Dear Bob:
By the time you read this you will probably be dead, so I will keep it short. Craig Miller just sent me the posting from The Beat saying you had surgery yesterday for a stomach virus you contracted in New Orleans. That sounds about right. What in the hell were you thinking, cowboy, going into that cesspool (literally)? Oh, well, it was your call and you made it. I hope you had fun while it lasted because it sure doesn’t sound as if you’re having much fun now.
Craig tells me that you intended (or intend, let’s stay optimistic here) to write something for Following Cerebus about the issue 104 crossover. I hope you do because that means I can dig up all of my Bob Burden stuff to run as illustrations. Do you remember the big picture you drew on the inside cover and front page of that Oscar Wilde book you sent me? No, I didn’t expect that you would, but you did. I had forgotten about it myself until I popped it open while putting the Cerebus Archive together. It’s a beaut.
If this reaches you before you die, and you have something written already for FC or if you have anything done on the Cerebus/Carrot crossover sequel (the one where they go to Hollywood) please tell someone where they are so we can run whatever you had done in the special Dead Bob issue. Otherwise I’ll have to find a manual typewriter somewhere and fake something. Also if you can think of any Dead Bobs we can include besides yourself, Kennedy and Hope, please scrawl their names on the nearest nurse and have Roxanne forward her to the address below. Much obliged.
Keep your eye on the donut.
Your morbid amigo.
Bob Burden is the writer/artist of Flaming Carrot Comics which The Comics Journal described as "steeped in a broth of surrealism, hardboiled adventure stories, knowing innuendo and superhero comics turned inside-out." Aardvark Vanaheim published Flaming Carrot Comics #1-5 between May 1984 and January 1985, with #6-17 published by Renegade Press and #18-31 by Dark Horse Comics before ending its original run in 1994. In 1987 Cerebus and the Flaming Carrot teamed-up in Cerebus #104.
3 comments:
GAH! Don't do that, man! I thought this meant that Bob Burden was actually dead, and that we'd absolutely not get any more Flaming Carrot. Phew, it appears he is still in the land of the living. So it's just very very likely we won't get any more Flaming Carrot. But there's always hope!
To add to the Flaming Carrot (can't abbreviate it as FC or you might think I'm talking Following Cerebus) comicography, there was a crossover issue with Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Mailman, and there were...5, I guess, issues from Image/Desperado in the early 2000's, including a photo/fumetti issue starring Steranko. I believe it was because of the illness Dave refers to here that Bob ended that run of Flaming Carrot. And I don't know if we've gotten any since, and that's over 10 years?!?! GAH!
I must dig up my Flaming Carrot issues, and read them and enjoy them. Best line, from one of the TMNT crossovers: "The kittens are not for catching alligators!" Also: "Horse"
Ut! Good ol' Bob Burden. I sure hope he's still with us! FC #4 was a real game-changer for me, it started me on my short-lived quest to be a Burden completist, which is what led me to discover Cerebus. The most I've ever paid for a single issue of a comic book is still the hundred bucks I paid for Visions #1, runner-up is 75 for the original FC magazine-size #1. That was real money back in the '80s!
I keep hoping we'll eventually get to see the "Making of Issue 104" documentary, what's the story with that anyway? As much as I love and appreciate the Cerebus Cover Art Treasury, I was definitely disappointed with the lack of commentary for the 104 cover
I've been out of the loop, has it really been 10 years since anything new from Bob?
The Minds-era speech where Dave talks about visiting Bob B is a really funny piece of writing. It seems like Bob created quite the bubble or entertainment around himself, if that essay can be taken at face value. Always loved his writing.
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