Everyone's been asking, "So what's up with PEEL 9?"...
There are a lot of reasons we've been unable to produce another issue of PEEL since 8 the toy issue. What it all boils down to in essence is that we've spread ourselves way too thin in just about every way possible. In addition to publishing PEEL Magazine, we also run an online store (www.gorillamart.com), have just put out a book (PEEL: The Art of the Sticker), and for about the past 9 months have been running an art gallery (Alias Gallery). Though we've had an intern or two from time to time, it's still been just Dave & Holly doing most everything. We also have two small children.
The honest truth is, we have no idea when we'll be able to produce another issue at this point. Even though we've grown from 200 half size b&w copies to 20,000 full-size color magazines distributed worldwide, we've actually lost money on every issue we've produced since about issue 4. Because we believe so much in what we're doing we've financed it all ourselves (with personal savings and credit) expecting that once we reach that certain elusive level of exposure, we'd be able to make a modest living doing PEEL / Alias / GORILLAmART and pay back the loans we've taken out to start everything. Instead what has happened is that we've dug ourselves into a huge financial hole with apparently no possible way out. We've already lost Alias Gallery, and because we had to personally guarantee all our loans to cover operating expenses, we're also about to lose our home and we're currently both looking for regular jobs.
We're not telling you this so you'll feel sorry for us in any way. We've had an incredible experience working hard doing what we love to the best of our ability with every means available to us and we have no regrets. We do however want our subscribers to know that we sold subscriptions in good faith, planning to produce issues of PEEL in a timely manner, but don't have any money from the subscriptions to give back, nor do we have enough money or available credit to produce another issue at the present time. So basically, we're stuck between a rock and a hard place, and we don't know when things will change. If you're feeling salty about your $25 subscription, please remember we're losing our home, and that we didn't pocket your money. We put every last dime we could scrape together into doing PEEL.
Despite all the difficulties we've faced we have every desire to continue doing PEEL, and whenever we're back on our feet and have a way to do it in a sustainable way we plan to be back at it again in some form or another. We'll keep our subscriber database on file, so you'll get a copy of whatever we eventually produce if and when that time comes.
In the mean time, what we can offer to our customers is a $10 off coupon code on GORILLAmART.com with our sincere apologies. Place an order of $10 or more on GORILLAmART.com before July 6th, 2008 and upon checkout use the coupon code: wheresPEEL9
Just mentioning this... If you don't yet have a copy of PEEL: The Art of the Sticker and you use the coupon code you can get a signed copy for about the same price as an unsigned copy purchased from Amazon.com. We have fewer than 200 signed copies of the first printing available and after that they'll be gone forever.
Thanks for reading,
Dave & Holly