HARDtalk: The Dave Sim Interview (19)

Good work on the Kickstarter: you've learned all the lessons of the brand new model intuitively and then injected more of your customary mischief into the rewards which make it an entertainment to boot. Humour - another of your sharpest weapons - is endearing and therefore persuasive. It pervaded the Glamourpuss website. Was all that intentional on Kickstarter or can you simply not help yourself?

Uh, no -- in the sense do I feel COMPELLED to be funny?  No, it's a job skill and like any job skill I turn it on when I need it and turn it off when I don't need it.  In that case, reading through all of John's pledge awards, I thought, "I have a STAKE in this and my mind is wandering."  I thought humour might be a good way to keep people reading until they hit their comfort zone pledge level.

I'm seeing the same thing as I'm annotating my Notebooks for HIGH SOCIETY AUDIO DIGITAL. A big block of text for "Kidnapping of the Aardvark" No.27 which is followed by my first sketches of the kidnappers as Yosemite Sam clones. If you have a lot of information to impart that is going to take up a few pages, you have to find a way to make it as funny as possible.  Of course, that's also why I tend to see HIGH SOCIETY as one of my "lesser works".  When you twist everything to make it funny, the subtext is that politics is inherently ridiculous which I don't think is true but which my non-political audience tends to think is true and, for me, it makes HIGH SOCIETY "untrue" at a core level.

Cerebus #27 (June 1981)
Art by Dave Sim

Same thing with recording the audio book side of HIGH SOCIETY AUDIO DIGITAL. I was actually pretty good at writing the comedic dialogue, it's "performable" with the occasional "clunker" here and there -- which leaves me the question of whether I rewrite it so it works better or stay faithful to the original text.  I have NO idea where the job skill comes from.  I've had several screenwriters tell me that I'm a natural screenwriter. As opposed to, say, George Lucas. Harrison Ford used to say that Lucas should be tied to a chair and forced at gunpoint to read his dialogue aloud. It reads fine on the page but when you try to perform it it's just "un-performable".

Speaking of HIGH SOCIETY AUDIO DIGITAL I'm falling behind so this might be the last answer for a couple of days -- depending on how long it takes me to get caught up. We really need to get some finished issues "in the can" -- with George's cover sequence, Deni's "Note from the Publisher" with period photos, pages coordinated with the audio book voice over (yes, I am doing all the characters -- although George might have to "sweeten" the Regency Elf), big band intro to Aardvark Comment, etc.  This is particularly true of No.26 which will be a universal free download when it's ready. The annotations on the Notebooks are the last thing I need to do completely. Started on No.26 this morning and I'm most of the way through No.27. I have the audio books and Cerebus Archive documents annotations done on No.26 to No.36. But mid-September is bearing down on us like a bat out of hell.

On top of that, the ZOOTANAPUSS No.5's just came in and they need to be signed and numbered and bagged and boarded and at Diamond before the end of August or... I don't know WHAT happens, but I'm willing to bet nothing good.

Zootannapuss #5 (alternative cover to Glamourpuss #26, July 2012)
Art by Dave Sim

Okay, I'll be back as SOON as I can with an answer to another question.  Can the Dynamic Duo climb to safety before The Penguin triggers his Umbrello-Flame-O-Thrower? Tune in -- ahhh -- WHENEVER! Could be like three days.  Yeah, I know that's LIKE 4EVER in the Internet Age. It might be tomorrow for all I know. I forget how many of these Tim has in reserve! Chill! Same Moment of Cerebus Time! Same Moment of Cerebus Channel! Just, you know, another day.