Saturday 31 July 2021

Cerebus Archive Number Nine Update, and Update, and Update, and...

Hi, Everybody!

Moment of "Cerebus" #1:
Carson Grubaugh updated all the Kickstarter backers:
The Blue meanines: The inevitable delay of The Strange Death of Alex Raymond
Dear Backers,

We almost pulled this off without a hitch, but, cursed projects are cursed projects, after all.

The print run was entirely printed. 700 copies were bound early and sent on their way to me so I could complete fulfillment before work obligations resume on August 10th. Then Sean got an unbound copy of the book.

The end of the book has a number of pages that use a second color, a process blue. The blue was missing from these pages, taking a lot of important content with it. A seeminly inexplicable error, only affecting those four pages but none of the surrounding ones, inexplicable in both how it occurred, and how it was missed when the book was on press.

I declined the shipment of book. The printer recalled the rest of the run and is pulping everything.

The printer has admitted 100% fault and are working with Sean to get us a proper version of the book ASAP, but after a week, we still have no ETA, and so feel obligated to loop you in.

The book is still coming, and all of your orders will be fulfilled. I am just going to have to do fulfillment in and around my contractual obligations as a professor.

Thank you all for hanging in there with us as we get this resolved.

.........................

The problem with Blue is actually an instance of a long standing curse that has haunted the project off and on throughout my involvement, and is part of why I chose to have some blue in my ending. It was thematically relevant.

The issue with Blue first cropped up while working on the painting that was supposed to be the cover to SDOAR Vol.1.

Dave sent over a mock-up and photographic materials for the cover as well as written instructions that mentioned using a turquoise glow on the cars.

Soon after receiving material that I watched the film, The Shape of Water, which is set around the time of Raymond's crash and makes a big deal about a turquoise car. Excited by this resonance I faxed Dave, inquiring if maybe Drake's car had been turquoise. There were models of the 1956 Corvette painted "Cascade Green." I was especially interested in this because when I print out my tracings from Photoshop, in cyan, made transparent to 30% opacity, they look a lot like this color.

Dave was convinced Drake's car was white given the photos he had seen, but I provided evidence that a car with that light of a color on it would reproduce as white in the standard photography of the time.

A bit from Dave on turquoise.
When I finally got around to producing a photo-collage of the cover I sent it to Dave for approval. The file was sent to Studio Comix Press, where they printed it out at size and gave the physical copy to Dave.

Dave swore up and down that the cars printed blue and he couldn't make a decision about the composition until I sent a version with white cars.

The cars were never blue at any point in my making of the file. Only ever white.

Alfonso at Studio Comix swore the print he gave Dave had white cars.

This happen three or four times. I would send a file and get a response, like this, from Dave.
This caused a lot of tension, because I never sent anything with blue cars and Alfonso knew not to give Dave anything with blue on it. I asked multiple times for Dave to send a photograph of himself holding a print with blue cars because I was convinced he was seeing things or making things up. He never sent a photo.

Eventually, Dave got a print that looked like it had white cars and approved the composition.

Around the same time Sean and I were struggling to get my printer to print only Cyan ink. If we could get this to happen then his job adjusting out my tracings would be much easier. As it was, the lighter version of the color I was using was causing the printer to use magenta and yellow as well.

I finally got a few things to print in pure Cyan, and thought we had a process that would be perfect. Then I tried to print the photos I was going to use as reference for painting the cover and realized that the only reason my printer was now printing exclusively in cyan ink was that it was broken. All of the photo reference printed out in pure cyan and nothing I did would fix the issue.

In desperation I ran to Office Max, bought the only unit they had of the printer I need for my process. It was a display unit that wound up having clogged print heads that lead to it also only printing in ... yup, cyan.

I ordered a newer model of the printer on Amazon for a much higher price tag, which finally fixed the issue.

