There's a new machine out there that makes 'em. you just bring a picture and they'll blow it up and make it into a poster! (Though, it costs an extra $15 to get it laminated, but who'd be dumb enough to make a one of a kind poster and not have it laminated?) 

So I figured, Hey! I could have one of those made up with my logo on it, and I could take it with me to conventions. Then I'd look like an actual, professional publishing house! Only $75? What a deal! 

Of course, the image you start with has to fit on an 8 1/2" x 11" computer scanner. And the image I wanted to use was. ., bigger. And the way to fix that is to have a transparency made of it. -Sort of like a big slide. Only $58. 

Mind you, that's for a 4" x 5" slide, which is fine for a Comic book cover, but a bit small for a poster. I mean, you could use it, but do you really want to sacrifice the quality? Heck no! After all, it's only an extra $46 to get an 8" x 10" done, and hey, you're only doing it once! -Assuming, of course, the guys at the graphics lab shoot it right. Which, in my case, they didn't. 

We argued, and they won. So I laid out another $96 to have it re-shot, this time with the 'Shoot UNDER glass' option ticked off on the stupid instruction sheet. (I made an extra heavy check mark with the pencil which, to my huffish satisfaction, tore the paper a little). And now I was rushing, because this would take another day and I wanted the poster for a big out of town convention coming up on the weekend. So I left instructions to have the transparency rushed off to the poster makers as soon as it was ready. ($14 for shipping). 

Then I booted over to my friend's wood shop where I meant to build something in which to display the poster when I got it. (When you go to conventions, you don't always have a wall behind you upon which to hang pictures). I figured I could build something out of a couple of broom handles for about $10. Unfortunately, on the day we'd arranged, my friend was called away and I arrived to find his wood shop locked up. He apologized afterwards and offered to rush build a poster stand for mc. I thanked him and he got to it.

Eight hours before I was due to leave for the convention, he showed up with the stand he'd built. It was a carpenter's work of art, and he was very proud of it. It used special bolts imported from Europe. I gave him $30 for the materials and I now owe him at least that much again for his effort.

Then the poster arrived just before I left, (what timing!), and despite the fact that the machine used to print it had been a $30,000 dollar piece of equipment, the poster people had used a cheep scanner and the result didn't look anywhere nearly as nice as I'd hoped. According to my research, it would cost another $125 to have a company with better equipment to re-do it to get it right. Altogether, that comes to $466 for a stupid poster. Before tax. 

Now, early on, the moral of this story I thought was pretty much self evident. But then at the big convention, a woman walked up and Confused me. she gazed at the picture for a long minute and then she asked me, a little sheepishly, if she could have it. she could afford it if it cost $25. 

I laughed and felt really good for the first time. Then I told her why.