Here's where it gets complicated...
Now, I don't know about you, but I don't have two grand sitting around burning a whole in my pocket. I could MAYBE swing a couple of hundred bucks...
I've been accused of not providing enough Cerebus content, so here's another Please Hold For Dave Sim transcript:
Posted without editing...
Part One:
Matt:
Okay, I am recording now, everything is set!
Dave:
Okay. I’m gonna start off with John’s gospel, and then I’m gonna explain why
I’m starting off with John’s Gospel. “In the beginning was the word, and the
word was toward the God, and God was the word. This was, in beginning, toward
the God. All through him came to be, and apart from him, came to be, not
however, one. Which has come to be in him, life wise. And the life was the
light of the man. And the light in the darkness is shining, and the darkness it
not overpowered. Came to be man having been sent forth beside God, named to him
John. This came into witness in order that he might witness about the light. In
order that all might believe through him. Not was that the light, but in order
that he might witness about the light. Was the light the true, which is
enlightening every man coming into the world. In the world he was, and the
world through him came to be, and the world him not knew. Into the own he came,
and the own him not took alongside. As many as however took him, he gave to
them authority, children of God to become, to the believing into the name of
him, who, not out of bloods, nor out of will of flesh, nor out of will of male
person, but out of God, were generated. And the word flesh became, and tented
in us, and we viewed the glory of him, glory as of only begotten beside a
father. Full of undeserved kindness and truth. John is witnessing about him,
and he has cried out saying, ‘this was the having said, the behind me coming,
in front of me has come to be, because first of me he was, because out of the
fullness of him we all received an undeserved kindness instead of undeserved
kindness. Because the law through Moshe was given the undeserved kindness and
the truth through Jesus Christ came to be. God, no one has seen at any time,
only begotten God, the being into the bosom of the father, that explained.”
There you go, that’s John 1:1 through 1:18. Now, the reason that I did that was
to illustrate there are good, better, and best uses of time, in my opinion, you
can’t do any better than reading John’s Gospel aloud. Because I consider it to
be absolutely true. So, if you’re reading it aloud, you’re… it’s coming into
your head through your eyeballs, into your brain and then your brain is making
your mouth read the words, and while you’re reading the words, you’re listening
to the words in your ear. So, it’s a win win win, kind of situation. Backing
off from there, another better use for your time, a good use for your time,
would be, okay, I recorded that at the beginning so everybody will be able to find
it real easily. It’s right at the beginning of this “Please Hold for Dave Sim”.
Play it and get your Bible out and read what your version, your translation of
John Chapter 1:1 through 18 reads like, and go, okay does my translation
accurately reflect this word for word translation from the original coined
Greek? And I’ll think you’ll probably be surprised to go, ahh no, every time I
listen to Dave read the word for word version, I’m getting one mental picture
in my head and then as soon as I read the translation, I’m like, no I’m more
familiar with this, but this doesn’t seem to be saying the same thing. So, not
as good as, in my view, absolutely truth aloud, but comparing this version of
the truth to that version of the truth. Because it’s supposed to be God’s word,
so presumably we shouldn’t be dealing with it on a “ahh close enough for
government work” kind of thing. [laughs] It’s a… no, if this is the words say
in the original Greek, you should probably stick as close as possible to what
this is saying. The problem is, what is it saying? And it’s like, everybody’s
got a different opinion on that. But, again, what I’m talking about is valuable
uses of an individual’s time. Backing off from there, what we’re now gonna do
is spend an hour listening to a pointy-headed cartoonist explaining his
pointy-headed cartoons as best he understands them. That’s not nearly as good a
use of human time, I think I’m pretty confidently saying that, but, that’s
still what we’re going to do here.
Matt:
[laughs]
Dave: This
all got set in motion because Steve Peters, I want to start off with his
question. Steve Peters asked, “Anyhoo, here's a couple questions for the next
Please Hold For Dave Sim if you want them: Dave- You recently speculated that
people such as Lovecraft and Stephen King, who write about the infernal, do so
with potentially harmful impact on their souls. Does it concern you that you've
done a couple dozen comics depicting the infernal realm?” And it’s like, ahh,
yeah. I mean, it does concern me in the sense that everything that I do and
everything that I say and everything that I choose to do and everything that I
choose to say on a second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day
basis, concerns me in that sense. The only thing that’s important to me at this
point in my life is, does God approve of this? And this is a good use of my
time from God’s perspective. So when I’m doing “Cerebus in Hell?” what I’m
really doing is saying, I think, despite our best efforts by so many of us
turning our backs on God and turning our backs on religion and scripture and
all of that, that we’re… [phone beeps. Probably the attorneys for St Peter
calling about the unauthorized use of his Gospel] into hell on Earth, and the
“Cerebus in Hell?” strips are me trying to illustrate that. Here’s bad [boop]
uses of human time. Here’s bad uses of human conversation. Here’s things that
you probably shouldn’t be talking about when you’ve got a Bible right nearby.
You want to pull it out and start reading out loud? There, that’s probably the
best thing that you could possibly do. Talking about all of this stuff, this is
not important. I try and illustrate for you by being funny about this, how bad
a use of human time I think that this is. One of my favorite “Cerebus in Hell?”
strips is Cerebus going, for the first time in however many issues I had done
at that point, “maybe Cerebus didn’t pray enough when he was alive? Hmm. ‘In the name of God, the most gracious,
the most merciful…’” Along come Dante and Virgil, “Hey we’re going over to
Virgil’s place, we’re going to play ‘Grand Theft Auto’, you want to come?” and
Cerebus goes, “Yeah, sure” and then he thinks to himself, “Wow, they never
invite me to come along to play video games. I wonder what that’s all about?”
It’s like, they’re distracting him! You were about to do something good,
praying, and now you’re gonna go play “Grand Theft Auto”. So, that’s part of
the answer to Steve Peters. I have no idea if the “Cerebus in Hell?” strip and
one-shots are a bad use of my time. You shouldn’t be doing this. You’re doing
exactly what you say is a bad thing to do, which is distracting people. But I
think I’m distracting people by saying, here’s crazy, and it’s a lot like our
world, so you would be very well-served to become less crazy and do less crazy
things and here’s me pointing to what I would suggest is the top of the
mountain. Is, you can’t do any better than reading John’s Gospel aloud. It
takes about two and a half hours. I do it at least once a week, and for me,
it’s, well okay, two and a half hours, that’s a lot of time. But it’s the same
time that you’d spend watching a movie. A movie is just made up stuff that
someone came up with to distract you from God, although they don’t know that
that’s why they did it, that’s why they did it. I hope that by Cerebus pointing
towards God, this 6000 page graphic novel that you come to the end, and it’s
like, well, this is what the guy’s telling me, that that will mitigate the
situation. Cause Steve goes on and says, “On a corollary note, should I be
worried about making a magical Chinese dragon a central character of The
Comicverse? This has been in the back of my mind since you wrote the Bone
commentaries. You wrote that, in Christianity, ‘dragons are, CONCEPTUALLY,
metaphorical distillations of the malign, devouring presence of paganism’.”
