An open letter to Dawson Barber

Dawson,

I was looking through my blog archives for the post below and ran across a photo of an early prototype of the ill-fated Sparky and Blinky statues. Man, I was excited about that project. They really were extraordinary items, beautifully produced, absolute pieces of art. Anyway, it reminded me that we still have some unfinished business. Sorry to address this so publicly but I don’t have any other way to get ahold of you right now.

Unfortunately, of course, things didn’t work out so well with our partnership. You had some sort of run of bad luck that summer — I don’t know exactly what happened, you never really gave me the details — and eventually shut down production and closed your business. And then sort of disappeared entirely. I don’t know what was going on, but I’m sorry it worked out the way it did. The statues were really quite wonderful, and I’ve always regretted that we weren’t able to make them available to more than the first few customers who were lucky enough to get their orders filled.

That was a disappointment to me, but I understand that sometimes life spirals out of control. I don’t even care about the royalties I never received (for the handful of statues that did ship out). You put a lot of time and effort into this project, and my guess is you took quite a loss in the end. So that’s water under the bridge as far as I’m concerned.

The thing that really disappoints me is that you’ve never fulfilled your promise to send me the remaining stock of statues. At this point, I don’t care if they’re painted or unfinished. They’re the only copies that exist in the world, and I’ve been waiting for you to send them for — what, a year and a half now? Well, I’d still like to get them (as well as the molds if any still exist). So I’m hoping you’re out there, and that you see this.

I’m still at the same address. Send them COD, I’ll cover the postage.

I hope things have turned around for you. The world is a poorer place without your creative efforts.

Your friend,

Tom

(Note to anyone who received a set of these: my standing offer to trade an original strip for a set of these statues is still in effect).