Every year, Take Control Books releases two ebooks early about Apple’s upcoming operating systems, and year is no different!* Joe Kissell’s Take Control of Tahoe (macOS 26) and my Take Control of iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 have just shipped! Even though those operating systems are still in beta te| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
Glenn Fleishman blogs about technology, science, and more. He contributes regularly to Macworld, Wired’s Backchannel, and Fast Company.| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
The second edition of Six Centuries of Type & Printing is shipping! This revised edition contains numerous updates from the last few years of my printing research through site visits and primary document reading. Produced by Hemlock Printers in Canada, it’s offset printed (making it far more affordable than the previous letterpress edition), and bound in green cloth with foil stamping on the cover and spine, and a cheery red set of endpapers. The book is 64 pages in print, bundled with an e...| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
If you’d like a signed copy of How Comics Are Made, including an optional inscription, I’ve made this available in my store.| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
Exciting day for me: the release of the bookstore edition of How Comics Are Made! Over the last few months, I’ve solicited and collected quotes from artists, writers, readers, and others about their reaction to the book. If you’re curious about whether it’s for you, these might help! (You can download to read as a PDF, too.)| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
In advance of the June 3 release date of How Comics Are Made, a new printing of my 2024 book, Rebekah Denn interviewed me for The Seattle Times about how the book came to be and my interests! It’s exciting to appear in the local newspaper. Andrews McMeel Publishing acquired the book last year after I shipped my edition, and as happy as I was with the printing I arranged and oversaw, I am equally squealing over this edition—mine was a softcover with french flaps; the new one is hardcover w...| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
Cover of How Comics Are Made, the Andrews McMeel Publishing edition Last year, I published How Comics Were Made, a look at the whole process from an newspaper cartoonist’s hands to the printed page, under my own imprint after a very successful Kickstarter campaign. It sold well over 2,000 copies, and the whole process was delightful. After the Kickstarter campaign, Andrews McMeel Publishing was in touch about acquiring future printings and editions. My self-published version sold out in Mar...| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
This week I made two big changes in my career that I’m happy to share. First, I’ve taken the title of Executive Editor at Take Control Books, a publisher I’ve worked with from their launch in 2003 by Adam and Tonya Engst and since 2017 for Joe Kissell and Morgen Jahnke. Over that time, I’ve written so many titles I can’t remember them all, partly because of updates, mergers, and splits of books into new works. As executive editor, I will take on more editorial responsibility, partic...| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
I appear on the latest episode of John “Daring Fireball” Gruber’s The Talk Show podcast. John and I talked tariffs, hegemony and colonialism, and mother loving iPhones on mother loving cargo planes. Also about typesetting, printing, and crowdfunding.| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
Kickstarter has had long periods in which it has changed little about how to build, run, and manage post-campaign details. These lulls have been punctuated with major changes. When I got ready to launch the campaign for Six Centuries of Type & Printing earlier this year, I noticed that the company had added and tweaked lots of features. Some may have been in place for a year or more, but I believe only one was available when I launched How Comics Were Made in February 2024. I started using Ki...| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
Update!The goal of $35,000 was reached on April 16 and the project finished far above its target, with three stretch goals unlocked for extra things (an audiobook, extra ebook, and custom bookmarks) for existing reward tiers. You can still get in on the campaign via Late Pledges, a Kickstarter feature to enable additional support/quasi-preordering. I am entering the last week of crowdfunding for the new, affordable edition of Six Centuries of Type & Printing, my look at technological evolutio...| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
My publisher, Andrews McMeel, just sent me a few advance copies of the upcoming bookstore edition of How Comics Are Made, which hits the shelves June 3, 2025. I did a modest unboxing so you can see the new cover components and the great job their printer did on this mass-market edition. I’m quite pleased in every regard! You can snag a copy ahead of time by pre-ordering from many fine bookstores of all sizes. I’ve provided a list of pre-order links for a range of from local stores up to i...| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
