Monday 21 March 2016

The Cerebus Oversize Project #2 - Six Deadly Sins

ALL THIS WEEK, EXCLUSIVELY HERE AT A MOMENT OF CEREBUS AS WE COUNT DOWN TO THE 7 PM FRIDAY MARCH 25 "TCOP" -- THE CEREBUS OVERSIZED PROJECT -- LAUNCH, DAVE SIM WILL BE HIGHLIGHTING AND COMMENTING ON SEVERAL OF THE FEATURED PIECES




I mentioned yesterday that the publishers of the SIX DEADLY SINS PORTFOLIO (the "missing" sin is "Lust" by the way:  it wasn't yet one of Cerebus' "Acquired Tastes", the one that would prove his undoing) dropped a really ugly magenta and electric cyan onto my black and white original cover without mentioning to me that they had decided to do so.  I am pleased, thirty-four years later, to present the cover as it had been originally intended. 

Can I kvetch a little more?  

They had been supposed to mail me the "Sloth" plates which I could sign and number at my leisure at home and then ship back to them in time for the San Diego Con. Instead, they whisked me directly from the plane to my hotel room and had me sign and number all 1750  

It wasn't the best introduction to San Diego, California or Comicon.

I have to say, developing TCOP, one of the problems was "How do we make ALL of these available?"  I mean, I can pick my favourite SIX DEADLY SINS plates, but all that's going to do is stress everyone out as to HOW and WHEN they can get the other four or five or whatever.

We'll be posting another DEADLY SIN as the countdown picks up steam  


I think we came up with a good solution.  

7 comments:

Dave Kopperman said...

Never even heard of this one - some beautiful drawing in there.

Unknown said...

Thank you, Dave!

It was definitely a high water mark back in 1981. The upfront money and relatively loose deadline allowing me to justify putting an unprecedented amount of time in on each individual picture. AND to put a picture aside after working on it for a while if I wanted to think of what I was going to do next. A luxury I didn't have on the monthly book where it was pretty much A Page A Day Or Bust! Any time I started a page and didn't have it COMPLETELY done at the end of the day was One Potential Step In The Direction of Bust! PARTICULARLY in 1981 where there was a persuasive case to be made that I was bound to run out of gas and fall off-schedule sooner rather than later. "NO ONE can do a MONTHLY comic book for 26 years!!"

If Vegas had been giving odds, they wouldn't have been very good odds, I don't think.

Steve said...


Considering Oversize, I've got a plenty sweet 6 Sins portfolio with custom colouring by Gerhard. I've wondered how Dave would colour these, if he were so inclined (or so paid for...)

And I was the winning bidder some years ago on the #1 portfolio - beating out our own fine Miss Margaret.

And for Dave Kooperman: these show up regularly on eBay and can often be purchased for roughly $30.

Steve

Unknown said...

Steve: Thanks for posting.

I wouldn't colour SIX DEADLY SINS because it was intended to be in black and white. The same as I wouldn't colour interior pages from CEREBUS. You draw things differently for black and white than you do for colour.

I'm pretty sure that I'm one of the last people who thinks that way. I'm also pretty sure that if HIGH SOCIETY had been in colour on ComiXology it would have sold a lot better.

I'm not sure what the "state of play" in society generally is. Do people still watch Ted Turner's colourized versions of black and white movies or do they watch the original black and white versions?

Steve said...


Sir Dave -

As for the old movies, I'm sure both sorts / versions are being watched. There's fans of both I'm sure - and people like our kids who don't care as long as the movie is entertaining. They're almost 14 and 12 and love the classics - well, except for dramas which tend to not hold their interest.

And for the colouring: I found Gerhard's colours added a depth to the scenes. Interestingly enough especially on the ENVY print as featured above.

Now go move that electrical cord!

Steve

Unknown said...

Steve - the electrical cord and the lamp its attached to get moved in front of the chair every week to LIGHT the Weekly Update.

Where it is is fine.

It's when it gets left in the middle of the room that there's trouble. Sandeep hit the tripwire last Thursday. BOOM go the SONY camcorder. Fortunately they build them pretty solid. Or they did back in 2009.

Steve Peters said...

Those colorized Ted Turner movies were dreadful. Hopefully they ended up in the scrap heap.