Friday, 20 June 2025

It Is Not Always May by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Dave's weekly update #595)

Hi, Everybody!

Like it says on the Logo:
The little bit on the bottom there...

It's Friday, so that means:
Dave's Weekly Update:
A Moment of Cerebus runs Saturday through Friday.

The Week in AMOC:
  • Saturday: Dave sent an article about an aardvark, and a bunch of Stay-flat drawings.
  • Sunday: Cerebus #10 part 1.
  • MondayThe Monday Report, and the Proto-Strange Death of Alex Raymond #13. Which is the END of the Proto-Strange Death. If you wanna know what happens next, you need to read Jen's posts on Tuesdays. Speaking of which...
  • Tuesday: Jen's tells us all 'bout The Strange Death of Alex Raymond GoFundMe, and updates us on the Raffle. $190 until page 117 of Dave's POST-Carson SDOAR mock-up pages unlocks. AND GoFundMe has a MONTHLY option now, so you can schedule a reoccurring donation. 
  • Wednesday: Hobbs posts about The Varkdalorian Kickstarter, and shows off Dave's finished, cleaned art for his Varkdalorian cover. 
  • Thursday: Margaret has posted ALL of Albatross One. (If you click that link, you can see all the pages of the notebook, OR, you can get a PHYSICAL copy here.) And all of The Last Notebook. Now she's gonna burn through all of Notebook #21. So sit back and get ready for pages and pages and pages of walls of handwritten text...
  • Friday: that's this post. You're reading the Friday post right now. This is STILL like that bit in Spaceballs. (Should I link to LAST WEEK'S Update in these things?)
Okay, so that was the past week in AMOC. You're welcome.

Rigamarole:
Acquaintance to the blog Travis sent in:
Hi Matt, are you willing to put a link to my comic's Kickstarter on Moment of Cerebus? If not, that's cool.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fkhk/my-captivity?ref=user_menu
Ends tomorrow morning.

I'm selling bootleg Cerebus trading cards featuring my art, coloring by Hobbs, and unused art of MY characters by Dave. $10 a set for 11 cards plus TWO HANDDRAWN cards (by me). Email momentofcerebus@gmail.com and I'll explain how to pay.


The Help Out Bill Messner-Loebs Go Fund Me, or buy Rodney Schroeter's book with proceeds going to Bill. More on this as I'm allowed to post stuff...

Our very own Jen DiGiacomo is part of a film production titled The Day Elvis Died. She'll never ask anybody here, but they're crowdfunding to finish the post production on the movie. (It's set in 1977, will a certain obscure Canadian cartoon aardvark make a cameo? (No. Elvis died in August. Cerebus wasn't published until December. Any appearance in the flick would be an anachronism that would ruin the movie for everybody. EVERYBODY!).) Here's the first trailer.

______________
Up to 35% off June 20-23.*
*Sale dates are not final and therefore subject to change.
______________
You can get all 16 volumes of Cerebus, many of them Remastered for $99CANADIAN at CerebusDownloads.com (More if you want the Remastered Cerebus Guide to Self-Publishing...)
_______________
Heritage has:
  • THREE pages of original art 
  1. Cerebus #3 page 21
  2. Cerebus #20 page 21
  3. Cerebus #293 page 7
  • And Cerebus 1, 3, and 4 slapped.
_______________
Oliver' Simonsen's Cerebus movie: The Absurd, Surreal, Metaphysical, and Fractured Destiny of Cerebus the Aardvark it's currently available on "Plex", "Xumo", "Vimeo On Demand", "Tubi". If you're in Brazil..."Mometu", "Nuclear Home Video".
_______________
Next Time: Cerebus #10, part 2?

Thursday, 19 June 2025

Notebook 21: The Real Cirin Speaks

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.

Last week we looked at pages 5 and 6 of Dave Sim’s 21st notebook used during the creation of Cerebus. We started our journey at looking at every page in this notebook of which there were 260 out of 300 pages scanned. If you want to see all of the notebook #21 posts to date, just use the Notebook 21 tag. Today we continue with page 7. Well, not really as we already saw page 7 back in the Swooncommamortals post from February of 2019. So we’ll start with page 8.

Notebook #21, page 8

Yup, a big wall of text. Let’s see what it says shall we? At least the main stuff, not the items in the margins – broken into paragraphs to make it easier to read:

Some women are better at reading minds than are others. Some only pick up impressions; they just get a “feeling,” you could say. Others, it’s as easy as reading a book. For many of them it’s as easy as eating a piece of candy, absorbing the entirety of a mind in one gulp.