Lemme tackle that by saying, I think “The Comicverse” stuff that Steve Peters
is doing, is probably about as benign as you can get. Here’s an advertising
quote that I came up with and Steve, you’re welcome to use this, but I don’t
know who it could possibly persuade to read your work. “The Comicverse” makes
Jeff Smith’s “Bone” look like S. Clay Wilson’s “Captain Pissgums”.
PART ONE GOES OFF TO PLAY ‘GRAND THEFT AUTO’
PART TWO GOOGLES ‘PISSGUMS’
Matt: I’m
not familiar with S Clay Wilson’s book.
Dave:
What’s that?
Matt: I’m
not familiar with that book!
Dave: Oh,
well, you’re not as old as I am.
Matt:
[laughs]
Dave: It’s
like if you want to talk about, are underground comix bad? It’s like, yes,
there are definitely bad underground comix. What are the absolute morally
epically worst underground comix? And they’re definitely S Clay Wilson’s, and
if I had to rank S Clay Wilson’s work for the opposite of benign or beneficent,
“Captain Pissgums” would be right up at the top of the list. So, I think that,
and again, this is just my opinion, again, we’re just listening to a
pointy-headed cartoonist’s opinions about things. It’s got nothin’ to do with
reality. Or it does. That was something that was very insightful that I just
said that. Or that completely pointless. There would be any number of better
uses; watching paint dry, instead of listening to Dave Sim talk about this
stuff. Ahh, we won’t find that out until Judgement Day. I definitely won’t find
that out until Judgement Day. I think my best advice to you, Steve, is to be,
if you are concerned about it, then just have Ying Star say that he believes in
God in one of the panels. Just throw away a panel and have Ying Star say that
his most valuable possession and the most important thing in his life is his
Bible. Now, that gets into an interesting area, because I suggest that, and if
you look at that, and you go, “uhh, Ying wouldn’t say that.” Now you’ve got a
different kind of problem, which is you’ve created a character who is unable,
or completely unwilling, to be a servant of God. A devout monotheist. I can
certainly relate to that. I got a lot of characters in that 6000 page graphic
novel, and a lot of them, there’s just absolutely no way that they would ever
be monotheists, probably would never read a Bible and certainly would not
respond to a Bible in any way that I would consider positive. There you go. But
that’s something for you to decide, and something for you to know, and make
your decision about it. Can you override what you know to be Ying Star’s nature
as a magical Chinese dragon and just say, no, in terms of how dangerous I think
a magical Chinese dragon could be to my soul, and to my relationship with God,
I’m just gonna override it and sorry, Ying, we’re gonna talk about how
important the Bible is to you in this panel here. It’s just one panel! It’s
just a throwaway, anybody reading the comic book can just go, “well that’s a
little weird. Okay, he’s now back to talking about ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Deep Space
9’ and all of that stuff. So no harm, no foul, kind of thing.”
Matt:
Okay. Well, there ya go, Steve.
Dave:
[laughs] There’s your answer from the pointy-headed cartoonist, what he would
consider his best opinion on that subject. And I have to say, I do recommend
“Subspace Chatter” #2, which I think is Steve’s latest that has come out.
There’s “Trek versus Wars” and it’s just chockablock full of stuff that I just
[laughs] absolutely no knowledge about. I know absolutely nothing about “Star
Trek” except the first series and I know very very little about “Star Wars”,
but it’s just interesting going, “wow, to actually sit down and do comics about
individual episodes of ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Star Wars’ movies and put all of that
time into that.” I wouldn’t call that a best use. I would say, you could
probably get more value reading John’s Gospel aloud, however many times you put
in those hours at the drawing board. But, in terms of a really good comic book
and a comic book that is very very benign and good for kids, I can’t see
anything in any “Subspace Chatter” #2 that would upset even the most paranoid
helicopter parent. So, heartily recommended, always heartily recommended. Of
course, once the kids read it, and go, “wow, this is really good! Is there more
of this?” and you go back and read Steve’s older work with the magic mushrooms
and all the rest of it in it, and there ya got the sa…
PART TWO INTERRUPTUS
PART THREE PREMATURUS
Dave: Nice
segue from that one. Your question! “I wanna know what you think of Vark Wars
(so we can plug the new issue). Favorite strip? Least favorite strip?” I’m not
gonna answer that one, but ahh, favorite strip? I think there’s two strips in
there that both center on… what’s the line? “Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only
hope”? The Princess Leia line, where she’s…
Matt:
“Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.”
Dave:
“You’re my only hope.” What movie is that in?
Matt: The first one. The 1977
one.
Dave:
That’s why I knew that one and that’s why I thought that was funny. Because I
went, ohh, when she was like the hologram! And I’m going, that’s really weird
that that stuck with me. That’s either in the first one and that’s why that
stuck with me, or there’s some glamour attached to that if it’s in the 7th
one or the 8th one whichever one I saw, where they fished me in by
saying, “this is it! This is the last ‘Star Wars’ film!” Like, well, oh okay,
well I’d better go out and see it if it’s the last “Star Wars” film. So,
there’s the Beatrice hologram delivering the line… [laughs] That was about my favorite.
In that one. I guess the, when I read the Francis doing “I find your lack of
faith disturbing”. It’s like, okay, I don’t remember the line, “I find your
lack of faith disturbing”. Is that in the first one?
Matt: Uhh,
it’s a Darth Vader line, I want to say yes…
Dave:
Okay. Cause that didn’t stick with me at all. Same thing with “who’s the more
foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?” When I read that one, I go,
okay, that’s why Harrison Ford said that George Lucas should be tied to a chair
and made to read his own dialogue out loud. It’s like, oh that scans really
really badly, how could you do that and make that sound like it’s got gravitas
attached to it? Well, you gotta be Sir Alec Guinness to do that, I think.
Matt: I
just saw an interview with Sir Alec Guinness, where they were talkin’ to him,
it was right after the first movie came out, I think. And the interviewer’s
sayin’, “so you’re gettin’ 2 and a half percent on the back end of this,
right?” and Alec Guinness explains, well, no, what happened what, he was in
Hollywood, he was finishing a movie, and George Lucas personally delivered the
script to his trailer and dropped it off when he was filmin’. And, ya know, he
was like, okay, that’s sayin’ somethin’ that the director is comin’ to me
personally to ask for it, and he read the script, and went like, “well, they’re
gonna have to change some of the dialogue.”
Dave:
[laughs] Really?
Matt:
Yeah! That was… he agreed to it, but he wanted the dialogue to get punched up a
little bit, and I’m thinkin’, how bad was that script?
