Monday 21 February 2022

TL:DW: Please Hold For Dave Sim 9/2019

Hi, Everybody!

Mondays!
Uh...I got this:

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So, Jesse Herndon asked me about the Please Hold For Dave Sim transcripts and if I'm ever gonna run anymore of them.

Here's where I'm at (blue link means it's been posted):
9/2019
10/2019
11/2019
12/2019
1/2020
2/2020
3/2020
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5/2020
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7/2020
8/2020
9/2020
10/2020
11/2020
12/2020
1/2021
2/2021
3/2021
4/2021
5/2021
6/2021
7/2021
8/2021
9/2021
10/2021
11/2021
12/2021
1/2022
2/2022

So, Here we go:
Still love that Spawn gag...

Please Hold for Dave Sim 9/5/2019 
By Dave Sim and Matt Dow
Transcribed by Jesse Lee Herndon
Posted without review...
Part One:
Matt: Hello?
Dave: Hello, Matthew.
Matt: Hello, David, how’s it goin’?
Dave: Good, how are you doing?
Matt: Pretty good!
Dave: Are we all set to go?
Matt: We are all set to go, we’re goin’ right now.
Dave: Okay, good. Let’s see, the… Damien T Lloyd, has said something about how the two double issues of Cerebus don’t count as two issues, so technically Cerebus only ran for 298 issues, but I can’t find the direct quote. I was gonna ask what you thought about that. And, so in that two issues there are four issues. It’s actually very funny the number of times I’ve had somebody say that they’re filling in their Cerebus collection and can I help them out? And these are the issues that they’re missing. They’ll say that they’re missing issue 290. [laughs] So  I’ll go, “have you got issue 289?” And it’s like, “yep!” Okay, you go and get issue 289 and bring it back to the phone. Okay, now turn it over. And it’s like, “ohhhh.” Yep if you’ve got 289 you’ve got 290, but they are different issues. I think if you’re a Cerebus purist, you should probably have two copies of 289/290 so that one of the copies is issue 289 with 290 stuck on it and the other copy is 290 with 289 stuck on it. As far as I know, I’m the only person who ever did that. Put out two issues at the same time with two different numbers on it. So I’m sticking with that. I’m sorry, Damian, I have to disagree with you. I think 112/113, 289/290, are four different issues.
Matt: I’ve always considered them… yeah, it’s a double issue, but it’s two issues worth of content in each issue, so yeah, it’s four issues.
Dave: And it’s got two numbers on it. I think that’s the other thing that creates a bit of a controversy about it because, as far as I know, I’m the only person who ever did that. Put two issues on a single comic book, because they’re both in here. This is 112/113, and this comic book here is 289/290. So, yeah, I get the sense that this is still trying to figure out if Todd McFarlane actually broke my record or if he only has to go to issue 298 because I did two double-sized issues? Is that where this discussion’s coming from?
Matt: Todd was part of it. It’s one of those, I looked for it last night, I’m like, I know it’s here someplace on the internet. And I’m lookin’ and lookin’ and I’m like, I just can’t remember. You know, was it on Facebook? Was it on an AMoC comment? Was it here, was it there, and I’m like ahh, I know the gist of it, because he’s said this a couple of times and we always… everybody always replies with, ya know, you’re being pendantic and it’s still 40 pages per issue.
Dave: [laughs] Right.
Matt: The point is kind of moot because it’s been 15 years.
Dave: Yeah, although that tends to work in the other direction, I think, in the internet age. The longer a discussion goes on, the longer the discussion is going to go on until it starts spiraling off into infinity because nobody’s going to give in on whatever viewpoint that they have advanced on Facebook or Twitter or wherever it came from. Usually, you’re pretty good at that. Usually you remember where you saw something.
Matt: Well, it’s, like I’ve said, he’s brought it up a number of times and every time someone will say, well, I personally I can see both arguments but then again, that’s… people have brought up, it’s a 6000 page graphic novel, well yeah, but the first 13 issues were 22 pages, so it’s really 6020-something.
Dave: Right.
Matt: Because that’s the other one, ya know, well it’s only 298 issues, yeah, but it’s more than 300 issues worth of content if you’re only counting it in 20 page installments so now… ya know, it’s one of those… it’s a record. And at this certain point…
Dave: It’s the same thing as the in-between stories, like the “Cerebus Jam” stories and the stories in the back of “Swords”, it’s like, do you include those as part of the 6000 page graphic novel?
Matt: I personally do, just because I consider it all, I mean, yeah, they’re not… the “Swords” stories fill in gaps so they’re kinda necessary to the storytelling. Like the Epic stories, yeah, you don’t need the Epic stories but they’re really nice looking so I include ‘em.
Dave: Right. And there are references to them, that’s the other continuity argument. Ya know, that was me trying to avoid the other big problem that Robert E Howard ran into, which was, this doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. We’ve got the map figured out, but we can’t figure out where he is or why he’s suddenly moved from here over to this place. So I was always very careful to make sure that there was a thread of continuity through all of the story and then that just creates another conflict. Well, is this part of the 6000 page graphic novel? Because it’s not part of the 300 issues. And are the 300 issues 300 issues? Are they only 298 issues? It’s like, man oh man, if we thought we were good at splitting hairs as a society before, the internet has definitely scratched that itch for a lot of people.
Matt: Well, I blame it on Stan Lee and the “okay, the sky turned green in ‘Fantastic Four’ 96 so now in ‘Daredevil’ whatever the sky has to turn green cause it’s the same month as the issue of ‘Fantastic Four’, but it didn’t turn green in ‘Spider-Man’ which means ‘Spider-Man’ was a different time, blah.” You know, it was… nice tight continuity is great, it’s just the more you get of it, the more you wrap rubber bands around the rubber band ball and eventually it’s too big to lift.
Dave: Yeah. I think that’s more of Mark Gruenwald than Stan Lee. I think…