I explained all of this to Dave as it was too weird to let go. He responded.
(Dave and Eddie did find conclusive proof that the car was white, btw)

To which I replied
Which Dave found particularly compelling.
All of this to say, of course using process blue in the final project was a bad idea.

Also, if you wondered why the cover had the colors it does, blue was very purposeful and once you have blue, orange is just a given.

It would sound crazy to me too, but I am living it,

Best,
Carson
Alls I can say, is "I'm blue da ba dee die"...
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Moment of Cerebus #2:
Dave has faxed me up a storm with updates on Cerebus Archive Number Nine:






Those aren't the boxes with Crisis on Infinite Quarantine, but you get the idea...

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Moment of Cerebus #3
Dave sent these photos of him signing Swords of Cerebus in Hell? Volume something or other (I dunno, who do you think I am, Hobbs?)
It's Volume two. I figured that out...

Oh hey look, it's a different volume!

And so's this one! AND, Dave's signing the reprint to the comic in the case on the wall. Take about yer Comic Art Metaphysics...
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Friend to the Blog, Steve Peters is running a new Kickstarter for his band The Fright Watch. Mentioning it in case any of you are interested.
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Hey, look what Heritage has. (New stuff. Click it. CLICK IT!)
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The AMOC TeePublic Shoppe (sales will return soon...)

Next Time: Dude that was like a week and a half's worth of Moments, and you want MORE tomorrow?!? WTF, Mags...

Friday 30 July 2021

SUPER-CEREBUS Vs COVID-19 ONE-SHOT (Dave's Weekly Update #401)

Hi, Everybody!

Dave's Weekly Update:
Four days to go on Hobbs 2ND Kickstarter.
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Gary Boyarski's ran a Kickstarter for his book Jack Grimm. (And he made it!)
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Friend to the Blog, Steve Peters is running a new Kickstarter for his band The Fright Watch. Mentioning it in case any of you are interested.
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Hey, look what Heritage has.
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Next Time: CAN9 and like a thousand Faxes from Dave about it...

Thursday 29 July 2021

Layout for Cerebus #73

MARGARET LISS:

A few years ago I scanned all of Dave Sim's notebooks. He had filled 36 notebooks during the years he created the monthly Cerebus series, covering issues #20 to 300, plus the other side items -- like the Epic stories, posters and prints, convention speeches etc. A total of 3,281 notebook pages detailing his creative process. I never really got the time to study the notebooks when I had them. Just did a quick look, scanned them in and sent them back to Dave as soon as possible. So this regular column is a chance for me to look through those scans and highlight some of the more interesting pages.

We saw a page from Dave Sim’s eighth Cerebus notebook last week in Stairs to the Regency, which showed us a glimpse of Cerebus #70 on page 14 of the notebook.  Today we’ll see pages 38 and 39 of the notebook and fast forward to Cerebus #73.

On page 38 of the notebook we see the text ‘page 4’ and some layouts for, you guessed it, page 4 of Cerebus #73, aka Church & State I page 436. Here are the two side by side.

Notebook page & finished page - Click for much bigger

A total of four tall panels, with Mrs Henrot-Gutch at the top and Boobah at the bottom. The struggling of Boobah isn’t quite the same, but it is pretty dang close, and we even see Mrs Henrot-Gutch’s word balloons, just not her dialogue.

On the next page of the notebook we see the text ‘page 5’, and some sketches, but those sketches actually correspond with a bit from page 5 and a bit from page 6. Perhaps at one point Dave wanted to put it all on page 5, but the next page of the notebook – not shown here – has the label ‘page 8’. 

Notebook #8, page 39

Cerebus #73, pages 5 & 6

The notebook page also shows the number boxes for as Dave labeled it on the notebook page the “Jaka mini-series’.  In the top right corner of the notebook page is the text:

Bear: She’s got her husband with her

However, at the end of Cerebus #73, Bear asks Cerebus if he wanted him to just bring her. To which Cerebus said aye, and Bear responded that was good as she wanted to bring her husband. That would’ve made the “Jaka mini-series” a bit different if Rick came along at this point in the story. We also see some Jaka dialogue down at the bottom of the notebook page.


