Cerebus: The Zelig Pages... with Jimmy Gownley

Cerebus: The Zelig Pages

by Jimmy Gownley

DAVE SIM:
(from AMOC Comments, 18 November 2015)

...Phone message from NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING GRAPHIC NOVELIST Jimmy Gownley asking if there was some way to help raise money for what we're doing here... and offering some digital print concepts.

REALLY!??

Well, yes, REALLY! It's Jimmy Gownley. Jimmy Gownley has ALWAYS been a "stand-up guy" generally and CEREBUS "stand-up guy" particularly.

I called him RIGHT BACK! Here's an idea if you're up for it, Jimmy:

CEREBUS: THE ZELIG PAGES. Take a favourite sequence from CEREBUS, get Sean to e-mail you the restored/and or original art scans for that sequence and then draw your character -- AMELIA RULES! or whoever -- into the sequence and do that as a series of digital prints at the forthcoming GoFundMe site. The idea being that you do something that will appeal primarily to YOUR fans. Yes, we hope some/many/all CEREBUS fans will be interested, but this has to be something where the AMELIA RULES! fans go: "I HAVE to have this. I have NO idea who these other characters are, but I HAVE to have this."

This is another test, I think. If Dave Sim IS as highly regarded as everyone maintains then presumably it should be effortless to get some?/many?/a bunch? of the comic art professionals by whom I'm (theoretically) highly regarded to contribute.

I asked Jimmy to set whatever he thought was a fair split in revenue and, no, he wanted to DONATE the whole works. EXCEPTIONALLY generous, but that's Jimmy to a fault. Obviously he'll be able to use the page(s) whatever way he wants...in perpetuity.

I suggested the Mick & Keef sequence in CHURCH & STATE II because I know it's one of his favourites and asked him to do a sample panel and post it here (at his convenience since I'm sure he's hard at work on his next NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING graphic novel through Scholastic Books).

Any other NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING GRAPHIC NOVELISTS (say, how many of them ARE there, at this point?) who you think would want to do CEREBUS:A ZELIG PAGE?

We're going to have to limit AUTOMATIC ENTREE to people who are actually MAKING A LIVING from their "ZELIG" character(s), or the GoFundMe page is just going to be swamped. But leave it open for amateur/semi-pro contributions if they're, you know, actually FUNNY.

Not Just "Oh, HEY LOOK! Here's MY CHARACTER drawn into a CEREBUS page. Aren't. I. COOL?"

It'll probably just be Good Ol' Jimmy.

But, you never know.

JIMMY GOWNLEY:

So here is a little preview of my "Cerebus: The Zelig Pages." (Personally, I think a better title for this feature might be "Covering Cerebus" but hey... I'm just happy to be here.) This is Prince Mick meeting Tanner Clark. Tanner is a character from my Amelia Rules! series, and this marks the first time I drew any of the AR! characters since I ended the series in 2012.

I was planning on just doing a page or two, but when I started to think about the "Comic Book Metaphysics" of Tanner meeting Mick in a story suggested by Dave using comics I read in my teens, well... it grew into a five page story/essay called EXILES.

It may take me a while to finish. I'll keep you updated.

Jimmy Gownley is the author of the Amelia Rules! series of books, The Dumbest Idea Ever! and co-creator of Gracieland.