[Hopperxx] ***SPAM*** Re: ***SPAM*** Re: Re: Re: yay hopper

[Buzz Kettles]

Hi Darrel
I remember that cover & it was quite unexpected & didn't really do it
justice.
& you say the list wasn't auto-refreshing on your end?
This is the first I'd heard of that  - oh well - so very long ago ....
Be well!
-Buzz

On Fri, Jul 11, 2025 at 11:33 AM Darrel Plant <dplant at moshplant.com> wrote:

> I take no credit/blame for the cover of the Shockwave book. I don’t know
> the entire story behind it, but I landed there project back during the
> Shockwave beta test in 1995. I was at the office on New Year’s Eve,
> occasionally refreshing the web page that was the discussion list for the
> beta group (I guess nobody managing the beta program at Macromedia at the
> time knew how to set up an email listserv) and I saw a note from someone
> saying they were an author agent looking for someone who could crank out a
> book. I’d never written anything approaching book length, and I wasn’t
> exactly a professional-level multimedia developer—I’d just come out of the
> prepress business, knew a bit about computer graphics programs, and had
> played with Director enough to have weaseled my way into a class teaching
> it at Portland State University Extension School, but I’d never shipped a
> project with it. But they were desperate enough that I had a contract a
> couple weeks later. I think they’d had the book on the schedule and sold to
> stores (common practice in the biz) but the authors had been pulled off to
> do a more important project and they still needed someone to fill the
> pages. There was already a team in place tracking down examples for the
> appendices and making the CD-ROM, and they had the cover design done (which
> I didn’t see until later). But they needed the book in ten weeks, and
> they’d give me a bonus if I managed to do it in eight. Didn’t get the
> bonus, but I did manage finish in ten, basically trying every command in
> Shockwave Lingo and figuring out tutorials on how to make it do something
> useful. It was still early days in the Internet stuff; a lot of it was a
> big mystery to me. Fortunately, I’d set up a web server in my office on a
> Mac.
>
> I was supposed to write a sequel to the Shockwave book, but by then,
> Macromedia had bought and shifted much of their focus to Flash, so they
> asked me to just expand the dictionary I’d done to all of Lingo, which
> turned into a nightmare book called The Lingo Programmer’s Reference that
> took a LOT longer than it should have. Then as it was coming out, the
> publisher was bought out and the sales staff started fleeing like rats, and
> more than a quarter-century later I still get statements telling me I
> haven’t earned back the advance!
>
> The woman who played Vampira was from Astoria, a small city about 90 miles
> from Portland. And Cassandra Petersen/Elvira lives part-time here in
> Portland these days.
>
> Best,
>
> Darrel
>
> > On Jul 10, 2025, at 7:47 PM, Jim Andrews <jim at vispo.com> wrote:
> >
> > I searched for your Shockwave book, Darrel. I got a good look at the
> cover from an ebay listing. I like the cover a lot. It's got Frankenstein
> and assorted other movie ghouls, including, er, Addams Family members (?)
> on the cover. Morbidly cinematic. Your book is the Svengoolie of Director
> books, Darrel. That much is clear. "Thrills! Chills! CD-ROM!" I watch
> Svengoolie, by the way. Big fan.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>         Darrel Plant    phone: 503-490-1388   dplant at moshplant.com
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>  "Geriatech: Someone who's been around technology as long as me." --
> Darrel Plant
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
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