Wednesday 28 July 2021

The Unethical Spider-Vark and SOCIH? Volume 4... ON SALE NOW!

Benjamin Hobbs:

A giant THANK YOU to everyone who has supported the SWORDS of Cerebus In Hell? Hardcovers on Kickstarter! There's one week left, so if you haven't backed  the books, and want to, do so today!



Hurry one and all to your LCS where you'll find THE UNETHICAL SPIDER-VARK #1!

Also out this week, SWORDS OF CEREBUS IN HELL? Volume 4!


Available now to order from Diamond: Super Cerebus VS Covid 19 #1 and SOCIH? Volume 7!

Next Week: Swords of Cerebus In Hell? Dust Jackets! Part one of a three part series!

Tuesday 27 July 2021

Young Cerebus

Hi, Everybody!

So yesterday I said today would be more Young Cerebus.

The AMOC TeePublic Shoppe has a Young Cerebus t-shirt (half the profits go to Dave, the other half goes to Pride Stables on the behalf of Gerhard. SO far they got TWO BUCKS!)

So, here's Young Cerebus' first appearance in the series proper (from Women):
Also the first appearance of Cerebus' mum.

And then he showed up next in Minds:









Friend to the Blog, Steve Peters is running a new Kickstarter for his band The Fright Watch. Mentioning it in case any of you are interested.

Acquaintance of the Blog, Gary Boyarski's Kickstarter ends in seventeen hours or so. 
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Hey, look what Heritage has.
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Say, did you miss out on the High Society: Regency Edition? Still kicking yourself for not obsessively refreshing AMOC every seven minutes like Michael R. of Easton, PA? Well bub, have I got the exciting news for you:
Cerebus Overload has 15 (count 'em, 15!) copies that they just listed. It should be noted, that:
Anyone who picks up one of the last 15 should note that the slipcases have minor imperfections, scuffs, scratches, etc... all minor but still present. The books are perfect 10's, the slipcase are 8-9 in terms of condition.
But if you snoozed, you may not have losed...
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Next Time: Hobbs, and his Kickstarter. Or something...

Monday 26 July 2021

"AND WHEN YOUR DAY OF JUDGEMENT COMES..."

Hi, Everybody!


Cerebus in Hell?:

Hey remember when Dave signed a bunch of the second volume of Swords of Cerebus in Hell??


Well Jeff said in the comments:
Dave, who once scolded me over the phone for bringing up baseball: "I told you not to talk about sports!" (Like a reformed addict, which he apparently was about sports), is wearing a University of Texas Longhorns sweatshirt in these pics. *Nobody* wears a University of Texas Longhorns shirt unless, 1) They're *really into University of Texas Longhorns sports, or B) They are subtly thanking the generous, anonymous donor from Austin, Texas.

Interesting. I'd bet on the latter, except that I don't bet on sports.

I wonder when Dave will wear the t-shirt that I had specially printed just for him?
And apparently called and ask Dave about the shirt, because Dave sent me this Fax:
And he also sent:




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And then Dave sent me, today:




EVERYBODY GOT ALL THAT?
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Gary Boyarski's running a Kickstarter for his book Jack Grimm. (Again.)
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Hey, look what Heritage has.
________________________
Say, did you miss out on the High Society: Regency Edition? Still kicking yourself for not obsessively refreshing AMOC every seven minutes like Michael R. of Easton, PA? Well bub, have I got the exciting news for you:
Cerebus Overload has 15 (count 'em, 15!) copies that they just listed. It should be noted, that:
Anyone who picks up one of the last 15 should note that the slipcases have minor imperfections, scuffs, scratches, etc... all minor but still present. The books are perfect 10's, the slipcase are 8-9 in terms of condition.
But if you snoozed, you may not have losed...
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Next Time: More Young Cerebus?