT: It looks like I missed a bit of the last email they sent where they state they will refund my money. They haven’t yet, and I haven’t heard back from them since Thursday, but I’ll wait till Monday to see if they follow up.

Yes, that’s the short version. The long version is soooooooooo much worse.

The horrible part of this is that I promised that the Modest Medusa Coloring Book would ship in time for Christmas. That won’t happen now, and it is totally my fault. When my first printer took my money and vanished… well, that kind of stuff happens. We raised some extra money with the Kickstarter, so I could still afford to find a new printer to do the book. But I didn’t do my research like I should have, and I didn’t go to another printer that I trusted. Instead I took the recommendation of a friend of a friend and ended up doing business with a super unprofessional printer with an amazingly bad reputation. How bad? Here’s some quotes from Yelp:

“Dear Goodness, This company is SO bad!  Do yourself a favor and click on the filtered reviews because there are over 10 horror stories filtered out!  They should have only 1 star!  Trust me AVOID.  The service was non existent and it seems the quality is horrible! ”

“Moxicopy is both cheap and shady.  I will never print with them again, and I suggest you explore other options as well.”

“DO NOT USE MOXIE! If you want no customer service, an order that may or may not show up in 3-4 weeks when it should only take a week at the most, and no hardcopy proof… then go for it. My experience was horrible.”

And that’s just a few. There are a lot more. So this is my fault. I feel sick over it. I’ll be sending a message to Kickstarter contributors later today but the short of it is that I won’t be able to print and deliver this Coloring Book in time for Christmas. I’m still looking into my options to get the project printed and in the mail as soon as possible, but Christmas just won’t happen unless I can find a local printer that can do the job (I am looking).

Rage.