“Reading” minds isn’t the worst of it. The worst of it is changing the minds they absorb. Changing her mind, the saying goes, is a woman’s prerogative. Changing others’ minds is a woman’s darkest secret; the black cauldron of which we all partake. Some greedily, some guiltily, some intentionally, some inadvertently.

What’s happened in Upper Felda, what is spreading throughout the civilised world is an abomination. An abomination I was very helpful in bringing about and an abomination which can come to no good end. It is a very large and very dangerous conflict. Whose minds are being absorbed and whose minds are absorbing. Whose minds are being changed and whose minds are changing minds.

It seemed inconsequential at first, but mind reading is like any other weapon of power and influence. It will inevitably gravitate to those least suited and who are the most unscrupulous about using it. The matriarchist and the Kevillists.

Simply put, the civilised world is being subjected to mental bullying and thuggery on a monumental scale of which it is completely unaware.

The text in the margins says:

Consider

Heads of state, business and economic leaders

Unelected wives, grasping opportunistic with handsome eyes and attractive figures

Then on the next page of the notebook, the text continues:

Notebook #21, page 9

And what it says:

I am a pariah for speaking these simple truths.  You've been doing more listening and thinking than talking and acting lately. That's good. That's very good. Think through the implications of what I've said.

I am a pariah. A complete outcast, dear. I was the first to speak the truth aloud and I have been ostracized because of it. I often wonder if there are others like me who have been made to not exist. Who are excluded from everything. Who have been cast out of their families and forsaken by all their friends.

→ consider implications

→ tavern is off limits to all women. You have only to request sanctuary in one of them

Do you have anything you want to discuss, Vera, before you get the guards and they sew my lips together again?

I don't think so.

Very well, dear. Run along then. I'll be right here when you get back.

Most of the text was pretty much word for word in Cerebus #164 and spoken by the real Cirin, or Serna as she is called. The text starts at the bottom of page 5 in Cerebus #164, or page 31 of the phonebook Women. The text then continues on page 16 of the same issue, page 42 in the phonebook. 

However, the text in the phonebook ends with the last sentence on page 8 of the notebook, and even that leaves out the last word, ‘unaware’. The text one page 9 doesn’t show up as far as I can see. Not even her quip to Vera.

Wednesday, 18 June 2025

Dave's finished Varkdalorian "Cover"!

Benjamin Hobbs:

The Varkdalorian and CAN 12 campaign is live now! If you haven't backed you can HERE.

You can get a print of Dave's Varkdalorian "Cover" as an add-on.  The Original art is available in it's own tier! Here's the Line Art:

Next Week: David Birdsong colors this image!

Tuesday, 17 June 2025

SDoAR 3.22: Two New Pages Unlocked & A New Raffle Begins!

1) Two pages unlocked since the last update!

2) I'm finally getting caught up on life and SDOAR items, so expect an announcement on the winner of the last raffle next week!

3) The new raffle will include all donations since the last raffle, meaning since May 29th. And I would like to propose a change to how we run raffles around here. I am proposing that a raffle ticket is generated for every $5 donation. So donate $25, that's five raffle tickets. Everyone cool with that? It means everyone who donates gets a shot at the prize.

4) Speaking of which, to make up for the lack of updates and progress of late, I'm going to up the ante on the raffle this time around.
Yup. That's a full-page Silverspoon strip from The Buyer's Guide for Comic Fandom #321, January 11, 1980!

Just the GoFundMe Facts, Ma'am

  • $18,410.00 raised to date from 319 donations
  • 116 pages released so far as mocked up and/or drawn by Dave Sim through 21 Jan 2022.
  • $190.00 away from unlocking page 117

The Strange Death of Alex Raymond New Mockups Preview 

If you haven't read The Strange Death of Alex Raymond before, we have an eight-page trailer that Dave did back in 2018: Part One | Part Two

Then the Dave Sim portion of the hardcover, presented four pages at a time:

This
Thisthis
Thisthisthis
Thisthisthisthis
Thisthisthisthisthis
Thisthisthisthisthisthis
Thisthisthisthisthisthisthisthis
Thisthisthisthisthisthisthis
Thisthisthisthisthisthis
Thisthisthisthisthis
Thisthisthisthis
Thisthisthis
And this.

If you want to see how Carson Grubaugh finished the hardcover, well, you're going to need to purchase a copy of your own. HOWEVER, if you want to see how Dave Sim continued the story in the blue pages -- bring me the blue pages -- mockups that appeared in blue ink in final section of the hardcover can be found here...

