Monday 12 June 2017

On Sale 7 Years Ago: Cerebus Archive #8

Cerebus Archive #8 (June 2010)
Art by Dave Sim

DAVE SIM:
(From Cerebus Archive #8, which reprinted "Oktoberfest" by Dave Sim & Gene Day from 1976 )
Kitchener stages an annual Oktoberfest that is reputed to be the largest outside of Munich so what could make more sense than to link this enormous beer festival to a children's comic, modeled on the work of Carl Barks... particularly his legendary "The Golden Helmet" storyline from Dell Four Color #408, of which I had, then, recently obtained a coverless copy?

You can all put your hands down -- it's a rhetorical question.

It was basically an act born of desperation for paying work, originating in one of those comic-store jokes: "Hey, Harry, you should publish Oktoberfest Comics!"

Harry was Harry Kremer, owner of Now & Then Books who had already been roped into publishing the money-losing Now & Then Times #1 in 1972 and #2 in 1973.

The way I looked at it, he was overdue for another money-losing publication...

1 comment:

Jeff Seiler said...

IIRC, this was the first issue of the Cerebus Archive comic that became nigh unto impossible to get because Dave had moved itto the (now-defunct) on-demand publisher ComiXpress.

Other than issues 1, 2, 3, and 14 of Cerebus, those last several issues of Cerebus Archive remain as the only A-V, Inc. comics I don't have.

I'll not remind Dave, here, of the conversation he and I had about ComiXpress over lunch at the excellent cafeteria at the Toronto City Hall building, back in 2011.