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

Hi, Everybody!

Continuing from Yesterday, it's:

STOP ME IF YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE: THE SECRET ORIGIN OF

CEREBUS IN HELL? PART TWO

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 and I'm not sure CIH? has 8 pages of history

Dave Sim: Sandy Atwal, co-creator of CIH? [I always call him Sandeep, pronouncing it wrong. You have to be from India or the neighbourhood to pronounce it correctly. Evidently Joseph Conrad did the same thing: changing his name from Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski because he couldn't stand to hear it pronounced incorrectly by the English. Good call on his part, I'd say. Confession/full disclosure time. To me, Sandy is Little Orphan Annie's dog. When I say "Sandy" I picture Tony Randall on the Tonight Show singing the Little Orphan Annie Radio Show theme song. "Who's that little chatterbox? The one with the auburn locks? Who could it be? It's Little Orphan Annie!" I forget the rest of theme, but the chorus (?) ends "Arf! Arf! It's Sandy!" Which got a big laugh when Tony Randall got to it. Talking to a brown-skinned man or printing his name in a comic book he's written all, part or most of while picturing Tony Randall -- I mean, you really can't get MORE WHITE than Tony Randall -- going "Arf! Arf! It's Sandy!" and everyone laughing -- well, that just seemed too racist for words. And I couldn't NOT think of it.) (Where was I?) (Oh right) used to come in on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and one of those days we would brainstorm ideas of how Aardvark-Vanaheim could make money. The other two days we spent Aardvark-Vanaheim's money on bills and things. Having thoroughly wiped all of my Christmas snot off of it, I handed him BEARDS OF OUR FATHERS. "Here, we're going to do this, but with Cerebus and Gustave Dore's Inferno engravings." It wasn't rocket science. "Do some strips in Photoshop, you already have the Joe Kubert font from working on glamourpuss. I'll do mock-ups of mine the same way we did glamourpuss." His first strip was the Coney Island one with the dragons. Mine was the David with Goliath's head "Cerebus hates game shows" one.

I couldn't find Tony Randall on the Tonight Show, but I found this...

And Dave didn't send me those two strips, he sent me these two:

Click for bigger

And again...

We really should have planned this out better...

Despite everyone's best efforts in the comic-book field to the contrary, a new volume of SWORDS OF CEREBUS IN HELL? will be published, God willing, on a monthly basis throughout 2021and into 2022. In fact VOLUME ONE, reprinting the original four-issue mini-series may be in stores even as you're reading this. Now with the observable transition to Zero Covid-19 references! Speaking of observable transitions:

TO BE CONTINUED

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Crisis In Infinite Quarantine:

Swords of Cerebus in Hell? Volume 5

Heritage has some interesting "Dave Sim" bits (Page from issue 5, and two (count 'em) TWO! Beavers strips (ya know, the "original" Cerebus in Hell?...)!)

The AMOC TeePublic Shoppe 

Up to 35% off site-wide:

June 10 – 12

June 23 – 27

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: Hobbs and his strips or something...