CEREBUS IN HELL? WEEKLY STRIP #37
Note from the Interim Head of SDOAR Division
"...a fortune in precious stones, and I'd give it all up for a hand phaser...or even a sharp stick..."
Since December of 2022, Dave Sim has drawn and finished pages 555 through 702 of The Strange Death of Alex Raymond. Sean and Carson published pages 1-205 through Living the Line's hardcover version of SDOAR (with Carson's 30 page epilogue). Pages 587-593 were included in issue #68 of Yeet Presents (Mike Jones might still have copies available...) And page 604 was a Bonus Print on CAN12. Pages 206-554 exist as mock-ups you can get from Jen's GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/sdoar-2023, and her plan (with Philip R. Frey) is to produce print ashcans of those mock-ups. Dave has gone back and produced new finished art for a few of those pages, but he's mostly focused on moving forward (His actual "tagline" is: "Either Dave Sim finishes The Strange Death of Alex Raymond, or The Strange Death of Alex Raymond will finish Dave Sim...")
Sean and Living the Line have 21 pages in their Consigned anthology (Currently being Kickstartered: https://www.kickstarter.com/.../consigned-a-living-the... ), which pages did Sean (who gets the scans of all the pages from Dave) pick?
Why not back the project and find out Spunky?
Just the GoFundMe Facts, Man...ly:
SDOAR GoFundMe -->> https://www.gofundme.com/f/sdoar-2023
"Gee Mr. Jameson, my aunt's sick and I was wondering if I could get an advance..."
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| Jeff's dead, so don't email him. And Dave doesn't have phone or fax anymore. |
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| Obviously this deal is expired... |
ANNDDDD….THEY’RE OFF! RIGHT OUT OF THE GATE, PLEASE-HOLD-FOR-DAVE-SIM AND TOUR-DIARY ’82 ARE BOTH LOOKING STRONG! STARTING DONATION BY MATT DOW SPLIT EQUALLY PUTS THEM NECK AND NECK! COMING ROUND THE FIRST BEND, AND WE HAVE ANOTHER EQUAL DONATION! REPEAT! ANOTHER EQUALLY SPLIT DONATION FOR $10 BY A DONOR! YOU CAN FEEL THE EXCITEMENT BUZZING IN THE AIR HERE AT THE KITCHENER RACE TRACK!
BOTH HORSES ON EVEN FOOTING NOW, KEEPING THE PACE AND YOU CAN SEE THE RIDERS TAKING EACH OTHER’S MEASURE, FOCUSSING ON...WE HAVE A $50 DONATION FOR ’82 TOUR DIARY!! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, ’82 HAS PULLED AWAY AND TAKEN THE LEAD! PLEASE-HOLD IS FALLING BEHIND AS ’82 NOW GAINS THE ADVANTAGE!
BUT WHAT’S THIS? A $28 DONATION FOR PLEASE-HOLD! FOLLOWED BY A $10 DONATION FOR PLEASE-HOLD! NEVER IN MY 5 MINUTES OF RACE-TRACK ANNOUNCING HAVE I WITNESSED SUCH SPIRIT, SUCH ATHLETICISM, SUCH GRACE, SUCH ACHIEVEMENT OF THE HUMAN (OR AARDVARKIAN) SPIRIT!! WILL PLEASE-HOLD BE ABLE TO CATCH-UP IN TIME BEFORE THE END OF THE FIRST SESSION? THE CROWD IS ON THE EDGE OF THEIR SEATS!
COMING ROUND THE BEND NOW, ’82 TOUR DIARY STILL IN THE LEAD BUT PLEASE-HOLD TRYING HARD TO CATCH UP, AS BOTH HORSES ARE LOCKED INTO THEIR STEADY GALLOPS IN A RACE THAT COULD GO EITHER… A $5 DONATION FOR ’82!! JUST AS IT CROSSES THE FIRST HURDLE!
THAT’S $62(CDN) FOR TOUR-DIARY ’82 AND $45(CDN) FOR PLEASE-HOLD AT THE FIRST INTERMISSION!!
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE’LL BE BACK FOR THE CONTINUATION OF THIS EXCITING RACE AFTER A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR: DIGIACOMO LUGGAGE: “WHEN YOU CAN’T TELL IF YOU’RE COMING OR GOING, MAKE SURE YOU DO IT IN STYLE...”
Well, it could go either way, kinda depends on you guys and gals...
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| James didn't send Dave Dave, it's just a picture of Dave... |
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| Click for bigger... |
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| That little bit on the bottom there... |
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| I've decided that the FULL Rigamarole is only running on Fridays now... |
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| Back and front. |
We’re continuing our look at Dave Sim’s 21st notebook used during the creation of Cerebus #164 to 187. We’ll be looking at this notebook, which there were 260 out of 300 pages scanned, until we’ve seen every single page of it. Well, the pages scanned. If you want to see all of the notebook #21 posts to date, just use the Notebook 21 tag.