This, 
This, and this.

Then in June 2021, Dave picked up the story again and it continues herehereherehere, and here.

If you enjoy the journey, you can join us for all the new pages on Dropbox by donating $5 or more. 

Jen x 

Monday, 16 June 2025

The Strange Death of Alex Raymond Proto Version #13 (AKA the photorealist bits from glamourpuss #26)

Hi, Everybody!

Mondays!

Anyway...

Tomorrow, as she does MOST weeks, Jen DiGiacomo is gonna solicit everybody into giving a li'l something-something to The Strange Death of Alex Raymond GoFundMe she set up to get Dave money to keep working on pages (Dave's drawing pages in the 650s...). And as a part of that, she posted all of the pages from the Living The Line version of The Strange Death of Alex Raymond (up to page 205), and now she's posting Dave's mocked-up pages.

Fun fact: GoFundMe has changed their setup so you can contribute on a monthly basis (like the Patreon...).

So, to "tee her up", I'ma run the Proto-Strange Death of Alex Raymond that Dave ran in glamourpuss.

Because I can...
First this, then:











Annnnd that's the End of glamourpuss. To see what happens next, you need to click This. And then check Jen's latest for the links to all of The Strange Death of Alex Raymond.

Next week I'ma start running the Please Hold Transcripts since Jesse Lee Herndon has FINISHED all of them up to THIS month! He's a "Special Friend"...

Rigamarole:

Speaking of the 'starters, acquaintance to the blog Travis sent in:
Hi Matt, are you willing to put a link to my comic's Kickstarter on Moment of Cerebus? If not, that's cool.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fkhk/my-captivity?ref=user_menu

I'm selling bootleg Cerebus trading cards featuring my art, coloring by Hobbs, and unused art of MY characters by Dave. $10 a set for 11 cards plus TWO HANDDRAWN cards (by me). Email momentofcerebus@gmail.com and I'll explain how to pay.


The Help Out Bill Messner-Loebs Go Fund Me, or buy Rodney Schroeter's book with proceeds going to Bill. More on this as I'm allowed to post stuff...

Our very own Jen DiGiacomo is part of a film production titled The Day Elvis Died. She'll never ask anybody here, but they're crowdfunding to finish the post production on the movie. (It's set in 1977, will a certain obscure Canadian cartoon aardvark make a cameo? (No. Elvis died in August. Cerebus wasn't published until December. Any appearance in the flick would be an anachronism that would ruin the movie for everybody. EVERYBODY!).) 

______________
Up to 35% off June 16-23.*
*Sale dates are not final and therefore subject to change.
______________
You can get all 16 volumes of Cerebus, many of them Remastered for $99CANADIAN at CerebusDownloads.com (More if you want the Remastered Cerebus Guide to Self-Publishing...)
_______________
Heritage has:
_______________
Oliver' Simonsen's Cerebus movie: The Absurd, Surreal, Metaphysical, and Fractured Destiny of Cerebus the Aardvark it's currently available on "Plex", "Xumo", "Vimeo On Demand", "Tubi". If you're in Brazil..."Mometu", "Nuclear Home Video".
_______________
Next Time: Jen, and SDOAR.

Sunday, 15 June 2025

"They'd PROBABLY heal if you stopped wearing that chain-mail bikini..."

Hi, Everybody!




Then:







Rigamarole:

Speaking of the 'starters, acquaintance to the blog Travis sent in:
Hi Matt, are you willing to put a link to my comic's Kickstarter on Moment of Cerebus? If not, that's cool.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fkhk/my-captivity?ref=user_menu

I'm selling bootleg Cerebus trading cards featuring my art, coloring by Hobbs, and unused art of MY characters by Dave. $10 a set for 11 cards plus TWO HANDDRAWN cards (by me). Email momentofcerebus@gmail.com and I'll explain how to pay.


The Help Out Bill Messner-Loebs Go Fund Me, or buy Rodney Schroeter's book with proceeds going to Bill. More on this as I'm allowed to post stuff...

Our very own Jen DiGiacomo is part of a film production titled The Day Elvis Died. She'll never ask anybody here, but they're crowdfunding to finish the post production on the movie. (It's set in 1977, will a certain obscure Canadian cartoon aardvark make a cameo? (No. Elvis died in August. Cerebus wasn't published until December. Any appearance in the flick would be an anachronism that would ruin the movie for everybody. EVERYBODY!).) 

