Tigerdm2805 468X680***ing Hewlett-Packard!!! I printed up ONE 30 page Ted McKeever story and used a whole cartridge of black ink.

I have heeded the advice of everyone on here and will buy a laser printer and/or go to a service bureau (although truth be told, the hours I keep I need to have home printing available.) Two people who read my rant yesterday have offered me free printers…I am touched, as always by the generosity of my readers. Truly, I am not worthy.

What really frosts my scuppers about this is the sheer WASTE of this planned obsolesence. When I buy a product, even if it is for $100, I expect it to be able to do a job for me. This printer should be marketed as being “for weekend warriors and pantywaists who don’t actually need to print anything only.”

It’s one reason why I am loyal to Apple. Sure, the computers cost a little more, but I would rather have a GOOD PRODUCT THAT WORKS for five years and give my loyalty to that company than waste money on something that is planned to break down every five minutes.

I will never, ever, ever give Hewlett-Packard any of my money again.

I’m off to the BEA today, and so only a few posts. I will try to be back online with some pics and news later on.

PS: This has been a busy, distracted week for me. In addition to getting ready for BEA, we’re in the final countdown for THE NIGHTMARE FACTORY and every minute has been taken up with getting in the last pages from our talented “crew” of colorists Lee Loughridge and Chris Chuckry and letterers Albert and Jimmy at Comicraft. Every book is like this — months of sporadic attention and then a couple of weeks where it takes up your every waking moment, but that’s what production is like.

I can’t wait to show off more of THE NIGHTMARE FACTORY. Today I got an advance copy of THE HILLS HAVE EYES: THE BEGINNING, the first graphic novel I’ve worked on in several years, and the production values on it are really stellar. I knew the creative team had done a great job, but it’s not until you see that final product that you can really breathe a sigh of relief and feel like a proud parent.

THE NIGHTMARE FACTORY is also shaping up to be worth all the time and effort I’ve put into it. I hope others feel the same way.

More later.

UPDATE: just to respond to everyone who keeps saying a laser printer is the only way to go, I’d like to point out that on my OLD printer I could print out a 200 page novel and not have to race to Staples before it closed so I could get a new ink cartridge to finish the job! The issue is not my printing habits — it is HP’s decision to create a product with an ink supply that is INSUFFICIENT FOR A BASIC JOB.

1 COMMENT

  1. On my (Windows) HP printer, every time i print, in the Print dialog box i always click the Properties button, then choose Fast/Economical Printing from the Custom Print Settings menu. A group of settings appear, and i switch the Print In Grayscale setting to Black Only. It’s a pain because i’ve never found a way to make this the default setting, so i end up doing it *EVERY* time i print, but i get a lot more copies this way. Your model and options may be slightly different, but maybe this will help.

  2. It is funny that youmention The Nightmare Factory. I was just reading the latest Previews and was taken by the ad. I am on the fence (but leaning twords buying it), Heidi, can you push me over the edge to buy it?

    T. Rakarich

  3. T., once the book is finished, you’ll be seeing some previews that shuld push you over the edge.

    Anyone who is a Ligotti fan will want this book, I think. It has all new intros to the stories by him.

  4. A page of text uses far less ink than a standard inked and colored comic page. It can also be the print setup…. are you printing just the black plate, or a grayscale version of the colored & inked page, which uses 15-20x more ink than a page of text.

  5. For a long time, Inkjets shipped with an ink tank that was only about 1/3 full. This was a “starter” cartridge. A California state congresscritter got annoyed that she bought a printer with a less-than-half-full cartridge, and she convinced enough other California State congresscritters to ban those starter carts.

    Printer companies essentially responded by making all their ink tanks starter tanks, with much lower volume than the older ones.

    There is no such thing as a good, consumer level printer. No other company is any better than HP. They all have a uniform level of suck.

  6. You’re printing 30 pages of art??? That kind of doesn’t surprise me, then. That’s a LOT of freaking ink. If you just need to look at it you can degrade the quality and you should be able to see what you need to see and not use so much ink… but, yeah. If you’re printing art a lot you should buy a laser.

    In other news… I like Lexmark. They are the upstart and I believe are trying harder and HP is resting on it’s laurels. I’m on my 2nd Lexmark and it’s been cool.
    But I’m not printing much art, so I guess it’s not really a comparison.

  7. Argh. My little Lexmark laserjet died after three years of service printing manga scripts. My husband looked into getting it repaired and the service guy estimated the repair at about $200 because a part has to be bought from Lexmark. Everyone agreed that it made more sense to buy another home-office printer.

    Unless you’re getting a business machine (like one of the bigger printers that dim your lights when you run it), expect to replace the whole damn thing every few years.

    But I did love my little Lexmark so much. T_T

  8. I just finally replaced my HP laser printer, which has served me well. I’ve used it since 1996 and I’ve printed thousands of pages with it — all on a single toner cartridge. The only reason I replaced it was that my cartridge ran out and the printer was too old to find a new cartridge.

  9. i doubt HP makes their own ink. I wonder if the ink people have a hold on the ink market. whoever they are, though something tells me, the oil companies and Bushs’ ‘little’ war on terror have something to do with the ink supplies being so low. {end conspiracy theory}

  10. As a faithful 15-year plus Macintosh user and loyalist, I have to tell you that my current Mac, a PPC G5 iMac, has been serviced 4 times in the two years since purchase. Sadly, Macintosh computers nowadays break down as often as any other PC. The Apple company is “dying from success”, you may say, as their acceptance growth among users in recent years has led to a definite decline in quality control.

    Still the best operating system around bar none, but not so in the hardware department.