Eight Days Of Dave - Day 7: Zootanapuss Artists Edition

DAVE SIM:

Hi Tim - I think what I'm going to do is just blather -- since this is our first time doing "after the issue" -- and leave it up to you if you want to run the whole thing all at once or dribble it out. Issue 2 of The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond took about two and a half months. I hope I get faster but I'm not counting on it.

Idyl (Dragon's Dream, 1975)
by Jeff Jones

ZOOTANAPUSS ARTISTS EDITION

The ZOOTANAPUSS ARTISTS EDITION is really me trying to come up with something I could do an Artists Edition OF. First of all, the linework. You really need something that you're going to see more in it if it's really big and the ZOOTANAPUSS pages [Glamourpuss #22-26] seemed to fit the bill. One of my all-time favourite things is my over-sized Jeff Jones IDYL collection. So, that's what I was picturing. It would be my own homage to IDYL and over-sized.

Not much more I can add to that.

Doing stuff with IDW is a lot like having your work in the Heritage Auction catalogue.  It's very intimidating. "The HELL you're doing a Frank Frazetta EC Artists Edition -- do MINE first!" And Scott Dunbier is finding more stuff all the time and is being offered more stuff because it's the Top of the Pyramid. So, it's the same as the CEREBUS COVERS books. Scott will get to you when he gets to you. There are dozens if not hundreds of projects that would take precedence. That's Dave the dispassionate comic-art fan. I get to be the guy that did the 6,000-page graphic novel. What of the 6,000 pages would have a place in the line-up?  I really don't know. How many pages is it? I mean, they're not doing BONE, they're doing "The Great Cow Race" which is...150 pages? What IS "The Great Cow Race" in CEREBUS? According to ME, or according to MOST people? The lineup has got to be getting longer every day, so ZOOTANAPUSS was really, What would I like to see of mine that size? And it's the IDYL analogy. I'll take a place 75 or 100 people back and say, "Well, okay, I'll get my ZOOTANAPUSS oversized collection when I'm in my 60s or 70s." I can't even look at what else they're doing. "Under my coffee table" books already take up as much of the space under my coffee table as I can afford. They'll send me whatever I want.  Well,  don't tell me what you're doing and I won't be tempted because I'm out of space. The Wally Wood book needs it's own room practically. Scott was proofing the MAD book when he was up here, so I inherited IDW's MAD proofs. I got Scott and Ted to sign it. Weighs about 20 pounds. Where am I going to PUT this?

I'm saving all my space for SECRET AGENT X-9 by Williamson and RIP KIRBY by Prentice for as long as IDW keep doing them.