______________
Up to 35% off June 16-23.*
*Sale dates are not final and therefore subject to change.
______________
You can get all 16 volumes of Cerebus, many of them Remastered for $99CANADIAN at CerebusDownloads.com (More if you want the Remastered Cerebus Guide to Self-Publishing...)
_______________
Heritage has:
_______________
Oliver' Simonsen's Cerebus movie: The Absurd, Surreal, Metaphysical, and Fractured Destiny of Cerebus the Aardvark it's currently available on "Plex", "Xumo", "Vimeo On Demand", "Tubi". If you're in Brazil..."Mometu", "Nuclear Home Video".
_______________
Next Time: Mondays!




Saturday, 14 June 2025

"A is for Aardvark" (New Dave Art)

Hi, Everybody!

So no new Off-White House Bulletin, all I got recently was the Kickstarter Update I posted yesterday.

Which kinda sucks, because I think Dave needs to explain what the hell this stuff he had sent to me is:





Man, really wished I had Dave explaining why he's sending an article from eleven years ago that presumes univocality, inherency, and historicity in the bible...

Or, what the deal we these pieces is (click for bigger):





WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN OLD MAN?!?


Rigamarole:

Speaking of the 'starters, acquaintance to the blog Travis sent in:
Hi Matt, are you willing to put a link to my comic's Kickstarter on Moment of Cerebus? If not, that's cool.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fkhk/my-captivity?ref=user_menu

I'm selling bootleg Cerebus trading cards featuring my art, coloring by Hobbs, and unused art of MY characters by Dave. $10 a set for 11 cards plus TWO HANDDRAWN cards (by me). Email momentofcerebus@gmail.com and I'll explain how to pay.


The Help Out Bill Messner-Loebs Go Fund Me, or buy Rodney Schroeter's book with proceeds going to Bill. More on this as I'm allowed to post stuff...

Our very own Jen DiGiacomo is part of a film production titled The Day Elvis Died. She'll never ask anybody here, but they're crowdfunding to finish the post production on the movie. (It's set in 1977, will a certain obscure Canadian cartoon aardvark make a cameo? (No. Elvis died in August. Cerebus wasn't published until December. Any appearance in the flick would be an anachronism that would ruin the movie for everybody. EVERYBODY!).) 

______________
Up to 35% off June 16-23.*
*Sale dates are not final and therefore subject to change.
______________
You can get all 16 volumes of Cerebus, many of them Remastered for $99CANADIAN at CerebusDownloads.com (More if you want the Remastered Cerebus Guide to Self-Publishing...)
_______________
Heritage has:
_______________
Oliver' Simonsen's Cerebus movie: The Absurd, Surreal, Metaphysical, and Fractured Destiny of Cerebus the Aardvark it's currently available on "Plex", "Xumo", "Vimeo On Demand", "Tubi". If you're in Brazil..."Mometu", "Nuclear Home Video".
_______________
Next Time: Vintage aardvark...

Friday, 13 June 2025

CAN 12 RICK'S STORY THE VARKDALORIAN (Dave's Weekly Update) (Again?)

Hi, Everybody!

Like it says on the Logo:
The little bit on the bottom there...

It's Friday, so that means:
Dave's Weekly Update:
So, Dave wants the Kickstarter promo run twice. Which is cool since the Kickstarter is live! And Holy Crap is there all sorts of stuff going on, so click over and check it out. 

And since this Week's Update is LAST Week's Update, Here's a Kickstarter Update:

New to this campaign: You can now pay in three installments over three months. So, you can go a little crazy and take all summer to pay it off. And Covers as backing boards. Why buy five versions of the same interior when you can just get the cover at comic size and take up less room in your CiH? longbox... There LITERALLY is all sorts of rewards and neat stuff, so click over, and look around. If you can't decide, the Digital package gets you everything and takes up no room in your office or bedroom or wherever you keep your Cerebus stuff.
____________________
A Moment of Cerebus runs Saturday through Friday.