Matt: Stan started it but when Stan started it, it was really easy to keep track of and by the time Mark came along it was, “okay well what about this issue? Does this issue count? Or does this issue not count?”
Dave: Right. Right. And how are we going to rationalize this, and are we just rationalizing or are we actually creating a solid foundation for all of this stuff. Then they come along and just blow everything up. That creates it’s own problems as well. I think at the very least we can say about Cerebus that that’s not going to happen. You’re not going to have future continuity that violates the 6000 page graphic novel itself. Are the “Cerebus in Hell?” #1s and the “Cerebus in Hell?” mini-series, part of the graphic novel? Is sort of the next argument. And it’s like, I would say so. If you’re gonna keep bugging me about, “oh what did happen after Cerebus died?” it’s like, well, if I’m gonna show you that, then we have to start giving me credit for doing more than 300 issues.
Matt: We got an email thread goin’ between the brain trust. It’s Birdsong, Hobbs, Robinson, me, and we’ve brought in a couple other guys for the “Vark Wars”, but one of the things as Todd approached 300, we’re like, just to mess with Todd, we should come up with “Cerebus #300-whatever issue it would be if you include Cerebus Archive” and I piped up with “and ‘Glamourpuss’ and all the ‘Cerebus in Hell?’ one-shots and ya know everything Dave’s published with the aardvark in it or even remotely close to it, let’s add it up, how many issues is that? Okay, Todd, this is the new record.”
Dave: [laughs] I think at that point you’re just being irritating.
Matt: [laughs] Well, then, Benjamin Hobbs came up with, why don’t we just 300-and whatever issue it would be #1, and then the next month it would be 348 #1, and then 349 #1.
Dave: [laughs] Oh, yeah, yeah. Are they still talking about that on Todd’s and Eric’s website?
Matt: Ahh, there’s a lot of articles online still about Todd gettin’ to 300 and 301. I’ve been seein’ links to ‘em, I don’t always click on ‘em. There was one where, on Previews, there was a video where they were interviewing Todd and he was explaining what the record he’s breaking is. And ever since then every Friday when I post the Weekly Update I used to just put “here’s Dave” and the video. Now I put here’s and I put the Guinness World’s Record logo, and then the video.
Dave: [laughs] Okay.
Matt: So I mean, his record is it’s the longest independently owned, run comic book in North America.
Dave: Oh. Okay.
Matt: Okay! Well, ya know. I can see that, but ya know… the record that you have is writing and drawing 300 consecutive issues…
Dave: Right.
Matt: I mean, if we really want to get pendactic how many pages did Jack Kirby draw? Well, okay, that’s the new record, you’ve got to beat Kirby’s record.
Dave: Right. Yeah, I think, Todd might have to do a little work on the description and see if he can sell that to the Guinness people. As here’s another category that you’re going to have to add in. I mean, Rick Norwood, who does “Comics Review”, he just put out issue 400. And he thinks he’s the guy with the record.
Matt: The Guinness book has the world record for the most number of characters on the cover of a comic book is an issue of “Deadpool” and it has 238 characters. And somebody pointed out that there was an issue of “GI Joe” that has all the GI Joes on it and it’s 238 GI Joes but the “Deadpool” cover counts animals as characters but the “GI Joe” cover didn’t and they have animal characters so technically “GI Joe” has the record even though Guinness gave the record to “Deadpool”.
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: This is the point where Dave goes, “I’m gonna go work on a ‘Strange Death of Alex Raymond’ for a couple hours.” [laughs]
Dave: Really. It’s like, have you people no better uses for your time? And you try and find diplomatic ways of saying that and there’s really no diplomatic way of saying that.
Matt: But remember, the “Guinness Book of World Records” was founded as a book of records to settle bar bets.
Dave: Right.
Matt: So, in my eyes, any record in the book involves alcohol at least a little bit.
Dave: This is true. This is true. It’s like Blair’s son… was it Blair’s son? Yeah, Blair’s son was the first one to discover it in the Kitchen family that I was in the “Guinness Book of World Records” and Blair said “yeah, he really just looks at it cause it’s got lots of creepy stuff in it like guys with way too long fingernails and stuff like that. But otherwise, he wouldn’t be allowed to look at them because the “Guinness Book of World Records” has gotten a little more scholarly now. Yeah, it’s… I’m never near a bookstore but I think if anybody is near a bookstore that’s got the 2019…
Matt: 18. 2018.
Dave: What’s that?
Matt: You’re in the 2018 book, the 2019 book has all different records. I went out and got a copy and was gonna buy a copy of the 2019, like, okay, Dave’s in here. But actually, a lot of records don’t roll over from year to year…
Dave: Oh really?
Matt: Cause it’s an abridged version of the record book. On their website they’re supposed to have everything listed.
Dave: And do they?
Matt: Uhh… last time I looked, I think they still had to update it, I couldn’t find the record with you.
Dave: Right. I’m wondering if, when they start getting inundated with emails from people who want Todd to replace Dave Sim they just go, “let’s just skip this record. I don’t think people in the real world are gonna notice and these people are just being irritating at this point.” But I will be able to say I was in the 2018 “Guinness Book of World Records”, so…
Matt: The biggest problem I have is, you go to the bookstore and you’re like, okay, I’m lookin’ for the “Guinness Book of World Records” and they give you the current year’s, and I’m like, “I’m lookin’ for last year’s” and they just look at you like you’re a moron, “well, why would you want last year?”, it’s like, “cause that’s the one that’s got the record I wanna see.”
Dave: Right, right. [laughs] And then we’ll find out which one’s the rarest “Guinness Book of World Records” book. You just can’t find that 2018 anymore cause of all of the Cerebus fans bought it.
Matt: Every time I go to the half-priced bookstore, I kick myself when I walk out, I’m like, “I forgot to ask if they had the book!”
Dave: Okay, well… next time.
 
