Friday, 18 August 2017

Apologies To Bill Sienkiewicz

Cerebus #39 (June 1982)
Art by Dave Sim

DAVE SIM:
(from Note From The President, Cerebus #74, May 1985)
Sincerest apologies to Bill Sienkiewicz whom I forgot to mention anywhere in Cerebus Jam #1...

My admiration for this man's work prompted me to render the cover of #39 in the Neal Adams style he was doing to perfection at that time in Moon Knight. I used a reverse Neal Adams signature parody on that cover.

The irony of doing a parody of Neal's signature as a tribute to Bill Sienkiewicz escaped me at the time. This issue I stole Bill's own very distinctive signature for the cover as a tribute, not to his ability to do a faithful and spontaneous variation on a seminal influence (it makes sense, I think, read it again) but rather for his own role as a seminal influence for a new generation of comics professionals (and aspiring professionals). As probably the single greatest influence on my thinking at this juncture of our storyline (page fourteen of this issue is page 1,500, by the way) such a tribute was long overdue. A brilliant, brilliant individual and my closet friend in the field (after Gerhard)...

Cerebus #74 (May 1985)
Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard

Diamond Order Code: OCT140536

1 comment:

Lee Thacker said...

I'm pretty sure that should say 'closest' friend, unless there's something Dave's not telling us!