Dave: I
guess. I guess. Well, for Sir Alec Guinness it was one of those, look, what
you’re paying for here is all of my gravitas that comes from my being
acknowledged as a great Shakespearean actor on the English stage. So, we’re not
gonna be able to turn this into Shakespeare, but we gotta get it a little
closer to Shakespeare than this is. That means, “who’s the more foolish, the
fool or the fool who follows him” was already punched up?!
Matt: [laughs]
That’s… in the interview, that’s what he said, was that they’re gonna have to…
Dave:
[laughs] Okay, well, that’s a little scary to me. It’s like, yeah, like you
say, I wonder how bad the original script was. And I like both of the last
strips, the Earth 1 ending and the Earth 2 ending. I literally couldn’t make up
my mind which one was the funniest one. I enjoyed both of them that much. I
won’t spoil them for anybody, but there are two endings on “Vark Wars”, so as
soon as it’s in the stores, go and pick it up. And I have one last question on
“Vark Wars”, I’m gonna leave you with this one. I auctioned off the prototype
“Vark Wars” #1 and I never found out from you who won the prototype in the
auction.
Matt: Uhh,
Seiler, I believe.
Dave: Did
he? Okay. Seiler’s having trouble keeping track of all the stuff that he wins
at auctions and what he’s paid for and what he hasn’t paid for. I just sent him
like the 10 postcards, he said “I don’t remember if I paid for them, but I
wanted them, so could you let me know?” and it’s like, Jeff, you buy so much
stuff, here have 10 postcards, and he figured it out and went, “Oh, I didn’t
pay for the postcards. Well, here’s $50, if that’s way too much, just send it
on something else”, which is just wonderful of Jeff that he would do that.
Matt:
Let’s just quick, put it out there. Jeff, when you’re watching this, remember
to send Dave another check. If you’ve got money, you owe Dave. [laughs]
Dave: Yes!
And, I’ll just… if you’re sure that it’s Seiler, I’ll just throw the prototype
in the mail and send it to him. He’s good for the money, I know that.
Matt: I’ll
double check, but I think it’s him. I’ll send ya fax when I go back and look
again.
Dave:
Okay. Randy Gray asks, “Do you guys want creamed honey or liquid? Comb in?
Never mind, we'll send both. Just finished harvesting late summer so now we can
send a proper thank you for the boxes of Cerebus you sent me.” That was the
situation that came up, where Al Johnson let us know through Strange Adventures
in Halifax that this guy had had a fire at his house and one of the things got
burned was his complete Cerebus collection. So, we managed to patch together
pretty close to a complete Cerebus collection, not something that I’m gonna do
all the time, but that’s gotta be really aggravating, losing. So asks, “He also
asks: Here's an oddball question, probably someone here can answer it : was
Connie Lingus ever identified? When was her first and last appearance in the
letters page?” I wasn’t gonna go near that. But Margaret answered, “Here are
the issues with a letter by either Connie Lingus or just Connie, so I'm not
sure if it is the same author or not”, yes it is, “(one might be able to tell
by getting out the issues and reading the letters if one wants)”, she says, I
think rather archly. “72, 73 (only 'Connie'), 74, 77, 86, 140, 151, 163 (only
'Connie') Her first letter is actually in 67, but only attributed to…”
PART THREE IS REVENGE OF THE SITH
PART FOUR IS A NEW HOPE
Dave: Ah
yes, as a matter of fact, on the 92 tour, Connie was the… her real name’s
Marie. And she was our surprise guest at a Pittsburgh stop. Yes, this is
actually Connie Lingus. And I think she signed some copies of “Cerebus”, it’s
like, “well, that’s one of the books with one of my letters in it.” She was a
great Cerebus fan and I’ve got a bunch of pictures of her. She didn’t look as
good as the pictures, but that’s pretty typical. Like you work really hard to
emphasize your good features and de-emphasize your not as good in a convention
beauty sense features. It’s just one of those fun things that, I decided back
then, “National Lampoon” was still coming out, I went, what I would really like
to do is have Aardvark Comment be like the letters that they made up in
“National Lampoon” but have them be real letters. And that seemed to pan out
really well, we had Connie Lingus being a very good example. Now, in the TMI
category, and what the heck, this is Randy Gray asking about Connie Lingus,
there was nothing I could with Connie Lingus in Pittsburgh after the show,
because I was going out with Judith at the time. So it’s like, this was a lot
of fan, thanks for coming out, and thanks for being such a good sport about
this. Goodnight! Kind of thing. But then about a month after the Pittsburgh
show, I broke up with Judith in St. Louis at the St. Louis stop. And then I’d
already arranged for Connie Lingus to be our surprise guest at the New York
stop. And she lived in New Jersey. And it was, okay, well, there isn’t a Judith
problem this time. Am I actually going to sleep with Connie Lingus? And of
course being a complete sleazeball at the time, it’s like, well, hell yes!
Matt:
[laughs]
Dave: So,
[laughs] I actually did. We spent a very enjoyable afternoon walking around New
York City, and then went back to my incredibly small New York City hotel room
because Great Eastern Conventions was paying for it and they weren’t gonna
spring for anything much better than the barest assistance [indistinct?] and
having had this wonderful big dinner with Connie Lingus and having walked all
the way around New York City and then having had sex with Connie Lingus, I had
what I would describe as a gastric upset. So I had to go to the bathroom in a
hurry and the bathroom is about 15 inches away from everything else in the
hotel room. So I knew that Connie Lingus would hear me in there, and hear
exactly how bad that was, and it’s like, well, there it goes, there you go,
Dave, that serves you right. That’s not a particularly admirable thing you just
did with Connie, and this is about what that is on the human scale of value,
and there you go, you have to wear this.