PART ONE WALKS OUT FORGETTING TO ASK IF THEY HAD THE BOOK
PART TWO BREAKDANCES
 
Dave: Okay, what was the other one? Oh, David Birdsong. “This reminds me of something I keep forgetting to bring up. I have a digital version of ‘Glamourpuss’. It’s a bootleg that someone created a few years ago. I added the covers and I sent it to Matt last year for use on A Moment of Cerebus. Would anyone buy it in the same “bootlegging the bootleggers” way as it is done on cerebusdownloads.com? I keep forgetting to ask Dave about it, but mentioning it here will make that happen. I’d like to tell him there’s vocal interest if possible.” Yeah, we could give it a try. I mean, it’s really just putting something up on CerebusDownloads. I’m not sure how interested people are going to be. CerebusDownloads is kind of eerie in the fact that I only check in the Paypal at the end of the month and that tells me who’s ordered what at CerebusDownloads and it’s always three of the $99 complete packages. And I have no idea how that’s even possible. Shouldn’t it be like 5 sometimes and 1 or 2 other times? No, it’s always three. And it’s worldwide. This month it was one person from Canada, one person from the US, and one person from Italy. So it’s just one of those really really eerie things about Cerebus that… it would be really nice if we could pump that up in some way. Like, hey everybody, if you’re really looking for world record graphic novels, one of the world record graphic novels is Cerebus and you can get all 6000 pages for $99. It’s not even $99 US, it’s $99 Canadian! Which is down around, depending on the day, that’s one of those weird lately too. Where yesterday it was 29 cents on the dollar, or the dollar had gone down by 29 cents, then the dollar went up by 45 cents today, .45. It’s like, how is it doing that? Why is it doing that? I dunno! It was very very fortunate that I was depositing a large US dollar cheque and the Canadian dollar had absolutely died yesterday. But, yeah, it would be very nice if the people who are, yeah I would like to help Dave Sim out, or I would definitely like to see Cerebus keep going, or I would like to see Aardvark-Vanaheim keep going. Definitely the easiest way to do that is $99 package at CerebusDownloads.com and… maybe if we spend a lot of time talking about it this month, maybe 4 people will order it. We’ll see how that goes. I’m also trying to pump up the Patreon numbers. And I don’t know if this is gonna work, those things don’t work but what the heck, you come up with the idea, let’s just see if this works. Anybody increasing their pledge-- this’ll be in the Weekly Update tomorrow. Anybody increasing their pledge on Patreon or any new person pledging on Patreon, for each dollar that you go up in your pledge, or each dollar you make with your new pledge, you get a chance at willing a prototype “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” Volume One. Cause we’re not at the finished prototype, I had very very high hopes when I got the latest prototype that everything would be fixed and I could just breeze right through it and it would be finished, but it’s not finished, it’s still got finicky little stuff to do on it and of course Sean’s still recovering from his appendicitis, getting his appendix out, so that’s probably gonna be a couple of weeks there before he even gets to get back to “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” which is the next thing on his schedule. So I thought, well, okay, if we get, let’s say, 4 people to go up by $2 and 2 new people who both pledge $1 dollar each, then I just make up little chits with their names on them, put them all in a hat, pull them out, and somebody’s gonna win a “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” prototype and will be the first kid on their block to read the “Strange Death of Alex Raymond”.
Matt: Okay. I guess I’m gonna have to bump up the $5 to $7.
Dave: [laughs] You’re gonna go for the two shot [indistinct]? Two chances?
Matt: I mean, I might even go up to 10 and forget about it for a couple of months like I did when the CerebusTV videos started and I tried to go through CerebusDownloads and it doesn’t like my Paypal for some reason. I’m just like, I’m just gonna go up to… actually, it was before CerebusTV, it was just the 77 cents. And I’m like, I’m just gonna go up to 10 bucks, and then a couple of months later, I’m like, oh yeah, that’s right I bumped that up. I gotta bump that back down otherwise I’m forgetting where my money’s going.
Dave: Right, right. Yeah, I mean, one of the things I was thinking is a bunch of people could just go up by $50 and just quit. Okay, that’s it, you got my 50 bucks, you’re never getting another nickle out of me. But, I got 50 chances at the “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” Volume One prototype.
Matt: Okay, and that’s… I’ll definitely be flogging that on the blog while the window’s open.
Dave: [laughs] Well, there ya go. And I have no idea when it’s going to happen, I really should’ve checked this with Eddie Khanna first.
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: How much of a problem is this going to cause for you, Eddie? But I figure they’ll be so few people who will actually go for it, that they can just email Eddie and say, ahh just wanted to let you know I went up by $2 and then Eddie can let me know, okay write down this person’s name twice because they went up by $2. And it’ll all be over and done with and somebody will get a prototype “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” Volume One.
Matt: The hand-corrected “Vark Wars” auction is up to $50 now cause Brian West sent me… posted something today. It was at $40, and he bumped it up another 10 to $50.
Dave: Oh, that’s better.
Matt: He’s winnin’! And if I get up real early to go to work he’s gonna definitely win, the auction ends when I post the video.
Dave: Right, right.
Matt: But I’m tryin’ to leave it to the end of the day, to give those last minute people that chance to snipe.
Dave: Okay, good. Good. Yeah, the idea of doing that is these are very expensive comic books to print when you’re only printing one at Studio Comixpress, but if we can sell this one for $50, that’ll probably pay for 5 of the prototypes up ahead, which is good, cause I’m trying to cut costs wherever I can. I’m just trying to find the bottom on everything. It’s like, I don’t think my person economy is gonna get appreciably better, and I don’t think the general economy is going to get appreciably better. So, okay, what is the absolute least amount of money I can get away with spending and what’s the most amount of money that I can bring in to cover exactly these kinds of expenses. Where I do want to have a prototype of the comic book done correctly, and I don’t want to eliminate that, so this is a good way to sort of play one off the against the other.
Matt: So, what would the price be to print two?
Dave: [laughs] I’ve never asked that.
Matt: I would ask that, and then, you can say, we’re gonna print up whatever future issue, like say, “Spider-Vark”, we’re gonna print up the prototype for “Spider-Vark”. If you pay for two, you get one. Signed personalized, ya know, in an Aardvark-Vanaheim mailer sent to your house. Dave Sim will write your name at least twice, once on the comic and once on the envelope.
Dave: Right.
Matt: And sell it that way. I mean, it’s one way to get all of Seiler’s money.
Dave: [laughs] Or a good chunk of it, anyway. A good chunk of it. We gotta leave him some money for food.
Matt: I forget what auction it was, but he posted saying, “well, I gotta pay my brother’s bills” cause his brother’s sick, and “so I’m out” and I’m like, okay! And then a week later it’s, “I’ll go $40 on the ‘Vark Wars’”, and I’m like, so apparently you’re done takin’ care of your brother, Jeff!
Dave: Well, he’s actually in Fayetteville now and has been for a couple weeks, so I think he’s got maybe a clearer idea of what his brother’s actual situation was. They’re twins, and it definitely sounds like a Oscar & Felix kind of thing and Jeff is the Felix.
Matt: Yes, that’s everything that Jeff’s ever told me about his brother is that, he’s the good twin.
Dave: Yeah. And the clean twin. I guess he went in with a flamethrower and got rid of all his beer cans. I don’t know, he might’ve taken them back and gotten money on those and that’s just gonna pay bills for the next two years or something.
Matt: [laughs]
 
