Saturday 16 March 2019

Highlights from the Kickstarter Q & A (Now with more T & A! (You're welcome!))

Hi, Everybody!

Greg Hyland is Kickstartering the second volume of the Monster Atlas, and if he gets four grand, it'll have Gerhard art like the first volume.

There's more auctions up at ComicsLink.

If you're waiting for a Indiegogo live for the Postcard Kickstarter, like the one for the birthday card Kickstarter, I don't know if there will be one.

Hopefully I'll be discussing the remastered Volume 1, which is available digitally for $9.99, eventually.

And The Jaka's Story remaster won't get a Starcode number until the April previews is out, so hopefully next month.


The new KICKSTARTER ends tomorrow.

Speaking of which:
This happened:
That phone is so 1990s


That phone is so 1990s
Highlights:

Hi Dave!
I'm leaving soon for the evening so I'll read your responses when I get home tonight. Here goes my questions.
1-Are you planning on any more sneaky visits to comic conventions like you just did in Kitchener? Maybe USA?
PS - Grace R wants to know if you'll come to visit Easton, Pennsylvania?
2- Did you enjoy or miss any part of being in the comic book community for the afternoon?
3- We've seen the updates on the SDOAR, how come no updates on "You Don't Know Jack" comic? Wasn't that coming out first?
4- We've seen the prototype of what the SDOAR book will look like, will there be any chance any edition be hard cover?
5- We got the birthday card Kickstarter and the postcard Kickstarter, are there any possible new Kickerstarters that you're thinking of that hasn't been mentioned yet?
Congratulations on another successful Kickstarter campaign!
Michael R.
And Dave said:
Hi Michael!
1) Actually, I just walked through the convention on the way to buy my Saturday raisins. Zero chance of anyone in Kitchener recognizing me. A transgendered convention volunteer (or a guy in a female fantasy costume) did and had no idea about the autographed comics. So I signed them for him/her, her/him. Him/her, her/him was pretty happy. So"going with" the completely unlikely vibe I decided to actually walk once around the convention. Someone had maybe 12 Cerebus back issues so I told her I was making a circuit of the convention and if she wanted to unbag them I'd sign them when I got back to the start point. Then a creator named Sam Noir had LOW SOCIETY on his table, so I signed those for him. He gave me some of his comics. After I got my raisins I went to the bus station and signed copies of SIM CITY for Sam Noir and John Brenner. I haven't spoken to either of them because they didn't sign the petition. So, it was like a once in a lifetime this won't happen again kind of thing. Or I might walk through again next year.
Actually that's what I wanted to do when CEREBUS was done: just travel from CEREBUS fan home to CEREBUS fan home with my toothbrush in my jacket pocket staying for a couple of days in each home and then flying on to the next. Instead it's 12 hours a day of work 6 days a week until I fall over and die. Close enough, I guess. Tell Grace I said "Hi" and I hope the cats are all well.
2)Well, it wasn't the afternoon. It was maybe 20 minutes total. Watching my hand sign my name. I've seen it before a couple of times. :)
3) I don't know if ANY of them are coming out. When I have all of them in prototype form I'm taking them to IDW and we'll see what they have to say. I don't even know who I'll be talking to there. YDKJ 1 and 2 are both done and so's the HERMITAGE AWESOMES catalogue. Sean's working on SDOAR Volume Two and I'm trying to come up with a cover idea.
4) An SDOAR hardcover? I don't know. That's an IDW decision. That's why I'm going out there. I have a bunch of ideas from the "hitting every comic store in California" sales trip (which has been mapped out in rough form), to touring the artwork -- and me and Carson -- around the world through Heritage Auctions. I can afford to pay my property taxes, A-V's accountant and bookkeeper and buy myself groceries. Someone else will have to pay for everything. That's what I'll be talking to IDW and Heritage Auctions and, hopefully, Diamond Comic Distributors. 1) Does anyone want to pay for this? and 2) how Large or small do you want to go?
5) At the moment, the plan is to keep doing POSTCARDS FROM HELL and see what needs fixing. It looks as if there are 85 CEREBUS "backer-style" fans left -- 95% of whom have pledged at the end of Day Two -- so I'm inclined to drastically shorten the window and do a four- or five-day Kickstarter and fulfillment and then do the next one. A POSTCARD every two weeks or so. If the 85 backers are solid and $9 every two weeks is in their budgets, then Sean, Benjamin, David and me could be looking at $200 every couple of weeks. Depending on what the "all-in" costs are. I'm still trying to figure out if it's possible to do CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER EIGHT now that the costs on everything are through the roof.
