Thursday 23 February 2017

"Cerebus In Hell?" Parody Covers: Part 3

Send your parody covers to: momentofcerebus [at] gmail [dot] com!  

GARY BOYARSKI:
Here's my contribution to the Cerebus Cover Parodies.

I spent the better part of a day and a half searching for appropriate covers, and then butchering them into the images you see before you. It’s a unique challenge in finding covers that lend themselves to the ‘Cerebus in Hell?’ cover parody treatment. Most of the really iconic comic book covers would require a lot of effort in dropping out the main characters and retouching the art to fill in the backgrounds, so I looked for something that would work well with the Cerebus cut-outs that Dave and Sandeep have been using in the comic strip.

Below is a brief rundown of the issues being spoofed, and a possible title and explanation.

1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 Parody (Teenage Mutant Ninja Cerebus’ #1)
This one was too easy, and my favorite of the bunch. I wasn’t sure how it was going to work out with that one Cerebus facing the wrong way, but I think I solved it with the witty dialogue.

2. Amazing Spider-Man #300 Parody (Amazing Cerebus #1) w/ added text
This is simply a retouching of the great Spider-Man 300 parody that Sandeep already had done, I flipped the corner box image of Cerebus to enhance the cover flow, and added some dialogue, which I used to cover some female nudity that I thought might be an issue with some people and stores.

3. Batman #566 Parody (Adventures Of The Vark Knight #1)
This one is the most “unfinished” of the bunch. I thought it would be fun to stick some of Dave’s “public enemies” in the portraits, but I couldn’t think of any off the top of my head past Gary Groth and Jeff Smith.

4. Ghostly Weird Stories #122 Parody (Ghostly Weird Cerebus #1)
This one is kind of obscure, I happened to stumble upon the cover to “Ghostly Weird Stories #122” completely by chance, and decided to combine it with the Cerebus Mars Attacks cover that Dave did for IDW.

5. Daredevil Battles Hitler #1 (Cerebus Battles Hitler #1)
It’s a bit of a mess, I’ll admit. At first I was going to try to cover some of the guys with large sound effects, but I found that the word balloons do a pretty good job of that. The large Cerebus did the job of covering up Daredevil, and the yellow background made it easy to erase what was left of him. Hitler’s dialogue reads as; “Dirty PIG!” “You’re really busting my balls!” I dunno… I thought it was funny.

It was a fun experiment in Photoshop, I'll see if I can do a few more.

8 comments:

Sean R said...

Hah!

The "Rogues Gallery" one would work well w the various stars of CIH inserted....

Lee Thacker said...

Brilliant stuff (especially the TMNT one)! These are great fun to do and see what people come up with.

Michael Grabowski said...

I love the TMNT cover dialogue. I hope that gets used.

The Hitler cover has a nice Gilliamesque look to it, though it would be better to eliminate the other non-Cerebus figures.

I would love to see an Amazing Fantasy #15 cover version but not sure if the available templates would work.

Unknown said...


Gary - These are great! Yeah, the TMNT one is "in" as far as I'm concerned. In fact, I just thought of a TMNT-related gag today that would fit. And dropped off a "Matisse" print for my neighbours Sean and Becca. Must be something in the air.

The DAREDEVIL BATTLES HITLER cover is in the public domain, I'm pretty sure.

Sandeep would have to approve of the "tweaks" to his SPIDER-MAN cover (which is kind of ironic: steal some corporation's property and then insist that you be allowed to mandate changes to your parody of it) (but I think that's legit)

The GHOSTLY WEIRD CEREBUS cover raises an interesting question: Can I use my own work-made-for-hire MARS ATTACKS cover by making it into a mash-up parody? I think the honest answer to all of these is "It depends on if anyone notices". Whoever owns MARS ATTACKS, I'm pretty sure you'd have to explain to them who Dave Sim IS and then you'd have to explain to them WHY they might care. "We bought that? You're sure that was us?"

And it should be "I've got short legs, okay?" with a question mark. I'd also suggest making the "Okay" boldface and slightly larger. Just to get FULL value out of a great gag.

JACK GRIMM #3 came in, by the way. You're getting better in leaps and bounds! VERY good pacing on this one. I'm going to suggest that, before you go to press, you contact Jeff Seiler about doing some proof-reading for you on the typos. There were four or five that sort of took me out of the story. I'm pretty sure Jeff would do it for comp copies, wouldn't you, Jeff?

Sean R - My first reaction was, "Uh, I DON'T think we can use a picture of Jeff Smith". My second reaction was "That's Gary Groth!!??" My third reaction was, "Yeah, I don't think it would be too difficult to fill ALL the frames." Any Big Name who hasn't signed the petition? Is that fair?

Jeff Seiler said...

Um, sure, Dave. Just email me the page images at seilerjeffathotmaildotcom if you want me to do it, Gary.

Jeff Seiler said...

Gary, since my very quick research tells me that #3 has already been printed, I would be happy to proofread any subsequent issues before they're printed, as well as the first three issues if you plan to do a TPB. Just send me comps. You can email me and we can exchange addresses.

Or not. Your choice.

Unknown said...

What does everyone else think of the DETECTIVE #566 cover idea? We have a BATVARK logo (Atwal/Sim collaboration) that we'll be using on BATVARK #1 (God willing) and I've given Sandeep a DETECTIVE COMICS #1 parody idea with DEFLECTIVE COMICS as the title. So it would have to be some other variation than "DEFLECTIVE COMICS". DISJUNCTIVE COMICS? We could just start at the top of the comics field and start filling the frames with anyone who hasn't signed the petition. :)

PROWL THE DARK VARK'S ROGUES GALLERY...IF YOU DARE!

Since we're billing BATVARK as COMICS MOST NOTORIOUS HOMOPHOBE I'm sure they'd all be more than happy to be in his ROGUES' GALLERY.

Gary Boyarski said...

Dave, Thanks for the kind words regarding my Jack Grimm comic book. I do strive for improvement with each subsequent issue. (Hey when you're looking at Will Eisner, and Dave Sim for inspiration, how can you not get better?) I've had a volunteer proof reader in the lovely form of my wife, Crystal, to help me catch spelling and grammatical errors in future issues (sorry Jeff).

I detect a mischievous gleam in your interest in the Detective 566 cover idea. It would definitely create a stir in the comic book world if you went and stuck in a bunch of familiar faces in those frames. I'm all for stirring the pot, playing it safe never gets anybody anywhere.