The Week in AMOC:
  • Saturday: Dave might not have a phone, but that ain't gonna stop Please Hold For Dave Sim 6/2025...
  • Sunday: Dave CAN'T call me, and Please Hold was STILL over three hours long (when you add in the bits I missed, I posted here along with the latest Off-White House Bulletin...)
  • MondayThe Monday Report, and the Proto-Strange Death of Alex Raymond #12.
  • Tuesday: Jen's tells us all 'bout The Strange Death of Alex Raymond GoFundMe, and shows off some of her research materials. $155 until page 115 of Dave's POST-Carson SDOAR mock-up pages unlocks. AND GoFundMe has a MONTHLY option now, so you can schedule a reoccurring donation. (repost of last week's since Jen didn't get her post done. She's probably busy. "We listen and don't judge...".)
  • Wednesday: Hobbs posts about The Varkdalorian Kickstarter, and how the Cerebus Archive Portfolio #12: Rick's Story Kickstarter went live.
  • Thursday: Margaret has posted ALL of Albatross One. (If you click that link, you can see all the pages of the notebook, OR, you can get a PHYSICAL copy here.) And all of The Last Notebook. Now she's gonna burn through all of Notebook #21. So sit back and get ready for pages and pages and pages of walls of handwritten text...
  • Friday: that's this post. You're reading the Friday post right now. This is STILL like that bit in Spaceballs. (Should I link to LAST WEEK'S Update in these things?)
Okay, so that was the past week in AMOC. You're welcome.

Rigamarole:
Acquaintance to the blog Travis sent in:
Hi Matt, are you willing to put a link to my comic's Kickstarter on Moment of Cerebus? If not, that's cool.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fkhk/my-captivity?ref=user_menu

I'm selling bootleg Cerebus trading cards featuring my art, coloring by Hobbs, and unused art of MY characters by Dave. $10 a set for 11 cards plus TWO HANDDRAWN cards (by me). Email momentofcerebus@gmail.com and I'll explain how to pay.


The Help Out Bill Messner-Loebs Go Fund Me, or buy Rodney Schroeter's book with proceeds going to Bill. More on this as I'm allowed to post stuff...

Our very own Jen DiGiacomo is part of a film production titled The Day Elvis Died. She'll never ask anybody here, but they're crowdfunding to finish the post production on the movie. (It's set in 1977, will a certain obscure Canadian cartoon aardvark make a cameo? (No. Elvis died in August. Cerebus wasn't published until December. Any appearance in the flick would be an anachronism that would ruin the movie for everybody. EVERYBODY!).) 

______________
Up to 35% off June 16-23.*
*Sale dates are not final and therefore subject to change.
______________
You can get all 16 volumes of Cerebus, many of them Remastered for $99CANADIAN at CerebusDownloads.com (More if you want the Remastered Cerebus Guide to Self-Publishing...)
_______________
Heritage has:
_______________
Oliver' Simonsen's Cerebus movie: The Absurd, Surreal, Metaphysical, and Fractured Destiny of Cerebus the Aardvark it's currently available on "Plex", "Xumo", "Vimeo On Demand", "Tubi". If you're in Brazil..."Mometu", "Nuclear Home Video".
_______________
Next Time: Well, unless more audio files come from The Great White North, Cerebus!

Thursday, 12 June 2025

Notebook 21: Cerebus #164 Page Nine

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’re continuing our look at Dave Sim’s 21st notebook used during the production of Cerebus. Notebook #21 covers Cerebus #164 through #187 and had 260 pages out of 300 pages scanned in – due to some pages missing and other pages being blank.

Last week we looked at pages 1, 2, and 4. Page 3 had already shown up back in February of 2019. Those pages covered the earlier pages in Cerebus #164. Now on to page 5. 

Notebook #21, page 5

The text at the top of the page:

Astoria: Other women submit to and are subservient to assholes. I have to confess that I have never been so self-destructive as to do so, but I must confess that the strongest and most intelligent women are susceptible to the worse examples of male kind imaginable.

I definitely don’t see that text in Cerebus #164. I skimmed the next couple of issues and didn’t see it there either.

Then we have a thumbnail rough for page 9 of Cerebus #164 along with some dialogue for the page. Yes, you can click on the pictures to make them larger.

Thumbnail from the notebook (left) & Cerebus #164 page 9

Pretty close. In the top three panels we get the crowd getting ready to light torches, their confusion as they look up, and then the camera moving to their right. The bottom three panels is where there is more of a difference. Though we do get a bunch of word balloons and then Roach in the final panel. 

Then on page 6 we see some more for page 9:

Notebook #21, page 6

Ahhh, another thumbnail but this time it is for the bottom half of page 9, the half that wasn’t as finished in page 5. This is closer to the finished page. And the dialogue is as well. 

Will next week bring more thumbnails (I hope so, transcribing text isn’t fun, Dave’s lettering in the book is outstanding, but in his notebooks? Good luck.) or more walls of text? We shall see for we are on the Notebook #21 binge watch.