Matt:
Connie’s take away was probably, never meet your heroes. [laughs]
Dave:
[laughs] That’s it! It’s like, one of those, okay, everything was fine up til
that point, but boy did that ever put an unhappy ending on this particular
story. So, there you go. Dan Nitzani, I hope I’m pronouncing that correctly,
Dan, asks: “It's always been a frustration that 51, 112/113, and 137/138 are
excluded from the phonebooks. Please consider putting these into a square bound
collection, basically cerebus 0 plus the world tour book. Perhaps throw in
random covers/pinups/sketches to round it out.” Okay, that’s… we’ve talked
about this before, and it’s a vicious circle on that one. If that was what we
were talking about doing, yes, definitely that would be doable. Not as doable
as everybody thinks it is. I’d rather have Sean Robinson doing his digital
remastering magic on “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” Volume Two, and then doing
the corrections on “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” Volume One, than doing 51,
112/113, 137, 138, and if we did do that, and just did that as a volume with
some sketches and other things, then we’re gonna get complaints from people,
going, “well, when are you gonna all of these stories and when are you gonna do
all of those stories?” and it’s like, uhh, okay, it’s one or the other. If you
don’t do all of the black & white material as a 500 remastered book, then
all you’re gonna do is get complaints about the stuff that you haven’t
reprinted. Which is, exactly what Dan’s doing. Now, he’s saying it in a very
nice way, but that’s what he’s doing. I would say, at this point, I would be
willing to do that. Let’s just say, 51, 112/113, 137, 138 and all of the backup
stories that are in the “World Tour Book” and we’ll cap it at that. It’s like,
that’s all we’re doing, we would have to find somebody who would be able to
remaster the material. Which would involve, ya know, A Moment of Cerebus has
inventoried all of Sean Robinson’s “here’s how you remaster black & white
artwork”. Here’s all of the stuff that you do to get it as accurate as
possible. Sean’s not going to do, but it would have to be somebody as good as
Sean doing it. So if there’s anybody out there that thinks they’re in that
category, “yeah, I read all of the stuff that Sean did about remastering black
& white artwork, and particularly, remastering Dave Sim & Gerhard’s
black & white artwork, and I know all of this stuff, and I’m pretty sure I
can do a printable version of all of these things” at that point, okay, I’ll go
and find the negatives and I’ll go and find however much of the artwork that
there is and get that scanned. I think a lot of it has been scanned and sent to
Sean, and whoever it is can have a try at it. It’ll have to wait until Sean can
approve the remastering and say, yeah, this is as good as I would have done, so
you can go straight to print. So they’ll do a Kickstarter with it, or I’ll
solicit forth through Diamond, or whatever else. And we’ll just have to say,
this is what it has to be capped at. It has to be capped as “Cerebus” 0, the
“World Tour Book”, 51, 112/113, 137, 138, and that’s all that it is going to
consist of, and we’ll see if we can move that along. So, there you go, it’s not
complete no as it usually is, when this comes up, but it’s not exactly a “oh
hell yes and we’ll get this done before the end of the year” kind of thing.
It’s a long term process, let’s see what anybody has to say about it in the
comments section.
Matt:
[stammers]
Dave: or
for Dave Sim, this time around.
Matt: I
will email Sean and ask him what… any… what he has scans of, is any of the
stuff that we’re talkin’ about, and have him pick out one or two test pages of,
okay, you wanna do it, ya know, we’ll get you the file, remaster it and send it
to Sean and if it doesn’t hold up, ya know, if it’s not good enough, we’ll let
you know, okay, no it’s not there.
Dave:
Okay, and Sean, if you’re listening, don’t do this instead of “Strange Death of
Alex Raymond”, please.
Matt: Yeah,
it’s very much, I’m gonna explain to Sean, we just need one or two pages as
test pages of anybody who wants to get in restoration, okay, you gotta get it
to Sean’s level without Sean’s help. Other than what he wrote, ya know, the
“Paper to Pixel” series he did of how to do it.
Dave:
Okay, that sounds like a plan. I hope that’s something that…
PART FOUR RUNS TO THE BATHROOM
PART FIVE FLUSHES TWICE
Dave:
Okay, and then, last night, I’m coming into hour # whatever it was, 10, 11? of
working on trying to explain “The Doll’s House”, the “Rip Kirby” story, and why
there is a really, really nasty caricature character in there named Lady
Lilliput, who is, I’m pretty sure’s supposed to be Helen Raymond. And what it
is that I’ve come up with why I think that’s in there and why it’s got all of
these other links attached to it. Very very laborious work of trying to explain
it as loosely as possible. And the fax machine goes, and it’s okay, this is a
little odd, this is at 9 o’clock at night or whatever, 10 o’clock at night. I
wonder who this is? I look over at the number, oh it’s Matt. I wonder what this
is about. I type for a little while longer, look up, there’s five pages comin’
in. It’s like, okay, go back to writing, don’t let this throw you off, that’s
not a tonight thing, that’s possibly a tomorrow thing. Type for a little while,
thinking about this, thinking about this… well where are the faxes? I look
over, oh, we’ve got 12 pages comin’ in, and then we’ve got 15 pages comin’ in,
and then we’ve got 18 pages coming in, and then we’ve got 20 pages coming in.
[laughs] And it’s, first fax comes through and it’s, “Dave, sorry. Matt.”
Matt:
[laughs] I am very sorry about this.
Dave: And
it’s like, I go, well, whatever it is it’s not good news. So we’re already at 6
o’clock, this is an awkward “Please Hold for Dave Sim” because with the time
change going back I had a prayer time at 6 minutes after 5, and I got another one
coming up at 20 after 6. So I had a sneaking hunch we weren’t going to get
through all 20 pages of Matt’s fax and I think I can be pretty confident in
saying, yes, that’s probably not going to happen. So I think we’re gonna break
this up into two, but the page 3 of your fax from last night, is, Please Hold
question, and we got, “Pablo Martinez asked on the faceybooks: I finished the
last few ‘Typings’ of Dave Sim destroying Cerebus last month and I was
wondering, was there any sign or commentary of Dave about what was originally
going to be the conclusion of Cerebus before he retconned 70% of the lore
introduced in Church and State?” And then, he clarified: “Dave used ‘Typist’
pejoratively to refer to Hemingway. I use that term to describe Going Home and
Form & Void.” Whereupon, Mark Brett jumps in and says, “I can't remember
Dave ever discussing his original themes in any detail, other than that they
were part of his former feminist perspective. I always thought it was
significant that he'd made Cerebus a hermaphrodite, though. At the time, before
the ‘Male Light / Female Void’ essay, I thought we might see some kind of
cosmic union of the sexes (at least on a symbolic level).” Ahh, okay,
addressing that, I have to say, having proofread “Church & State” Volume
Two three times through the remastering process. Do all of the corrections that
I can find, Sean plugged them all in, and then Studio Comix Press printed out
another prototype of “Church & State” Volume Two, and did the same thing.