PART TWO HAS NO DEPOSIT AND MAKES NO RETURN
PART THREE THROWS FLAMES
 
Dave: The other one was the Gene Day interview that you faxed me and thank you. I’m very glad to have that in the Cerebus Archive and it’s a very long interview. But it was definitely the weird part where Gene starts talking about me getting an unlisted number because I was being stalked by a female fan. [laughs] And it’s like, I’m going… I was what?! [laughs] Which is really weird, it’s like, I got to that part and I read it, and I reread it., and I reread it, and I went,”Gene Day does not make stuff up” that was one of those things about Gene Day. If he told you something that he heard, it was the thing that he heard. He was not an exaggeration guy and he wasn’t a gossip by any stretch of the imagination. So I’m going, first of all, who is he talking about? Because if I had had a female stalker when I was married, like Deni and I had an open marriage. My question would’ve been, can I see a picture? Can you send me a recent picture and if I like the way you look, this’ll be no problem. So, that wasn’t possible, and then I’m going, okay this is the end of 1981 where he’s talking about this. And the only person besides Deni that I had sex with during my marriage, even when we had an open marriage, was Sally and that was from summer of 1978 to early spring 1979? And that was it. It was like… Deni slept with at least four guys that I know of through our open marriage thing. But this is why I’m going, who does Gene even think that he’s talking about, and where is he getting this from? It’s why I’m going, okay, this is one of Deni’s things where Deni is a pathological liar in the sense that I’m doing research with William Seabrook on “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” right now, and his second wife said “Willie didn’t lie. Willie told his own truth”.
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: That was… it was like one of those, thank you! I’ve been trying to figure out a way to explain this to people, and that’s exactly what it is with pathological liars. They’re not actually lying, they think that they’re telling the truth but they tell their own version of the story, so I’m sitting here, going, “okay, where is Gene getting this from?” and I’m going, I can’t picture him talking to Deni. He was a very very old fashioned traditional kind of guy, he would be very very uncomfortable talking to somebody else’s wife if, whoever it is, wasn’t there. It’s like, we did visit… Deni and I did visit Gene and Gail at one point for a week or a few days, whatever it was. And I’m sitting there going, in order to get to this part of the conversation, they would have to be talking pretty intensively and that would not have happened with Gene. So what is the story here? And I go, “I think this is Deni talking to Gail, and the subject of us having an unlisted number came up” and it’s like, we got an unlisted number because I thought that’s probably the best thing you can do when you’re a famous person. Get an unlisted number and you won’t get people phoning around trying to find Dave Sim. But that’s really all that it was. I think that Deni talking to Gail, Gail said, “well, that’s stupid. What do you need an unlisted number for? Yeah, we get phone calls from fans. Well, Gene usually invites them over to hang out for a while or they just drop by the house, or whatever.” And I think was Deni did is make Sally into a crazed fan because that supported her argument, and it also gave her a chance to talk to Gail about Sally, of, ya know, this woman really had designs on Dave. And it’s like, I’m not sure how true that was, but it was certainly truer than I thought it was at the time. I do remember Deni saying to me at one point, “like, do you understand that Sally is in love with you? Like she’s moved downtown to be closer to you” and it’s like, no, I didn’t think that was the case. It’s like, she knows… Sally knows I’m with you and that this is something that we have on the side apart from my relationship with you. And it’s like, Deni was far closer to the truth as to, if a woman, and in particular a girl, Sally was only eighteen at the time, if a girl is having sex with you, she can say that she understands the situation. She can say that she understands that she’s the mistress and the other one is the wife, end of story. But that isn’t the way that she’s actually thinking, what she’s thinking is, “no, I will stick with this and eventually he’ll change his mind and he’ll decide to be with me instead”. And it’s like, that’s one of the reasons why if you have an open marriage the wife has no problem getting laid because she just has to find guys looking to get laid. There’s no shortage of those out there. But a married man having an open marriage and wanting to have sex with somebody else, it’s like, no I don’t do that. I am the girlfriend, or if I’m the mistress, I’d better be the mistress that he actually wishes that he was with and we’re just trying to figure out how to get rid of the wife. In terms of, “you’re happy with your wife and you’re staying with your wife and you wanna have sex with me”, that really doesn’t fly with the female of the species.
