Saturday 12 June 2021

STOP ME IF YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE: THE SECRET ORIGIN OF CEREBUS IN HELL? PART THREE

Hi, Everybody!

Continuing from Tuesday (which itself was a continuation from Monday. (Continuity. Ya can't spell "AMOC" without "Continuity"! (wait, yes you can. That's the last time I buy a dictionary from the dollar store. It just stops in the "Ks". Nothing after Kwyjibo...)))

STOP ME IF YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE: THE SECRET ORIGIN OF
CEREBUS IN HELL? PART THREE

The CIH? book introduction you won't get in SWORDS OF CEREBUS IN HELL? because the books are exactly 112 pages long if we just reprint the issues so the introduction would have to be 8 pages to make another signature. Or maybe a 4-page intro and 4 pages headlined "AUTOGRAPHS". Hmm.

Dave Sim: FUN FACTS ABOUT CIH? FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE NEVER ACTUALLY EXPERIENCED FUN BUT HAVE HEARD REALLY GOOD THINGS ABOUT IT:

FUN FACT #1) The strip was originally called DESECRATING CEREBUS in the sense of VANDALIZING CEREBUS (my laptop thesaurus adds destroy, despoil, deface, disfigure, mutilate, damage, sabotage, wreck and ruin to desecrate when you type in vandalize. Actually, when you type in "van". So even if I'm looking for a synonym for Van Halen or Vanna White, as usual my laptop thesaurus is pretending to be the Ken Jennings of Family Feud (to mix several game-show metaphors and a defunct rock band) (actually they're all defunct rock bands, these days, right?) with the first three letters. Desecrating means "to treat a sacred place or thing with violent disrespect". There are many things I would consider CEREBUS to be but a sacred place or thing isn't in the top 50. Sandeep just thought that made it funnier.

FUN FACT #2) Sandy was the one who picked the three iconic Cerebus images we all use to this day -- two seriously steamed Cerebi and one placid Cerebus. Same relationship as hydrogen to oxygen in the composition of water. Seriously steamed hydrogen and placid oxygen. It didn't seem fair to, say, the Whore of Babylon to have a bunch of Cerebus images to pick from and just one Whore of Babylon image. Either that or Sandy found something better to do (perhaps watching paint dry?) after he had found three of them and, so, stopped looking for more images. There are, as you can see, several Fun Facts in Fun Fact paragraph #2 to pick from.

I actually tracked down what pages they're from:
This is page 53 from my digital Reads, but that might not be right...

Page 64, but, again, that might not be right... (Also, "Cirin" said "moment" Heh.)

Two from Reads, and:
Page 19 of issue #113.

FUN FACT #3) When Sandy would turn in a strip with the song lyrics "My man INF left a tec and a nine at my crib, turned hisself in, he had to do a bid" or "Who shot ya? Separate the weak from the obso…lete, hard to creep them Brooklyn streets…" I was a) naturally curious about what song the lyrics were from and who was the performer b) what those lyrics were when translated into English c) very much aware that I'm i) really, really white and ii) really, really old, so my expressing my curiosity was apt to seriously damage the reputation of the performer in question. Clearly, there are white Fun Facts and non-white Fun Facts and they're best left that way. Call it "Good Segregation".

TO BE CONTINUED
Thanks Dave! (And: Thanks Sandy! "Arf! Arf! It's Sandy!" Sorry, Sandeep...)
_________________

Heritage has some interesting "Dave Sim" bits (Page from issue 5, and two (count 'em) TWO! Beavers strips! And an original Diamondback deck.)
Up to 35% off site-wide:
June 12
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Tell your fans! Remind them that everything will be up to 35% off -- that means $13 tees, $20 phone cases, $30 hoodies, and way more!

Next Time: Oliver and HIS "Fun Facts"!

9 comments:

Jeff said...

Shouldn't that have been DESICCATING CEREBUS?

Steve said...


Another example of Jeff's dry sense of humor...

Steve

Jeff said...

Desert humor.

Or, is that dessert humor?

Hmm. You decide.

JLH said...

Interestingly, I used the Cerebus from panel 5 of page 19 of issue 113 for my "Cerebus Meets Garfield" strip on the Square Root of Minus Garfield web comic, back in 2011:

https://www.mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=823

I sent a copy to Dave not long afterwards. So I was definitely on the same wavelength of the notion of "clipart Cerebus into another art piece" that Cerebus in Hell? spawned from, at almost the same time as it came about.

I later did a sequel: https://www.mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=2959

Brian West said...

No, Anon. The match made in Heaven, I believe, was when the framers thought to compose the First Amendment.

Out of that has come dreck like you just wrote, but on the other hand, out of that has also arose works of art like Invisible Man, The Color Purple, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, and, I might add, JUDENHAAS.

Point being that because of that variety I cherish the tremendous freedom of expression we, as Americans, can enjoy here, even if it means slight, occasional inconveniences, from time to time, from racist trolls such as yourself.

Now, gon’ fetch me that piece of birthday cake for me and your mama, like I told you to do before.

I’m getting hot. Your mama’s turning cold and I can’t be having THAT!

Get to steppin’!

Brian West said...

Hi, folks. Keeping my post off for posterity. Was meant only for very unpleasant anonymous commenter. Otherwise, please disregard.

Brian West said...

“Keeping my post on here for posterity,” I had meant to type,

Brian West said...

Trans people can hate too, honey. So miss me with that mess!

whc03grady said...

“Placid” oxygen…lol. Oxygen is highly reactive, extremely dangerous if breathed in its elemental form, and is it what will eventually kill you if cancer, a heart attack, or a dropped anvil doesn’t get you first. This may seem like a nitpick to most, but Dave is quite serious about his (mis)interpretations of (what he thinks is) science; he doesn’t mention it as a mere aside—remember that water is symbolic of God in the Simiverse.
Alright,
Grady