__________________________________________________________________
And then Dave said:
Dave Sim here again - Sorry I was late getting started. It's very difficult to get to Kickstarter USA. It kept sending me to Kickstarter Canada. Also, this is the Camp David laptop which really sticks a lot. Also there was a major drug casualty who sat down next to me, spitting on the ground and saying if anyone tries touching his pants again he's going to stab them to death. Didn't APPEAR to have the cojones for that, but I guess you never know. Would have made an interesting "day before the fourth anniversary of my bowel surgery" hey, remember KNIVES moment. Welcome to Kitchener City Hall and the Land of the Free Needle Exchange. Coming soon: "Safe" Injection Sites!!
Dave continued:
He was a definite Kitchener character. The security guards have come up to the mezzanine level twice now to tell people they aren't allowed to sleep in City Hall. Sprawled out on the bench seating. I don't think they're allowed to tell them to leave. So they have to spend ten minutes telling them they have to sit up and not fall asleep. Which, as soon as they go back downstairs, they proceed to do. The crystal meth guys are the worst, which this guy sounded like he was. You can hear a girl on the lower level talking to her friend about something and crystal meth was talking to her. Not loud enough so she could hear but loud enough so I could hear, really steamed, really disgusted with how cheerful she was and what a phony she was. He subsided before he got up and left. If he had been still talking to her when she got up. I was going to yell over the balustrade, "SECURITY! INCOMING" and then point. I'm sure "Safe" Injection Sites will make everything all better. :)
 _______________________________________________________________
There was Larry Wooten, who asked:
Dave, I am curious about Tarim/Terim in regards as to their origin in Cerebus. I have looked up Tarim on the internet but only get references to the town in Yemen and Cerebus. So, I am wondering if Tarim/Terim are based on some beliefs or myths, or did Tarim just sound like a good name for a deity at the time?
Thank you for the "Grandpa Moment" you sent me.
And Dave's response:
Hi Larry! Oh, you're quite welcome for the "Grandpa Moment" birthday card.
Re: Tarim/Terim
To the best of my recollection, that was part of Michael Loubert's fantasy world backdrop and just a name he came up with off the top of his head. I think the decision to have a female version of Tarim spelled with an "e" was mine when I started developing and laying the groundwork for the matriarchal Cirinists. I remember talking to Michael about Sophia and the whole The Goddess/analogue of God concept, historically. I didn't want to use the names of any historical gods or goddesses. Just seemed like a really bad idea.
Thanks for your decades of support, Larry!! 
_______________________________________________________________
Jesse Lee Herndon asked:
Hi Dave,
Cerebus once said, "If Vanaheim doesn't have beer, Cerebus doesn't want to go". There has not been much, if any, beer in "Cerebus in Hell?" So where does beer go when it goes flat?
Dave came back with:
Jesse Lee Herndon - Hi Jesse! Thanks for the quick turnaround on the "Hold For Dave Sim" transcript.
I concur. Thanks Jesse! Dave continued:
Sandeep did a CIH? strip about the complete ABSENCE of alcohol in Hell(?) and he did one about the compulsion to keep getting drunk. That's one of the things that I love about the strip. There are no fixed premises. David and Benjamin came up with a SILVER SURFER parody cover that I'm working on now where Cerebus is the world's biggest Elon Musk fan and is building the "interplanetary buoyancy space". I had David just flop the image of the Yelling Cerebus so he spends the whole issue yelling. facing left, facing right, facing left. Is Cerebus actually experiencing this? I have no idea. Neither does he. 
Then Superman's Frenemy (and Known Collaborator!), David Birdsong chimed in with:
I have a two page strip that addresses the drinking in hell issue as well. I don't want to give it away just yet, but some drunks will try anything.
And then:
Thanks, David! Looking forward to your JIMMY CORRIGAN issue. I'm going to need sparkly word balloons for the Electrical Grid Fairies in SILVER CEREBUS. Something you and Sean might want to think about. Don't let it make you too crazy. Say Hi to Marie for me!
Dave 
______________________________________________________________
And then there was THIS A--HOLE:
I just thought of my Ultimate Cerebus in Hell? question: Who'd win in a fight Cerebus or Hobbs?
Matt Dow
Senor Edit-Hombre, AMUCK 
To which I got the reply:
Matt Dow - Cerebus! (sorry, Benjamin)
Dave 
And then this image got discussed:
You REALLY don't want to know...
 _____________________________________________________________

Oh it was magical! (Mainly because I could cannibalize it and not have to write a post today...)