Matt: I wouldn’t know. I got a closed marriage.
Dave: [laughs] I hope you don’t know. Believe me! Never ever go there. Never never go anywhere near adultery. That’s one of those… there’s a very good reason that adultery is up in the 10 Commandments with murder, because it’s really, really, really bad. There is no happy outcome from adultery and the whole world’s trying to pretend that that’s not true. The whole secular world’s trying to pretend that that’s not true, and I think they’re starting to persuade some of the religious people that, “yeah, it’s not really adultery if you actually care about the person” it’s like, no, no, no, no, it’s up there with murder and stealing for a very good reason, because there is no happy outcome out of that.
Matt: There was a guy I used to work with that, he was married and had a couple of kids, and his wife one day said, “well let’s bring somebody else in the bedroom with us” and he went, “okay, I guess” and then it was, “well let’s date other people” and “alright, fine”, and then it was, “I’m gonna leave you now and get a divorce” and he’s kinda like, “well, how’d that happen?!” Really? You couldn’t see step one and step two?
Dave: Yeah, you couldn’t see that coming from a mile off?
Matt: I mean, he’s tellin’ the rest of us about his wild adventures, and we’re all just shakin’ our head like, “ya gotta start paying attention to what’s goin’ on, man. She says she loves you, she wants to be with you forever, but that guy’s comin’ over on Friday night”.
Dave: Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s you really have to make up your mind if you want to be with somebody and you want to be married, it’s a completely exclusive thing from then on. Don’t even visit any other configuration in your head because it can only end unhappily. Ya know, I’m here as living proof of that. That’s one of those, if there’s one thing I could go back and tell myself, it would be, you’re not a husband. And if you’re not a husband, your best bet is to stay completely away from women because nothing is going to end happily. You can’t visit that side of women because it doesn’t visit properly. It’s not a visiting kind of thing. You’re either going to pack up all your bags and move them over there, and move in and live there in perpetuity, until she decides otherwise. Or you’re really just asking for a very very unhappy stretch. My experience was always however good it is for however long it is going in, that’s exactly how bad it’s going to be for exactly how long after you leave. Usually times 2 or times 3. You’re never gonna win at the game. Don’t sit down at the table. Don’t bet any money on it.
Matt: I can’t even remember where I heard it, if it was in a movie or a book or what, there was a guy said, in his opinion, “there were two women in the world: my wife and everybody else.”
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: And when I got together with Paula that’s… somebody said, “well you know, you can look” and I’m like, no. There’s two women in the world: My girlfriend and everybody else. And they’re like, “Well, no, you can’t be that way” and I’m like, yeah, it’s that simple. You either get monogamous and stay monogamous or you forget about havin’ a girlfriend.
Dave: Yeah.
Matt: Tangentially, Billy Idol was gettin’ interviewed and they said, “well you beat addiction and you don’t do drugs” and he’s like, “no, no, no, I can do drugs, I choose not to” and the interviewer’s like, “what?” and asked him to explain. He’s like, “if I tell myself I can’t, my inner rebel’s gonna say ‘yes I can’ and I’m going to do drugs. If I tell myself I can do drugs, but I don’t wanna do drugs, then I’m okay.”
Dave: Right.
Matt: I figure, I mean, women are great, but they’re also a bit of a drug.
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: That’s why, every young man that falls in love with the first woman he meets, it’s like, well, ya know. It’s nice to be in love, but at the same time, ya know, it’s better to find somebody that loves you too.
Dave: Right, right.
Matt: Otherwise, you end up, ya know, outside your parents place talkin’ to the neighbor, askin’ them, “where are my parents buried, Mr Morton?”
Dave: Right! Right. Yes, happy endings and unhappy en…
 
