Photo: Dave Sim and Ted Adams shake
hands on their "agreement-in-principle" for the HIGH SOCIETY AUDIO
DIGITAL COMIC STORE 'DVD' COLLECTED EDITION (regular and signed and numbered)
in front of Gerhard's HIGH SOCIETY cover original at the Off-White
House, Kitchener, Ontario October 9, 2012
Ted Adams, CEO and publisher of IDW, taking a one-day detour on his way to the New York Comicon arrived in Kitchener, Ontario Monday night to take a first-hand look at the hundreds of pieces of artwork being scanned for THE CEREBUS COVERS volumes -- now projected to be anywhere between two to four books in total -- IDW will be publishing in 2013/14.
"I was coming here more as a decades-long CEREBUS fan than as a publisher," he said. "Scott was describing all the amazing cover material he's been scanning since Friday night and -- talking to Dave on the phone -- I said, 'I'm the CEO. Why does Scott get to have all the fun?" So I booked the same commuter flight Chicago-to-Kitchener that Scott had taken last week."
And ended up offering Dave Sim an advance of $30,000 for exclusive comic store rights for five years for the collected HIGH SOCIETY AUDIO DIGITAL which begins its long-awaited serialization tonight at midnight at CerebusDownloads.com (issue 26 is a free download, issue 27 is 99 cents).
"I just happened to have George Gatsis' audio-digital sample pages on my desktop while Ted and I were passing my MacBook back and forth, taking turns writing a press release. I said, 'Hey, you want to check this out?' laughs Sim. "The next thing I knew Aardvark-Vanaheim was $30,000 richer."
"I really think that, properly packaged, HIGH SOCIETY AUDIO DIGITAL could be a game-changer," said Adams. "I had seen the trailer at the Kickstarter site, but what George Gatsis has done takes it to a whole other level, a perfect marriage of comics and animation, and Dave Sim doing all of his character's voices! I said, 'IDW has to have this!' "
HIGH SOCIETY AUDIO DIGITAL will be a part of IDW's new IDW LIMITED division dedicated to limited edition signed and numbered packages.
"I have a lot of confidence in Ted's plans for the IDW LIMITED program both for the CEREBUS COVERS volumes and HIGH SOCIETY AUDIO DIGITAL COLLECTED," said Sim. "Scott and designer Randy Dahlk and I will be taking turns posting regular progress reports on the IDW website and at A Moment Of Cerebus and soliciting advice and suggestions from CEREBUS fans, collectors and store owners on both projects. We all want to make sure we get this right the first time."
Above, Scott Dunbier and Randy Dahlk's rough preliminary designs for two of the CEREBUS COVERS volumes. "We have to change the byline copy," said Sim. "It's more like 'GERHARD'S CEREBUS COVERS with Dave Sim.' Dahlk is working on additional proposed designs which will be posted soon to A Moment Of Cerebus for feedback from CEREBUS fans, collectors and store owners.
CEREBUS ATTACKS! variant cover for IDW's MARS ATTACKS! series. "Any excuse to do my best Ghastly Graham Ingels/Bernie Wrightson pen-work," said Sim. The cover will be available in January 2013 as the rarest variant cover for MARS ATTACKS ZOMBIES VS. ROBOTS (1 in 20). Other variant cover artists for the series include John Byrne, Mike Allred and Berkeley Breathed.
16 comments:
Too... much... awesomeness...
Mustn't... black... out....
Soooo much good news right here!!!!!
IDW kicks ASS! ! ! !
"I was coming here more as a decades-long CEREBUS fan than as a publisher," he said. "Scott was describing all the amazing cover material he's been scanning since Friday night and -- talking to Dave on the phone -- I said, 'I'm the CEO. Why does Scott get to have all the fun?"
"The next thing I knew Aardvark-Vanaheim was $30,000 richer."
Somebody kiss Ted freaking Adams right now. This guy is a CHAMPION.
This sort of comics news makes me very happy.
Well, today was a very good news day indeed.
Truly fantastic news! Congrats, guys.
This was my favourite book of the last couple decades: http://shop.idwpublishing.com/art/artisteditions/john-romita-s-the-amazing-spider-man-artist-s-edition.html
... if we get a Cerebus Covers book that looks as good, I will be ecstatic.
Hope the cover of the Covers book goes for a design like the Romita Spider-Man.
Holy crapsticks Batman!!!!!! Excellent news!!!!!
Wow, great news. I bet Dave sleeps a little easier tonight with that nice check and a nice regular source of income for the next 5 years. IDW will get it into stores, in what form remains to be seen.
"exclusive comic store rights for five years for the collected HIGH SOCIETY AUDIO DIGITAL which begins its long-awaited serialization tonight"
I literally can not figure out what this is -- since it is referencing "audio digital", is this meant to be (say) a CD packaging of the recordings or something? It doesn't *sound* like we're referring to a straught print edition of HIGH SOCIETY?
-B
I knew that God would not let this good man just simply disappear from the world of comics. Since glamourpuss and Cerebus Archive ended I have been trying to find a moment to write Dave, but it seems like some new and exciting news comes along every day.
Congratulations to Dave Sim and IDW.
David Birdsong
Dave's MARS ATTACKS variant cover is super amazing.
Personally, I was expecting the cover to 'Cerebus: The Covers' to be something like the classic Giant Size X-Men cover. Any thoughts?
I thought that the launch of Cerebus Downloads would be the highlight of my day, but this is even better!
What a roller-coaster ride the past two months have been, not just for Dave, but for every fan of his work.
Thanks for making my day.
In response to the above post from Tim, regarding thoughts about Cerebus Covers: my initial thought was that it would be something like a coffee table sized book, landscape printing (thinking more about the interior than the exterior, at the moment). My mind's eye initially came up with something like this:
http://immortalgenius.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/cerebus-covers-layout.pdf
(bear in mind I belted that out in about 10 seconds, and the images have no chronological relation, they're just what i happened to have laying around on my desktop).
The idea is that you have a "page at a glance", where you get the cover, with preliminary sketches on one side, and an explanatory blurb or related text from Dave Sim and/or the editor on the other.
Another, perhaps more obvious idea, would be to have the cover all by itself, and then have all the ancillary content lead up to it or follow it,.
Call me another person who is mystified as to what this product announcement actually IS.
Personally, if this means HIGH SOCIETY AUDIO DIGITAL is being released in a DVD set, what I would LOVE to see is audio commentary. A seperate audio track with Dave talking about each issue. I know Dave might be feeling "talked out" at this point with him annotating the notebooks and such, but audio commentary would most definitely get me to buy this.
So I booked the same commuter flight Chicago-to-Kitchener that Scott had taken last week." audio visual installation companies toronto
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