Next Time: I discuss NOTHING. Tomorrow's Sunday, so I get a chance to "get ahead". Enjoy the Genesis Question Part Forty-something... Or don't. No skin off my nuts...

13 comments:

Birdsong said...

Matt, with the caption you came up with for that image I need to move Cerebus a little closer to the “action.”

Birdsong said...

Hmmmmm, perhaps that’s what we do with those Sunday images. Post one and invite comments. They get sent to Dave who will judge the best one and then rewrite it anyway. Big fun.

Geoff said...

Mental illness: caused by clean needles. You read it here first!

Glen said...

Perhaps the reason there's only "85 CEREBUS "backer-style" fans left is because fans aren't interested in a "Cerebus in Hell" postcard like myself.
I contributed to the birthday card campaign because it was personalized & kinda neat to receive a card from Dave on my birthday. A postcard with the same copy & pasted image of Cerebus doesn't do it for me. At least the birthday card had a new drawing. The Kickstarter archive portfolios in the pas offered large numbered, autographed prints, commentaries, stickers(!) & occasionally bonus prints. Compare that with a postcard covered in plastic.
I'm not saying Dave should restart the portfolio campaigns which I understand are extremely expensive & complicated to organize.
But maybe some new ideas are needed.

Birdsong said...

I hear you Glen, but the postcard serves more than one purpose. No one expected to make a mint on it. We ended up with 92 backers which is very close to the 100 I was hoping for. The idea is to 1) get Kickstarter simple and keep it that way and 2) get the word out about Cerebus In Hell? Dave is still interested in doing more Archives, but the costs of paper and printing keep going up and he wants to find a way to streamline as best he can.

Most people find out about all things Cerebus from this site and it was also the place where most people traveled from to the Kickstarter page, no other site came close. We really ought to do a better job of keeping the sidebar over there on the right updated. All the Cerebus In Hell? issues are outdated, as is the checklist. I'll remind the guys to update it this week.

We're just a few dudes dragging an Aardvark and a Vanaheim along as best we can while living busy lives.

Tony Dunlop said...

I know the Archive portfolios are clunky and hard to manage, but I'm definitely one of those Cerebus/Dave Sim Art fans Glen is talking about. I'm into comics and directly related materials, period. I've never been one for trinkets, geegaws, gadgets, trifles, et cetera. The only Cerebus related doohickery I ever owned was an Elrod button I wore on my denim jacket for most of the 1980s; other than that, nope.
So, don't judge the size of the remaining fanbase on sales of stuff that isn't comics. If and when there are more Archive portfolios, you bet I'm in.

Jeff said...

Mostly, I agree with Glen's and Tony's comments above. The only reason why I bought the ten-signed-and-numbered package was because I thought, "Well, I could give nine of them to my LCS owner that he could put one each in the pull files of his best customers and then maybe it would help to increase sales a little bit."

Who knows? But worth a try. I've made less successful attempts to help out Dave's sales...

Jake said...

My day got away from me. Can Dave please stop writing the word "Kickstarter" on every pledge item we order? It's a small thing but I can't stand it any more. Thank you.

Jeff said...

Jake--Huh? Cite an example? I haven't seen this. Or, am I not paying attention?

Jake said...

He writes Kickstarter, and thank you for supporting the Kickstarter in every card, book, and comic I have ever received through his Kickstarter. I understand it was purchased through there but the birthday card I just received said it too. I think it's time to stop doing this. I would say about 20 or more of the items I have received have this. I know it sounds petty, and I know I paid someone to send me a birthday card but it's really impersonal, and comes off as less of a signature, and more of a receipt from Walmart.

Jeff said...

Well, not to be a dick, Jake (or maybe just a wee bit so), Dave either knows you or you're a "reader", "supporter", or "Kickstarter supporter". I mean, you got the sig, and the item, so what's yer beef?

Jeff said...

Didja get the tee-hee about ma wee-wee there, son? Is any of this gettin' through to you? I mean, pay...ah, say...*pay* attention when Ah'm talkin' atcha, son!

Jake said...

Well you are being a dick.