PART THREE ENDS HAPPILY
PART FOUR RETCONS THE HAPPINESS AWAY
 
Matt: That’s…
Dave: Was there anything else that you wanted to talk about specifically, or? Anything off the top of your head?
Matt: Uhh… when I was at work today, I’ve been workin’ with other people, I haven’t been… ya know, my job is fairly mindless so I get to daydream and I think about Cerebus and I think about, ya know, every… I think about AMoC, I think about everything. And the past couple of weeks, I’ve been workin’ with people, but today they actually put me by myself for a couple of hours, and it dawned on me, I screwed up when we were startin’ the “Vark Wars” Campaign to get people to order, that… I meant to tell David and Ben and Sean, hey guys, let’s start formulatin’ this stuff several months out so that when we get the order code from Diamond, which, for everybody that’s payin’ attention at home is September 191310. Order 56 copies, come on, they’re gonna be worth money!
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: Oh, I started off with “go ahead, order a copy or 10,” and then it was order a copy or 20, then it was order a copy or 30. The strip for “Please Hold” is order a copy or 50. I forgot to say something, and next thing I know, I’m gettin’ the email from David, “hey, it’s time to order” I’m like, oh crap. But it dawned on me today, that the best ad campaign would have been “Cerebus + Skywalker = the Spirit of 77”.
Dave: There you go.
Matt: And then I’m like, wait a minute, that’s a familiar phrase, and that’s right, it’s from “Watchmen” and I’m like, didn’t they have like a fake newspaper that said “Spirit of 77” and had a couple of photos and we could take that image out of “Watchmen” slap in a picture of Cerebus, slap in a picture of Mark Hamill and start sharin’ all over social media? So now I gotta send an email to the brain trust, going, okay guys we gotta start doin’ this for the next 12 days. Or 13 days.
Dave: It’s also a weird thing in the comic book field because this is the solicitation time period. Then there’s also when it’s in the store.
Matt: Right.
Dave: Which isn’t gonna be until November. This is September, we’ve got another month in between, and we should be trying to sell “Iron Manticore”, which is the one that’s gonna be in the stores at the end of the month, but I’m not sure that there’s a way to do both of those simultaneously and do an effective job with either? But that’s definitely something we need to be thinking about, because Diamond still has been adding 10% to their order so that they do have… well, most of it’s for in case there’s damages or something like that. Somebody can actually get a copy of a comic book, the store can get a copy of the comic book that they ordered undamaged. But there’s usually another 75 or 100 copies left over that if you’re still pushing them, the store can still get them. I don’t know how happy the stores are about that, that people who are buying “Cerebus in Hell?” #1 If they miss one, “I want to get this”, and it’s like, “I think it’s sold out”, “well no, because you look on the back cover, if it was sold out it would have a little ‘sold out’ thing over the top of it.” So, presumably Diamond still has them. And then you get into the situation of Diamond’s inventory system is glitchy, so we have books that disappear that theoretically exist and other books that all of a sudden reappear. Last couple of back covers put question marks over those because we thought this one was sold out, but Diamond’s telling us that they’ve got copies of these, so order them before they disappear again, wherever they went to last time.
Matt: So, who gets that information? Do you get a fax from Diamond or are they goin’ through Sean, or? How do we know what’s in stock or what’s not?
Dave: Eddie keeps track of those and then every Sunday he faxes me that week’s inventory information. So it tells me this is how many copies sold of this, and how many copies shipped of this, how many they’ve got orders for that they haven’t filled yet. So I can see what the orders are going to be up ahead for a couple of weeks before the final orders are coming in. We’re definitely in record setting territory for record setting rare Cerebus #1s, we’re down to 1550 of “Tales of Sophistication” the first Iron Manticore, and just waiting to see what’s gonna happen on the second one. I’m definitely considering posting the Cerebus Archive order from 45 up to 100 copies just because I know exactly what happened with “Cerebus Archive” the comic book at the end there, where I just got flooded with people when ComiXpress went out of business. “Could I get the last two issues or the last three issues of ‘Cerebus Archive’?” and it’s like, I didn’t order any for myself, I’ve got three or four copies in the Cerebus Archive that I had a standing order for and have actually given away a couple of them and said, “ohh, I’ll always just get ComiXpress to print up a couple more of them”. And not realizing that they’re finite and those are definitely the rarest Aardvark-Vanaheim #1s but we’re definitely getting to that point again, so, complete vested self-interest. I just want to make sure that I have copies myself and it’s probably… if you’re looking at any of these, and going, “yeah, I would sure hate to have just one copy of this and never be able to get another copy of this”, we’re definitely getting into that territory. One of those speak now or forever hold your peace, at your LCS.
Matt: I think I’m gonna email Eddie and say “when you fax Dave, send a copy of it to me and I’ll put it on A Moment of Cerebus as a postscript to any post of, ‘this is what’s available. If you missed the issue, you have this finite window that they might have another copy, according to the inventory there’s X number left”, just so people know it’s not one of those, “hey, it’s gonna be sold out”, then it’s gone. You either order beforehand, this is your last chance to order secondhand, or else you’re gonna be buying off of eBay and payin’ the shipping.
Dave: I’m not sure that we could do that. These are like internal comics numbers, but we can certainly ask if they have a problem with that.
Matt: Oh okay.
Dave: It’ll take a while to get an answer, because Eddie will ask Pat Demery and then Pat Demery passes it up the line. But I’m sure they’ve never had a request like that before. Many times you’re asking for something that’s never been done before.
Matt: There has to be a meeting, and then a meeting about the results of the meeting, and the meeting about the results of the results of the meeting.
Dave: Right, right. And it’s also everybody wants to pass it up the line. These sort of decisions are out of my pay scale and I don’t want this landing back in my desk of, “did you authorize this?” It’s like, I’m not authorizing this, I’m just saying that the question has come up and I will be happy to relay the answer when you’ve got an answer for me. And then we just sit tight until it goes all the way up to whoever it has to go all the way up to before somebody goes, “yeah, okay, I’ll make a decision on that one.”
Matt: I’ll email Eddie and just state, this is the idea, ya know, start the ball rollin’ and we’ll see how long it is before we get a “uhh, no we’re not gonna do that.”
Dave: Okay! Sounds good.
Matt: I gotta figure out how many copies of the “Vark Wars” I wanna order for…
 
