Tonight I met with long-time CdC contributor Mike Thompson and cinephile/proofreader extraordinare Lori Higgins to discuss possibilities of a book version of Cashiers du Cinemart which would collect the "best" articles out of the last fifteen issues/fourteen years.
It was an interesting experience. I printed out a six page spreadsheet with the names and authors of every article that's been in CdC (and online-only articles, too). We had only a few groundrules going in with the biggest being: "No reprinting of articles of people who have fallen off the face of the Earth or who will give me a hard time." Otherwise, we tried to keep some themes in mind as pillars—STAR WARS, PLANET OF THE APES, Quentin Tarantino, overlooked films, interviews, unproduced screenplays, and alternate versions—and then anything else that caught our fancy. I killed most, if not all, of the book, music, and zine reviews.
I decimated a lot of the early issues, knowing that my writing back then was at its weakest (that's not to say that it's strong now). Mike had an interesting idea about the early pieces, however. He's asking that I not rewrite them in order to show some of the evolution of the magazine. Otherwise, I'd be rewriting a lot of things from the ground up. I'll already be combining and rewriting quite a lot of stuff. I also will be pulling out a few nuggets for pieces that I've been meaning to expand as well as doing some follow-ups to things that need updates.
In short, there's a lot of work ahead but it'll be a labor of love.
4 comments:
Are you planning to self-publish or shop the book around? I can feel your pain with this project as I'm currently doing the same thing with my two zines, though I made the decision to rework some of the early stuff... reading some of it now is downright PAINFUL!
Good luck with the project and I'll surely buy a copy when it comes out. A lot of my CASHIERS back issues have come and gone over the years.
I doubt anyone would bite if I shopped these around but I might try it, for shits and giggles. But the plan is to do self-publishing/publishing-on-demand with the biggest caveat being "I don't care if this makes money, I just don't want to lose money."
I think it's a great idea, and you could probably find someone to put it out so you don't have to do it all yourself. It'd be a good time capsule for the days before the internet changed everything, and then some.
If anyone knows how to go about getting this published/distributed by someone else... my ears are open!
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