Just read it as if I was reading a book and not necessarily looking for
mistakes, but because I’m a very critical reader I do tend to see mistakes,
where I go, wow, that really should be corrected. I have to say that the first
four volumes of “Cerebus” should probably be done as a feminist boxset. If
you’re an ardent feminist and you take feminism very very seriously and you
definitely are over in the “women good, feminist better, men bad” category. I
don’t think you could do better than the first four volumes of “Cerebus”, but
stop reading then! Don’t read “Jaka’s Story”. I was telling somebody about this
on the phone, and “oh no no, I think ‘Jaka’s Story’”, and it’s like, no no no,
“Jaka’s Story” gets into a woman’s right to choose and is not a 100% women’s
right to choose is absolute. Even if a woman’s right to choose is to have the
fetus killed because it’s a female fetus and she wanted a male fetus, or having
the fetus killed because it has down’s syndrome and she really doesn’t want a
down’s syndrome baby, so she’s going to have an abortion. I think all that I
can say is, Pablo, I’m sorry that you didn’t like Cerebus went and you didn’t
like where Dave Sim went, but I always try to look on the bright side of
things. It takes some work sometimes to find the bright side of things, but I
think there’s always a bright side to be found, and I think the bright side for
you is, you are alive and flourishing… I hope you’re flourishing, as a reader
and as a fan of entertainment in 2019 where virtually everything is feminist
propaganda. So, try not to take it too personally that there’s only this one
6000 page graphic novel that isn’t feminist propaganda and enjoy the time
period that you’re in, because I think there’s probably a “best before” date
for feminism, particularly the kind of feminism that we’re seeing, where I
don’t think it’s going to exist in any substantial quantity, certainly not
anything like the quantity that it exists in now. I was just reading a review
of the “Watchmen” TV show with a female show runner and whatever “Watchmen” was
when Alan Moore wrote it, it’s now been taken over into the feminist woods and
is being seriously made into something else. If you think that’s a good idea,
then that’s great then. That’s entirely up to you. After I’m dead, they’ll be
able to do that with “Cerebus”, just take it over here and say, “okay,
‘Cerebus’ isn’t as good as it could be. What we have to do is rewrite all of
this stuff so that it’s feminist propaganda. Depending on when I die, I don’t
really picture that happening. But I picture that happening with just about
everything else, where, if it isn’t feminist propaganda yet, well, give them a
chance, they’ll turn it into feminist propaganda. So that’s really all that I
can say on that one… ahh, Raymond Mountford asks, “Does he have any copies of
“Zootanpuss” #1 and Glamourpuss #13 lying around, and how much does he want for
them? My Glamourpuss set shivers uncontrollably like a chihuahua without those
two”. Neatly phrased, I must say, Raymond, that’s a very good way of putting
that. And no, I’m afraid I don’t have them lying around. I mean, maybe I do, I
haven’t really decided what is the absolute bottom of how many copies I want of
these things in the Cerebus Archive, because of the way we are doing it, the
fact that Eddie Khanna will inherit the Cerebus Archives and whoever Eddie
Khanna picks as his successor will inherit the Cerebus Archive. Who is just.. I
think these will probably hold me. I’m 64 years old, I’m not sure how much
longer I’m going to live, but yeah, I figure I can send Raymond the
“Zootanapuss” #1 and the “Glamourpuss” #13. If you’re looking forward 100 years
in the future, 200 years in the future, you don’t want to be doing that,
because I’m not really sure where the sweet spot is. Send me a letter, or send
me a postcard with your address on it, Raymond. And if I weak, I will send you
one of each of those. I’ll have to check with Rolly and find out, “how many of
those do I got, by the way?” and if I’ve got what I would consider a lot of
each of them, ahh, I might stretch a point and send you one. Okay, now I
definitely have to go and do my ritual ablution and then do my prayer time, and
then I will come back here and phone you back. Are you gonna be around?
Matt:
Yeah! I’ll be around.
Dave:
Okay! Alright, I will come back, and then we will start in on the 20 page fax
and see what we can come up with on that one.
Matt:
Okay.
Dave:
Alright, talk to you in a little while.
Matt:
Alright! Bye!
Dave:
Buh-bye.
PART FIVE THINKS THIS WAS AN EASY WEEK!
PART SIX REMINDS IT THAT THERE’S MORE
Dave: I’m
back.
Matt:
[laughs] Yes, we are.
Dave:
Okay. Okay, then there’s this stuff, “if you read it and your ten-foot-pole
sense starts tingling, I.e. you don’t want to touch this with a ten-foot-pole,
I’ll totally understand. It started with Margaret posting a page from the
Notebooks that had a rough of ‘Cerebus’ #97 page 20, aka ‘Church & State
II’ page 936. That got some comment.” Then Jeff said, “Brilliant (!) issue,
especially the cover. And, BTW, Astoria was *never* a victim. Even though she
was chained up (which she may have enjoyed)”, Ehhhhhh. “she was in charge all
of the time. Including when The Pope "raped" her, after she artfully
placed her lacy panties on his head and (just guessing here) gave him a waft of
her estrus. Just sayin’.” Ahh, and David Birdsong jumps in, “Cerebus changed
the conditions of the arrangement halfway through. Sure, she offered him what
she had to trade, but he was supposed to let her go afterwards. Instead he
gagged her, married her and raped her. I would say "married" her, but
he was the pope so it was a real marriage for a few minutes. As the Spiritual
and Political leader of the majority of the known world there was no authority
to punish him for this action. Dave did say quite plainly that Cerebus raped
Astoria. Astoria herself said later that she goaded Cerebus into raping her
hoping to become pregnant with an Aardvark (if I recall correctly).” Ahh… then
Brian West said, “That's how I read it originally, well at least that Astoria
was indeed raped by Cerebus. Weird that this was the selection for the
Notebooks, considering that there's a #timesup #believeher gag in ‘Colour Your
Own Cerebus in Hell?’ #1, in which a "a certain supporting character's
memoirs" may or may not have caused Cerebus to tweet a hashtag of his own.
Page 14, I think.” Ahh, yeah, Cerebus was saying, “Is Cerebus still the only
one tweeting at” what was it? “Don’t believe the hallucinating whackjob”.
Matt:
[laughs]
Dave: Um.
And it’s like, yes, definitely I was riffing on that, that if Astoria is
writing her memoirs in Hell? And they were being published, that would not be
something that Cerebus would be looking forward to. So, then you write, “So I
took that and posted A Visit to THAT Bit.’Hi, Everybody! So the other day on
Margaret's post, and then I posted Jeff and David’s comments. Well, there are A
LOT of assumptions stated here, let's look at the bit, and see if anybody is,
well, wrong. Okay, out of the gate, Birdsong is wrong. He said: "Cerebus
changed the conditions of the arrangement halfway through. Sure, she offered
him what she had to trade, but he was supposed to let her go afterwards."
That wasn't the deal. The deal was Astoria does Cerebus a favor, then she'll
ask him to do her a favor. Continuing: Okay, this seems like goading. But let's
wait til it's over. Continuing: Okay, that's a thought balloon. Which means
we're reading Astoria's thoughts. And "ACK! STOP IT!" doesn't seem
like a consensual thought to me. Continuing: More inner monologue. Still
nothing that seems like consent. Continuing: "I'VE NEVER
BEEN...SO...HUMILIATED...IN MY LIFE" Yeah, she's into this...(sarcasm.)
Continuing: Yeah...I'ma gonna have to call bull$#!+ on the idea that Astoria
WASN'T raped. Finishing: So, as we've just seen, Cerebus raped Astoria. Now, I
suggest, that Cerebus did indeed rape Astoria. (And I think anybody that's read
the above will agree with me.) BUT, I also suggest that afterward, Astoria
invented the "trying to get pregnant" story to cope with being raped.
