HARDtalk: The Dave Sim Interview (28)

Can you describe the size and scale of the Cerebus Archive?  I'm picturing 2 or 3 filing cabinets in the corner of a room, or has it taken over your entire house?

Um, in a real sense it IS the house.  I don't own the house, Aardvark-Vanaheim does.  That was a conscious decision on my part that my lawyer and my accountant both wanted to talk me out of, because having the corporation own it meant that I would have to pay higher capital gains taxes if I ever sold it.  But I wanted to make sure that I didn't sell it, on the one hand, and on the other hand I wanted to make sure that Gerhard co-owned it since it was his work as much as mine that was paying for it.  That was a lot of what the share repurchase deal was about -- Gerhard getting HIS money out of the house.  Whatever we arrived at as to the division of the company -- and we decided on 60-40 -- that had to include the house because it was the biggest Real World fixed asset we had.  The artwork is undoubtedly worth more, but not to the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.  The artwork to them is just a big pile of worthless pictures.  As I say, it's a very young and unsophisticated country.

There are two filing cabinets which house the 8.5 x 11 documents 1970 to 2006.  There's a large flatbed cabinet that has all 6,000 negatives in it.  About a dozen long boxes of periodicals, foreign and domestic -- anyplace where CEREBUS was mentioned or reviewed or Ger or I was interviewed.  Then there's an eight inch stack of newspaper clippings, tabloid and broadsheet.

So, the best way to picture the thing structurally is that the Cerebus Archive is the Off-White House and the contents of the house and I'm the first custodian.  Part of my compensation from Aardvark-Vanaheim is a room where I live at the back of the house and the rest of the house is the Aardvark-Vanaheim, Inc. editorial and publishing offices and The Cerebus Archive.  The largest amount of money I have, personally, is my insurance policy and Aardvark-Vanaheim Inc. is the sole beneficiary.  So, the most desirable outcome for me is that Aardvark-Vanaheim Inc. inherits that money and it is used to sustain the Off-White House and maintain the Cerebus Archive.

Ask me why that isn't going to work.

Why isn't that going to work?

What a great cliffhanger, Tim!  See you tomorrow!