Susana Millman is petite, quiet, and a long-time member of the G.D. family, so when she got serious about photography and began shooting events backstage and away from shows….no one minded. As a result, her book Alive with the Dead / A Fly on the Wall with a Camera, self-published in 2016, was stuffed with shots from places most Dead photographers couldn’t go—Bob Weir’s wedding, a party at Mickey Hart’s house with Jerry, Governor Jerry Brown, and the Gyuto Monks, and lots more. Unsurprisingly, it was a huge hit, and traveling around the country meeting hundreds of ‘heads and selling it was enormously satisfying.
But she also learned how much work is involved with self-publication, even with a road manager-publicist to haul the books around. So when she sold out every single copy of the second press run of 1,000, she called a halt. And then San Francisco’s legendary Last Gasp Press (R. Crumb, lots of other classic Comix and a whole lot more) expressed interest.
After a few complications (the new Chinese printer refused, for this edition, to print pictures of the monks), she is very pleased to announce that the new edition of Alive with the Dead will be released December 14, and signed copies are available for pre-order now. If you pre-order with Last Gasp at https://lastgasp.com/products/alive-with-the-dead it’s $30, with free shipping. Directly with Susana at www.mamarazi.com/preorder-alive-with-the-dead, it’s $40, but along with the book you get a signed 8.5 x 11 print of Jerry. Preorders will end 12/10.
The new edition is a little more modest (no fancy slipcover) and less expensive ($40), but still full of the same intimate pictures that made the first copies sell like Dead tickets. The original centerfold thanked crowdfunding supporters, and now salutes the two G.D. lyricists lost in the interval with wonderful portraits of Robert Hunter and John Perry Barlow.
We may not be able to gather for the holidays in 2020, but we can still send presents….and here’s the right one for the Dead Head in your life (and everybody knows one!).
