Jack Kerouac: 50 years - Print Spotting - Blog on Graphic Arts Online

Print Spotting

Blog

Print Spotting

« Seven Rules for Very Effective... | Main | Print: Always Aboard the ̶... »

Link This | Email this | Blog This | Comments (5)

Jack Kerouac: 50 years
July 2, 2007

The Beat Generation was boosted if not launched with the publication of Jack Kerouac’s seminal work, “On The Road.” His rapid-fire recount of travel adventures and romantic exploits was pounded out in a 20-day coffee-fueled writing jihad.

Scroll of On the Road

He rolled his own
Because Kerouac didn’t want his train of thought interrupted as he pounded out the pages, he taped together sheets of paper to form a long roll, then fed it into his manual typewriter. If he’d had a computer, he could have easily typed until he was finished.

Calling for rewrite
When he submitted the unusual rolled manuscript, the publisher’s editor said, “What am Isupposed to do with this.” So Kerouac retyped the entire thing by hand. No recalling the file for an edit in 1957!

Butt roll from a Didde
If his high school had offered printshop training, Kerouac might have been aware that he could have picked up a leftover roll from a web press, or at least someone might have told him it was possible to get a continuous roll.
When he did submit his finished manuscript, it was among fewer than 30,000 titles that made publication that year.

So many more books are published
Last year, 248,000 books were published in the U.S. The availability of books printed on demand from companies like Lightning Source or Amazon’s BookSurge, and self-publishing utilities at thousands of sites like lulu.com, have opened the flood gates for thousands of more books to be produced each year.

Desktops can’t touch print-for-pay volumes Graphic arts represent 86% of the total printed pages, by the way. Home, office, photo and other pages account for the remaining 14%. Digital prints account for only 6% of graphic arts with over 94% of graphic arts coming from analog printers, says VS Hariharan, VP- graphics arts business, HP Imaging and Printing Group, Asia Pacific & Japan.

Posted by on July 2, 2007 | Comments (5)

July 2, 2007
In response to: Jack Kerouac: 50 years
sherman sussman commented:

I really can’t believe that you used the “jihad” when binge whould have sufficed.

see: dictionary.reference.com/browse/jihad

July 2, 2007
In response to: Jack Kerouac: 50 years
Name Required commented:

I cannot believe that you get hung up on a word in the first paragraph of the article. Furthermore, “Jihad” may more accurately describe the fervor with which he went on this writing tear.

2. any vigorous, emotional crusade for an idea or principle.

This is a really great article! Keep it up!

July 2, 2007
In response to: Jack Kerouac: 50 years
Thad McIlroy commented:

Bill,

It took a little more than coffee to write “On the Road.” According to www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/ontheroad/, Benzedrine was helpful. The roll still exists — it was purchased in 2001 by Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts, for $2.4 million.

Another pirce of trivia: Kerouac’s father his father was a linotypist and ran a print shop, publishing “The Lowell Spotlight” (at least according to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kerouac).

July 2, 2007
In response to: Jack Kerouac: 50 years
Jerouk commented:

“It is believed to have been a roll of Lucien’s teletype paper from the United Press that Kerouac used to type his legendary unbroken-sheet early draft of ‘On The Road’ (although other accounts say it was a roll of wallpaper).”

www.litkicks.com/People/LucienCarr.html

July 5, 2007
In response to: Jack Kerouac: 50 years
Bill Esler commented:

I guess we can see in the image attached no view of a taped seam; that informatino was based on written reports. But perhaps they are longer sheets. It’s clearly not wallpaper, since it is translucent.