Return of the SPEY

Will there also be a postal worker deterrent to prevent our SPEYs from being opened and plundered for their monotreme buttons?

-Chris "perhaps Phillip has a spray for that" Combs

To keep on theme, will there be a Speyside whiskey included? I usually prefer the Islay product, myself. I don't care if you put some sort of Goats sticker on the bottle, as long as it is some sweet single malt.

In Response to deerboy (#9783):

That's an excellent idea. If we start now, I bet we can have a really nice end-of-year package for 2018.

In Response to jon (#9784):

12 years isn't *really* enough time. It takes Glenlivet at least 15 to get anything more than 'drinkable'.

I'll look for a bottle in my 2021 or 2022 package.

In Response to zamphir (#9785):

Uh... hm. Is 2003 + 15 not equal to 2018 anymore?
'Cause I must have missed that memo.

In Response to jon (#9787):

Sorry.

I left my brain in my other pants.

In Response to zamphir (#9788):

Nothing quite as tasty as slam-dunking a pedant.

In Response to jon (#9789):

I'm not actually a pedant.

I just play one on the Internet.

Out of curiosity, how many Super Premies are there now? I'm wondering if that number has gotten big enough that doing the individual character sketches for each of us is now too large of a task to be reasonable.

I thought the Toothgnip Zen tshirt and Siobain character sketch (now framed and on my wall) were the best parts of last year's SPEY package, and I was very much looking forward to choosing another character sketch this year. There was something special about a unique sketch that made Super Premie-ness seem much more personal between Jon and the SP's: more 'patron of the arts', and less 'buying extra goats merchandise', I think.

Certainly this year's package seems quite good and I'm particularly looking forward to the full-color mini-comic, but I wonder if there might not be a way to re-introduce a more personal element next year?

Of course as I write this, I'm realizing that the Gocco Print maintains a hand-made element in the package. However, since I'm unfamiliar with the technique I don't know what the effective differences between a Gocco Print and a high-end color laser print might be, aside from the one-at-a-time loading of paper for the Gocoo.

In Response to bnagy (#9796):

We've got about 120 Super-Preemies at the moment. It was a bit less last year, around 100, but even that was more than I had anticipated. Doing the character sketches was absolute hell -- fun, but difficult and draining. And it took up an impossible amount of time.

We agree with you completely -- our intention was always to have something hand-made and personal included every year we sent these out. But the sketches are simply too much work for me.

So, we went with the Gocco prints, which are handmade individually using the Gocco kit I picked up a few weeks ago. I still don't understand the process completely, but luckily my wife is a super-skilled printmaker, so she's going to be holding my hand during the process. Apparently she ran into this type of printmaking while she was living in Japan -- it seems lots of folks over there hand-print holiday cards and such in this fashion.

Technically, if anything, these are more personal than the sketches since they're handmade by twice as many people. Yes. And the prints I've seen are all really cool -- it's much more like a silkscreen process than a laser printer. I'm going to sign and number all of them, and it will be a closed, limited edition (probably to 150 or so; we'll see how many people sign up between now and then).

Personally, I'm really excited for them. However, I'll make you a deal -- if you don't like it, you can send it back to me in exchange for a hand-drawn sketch. Cool?

In Response to jon (#9799):

That deal sounds fine, but given your description of and enthusiasum for the Goccos I am expecting they will be quite cool indeed and I look forward to seeing them.

Thanks for taking the time to expound a bit on all this. :)

In Response to bnagy (#9807):

your description of and enthusiasum for the Goccos I am expecting they will be quite cool indeed
Yeah, I'm not really too familiar with the prints either, but it sounds like they're really going to kick some ass.