Monday 24 June 2019

A Momentous (heh.) Occasion

Hi, Everybody!

Before I get to the rigamarole:

Your pal and mine, Sean Michael Robinson sent me:
Hello Eddie, Matt, and Margaret![See, I told you it was a small community-Matt]

Hope you all are well!

Good news-- C + S II (remastered and signed by Dave) is currently being solicited through Diamond! (Also good news-- JS will be in stores next week June 26th, and looks GREAT! [I heard from Menachem Luchins of Escape Pod Comics, that not everybody is gonna have Jaka's Story this week. Diamond shipped SOME, but not ALL.-Matt] )

Hoping you all might be able to squeeze in an email/post/mention somewhere to get the word out! [No.-Matt]

Here's the solicit and preview cover.

All the best,
Sean

https://www.previewsworld.com/Catalog/JUL191359 The multi-year Cerebus Restoration project continues with CHURCH & STATE II! This edition will be signed-and-numbered by writer/cartoonist Dave Sim (limited to the amount of copies of the initial Diamond order).

C & S II, the fourth volume of the 6,000 page CEREBUS epic, is a book bubbling over with conflict, with borrowed characters and quasi-legal parodies--including a scorching red-hot take on Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns--each synthesized and absorbed into the whole. All of this in the midst of a plot dense with revelation, with changing allegiances and scale shifts that threaten to upend the titular character and even his world. In an industry now filled with "cosmic" plot-lines that last a few months before the status quo reasserts itself, C + S II is the real deal--a dangerous comic, where the various actors behave like real people, beholden only to their own self-conceptions--impulsive, unpredictable, but always real and authentic and grounded.

CHURCH & STATE II is arguably an early artistic peak for the book, as Sim and background artist Gerhard drove themselves to relentless experimentation, using each monthly installment to push the boundaries of what the monthly comics form was truly capable. This art is presented here for the first time in remastered form: painstakingly restored page-by-page from hundreds of pages of original artwork with the original photo negatives filling in the gaps, revealing astounding detail never before present outside of the original art itself. The carefully-textured, detail-rich art is now on full display for the first time, including delicate line work, slashing brush lines alongside organic texture and splatter, and some of the most sophisticated pen and ink rendering of the second half of the twentieth century.

This volume also includes eight brand-new pages of extras, including a 6,000 word essay by restorer and critic Sean Michael Robinson, that contextualizes the wild scale-shifts of Church & State among other resonant works, including but not limited to, Tolstoy's War and Peace and Shooter and Zeck's Secret Wars. (Yes, this is the only solicitation in Diamond history, possibly the only sentence in the English language as of yet, to invoke those titles simultaneously.)

___________________________________________________________

Which marks the EIGHTH Restored Cerebus Volume: Cerebus, High Society, Church & State 1, Church & State 2, Jaka's Story, Reads, Minds, and Going Home. Leaving eight volumes left to go: Melmoth, Flight, Women, Guys, Rick's Story, Form & Void, Latter Days, and The Last Day.

Which means: DAVE AND SEAN ARE HALFWAY UP THE MOUNTAIN!!!
Related image
Yeah, I know, it's an old graphic...
And the best part, is that SIX of the thick phonebooks are already restored, so of the eight to go, only Form & Void and Latter Days are thick. Melmoth, Flight, Women, Guys, Rick's Story and The Last Day are thin. So there's light at the end of the tunnel!

(I mean it's small, but it's there...)
Don't make it explode Sean...
_______________________________________

The rigamarole:

This week's Auction:
Click to see Spiderbaby! bigger!
Is at $150 (USD) from Kul Das (via the YouTubes)!

COMIC LINK AUCTIONS!!! Where you can get: a Platinum edition of Birthday card #1 signed by NEAL ADAMS, and DAVE SIM, with a NEAL ADAMS Superman stamp. OR, a Gold edition of Birthday card #1 signed by NEAL ADAMS and DAVE SIM with NO STAMP. Or, OR, a print of the Cover to GREEN DANTE/GREEN VIRGIL #1 (Pretend you're Seiler. Impress your friends. Pester your enemies.) there are three of them, but one of them shall be mine! (Ya know, as long as none of you guys got more money than me...)

Wanna give Dave and David And Davjamin... er, Benjamin, and Sean monies, but don't wanna deal with the hassle of going to a comicbook store and tracking down a copy of the latest Cerebus in Hell? One-Shot (The LGBTQetc. People is the next one coming,)? Well, we've got you covered.

If you're in the market to dress like Dave Sim, you can buy a "Matt D's A Moment of Cerebus" t-shirt right here. Or, if you're one of those nostalgia buffs who likes the earlier funnier A Moment Of Cerebus posts, the Tim W. Logo is available too.

The remastered Volume 1 is available digitally for $9.99

If you got a couple of extra bucks and want to do a fellow Cerebus fan a solid, Friend of the Blog Mike Battaglia has a go fund me here

If you're looking for Cerebus the Barbarian Messiah, or Conversations. You got more than one way to behead a Borelean, Conversations, and Cerebus the Barbarian Messiah

Next Time: I knew four hours ago...

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

By my count, that's about 194 issues worth of comics restored. So about 2/3 restored.

- Anonymous Dude

Jeff said...