Like most good lies, I think her story had a kernel of truth. (Which is a good
place to remind everybody, that Dave will be calling me on Thursday for
November's Please Hold For Dave Sim, so get your questions in to momentofcerebus@gmail.com
) Next Time: That kernel of truth…” Well, that got comments! Seiler said,
“Okay. "She was asking for it." is no defense.” No, I think ‘she was
asking for it’ is a defense if she was actually asking for it. If she said,
“will you have sex with me?” or “will you please have sex with me?” or whatever
it is, that’s literally asking for it. Anything that isn’t that, isn’t asking
for it. “But, Astoria was the grand manipulator of Cerebus, to advance her ...
career? No, her cause. Her agenda against Cirin. She had next to no interest in
Cerebus, sexually, except for how he could advance her Kevillist cause.
Seducing him, trying to get him to impregnant her with an aardvark baby would,
most definitely advance her cause. Also the scene with Astoria stripping her
panty down to her foot and her artfully placing it on Cerebus' head, while
giving him a look at his "acquired taste", was a callback to his
first encounter with Jaka, IIRC. Except for the up-close look/taste. Jaka, sad
to say, was waaay classier than was Astoria. I mean, just look at the source
material for Astoria. Layers upon layers, upon layers. Induced, purposefully
designed seduction. It was not a rape. In my humble and psychologically-trained
opinion. Have at me, Feminists. I would say, "Have fun," but we all
know that that goes without saying. Don't we, girls?” And then Jeff says,
“Matt? Please ask Dave whether I'm wrong her. I mean, I pretty much got most of
this from him.” Jeff Seiler said, “Okay, Feminist Dave may have said and *may*
have tried to draw and have written about Astoria being "raped." But,
that doesn't change the fact that she was manipulating Cerebus. Unless, you
know, she was just a "party" girl. I think that Dave once wrote about
writing and drawing her retiring to a sanctvary in order to make it up to the
character for his having made her such a bad person. Not that Cerebus didn't
deserve it.” Jeff Seiler said, “Astoria, the character upon whom Dave based
her, was a *horrible* personage.”
Okay, that’s a lot of stuff there, I think it comes down to,
what your interpretation of manipulating is. Cerebus is very very manipulating.
That was one of the reasons to bring the Astoria character, who was based on
Mary Astor playing Bridget O’Shaughnessy in “The Maltese Falcon”, as a
compulsive liar. She was virtually incapable of telling the truth. She would
tell whatever story she needed to tell in order to get whatever it is that she
wanted to get, and I’m not sure if it’s in the movie, I know it’s in the book,
where he said, “Ahh, actually, we didn’t believe you. Well, we believe the
$1000 that you paid, that’s what we were interested in.” Cerebus is very
manipulative and Astoria is very manipulative, and it’s like, okay, who’s
manipulating who and to what extent and about what?
Matt: In
the fax, cause it ended up being three different posts, and comments on all the
posts, that’s why I sent everything up, but I get to the bit in “High Society”
where Elf sends the package of drugs and Astoria puts it out in the fire and
gets high and then comes onto Cerebus, and I did that whole bit, I think it’s
like 12 pages…
Dave:
Right.
Matt: And
I pretty much was sayin’, yes, very manipulative of Cerebus, but at the same
time, she stopped… I don’t think Cerebus was manipulated by Astoria after Jaka
shows up at the end of “High Society” and says, “tell her you’re gonna leave.
You don’t have to leave, just tell her you’re gonna leave, and see what she
does.” And then, so I posted that panel, and then I posted that I agree… my
evidence that Cerebus isn’t gettin’ manipulated anymore is that the last time
he sees Astoria in “High Society” is he’s walkin’ out the door and closin’ on
her and she’s screamin’ at him, “get back here, you gotta do what I say.”
Dave:
Right.
Matt: I
personally believe, yes, it was a rape, because the marriage wasn’t a real
marriage because part of a marriage is, someone says “do you?” and you say “I
do”, and with a gag in your mouth, you can’t really say…
PART SIX GETS GAGGED
PART SEVEN ELOPES
Dave:
Right, but it does come down to, okay, if you are the absolute religious
authority, and you decide that you are going to marry somebody, let’s move it
into the real world, could Pope Francis do that? Could Pope Francis, as the
Pope of the Christian Church in the Vatican, say, “I am going to declare that I
am allowed to marry somebody, just for the purpose of having sex with them”. I
don’t think so, but it depends on, okay, how much authority you think the Pope
does have. Because the Pope has a lot of authority, the Pope has a lot of, I’m
sure if you have a list of things that the Pope is allowed to declare
unilaterally because he’s Pope, it’s probably a pretty extensive list. And
having read all of the Gospels, I don’t think there’s anything in there saying
this was Jesus’ intention, which was every successor to Peter would be able to
do X, Y, and Z. So, at that point, you get into a lot of hairsplitting of,
okay, how much power does the Pope have to determine the nature of reality? How
reality goes? This is okay because, as God’s delegated authority on Earth over
all the Catholics on the planet, I can say that this is going to be this way
and consequentially this is this way. It’s like, that’s one of the things that
we’re seeing with the sex scandals in the Catholic Church. That’s really what
they tried to do, was to say, “we will arbitrate this by saying we come down on
the side of the Priest, because we’re always going to take the side of the
Catholic Priest against anyone else”. And it’s like, well, you can do that up
to a point, and you can do that in a specific kind of society, but as society
begins to evolve and you have the communications that we have, and we have
courts that are no longer intimidated by the Vatican, or by the Pope, or by
Christianity, or by Jesus or by God, to let them get away with stuff like that.
So, yeah, I think that my answer to Jeff would be, okay, but you can’t allow
yourself to be manipulated. If you’re the Pope and you have a pretty good idea
that the Pope isn’t supposed to be having sex with anybody, and you’re having
sex with somebody, or you’re arranging things in such a way so that you can
have sex with somebody, you still are gonna know that that’s wrong. Or you
should know that that was wrong. Consequently, it wasn’t a matter of Cerebus
being manipulated into doing something that he was wrong, it was about Cerebus
choosing to do something wrong.
Matt: In
there, Eddie showed up and posted a link to an old AMoC post where it was your
answers to Rob Imes’ like 30 pages of internet stuff that he sent ya, and you
pretty much said, I read it and here’s my comments and there was the Alan Moore
gettin’ heat for “The Killing Joke”.
Dave:
Right.
Matt: In
your response, you brought up Cerebus and Astoria, and I quoted that of, “this
is Dave sayin’, ya know, over the years, yes it was a rape” and Jeff’s still
going, “well, but he was being manipulated” I’m like, no, no, it was a pretty
straightforward, ya know, he could’ve just said no, cause back in “High
Society” when she was comin’ on to him, he said, and ya know, then the Moon
Roach shows up and he’s ya know, as the Moon Roach is leaving and he says,
“give us half an hour and I’ll throw some money at your orphans” and after the
Roach leaves, Astoria’s like, “that was cruel” and it’s, “well yeah, I was just
messin’ with him.”