PART FOUR GETS LOST IN THE SYSTEM
PART FIVE REPRINTS
 
Matt: I gotta figure out how many copies of the “Vark Wars” I wanna order for myself, because, I was gonna order 10, and then I was like, well, maybe I should order 20 cause I just got this feeling like all my Aunts and Uncles will be, “You wrote a comic? We want a copy!” and I’m like, well, you can go to your local… and they’re not gonna go to a local comic book store, they live in the middle of Bumfart, Oklahoma.
Dave: [laughs] That’s one of those things that… maybe you can buy them for Natasha and maybe she can sell them to the Aunts and Uncles.
Matt: That’s the other thing I thought about today was, ya know, if I order 20 copies and I give away 10 and I sit on 10 and in 15 years the kids go, “hey wait, you wrote a comic book?” Well, yeah, I helped write a comic book. I mean, it’s one of those, my Dad will tell me a story and my jaw will hit the floor like, I’ve known you for 40 years Dad, you’ve never told me this before.
Dave: Right.
Matt: So I’m tryin’ to avoid this situation, by, you know, if they ask a question, I answer it, but at the same time, I’m waitin’ for when my kids are old enough to be flabbergasted like, “you used to get phone calls from a Canadian comic book creator?” Well, yeah, remember, I’d tell you guys be really quiet while Dad’s on the phone?
Dave: [laughs] That’s the only part that they knew.
Matt: All they knew was Dad kept sounding like a leaky hot air balloon, going, “shhhhhhh”.
Dave: That’s right. No, I think that what you will find, that however many you think you need you’ll probably need more than that, just because… it happened in 2019, before you know it it’s 2023, and you’re going, “didn’t I use to have 20 of those? Didn’t I use to have 50 of those?” I mean, I used to have 20 copies of Cerebus #1. Before you know it, it just hasn’t happened for a variety of reasons and that’s just the way that that goes, I’ve gotten much much stingier in my old age. It’s like Brian West wanted a copy of Cerebus #300 for the prayer on the inside back cover and it’s like, “I faxed you the prayer on the inside back cover.” Wherever I’ve got a handful of copies of Cerebus #300, I have learned my lesson. Don’t get tempted to do that. In your case, first time out, I’m gonna tell you, you’re gonna need more than you think you will need.
Matt: I think when I email my local store, I’m gonna say, I want X number of copies and the reason that I want is cause I helped write it. If you guys wanna buy a bunch and do a signing, I’m come up and I’ll sit behind a table and look like a schmuck for a couple of hours.
Dave: There’s a plan!
Matt: I’m good at lookin’ like a schmuck!
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: And if I help the store make money, I help the store make money.
Dave: Right. Right.
Matt: I mean, I’ll do it for free. One year, Free Comic Book Day, my friend Kevin was workin’ part time at the store, and he’s like, “hey, do you wanna come up and sell comics for Free Comic Book Day?” and I’m like sure! So we set up a table, we sat there, and I’m like, why are we here? He’s like, “well, c’mon, we did comics”, and I’m like, yeah, but I don’t feel right charging money for something’s that’s a year or two old, and we’re not real professionals, there’s real professionals over at that table and there’s two of us lookin’ like schmucks. And he’s like, “yeah, okay, okay” and I’m like, I did it once, it was fun, but at the same time I just felt really weird cause like I’m really really small, everyone else is really really big?
Dave: Right. Right. Uhh, actually with “Vark Wars” if you wanna do that, like we can add that to the order. My only concern, again, I’m watching every nickle that flows out of this place, my concern would just be the postage. I will be happy to sign copies for you and your local store and same thing for Benjamin and the same thing for David Birdsong and who else? Oliver did a strip in there.
Matt: David Brandstetter…
Dave: David Brandstetter…
Matt: And then Seiler, but, I dunno, he only did half a strip. We had to finish it for him,
Dave: [laughs] Okay, well, it’s still the same deal of, if you tell me how many copies you want, I will charge you what Marquee’s gonna charge me to ship them here. And then I will charge you what it’s going to cost for me to ship them. So Rolly will wrap them up and ship them. Rolly gets like $15 an hour, and ship them to you guys, and I’ll autograph them for free.
Matt: Okay. I will send out the message to the rest of the crew. Like I said, we’ve been emailing back and forth. There’s an email chain it was up to 100 messages before Eddie Khanna said, “you don’t have to include me in this; I’m good. You can leave me alone”.
Dave: [laughs] Right.
Matt: His exact words were, “now I understand why Dave uses fax.”