Okay, so since M.D. has not gotten back to me, because, you know, he's got a wife and kids, and work, and AMOC, and, you know...stuff to do, I'm taking this into my own hands.

A week or so ago, I received a large, heavy box full of five (count 'em, *five*) copies of the Remastered Jaka's Story.

I immediately thought that it was a mistake, and emailed SMR about it.

"Nope. Compliments of Dave."

What do I need with *five* signed and numbered copies of "Jaka's Story"? I mean, yeah, one to read and one to keep in pristine condition, but *three*! more?

So, what we gotchere is an *opportunity*. About which I called and left a message, ('cause, you know), for Dave.

Three "Jaka's Story" trivia questions. First correct answers get one of the three signed and numbered copies sent to them, via FedEx, if those persons post their addresses. If you win, and then you're shy about posting your address, then email me at seilerjeff@hotmail.com

Oh, and I am the final arbiter of the correct answer, unless Matt chimes in. And, please, use your knowledge and memory, and not the dub-dub-dubs, or (you know) your earlier copies.

First question: What is the name of the real park in Waterloo, ON, that Gerhard recreated for the cover of "Cerebus #114"? (And, no fair, Ger, for posting from your sailboat!)

Second question (oh, by the way, no multiple winners...I'm keeping track): What was the full name of Jaka's nurse?

Third question: What was the name of Astoria's "newly inaugurated" bureauratic agency, after she married Lord Julius, and what color was the paper on which were written her communiques?

Good luck!

whc03grady said...

1. Highland Courts Park (actually Kitchener, not Waterloo; https://www.google.com/maps/place/Highland+Courts+Park,+Kitchener,+ON+N2M+3S3,+Canada/@43.4404708,-80.4951036,625m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x882bf4fbcd2084e1:0xff13eb52f56627c2!8m2!3d43.4406708!4d-80.492958)
2. Ada Talbot
3. Department of Women's Affairs

Mitch Grady
428 N Yellowstone
Livingston MT 59047

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know where I can buy print copies of the other remastered books?

Anonymous said...

(I mean, I can search online for the remastered books and probably find them here and there. I'm just wondering if there's some obvious best place to order them from.)

Sean R said...

Hello Anonymous!

Find your local comic shop via Diamond's LCS finder. And then order away!

https://www.comicshoplocator.com/

If you don't HAVE a local comic store, please consider ordering from Menachem Luchins at the great Escape Pod Comics:
https://www.escapepodcomics.com/

Or in the UK, from the equally-great Page45!
http://www.page45.com/

Both stores are very Cerebus-supportive and keep all the remastered trades in stock.

Paul Sladee said...

My answer's are the same as Mitch's.

Mouse Skull Entertainment said...

Sorry Mitch and Paul, but the third question is a "two-parter" and you missed the second half.

No phonebooks for you!

The Soup Nazi

Anonymous said...

Dammit, don't know how I missed that:

1. Highland Courts Park (actually Kitchener, not Waterloo; https://www.google.com/maps/place/Highland+Courts+Park,+Kitchener,+ON+N2M+3S3,+Canada/@43.4404708,-80.4951036,625m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x882bf4fbcd2084e1:0xff13eb52f56627c2!8m2!3d43.4406708!4d-80.492958)
2. Ada Talbot
3. Department of Women's Affairs; pink.

Mitch Grady
428 N Yellowstone
Livingston MT 59047

Mouse Skull Entertainment said...

To be fair Mitch,

I'm not really involved.

Also, how does Jeff prevent people just copying and pasting your answers?

Matt
(This is why I hadn't gotten a response to Jeff's email, I was still thinking it through.)

Jeff said...

D'oh! Matt's got about a billion more functional brain cells than do I. Okay, I ought to disqualify Mitch just because he gets to live next to Yellowstone National Park, but he got three of the four parts right. And, as Matt is probably shaking his head slowly while chuckling, I should have stipulated that it's one book per person who's a winner. So, Mitch gets one, 'cause he was first, and he doesn't get to answer again.

Now? We start over. One trivia question at a time for the remaining two books. Oh, yeah; rules. No Googling--no dub-dub-dub. Memory and knowledge only. I'm watching you--yes, you! One winner per book; no fair playing if you've already won.

Question #1: According to Jaka's biographer, just exactly how much did the Mouse in the Mudhole, in the Mouse stories that Jaka told Missy (the Mouse was Missy's favorite character in her favorite stories, according to Jaka's biographer and, apparently, Rick), weigh?

First correct answer wins.

Jeff said...

And, Mitch? If you do play again, I'll just start all over again. Play nice.

whc03grady said...

Thanks, and I'll play nice. Plus I don't know the answer to that question.

I gave all my phone books (Cerebus through Melmoth) to the Missoula Public Library when I worked there some years ago (looks like they bought the rest in the meantime https://tinyurl.com/y47aeo2s)), but should've kept Jaka's Story because my first tattoo (1993; https://tinyurl.com/y2y34a4y) is from #116, pg. 1.

"Dub-dub-dub"?

Alright,
Grady.

Jeff said...

Sorry, Mitch, that I didn't get back to you sooner: "dub-dub-dub" is shorthand for "The Worldwide Web", courtesy of David Letterman's joke writers, circa the 1990s.