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Sunday, September 15, 2024

First issue of 'Tale of Illuminatus' released


The paper version of the first issue of Tales of Illuminatus will be mailed out shortly to people who backed it on Kickstarter, but the digital version is out. Bobby Campbell posted the digital version Saturday night on the Kickstarter page,  so if you backed it, you should have a link for downloading it. 

It's a big PDF file, about 186 megabytes, and it comes out to 44 pages. I wanted to look at it on a big screen, so I used my laptop. I sat up late when I knew I wouldn't be interrupted and read all of it. 

It's a really fine adaptation, faithful yet imaginative. I wish Wilson and Shea were alive to see it. Bobby and his artistic partner, Todd Purse (who so far is handling the George Dorn storyline) are following the text but also taking advantage of the comics medium. When I told Bobby that, he mentioned, "I was really pleased with how everything came together, esp with the transition into Todd’s George Dorn stuff."

Bobby is attending the Small Press Expo this weekend in Rockville, Maryland, and he reports that sales and  interest have been strong. 

"It's been a great day, the reaction has been very favorable, sold about half the initial print run on the first day :)))," he said. "The show has gone really well so far, a lot of people with either an enthusiastic memory of reading Illuminatus! Or a vague enough awareness of its presence in pop culture, or RAW, or Discordianism that they’ll let me talk them into giving it a try."

If you paid for the print edition, confirm your address with Kickstarter if you haven't done so already; you should have received an email. 


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