Update April 2, 2025, and noted where that’s the case. I didn’t set out to print books in Canada to stake out a political position, although it’s indirectly become that. A few years ago, when I was obtaining bids for my client-author Marcin Wichary (Shift Happens) to print his books, we checked in with Hemlock Printers in Burnaby, B.C., Canada (adjacent to Vancouver). This was 2021 and then 2022. The Canadian border had been closed for a while. The future of the COVID pandemic’s direc...| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
Today, I launched a Kickstarter campaign for a second edition of Six Centuries of Type & Printing. The book briskly tells the story across 64 pages of the evolution of type and printing, starting with early documented efforts and surviving artifacts from China and Korea, and introducing Gutenberg and his innovations. It then takes you through each generation of increasing sophistication in metal and relief printing until the abrupt 20th century shift into flat offset printing, which was made ...| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
My currently active titles. An extended Pi Day sale is currently underway at Take Control Books, an ebook publisher where I have nine active titles. You get 31.4% off all titles; if you own existing books, that discount applies to upgrade pricing, too! No coupon is needed, and the sale lasts until Monday night. How Comics Are Made, coming June 3, 2025 Last week, I finished out sales of my 2024 book How Comics Were Made, a look at the history of newspaper comics production and reproduction. Th...| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
I’ll be presenting two online talks in early February derived from my research for How Comics Were Made. Both talks are free to attend—one will be recorded and have a more general bent; the other, live only and more academic in focus. Both require advance registration to receive the information needed to watch. (Updated with link to recorded Feb. 4 talk.) February 4: Newspaper Comics Production in the Era of Mechanical Perfection Watch the recorded video of “Newspaper Comics Production ...| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
Update, February 2025: There’s now a coupon-less discount on the website—click the link below to see it. A couple of weeks ago, I began offering a 10% discount off the print edition of How Comics Were Made, my comics history book that traces cartoons from an artist’s hand to the printed newspaper page—or digital display. This was partly as a post-holiday sale, and partly out of the concern the incoming administration would impose tariffs on all goods entering from Canada, where my boo...| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
Every year, I like to recap what I did professionally in the previous one. This year built on work and events already planned and in progress, so I have less to report in volume despite having a quite busy twelve months. Cover of How Comics Were Made How Comics Were (and Are) Made The most significant thing I did in 2024 was to crowdfund and publish How Comics Were Made, my book digging into the production and reproduction of newspaper comics from the 1890s to the present. I took the book to ...| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
In the latest in what feels like a surreal sequence of events in my working life, my name appears prominently multiple times in an essay in the just-released issue of the New York Review of Books. The foreword that Michael Chabon wrote for How Comics Were Made was picked up by the NYRB as a standalone essay for its Holiday Issue, which is already online. (You can register at no cost to read a single article.) I thought the foreword might be rewritten a bit to detach the context from my book. ...| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
The Take Control Books Black Friday to Cyber Monday sale is still underway, with 50%-off discounts available for 24 books in their catalog, including seven of my actively updated titles! View the whole catalog via this link. My seven books currently on sale for 50% off! The sale lasts through Tuesday, December 2, at 11:59 pm CST.| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
Wait, tense as in the time indicated by the verb—not as in the action! My book How Comics Were Made has been acquired by Andrews McMeel Publishing and will be issued in a second printing, shipping in June 2025. My Kickstarter edition—which remains for sale while copies last—is a laminated softcover with French flaps. The Andrews McMeel retail version will be a hardcover with a dust jacket—a nice contrast. It will also be sold under the name How Comics Are Made with a refreshed cover t...| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
When I started working on How Comics Were Made in 2023, I realized quickly that there were a lot of people I would want to thank later. I started taking notes. Those notes eventually led to nearly two full pages in the completed book in the smallest legible type I could manage. So many people offe| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
Glenn Fleishman blogs about technology, science, and more. He contributes regularly to Macworld, Wired’s Backchannel, and Fast Company.| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
This post updated with information about 8chan on December 16. Note: On December 21, Patreon updated its guidelines for creators. We have yet to see precisely how they will apply them, but it is likely that the three examples below will be warned or banned. Update: On January 5,| Glenn Fleishman interrogates the past
