Originally serialised within the pages of the self-published Glamourpuss #1-26 (2008-2012), The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond is an as yet uncompleted work-in-progress in which Dave Sim investigates the history of photorealism in comics, specifically focusing on the work of comic-strip artist Alex Raymond and the circumstances of his death on 6 September 1956 at the wheel of fellow artist Stan Drake's Corvette. Dave Sim has recently announced plans for The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond to be serialised in a monthly comic-book published by IDW.
DAVE SIM:
Actually, that's for THE STRANGE DEATH
OF ALEX RAYMOND No.1. It's my attempt to revive the idea of a letters
page in comics. Only obviously, people -- except me -- don't send
letters any more, so it will be a "tweet and e-mail" page. Only, I have
no way of getting tweets and e-mails so what they're going to be is
FWEETS AND FE-MAILS. That is: people will be given an address where
they can tweet or e-mail Chris and he'll convert them into faxes and
send them to me (a tweet that is faxed is called a "fweet" and an e-mail
that's faxed is called a "fe-mail").
I thought it
was, you know, very POSH to have the editor-in-chief of IDW running my
FWEETS AND FE-MAILS page so I figured a good way of making sure that
Chris did it and not someone else was to do a photorealistic drawing of
him at the top of the FWEETS AND FE-MAILS page and have him saying how
much he likes doing this in Joe Kubert font. If you look like you were
drawn by Al Williamson and you're saying how much you like doing this in
Joe Kubert font and you're ANY kind of comic fan, you're just going to,
you know, BECOME that way. Even though it's not part of your job
description and will just be a useless headache imposed on you by Dave
Sim.
 | |
| Chris Ryall, IDW Editor-In-Chief (2013) Art by Dave Sim |
So I found a picture of Chris on Google Image.
Which turned out to be from his wedding. I deleted the suit and put
him in a THE COLONIZED t-shirt. Chris has no idea how a picture of him
from his wedding ended up on the Internet, but (quite reasonably, I
think) he's decided the NSA is behind it.
I say: let them PROVE they didn't!
And,
in an effort to go all the way back to the good old days of Julie Schwartz when he instituted the letters pages in his DC books with
addresses and actually ended up creating comics fandom, we're going to
be giving away artwork! Pictures of Alex Raymond drawn by Chris Ryall!!
No, wait.
That's not it.
What am I thinking?
Julie GAVE AWAY Carmine Infantino's artwork -- he didn't draw it himself! Heh heh! Silly me! So we have to stick with tradition!
No
-- they'll be finished transfer pencil tracing drawings that I used in
producing issue No.1 and if your fweet or fe-mail is picked to be in an
issue (which Chris and I will be rating in order) you get to pick from
the IDW website which tracing paper you want and I'll personalize it and
send it to you along with an autographed STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND
issue. Top fweet or fe-mail gets first pick.
Of course
on the first issue, there won't be anything to fweet or fe-mail about
because you won't have read it yet. So the FIRST ISSUE is going to be
"in-house": editorial and executive staff at IDW suggesting their best
140 characters or fewer "tag line" for THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX
RAYMOND. The one I pick, gets first pick (which I'm betting will be the
tracing paper of the No.1 cover). And the suggestions will be faxed to
me without the name of the person who came up with it so I don't
KNOWINGLY pick Ted Adams...or Chris Ryall...or Scott Dunbier...or The
Amazing Marci!
I like to refer to Marci as Amazing because she's
the one who gets stuck with shlepping my faxes around the IDW offices to
Ted and Chris. Marci is Amazing because that means I don't have to get
e-mail!
1 comment:
Hooray IDW!
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