Thieves & Kings is under attack! --Or at least that's how it's been feeling all this year. Other than the actual writing process itself, I've not described any of the challenges I've had to overcome. But this latest is just too much. A truck accident!

I don't know if anybody was hurt, and I very much hope not. --The printing plant informed me early today, (Monday the 29th) that one of the rigs hauling print jobs went off the road and that all the cargo aboard had been ruined, including The Winter Book. It and many other books are going back to press at once. Luckily, the plates for the 5th volume are still fresh and I have been told that the book will now be shipped on the 7th of December. I'd been planning to have the book available more than a week ago. That plan clearly didn't work out.

So now it really doesn't look very likely that the 5th volume will be here in time to fill Holliday gift orders. I just wanted to let you all know that in advance. The best I can offer is to have packages arrive about a week after the holidays. I hope people will still want to order the book.

This is all very curious to me. . . For instance, with the rapidly dropping U.S. dollar, the book has already lost nearly a thousand dollars in value without even having shipped. With possible U.S./Canadian border and trade restrictions on the horizon, I suspect that things are likely become more difficult.

--Also, in the last two weeks, the Canadian tax department dropped -another- bombshell. Small business, particularly publishers in Canada really get a raw deal from their government. --Among numerous problems, small pressers are required to pay income tax up front on books when they are printed rather than when they actually sell. For small press publishers who print thousands of books which then sell slowly over the course of several years, who don't press in quantities where it is economical to liquidate stock at year end, this can hurt. --I actually had an income tax officer threaten me last week with legal action if I didn't comply with her instructions. I was actually instructed to take out a bank loan in order to pay tax on income which I have not yet even made. I had objections to this for several reasons but the tax officer wasn't willing, (or able?) to discuss the issue in any sort of rational frame work. --Which is not surprising perhaps for somebody whose own salary is derived from exactly this kind of coercive action. The conversation didn't go anywhere.

I hung up and researched my rights, and quickly learned that I didn't have any. I read also a number of frustrating stories about people being powerless in the face of government agencies which did not have their best interests at heart. --About single mothers having their entire paychecks snapped up by the tax department -as well as having their overdraft protection maxed out- without permission in order to pay so-called, 'tax debts'. I read about people having their assets seized and auctioned off for small-change and all of that lovely stuff. --And a shocking amount of it without the proper legal processes being respected. There are judgments and papers and due procedures which are supposed to be followed, but it seems that in many cases these check points are ignored by low-level bureaucrats who don't know the law, (which wouldn't surprise me given some of the people I've dealt with in government offices), --or worse, bureaucrats of little conscience who know that single mothers don't have the resources or know-how to oppose illegal and immoral actions. Those who have the power to challenge governments are already wealthy enough not to have to worry about next rent payments. Or meals. Not everybody is so lucky. --I've actually seen this sort of thing happen when various government departments have lied and cheated and hurt people I know without repercussion. This is all stuff one does not normally associate with the Canada, but there it is. --I also learned that on parliament hill, numerous high ranking politicians a few months back granted themselves raises so that they are each now making over $100,000 a year without any oversight or possible way for the public to tell them, 'No'. I also learned that Paul Martin, our Prime Minister has yet to pay any tax himself on the millions of dollars he made while working in banking and insurance prior to becoming Canada's leader. Shameful!

Governments are supposed to protect people, to serve their best interests. Instead we have corrupt jail systems. We have corrupt educational systems. We have corrupt food and drug oversight systems. --Did you know that Flu Shots, and indeed many vaccination shots promoted by the government actually contain toxic levels of mercury? It's true! I grow more convinced as the years pass that governments do not exist to help people, but to bleed and control them. To keep them locked within certain set bounds.

So I sighed deeply and did what the government told me to do. I scraped together a loan and felt cowardly, and muttered words like, "Fascism". And heck, I felt downright hypocritical!

Rubel would have just shrugged and hiked off into the forest. --Which is actually not far off from a real option out here in Nova Scotia where it's entirely possible to live off the grid, as they say. The only thing is that if one wants to make comics, one is stuck having to play 'by the rules'. Bah.

Okay. Enough complaining. I hate when I do that, and I apologize, but right now writing this down is a relief.

Whatever happens, the 5th TPB WILL exist even if I have to go and press them myself and carry them home on my back!

Stay tuned.  

(November 2nd) T&K Issue #45 is now available!

This issue has seen a ridiculous number of delays, stemming entirely from my re-writing the script over and over again. --Its pages comprise the final chapter of the upcoming 5th TPB, the most important chapter, some would say, and I wanted to get it right.

Now, I don't want to make my job sound any more difficult than anybody else's, but in this instance, I found myself juggling numerous possible story realities and most of them, while filled with plenty of dramatic poise, were resoundingly bleak and sad. I won't even go into some of the scenarios which I thought at various times were the, 'right' answers and which I actually started drawing more than once. Those are story variations I am very glad I will not have to put Rubel, Heath, Soracia or any of the others through!

Finding the right path, one which would be uplifting and which would carry the spirit of what T&K is all about, and yet still contain the next honest steps in the story was a task that was driving me out of my mind for weeks! This was easily the most difficult comic I've ever had to write. Interestingly, various real-life problems and the solutions I was forced to come up with turned out to be very instructive in how to solve the problem of issue #45.

Mark Oakley
November, 2004
Wolfville, Nova Scotia