The Cerebus-Ending Crisis: Can We Keep Going? - Part 14

CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6

A Portfolio of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints with Exclusive Commentary by Dave Sim

Raising Funds For The Restoration & Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel 

Kickstarter ends 10th December

HI! DAVE SIM HERE! ANNOUNCING THAT KICKSTARTER CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6 (CAN6) HAS LAUNCHED! CLICK HERE TO LINK TO IT! AND PLEASE JOIN ME HERE EVERY DAY AS I DISCUSS, WITH CEREBUS FANS, THE "CEREBUS-ENDING CRISIS" WE'VE BEEN IN SINCE JULY OF THIS YEAR:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

FOURTEENTH AND FINAL PART!

More responses to the survey question "Do you have any suggestions for future Kickstarter campaigns?".

Peter S Waterloo ON :
maybe t-shirts

Hi, Peter! There are several problems with t-shirts. One is that they're different sizes so you can't just order, say, a dozen. You have to order a dozen S, a dozen M, a dozen L and a dozen XL and a dozen XXL and then you run out of one of the sizes when you still have a half-dozen of the others left. All of your money tends to be tied up in your inventory and as soon as you sell out, you need to print more of whatever size(s).

They're also expensive. The t-shirt itself is a fixed cost and people have a mental image of what they'll pay for a t-shirt and those two prices are very close together.

The reason that CEREBUS ARCHIVE works (so far, anyway) is that we're printing copies that cost 59 cents each and selling them for 10 dollars. On the scale that CEREBUS has dwindled to, you literally need to have that size of a profit margin to have any way of keeping going. That's why I designed CEREBUS ARCHIVE the way that I did: What's the least expensive format and number of pages I can imagine that I can charge the most for?

Are there are other things like that that would work? So far, we haven't come up with anything, but if we all keep focussing on it, maybe we will.

Margaret L Buzzard's Bay, MA:
I really liked the collected letters volumes, more of those please. also, a digital / pdf of the CEREBUS ARCHIVE comics - I know I have them all, but there are many out there who would like to get them. Also, if Dave's hand is still on the mend, he doesn't need to sign my prints. I rather his hand get better for TSDoAR.

More COLLECTED LETTERS on the way, Margaret!

I appreciate your thoughtfulness in offering to have me not sign your prints, Margaret, but SIGNING isn't a problem with my right hand. It takes a while for me to find the exact right position: by making sure that the right hand is FULLY extended so that the index finger is in a straight line from my elbow and my forearm is resting on a folded up towel. But, once I'm "there" and Rollie (or whoever: it's usually Rollie) is pulling the plates off as I'm signing them, I blow through all of the plates -- roughly 3,000 signatures -- in about four hours.

We take a pen and mark where the corners of the plates go on the desk. The stack can only be "so" high, but as long as the stack goes in the same place and as long as I keep my hand in the correct alignment, everything's fine.

We don't converse, while I'm doing this: if we start talking then I lose focus on keeping the hand in a straight line and the wrist starts to tighten up: it's just four hours of pure focus in absolute quiet.

[In fact, that part is getting better. It used to be -- CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER FOUR -- that I could do about 10 or 12 signatures and then there would be a "hiccup" in the wrist where the signature would land about a quarter of an inch to the left of where it was supposed to and I had to "roll" the forearm about a quarter of an inch to the right when I could feel it was about to happen. That didn't happen signing CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER FIVE a couple of weeks ago.]

It's one of the few things I CAN do without having any impact on the wrist. It's all fingers and thumb, there's no wrist involved. I get a stiff neck on my left side because maintaining a FULLY extended right hand/arm at right angles to my torso and keeping it there, the stress has to go somewhere and it's my neck. But it's very gratifying that there is at least ONE USEFUL THING I can do with my right hand and it's sign my name. As many as you want. All day and all night.

It's the reason that I don't have much confidence in medical science for this: people don't hear what it is that I'm saying when I explain it to them, so I've stopped trying to explain it. "We treat HOCKEY PLAYERS who make MILLIONS OF DOLLARS!" Yes, but what hockey players use THEIR wrists for is like a monkey wrench and what I used to use MY wrist for was like a Stradivarius. You can't repair a Stradivarius as if you were fixing a monkey wrench. Which is, I'm afraid, what they were talking about doing.

Signatures are zero problem. Ask me to pull open the waxed paper inside of a box of cereal and THERE there's a problem or to open a cardboard box and THERE there's a problem because it's ALL wrist. Or ask me to draw something which requires the interaction of wrist and fingers and thumb -- and ALL drawing requires the interaction of wrist and fingers and thumb -- and it just doesn't work. The line doesn't go down where I want it to go down because all I'm aware of is the wrist and that it isn't doing what the fingers and thumb need it to do. You can't draw if all you're aware of is your wrist.

Jan E Malmo SWEDEN:
Get that IDW Cerebus covers volume out sometime SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON

It finally arrived at the end of October, Jan. Hope you managed to find a copy!