Dave:
Right. Right. And it was also a matter of that pushed Cerebus over in that
direction was seeing the effect that Astoria had on the Roach. Where it’s like,
okay, to whatever extent that I might want to have sex with her, if this is
what it leads to, ya know, somebody who’s already crazy going even crazier
because he starts thinking that there’s something there besides Astoria making
use of somebody. I mean, you know, you have to look at Astoria’s track record of,
she started with Lord Julius… [phone rings: Lord Julius on call waiting] and
just sort of went from there finding, okay, who do I think can [phone boops]
bring … draw a straight line from point A to point B. This is what… I want
women to have the right to vote, and that, for Astoria, that superseded
everything else. In her own personal morality, if seducing this leader or
engaging the Roach or being with Lord Julius would bring that closer to
reality, then the ends justified the means. And the ends justifying the means
is a slippery slope for anybody. That’s why I said, it’s the same thing as the
Muslim women in Muslim countries who are really enduring terrible, terrible
hardships in pursuit of wanting to get the vote and wanting women to be
independent in the same way that North American feminists are independent. I
can understand wanting that, and I can certainly understand martyrdom, where
you say, okay, whatever you’re going to do to me, you’ll just have to do to me,
and if I die or I’m maimed or I’m crippled or whatever, that’ll just show what
the stakes are and more women will come after me and eventually we’ll get what
it is that we’re looking for here. And it’s like, I think the problem that I
see with that, is that I don’t see feminism as making women happy. I think
women are… they want to be married, they want to be in lifelong happy
marriages. They want to have kids, they want their kids to have kids, they want
their kids to have kids to have kids, and stick around as long as they possibly
can and enjoy that. Immerse themselves in it. I don’t think moving over from
that to political power is a mostly or fundamentally a female sensibility. I
think women who are inclined that way, the Astorias of the world, are dragging
women over there and saying, “you have to want this and you have to choose
this”. I don’t think it’s… the work/life balance thing is a work/family balance
and what you end up with is half-assed work and half-assed family instead of,
if you devote yourself wholly to your family, which is what women did for
centuries, you get full value out of that and you produce family-oriented girls
who grow up and want to be family people, not job people. So, that’s just an
opinion, but that’s one of those, I certainly can’t fault anybody for deciding,
no, this is what’s needed and I will sacrifice everything in my life that I
would ordinarily have or ordinarily want just to have this. And to make this
happen.
PART SEVEN HALF-ASSES IT
PART EIGHT SAYS 12 HAIL-MARYS
Dave: So,
it’s one of those… it shifted there from, okay when Cerebus saw the effect that
Astoria had on the Roach, and went, okay, I don’t want that. I don’t. I don’t
want Astoria to have that kinda control over me that she has absolute control
over this guy, as to what his reactions are and how he thinks and what he’s
focused on. I think the situation when he became Pope was, okay, this is
exponential levels of power higher than that, this means I get to decide what
reality is, and if Astoria gets me aroused, all I have to do is come up with a
cover for it, issuing from my absolute power that makes this okay. And it’s
like, you can’t do that! It’s the same as having an open marriage, you can have
an open marriage with somebody but the issue is still that you’re committing
adultery. You can’t give someone permission to commit adultery because you
aren’t God. Adultery is wrong. Same thing with fornication. You can decide that
if you’re taking the pull and you’re not getting pregnant, there’s no
consequence to committing an act of fornication. It’s like, no, that’s not
true. You’ve eliminated pregnancy as a consequence but you haven’t eliminated
the consequence of fornication, whatever that consequence is, that’s another
one of those Judgement Day things. Is there good, better, bad, and worst forms
of fornication? I have no idea, I’m not God. Being on the safe side I just
went, 21 years ago, nope, fornication gone, because I think it’s just a bad
complication in anything. There was a part up ahead here, where asking about
them going to bed together…
Matt:
Yeah, that got brought up, and somebody commented and brought it up, and I’m
like, yeah, I’m gonna bring that up because that is somethin’ that every time
you read “High Society” it’s like, well what was goin’ on there? Were they just
sharin’ a bed or is there a relationship?
Dave: Ahh,
I would say, just sharing a bed. It was one of those, that was a Mexican
standoff that Cerebus and Astoria had at the time. It’s like, okay, I’m not
going to be Artemus for you. I’m not just somebody where you just snap your
fingers and I’ll do whatever you say because I’m just completely gone on you.
And it was, well, okay, ya know, we’re going campaigning and X number of people
wherever we’re campaigning and wherever we’re staying, are either going to be
assuming or testing are they sleeping together? Is this a couple? Is this going
to be the King and Queen of Estarcion, which was the gig that she had with Lord
Julius. And it’s like, well, let’s put them in the same bedroom and see what
happens. And it’s like, you see what happened, it’s like, yes, we could have
sex, no we’re not going to have sex, and whose idea is it that we’re not going
to have sex? It’s my idea! No, it’s my idea! It’s a different form of
contention that they were going through, at the time. Did they have sex? I have
no idea. It’s possible, and it would be, okay, how much power does that give
Astoria to decide whether they’re going to have sex or not again. Or does
Cerebus go, okay Cerebus weakened and did it, but Cerebus isn’t doing that
again because that makes him like the Roach and Cerebus definitely didn’t want
to be the Roach.
Matt:
That’s, I always interpreted it at, I mean, it was an open question, but at the
same time my personal probably answer is, they didn’t, it was a case of more
manipulation on her part of, they’re sharin’ a bed, if he makes a move, she was
gonna give token resistance but then start the process of Roachin’ him of,
okay, ya know, you want some, you’re gonna have to give me what I want. Coupled
with, like you said, the perception of, hey the two of them just went in the
bedroom together, they were there for 8 hours now all of a sudden they’re
comin’ out together.
Dave:
Right.
Matt: So,
everybody thinks they’re doin’ it, so okay, you want to get to him you have to
talk to her, which is what she wants.
Dave:
Right, right. And also, Cerebus is the new Lord Julius because he’s got Lord
Julius’ wife.
Matt:
Right. That…
Dave: So,
that’s umm… I think the difference with the situation with the Pope it was, I
really actually do have her under my control here and Cerebus found that
arousing. The fact that nobody outranks the Pope, so the Pope can decide what
reality is, and as I say, I don’t think that personally, but I can certainly
understand people who do think that.
Matt: I
really enjoyed that in “Church & State II” you do illustrate the point to
the reader that he is the Pope but he is not infallible with the bit where he
snaps off an order and it’s “yes most holy” and snaps off a second order, and
it’s “yes most holy” and he turns to the window and says, “and stop raining!”
and it keeps raining and he thinks, “well, two out of three ain’t bad”, like…
Dave:
Yeah.
Matt: It’s
a beautiful illustration of, you are all powerful, ehhh, no you’re not.