Dave: [laughs] Yes! No, in this situation, if you want to pass any of the money back up the line and say, here’s Aardvark-Vanaheim’s cut of whatever the local store went for and here’s what I would’ve given my local store and I’ll give it to Aardvark-Vahaheim instead and sell them to my local store. And these are how many I want for my Aunts and Uncles and all that kind of stuff… there you go. It’s not gonna be that much, they’re like $1 each to print? They’re up over $1 now, probably closer to $1.25 Canadian. So, as long as you’re covering what it costs for the printing and what it costs to mail them to you and Rolly can tell you that. He can send you an email and say this is how much your package costs, this is how much your package costs… we can definitely do it that way.
Matt: Okay. Now, I’m just thinkin’, I’m gonna have to email everyone I know, going, okay, I helped write a comic book, it’s comin’ out in November, option one, go find a comic book store and go in and say, “I need this more than life itself”. Option two is you tell me and I’ll get you a copy but it’s gonna cost.
Dave: Right. Right.
Matt: Cause I’m sellin’ them for cover price, cause… might as well.
Dave: Yeah. Oh yeah, definitely. And then, just see what their response is. You’re gonna find out that Chicken Little is not just a story. Is it Chicken Little I’m thinking of? No, the uhh… which one am I thinking of?
Matt: Chicken Little was the sky is falling.
Dave: The sky is falling, no, yeah, the one that I’m thinking of is, “who’s gonna help me do all this?” And when it comes time, when you’re cooking or whatever it is…
Matt: Ahh… I know this one, too, and I can’t think of it!
Dave: Yeah, yeah.
Matt: Is it a rooster? Isn’t it the one with Turkey Lurkey and…
Dave: Yeah, yeah that’s the one. What is the main character’s name? “Who will help me get the ingredients? Who will help me make the thing?” And then, when it comes time to eat it, everybody’s up for that. You’ll find the same thing while you’re asking, you won’t get any response, and then as soon as it comes out, you’ll start hearing from people, “can I get one of those?”
Matt: Well, that’s… like I said, I’m probably gonna… I’m lookin’ on the internet right now, it’s Turkey Lurkey and..
Dave: The Little Red Hen.
Matt: Little Red Hen. That’s right.
Dave: How ‘bout that? Grandpa got that one.
Matt: Before Google, even!
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: I typed in Turkey Lurkey and it came up with a song and I’m like, no, Turkey Lurkey is a character in a story, it’s something else.. but yeah, Little Red Hen.
Dave: There ya go. Alright. I’m putting that in my credentials bag, I tell ya.
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: I beat Google to Little Red Hen. Okay! Speaking of “Strange Death of Alex Raymond”, I’m gonna get back to page 8 here.
Matt: Okay!
Dave: Of Volume Three.
Matt: Yeah, as far as the Gene Day article that I sent, it was one of those, I found it, I sent it, and then I’m like, lookin’ back at it and I’m like, this is an actual interview and they just took all the questions out. So now I’m thinkin’, I need to find the interview to get a hard copy of it to find out, well, what exactly was Gene responding to?
Dave: Right. Right. The truth is out there.
Matt: If I find a copy, I will definitely see if I can get two and send one up.
Dave: Okay, I’d appreciate it.
Matt: Cause, I know the last thing you needed was less stuff in the Off-White House.
Dave: [laughs] That’s right! That’s right. No, anything having to do with Gene Day, I definitely want in the Cerebus Archive, so thank you again for that. So you say hi to Paula and Janis Pearl, and Natasha for me.
Matt: Will do
Dave: And, uhh, we’ll be in touch.
Matt: We’ll talk again next month. Whatever day that’s supposed to be.
Dave: For sure. Have a good night, Matt!
Matt: You too, Dave! Bye.
Dave: Buh-bye.

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No new updates from the Kickstarter...
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Cerebus in Hell?:
And the new one:
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Heritage, they got a bunch of neat Cerebus stuff.
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Oliver's Cerebus movie: The Absurd, Surreal, Metaphysical, and Fractured Destiny of Cerebus the Aardvark is currently available "Plex", "Xumo", "Vimeo On Demand", "Tubi", 
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February 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: I got a thing or TWO TO give you TOO!

2 comments:

john g. said...

Dave reads the New York Post? Ha! Why? Doesn’t he live in Canada? HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR!

Michael Grabowski said...

Please keep posting these occasionally. I love reading them far more than trying to listen or watch.