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Last week we left off with a post from the past, Dialogue From Reads Part Two, which covered the dialogue on between Astoria and Cerebus in Cerebus #179 page 4, aka Reads page 90. Well, the dialogue from that issue continues on the next page of the notebook.
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| Notebook 21, page 161 |
The above dialogue is on page 12 of Cerebus #179, aka page 98 of Reads. It opens with Astoria’s line of “She’s reasonably certain you could impregnate yourself she - -“. There are revelations on the above page that were edited out for the finished page:
Whoa. Lots of lore just. . .not part of the cannon.
Unfortuately this dialogue didn’t continue on the next page. But we do get a couple of sketches:
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| Notebook 21, page 162 |
We do get a roach page, two actually: pages 18 and 19 of Cerebus #179 (pages 104 & 105 of Reads).
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| Click for bigger... |
Note from the Interim Head of SDOAR Division
"It's *hic*, it's like I said...*urp* 'scuse me, thas what it is, all right..."
(Lady at the bar Jen's been talkin' at for ten minutes) "It's like what?"
"Whas like wha'?"
(L.A.T.B.J.B.T.A.F.T.M.) "You said it's like what you said. What's like what you said?"
"It. It's to'lly like wha' I *urp*, 'scuse me, said. To'lly."
(L.A.T.B.J.B.T.A.F.T.M. getting up to leave) "well...it sure is. I'll be back."
Since December of 2022, Dave Sim has drawn and finished pages 555 through 702 of The Strange Death of Alex Raymond. Sean and Carson published pages 1-205 through Living the Line's hardcover version of SDOAR (with Carson's 30 page epilogue). Pages 587-593 were included in issue #68 of Yeet Presents (Mike Jones might still have copies available...) And page 604 was a Bonus Print on CAN12. Pages 206-554 exist as mock-ups you can get from Jen's GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/sdoar-2023, and her plan (with Philip R. Frey) is to produce print ashcans of those mock-ups. Dave has gone back and produced new finished art for a few of those pages, but he's mostly focused on moving forward (His actual "tagline" is: "Either Dave Sim finishes The Strange Death of Alex Raymond, or The Strange Death of Alex Raymond will finish Dave Sim...")
Sean and Living the Line have 21 pages in their Consigned anthology (Currently being Kickstartered: https://www.kickstarter.com/.../consigned-a-living-the... ), which pages did Sean (who gets the scans of all the pages from Dave) pick?
Why not back the project and find out Spunky?
Just the GoFundMe Facts, Man...ly:
SDOAR GoFundMe -->> https://www.gofundme.com/f/sdoar-2023
Two questions here:
1) Where does the term come from?
In the olden days of comics, in order to establish a copyright, a publisher had to, well, *publish* a comic with a proper copyright notice. If they weren't ready to go to print, they would produce a comic *just* to establish copyright. These weren't meant to be sold or kept. They were just needed to prove you had ownership of the material. Then it could be "tossed in the ashcan".
In the 1980s, Bob Burden (of Flaming Carrot fame) and other indie publishers would produce "ashcans" of upcoming books to show around, maybe sell at conventions, etc. It then became more widely used to describe promotional comics, mini-comics, etc. Anything not meant for the standard market.
2) Why are these SDoAR comics known as "ashcans"?
When Dave stopped work on SDoAR, as you may know, he left in the middle without any conclusion. This is why Dave refers to the hardcover published volume as "Carson's Version" because Carson "finished" the book so it was, at least, in a publishable state. (And it turned out pretty good, what with an Eisner nom and all.)
When Dave first started working on SDoAR again, he wasn't yet in a position where he felt he could draw, but he still had the mock-ups he had done for Carson and he began producing more mockups, with no real eye towards publishing, I think, just so he could get his ideas on paper.
But he eventually began actually working on the pages, drawing them all by hand. Dave isn't the kind of person to go back (typically), so he didn't start producing those mocked up pages, he just kept going, drawing them this time.
Jen put together the GoFundMe to finance the project with the intention of cleaning up the mockups a bit and publishing them as "ashcans", since they weren't fully produced pages. When I jumped on board to do the "remastering", I very quickly didn't want to just clean the mockups, but to actually bring them to a publishable standard that wouldn't look out of place alongside Carson and Dave's fully illustrated pages.
I must have done a good job because Dave decided they should be published at a size equivalent to the hardcover, hence the term "Giant-Sized Ashcan". He also decided that the pages looked good enough that he wanted to re-draw several sections where there just wasn't good enough material to clean up to his (or my) satisfaction.
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Well, that's the answer(s) to the best of my knowledge and recollection. Hope that clears things up.
