Saturday 12 March 2016

Scanning is just the start...

DAVE SIM:
Scanning is really just the start of the process.  For a number of years now, the long-term plan has been to make the Cerebus Archive word-searchable which, I infer, is the long-term goal with ALL research materials.  That process might be automating itself or coming close to it.  Right now, we'd be looking at using software in scanning the "81/2 x 11 and smaller" Archive -- the six filing cabinet drawers -- and the correspondence files that wouldn't just copy the documents as letter-images but as text files (the typewritten ones anyway, which is most of them), word documents.

Which would mean you could search by subject as narrowly or as widely as you wanted.

I think I'm safe in saying that no one knows where or how they specifically "fit in" to the context of their own time and particularly not in the future.

CEREBUS as a comic book, per se -- that's what it was and that's all it ever proved to be -- could (and I think will) prove to be a very limited aspect of its relevance and the need (perceived or actual) to study it in the future.  I think the greater relevance will be as a 26-year narrative.  What is the effect/result/implication(s)/inference(s) of a narrative extended over that much of a human lifetime?

I mean, you would have to have, I think, a clearer understanding of what narrative IS, the essence of it, before the need (perceived or actual) of study of a dramatically extended form of it would present itself.  It's also the only (?) instance of a completely unrestricted narrative of that length.  No one told me what to write or draw.  I didn't have an editor or a publisher.  No part of the storyline was modified to accommodate populist/popular considerations.  If (as I think will be the case) we arrive at a future date where an unrestricted narrative is perceived to be an inherent good (and I think that's inevitable, although there's no sign of it right now) then the elements that such narratives have in common could tell us things we have no concept of -- or, right now, words for -- about Reality.

As Eddie could tell you -- as the recipient and sole reader of, roughly, eight pages a day of RIP KIRBY COMMENTARIES of which THE BONE COMMENTARIES were a two-month several-hundred- page-Thank-God-I-never-have-to-subject-myself-to-that-again "tangent" -- I'm having to invent terms for what it is that I THINK Ward Greene was doing in writing RIP KIRBY.

He's about the closest to "unrestricted narrative" historically in the field because a) he was the General Manager of King Features Syndicate as well as the RIP KIRBY writer so he could do things that a writer having to show his stuff to an editor couldn't have done and b) Alex Raymond, while technically having absolute control of the strip, was..."word-narratively"?...illiterate.  So Ward Greene could -- and did -- whatever he wanted.  The way he wanted.  And there were, I think, severe consequences of that.
Only one of which was Raymond's fatal car crash in 1956.

We're far, far, far from a place as a society willing to even consider that as either actual, likely, possible or relevant. I have to make the case for it in SDOAR.  I've been working 12 hours a day six days a week on the RIP KIRBY COMMENTARIES for over a year.  I need to complete those and then start distilling everything down to script form. And I'm waiting to find out if IDW is willing to finance this research stage.  I would doubt it.  It's just not in anyone's frame of reference, in comics or out, in 2016.

So, it's just another thing that YOU THE DAVE SIM readers are making happen by providing me with "unrestricted narrative" funding that no one else will.  Because there's nowhere else in 2016 where financing for that WOULD happen.

And certainly not anywhere else in a Feminist Theocracy.

Just here.

So, THANK YOU! in advance for ANY support of "Sandeep's Project" when we launch.

12 comments:

Tony Dunlop said...

Dang. If, like me, any of you are unwilling to grant Patreon, or anyone else, monthly access to your checking account, go to cerebusdownloads and click "contribute to the Dave Sim fund." Do it now, do it often, if you ever want to see this work-in-progress in print. Just think - WE are Dave's "patrons!" How cool is that?

Agree or disagree - I do a lot of both - his is a unique voice that should be heard.

Travis Pelkie said...

Well, I want Strange Death eventually completed if only to figure out WTF Dave is even talking about here. I find his writing on comics (and other topics) fascinating, even if I find I don't agree with his conclusions in the end.

Damian T. Lloyd, Esq. said...

That Ward Greene having the ability to write whatever he wanted caused Alex Raymond to drive too fast in the rain is a claim that will ... require some justification, let's say.

-- Damian

Travis Pelkie said...

DUH. Raymond was word-narratively illiterate so he had to prove his manliness by driving his muscle car/penis substitute extra fast, which caused him to crash and die.

Sigh. I just don't know about you sometimes, Damian.

Damian T. Lloyd, Esq. said...

Travis, I'm afraid you have misunderstood both my comment and Dave's post. I suggest you reread both with increased care.

-- Damian

Travis Pelkie said...

I was being terribly sarcastic, Damian. (and I'm not sure if I'm missing you being sarcastic as well) I certainly agree with you that connecting Dave's "dots" is going to "require some justification".

Damian T. Lloyd, Esq. said...

Oh, I'm sorry; I missed that. My fault, then. It did seem a bit out of character for you, if I've read your past comments correctly.

-- Damian

Travis Pelkie said...

That's totally cool, Damian. It's hard to tell sometimes with sarcasm in writing, I know. I usually stick in a smiley when I kid around like that but thought the comment was over the top enough to be obvious.

Like with your comment on the post with your name in the title....

Damian T. Lloyd, Esq. said...

Ah, yeah, Travis, that whole thing was a real schmozzle. Poe's Law and too-hasty reading led me to misconstrue your comment above. (I'm trying out this new rhetorical tactic: false humility, in place of my usual genuine arrogance.)

I'm among that minority of comics fans interested in comic strips as well as comic books. Heck, I even willingly read R.C. Harvey (just kidding, Bob; I like your stuff). I've been looking forward to Dave's Strange Death (just looked at that sentence, and realized how important the italics are); it's too rarely we see anything of that world.

But I fear that Dominick Grace put his finger on it when he said a little while ago that "it is going to be a beautifully-drawn but highly unbelievable set of speculations about Raymond that have more to do with Dave's own belief systems than anything to do with Raymond." It's not going to help Dave's sloppy thinking when he includes made-up words to describe his made-up concepts. Soon he'll be whistling, chirping, and grunting while blaming the Feminist Theocracy for rejecting his ideas. He's a weejy-weejy bird. (Am I backsliding into snark there?)

-- Damian

Travis Pelkie said...

A bit snarky there, Damian.

Actually, I think what Dave's talking about here, if that's the sort of thing he sticks with, for the most part, could be utterly fascinating. As the guy who's done the most/longest/whatever you want to classify Cerebus as, narrative "thing" ever, his insights into what sorts of things happen in the midst of doing that narrative will be very interesting to read.

And I don't think you can deny him the necessity of having to coin new terms to describe the concepts he wishes to discuss. I don't have a "dictionary definition" of "word-narratively", but I can grasp the topic just from what Dave's saying here -- Raymond could tell a story in pictures, but using descriptions or plotting or characterizations in words, presumably (at least in Dave's estimation, I don't know enough to say) was beyond him. That's an interesting insight (if supported by the facts, of course).

Maybe there are better, more academic terms for what Dave's saying, but as long as he defines his terms well, I don't begrudge him needing to coin new phrases to get to the root of his discussions.

It's not like "deconstruction" was really a thing before Derrida or Foucault (or after them, nyuk nyuk nyuk, says the art history major who read way more about semiotics than he wished to!)

Tony Dunlop said...

Sheesh, Damian. You had to be either REALLY tired or REALLY hung over to miss the dripping sarcasm (or was it arid irony?) in Travis' remark up there...

Damian T. Lloyd, Esq. said...

Tony, that might not be an either/or thing ...

-- Damian