Dave: And
also that, that causes severe psychological problems. A good example being him
doing that and then obviously, like when he does fall asleep and he dreams,
those are not exactly happy dreams that he’s having after raping Astoria and
you can’t undo something that you did. You can repent of it and atone for it,
but you can’t undo it, which is why you have to repent of it, and then atone
for it. Which is why Cerebus was definitely not Pope material, definitely not
religious material. Something snaps in the brain when you’re in that situation
and you decide that you’re going to go that route. There was a perfect example
going on, obviously, while I was doing this, that we didn’t find out about
until years later, which was Bill Cosby. Where, it’s one of those, here’s the
charisma and the influence that you have in your society, but you’re also a
devoted husband to Camille. All the way back to his comedy album, he had a
whole comedy routine about when he was first going out with Camille, and he was
with Camille throughout. That, I think caused him to snap in terms of,
Camille’s husband doesn’t cheat on Camille, and the way he found around that
was when he saw what quaaludes would do. If you can knock them out and have sex
with them, then you can separate yourself from what you did. You can forget
that Camille’s husband did that, and because she’s unconscious, she doesn’t
know that Camille’s husband did that, therefore Camille’s husband didn’t do
that. And it’s like, you’re really over in strange and really really loathsome
psychological territory if you can do that inside your own brain.
PART EIGHT MAKES LIKE “LEONARD PART SIX”
PART NINE PUKES UP A PUDDING POP
Dave: One
of the interesting points to me is that everybody gets bogged down in the rape
of Astoria, and everybody ignores the fact that Astoria became the Western
Pope. And was still the Western Pope. Because everybody got bogged down in the
rape and never said, wow Astoria actually got to be the Pope of the Western
Church, I actually got to the point where I went, did I not put that in the
book?
Matt:
[laughs]
Dave: That
was pretty important, to me, was that they both became Pope by killing a Pope.
Cerebus killed the Eastern Pope, or the pretender to the Eastern Pope, the
giant stone Thrunk, and Astoria killed the Lion of Serrea, which is what made
her Pope and what made him Pope, and what made it necessary for Cerebus to kill
Astoria. You have to kill Astoria in order to unite the churches. That’s what
the churches have been waiting for, and this is all that’s standing in the way.
And Cerebus couldn’t do it! It was like, well, you kill Astoria, or you condemn
Astoria, and it’s like, no, I can’t do that, and he says to Posey, explain to
them, explain this. And it’s like, uh yeah, if he condemns Astoria to death and
she’s killed, technically he becomes the Western Pontiff and then we got the
same problem, same divided church. And it’s like, Cerebus has to think about
this. Cerebus can’t just go ahead and do this. Why can’t you? Why, ya know, if
this was the idea, was power, and more power, and absolute power, why can’t you
just order this woman executed and therefore unite the churches and become the
Eastern and Western Church. And he just couldn’t do it, it was just completely
beyond him, and he couldn’t understand why he couldn’t do it. And that seems to
me to be at least as interesting a subject as “did Cerebus rape Astoria”, was
“why couldn’t Cerebus kill Astoria in order to unite the two churches under his
rule?” As Bishop Powers says, what is there to think about?
Matt:
Well, but then again, Powers didn’t know what Astoria told Cerebus about Cirin
basically waitin’ at the gates, ya know, as soon as you whack Astoria I’m
comin’ in and takin’ out everybody. Which she ends up doin’ anyway after
Cerebus ascends the first time.
Dave:
Right. It’s like, if, again, I return to the same point. If Cerebus’ point is
power and absolute power, why do you stop pursuing absolute power at that
point? According to your own reasoning that more power is better than less
power, getting rid of Astoria seems like the most natural thing in the world to
do. But he can’t do it, he absolutely can’t do it. And that’s when I brought in
the, well, okay, let’s make this as if Astoria is Joan of Arc. So that we have
this sort, sometimes it’s Jesus and sometimes it’s Joan of Arc and sometimes
it’s Jesus and sometimes it’s Joan of Arc, which I thought was a pretty
effective piece of storytelling and certainly a great feminist propaganda
graphic novel thing to do, that I get absolutely zero credit for. So, there ya
go, I think I will get credit for it, I think I will get credit for a very
interesting, very carefully nuanced story, but we have to get past sledgehammer
feminism. And I don’t think I will live to see the end of sledgehammer
feminism, although I assume it is up ahead somewhere.
Matt: That
kinda segues into, on the last page of the fax I had basically a recap of the
questions that all this brought up, and one of ‘em is, that I have personally,
Cerebus’ first ascension when he goes to the moon and talks to the Judge. Who
triggered the mountain of skulls risin’ up into the sky and goin’ to the moon?
Was it Cerebus, or was it the little Artist Chap with Fred & Ethel cause
since they’re at the top of the tower and in talking to Tarim, Tarim tells
Cerebus you gotta be at the top of the tower.
Dave: Uhh,
I would say, Fred & Ethel and the Little Fellow with the Hair, here’s the
consequence of not killing Astoria. If you had killed Astoria, then you would
have killed the idea of this fused female Western Pontiff and male Eastern
Pontiff hybrid, which is what that was. That manifested because Cerebus was
trying to go, “I’m not going to kill Astoria, I’m just gonna run.” [laughs]
“I’m takin’ off my Pope robes, I’ve got my gold sphere, and I’m goin’ out the
window just like the Cowardly Lion in the ‘Wizard of Oz’.”
Matt:
[laughs]
Dave:
Which is actually where that came from. It’s like, I went, okay, how is he
gonna get out to the demon heads and skulls and grab on while it’s going up?
And I said, ahh, let’s give him a Bert Fahr. Let’s have him go straight out through
the window.
Matt:
Which, okay, so “lions and tigers and bears oh my” explains why Bear shows up
during the ascension. [laughs]
Dave:
There ya go! Okay, and I didn’t even intend that, but God isn’t that brilliant
on my part?
Matt: It’s
one of those brilliant, ya know, you look back at it 20 years later and, “I’m
very clever, I didn’t even realize I did that.”
Dave:
There you go. And it’s, on Judgement Day, God’s going to be saying, “oh you did
that?” [laughs] “That’s a good one. What else did you think you did? Here, I’ll
tell you what. I’ll give you, here’s top to bottom what you did and where you
got this, and who gave you this that you think you came up with on your own.”
Okay, there you go, that’s a whole extra hour and I’ve been fasting all day so
I’m going and eating now.
Matt:
Okay! Good, cause I gotta finish doin’ the garbage. [laughs]
Dave:
Alright. If I forgot anything, and have everybody go through painstakingly
through the 20 page fax, if I forgot anything, we’ll bat clean-up on the
December “Please Hold for Dave Sim.”
Matt:
Okay! I think we hit everything.
Dave:
Alright. Have a good night, Matt, talk to ya next month, God willing.
Matt:
Enjoy breaking your fast, Dave.
Dave:
Thank you, buh-bye.
Matt: Bye.
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The Absurd, Surreal, Metaphysical, and Fractured Destiny of Cerebus the Aardvark is currently available "
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