Hi, Everybody!
Larry Shell will be auctioning off two Dave Originals details as I get them.
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Cerebus in Hell?:
SIGNED & NUMBERED CEREBUS IN HELL 2023 PREVIEW ONE SHOT SGN ED
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Steve Peters Week 4 Life!!!
Friend to the Blog, Steve Peters is doing a new crowdfunding campaign for his latest book. As far as I know, he made it. Yay Steve! As Steve said in an update: "Apparently with Crowdfundr, the campaign remains open so you can still order items from it if you missed it."
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And while you're frantically checking CerebusOverload.com so you can beat those other bastards to all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #8 goodies, you should send them any High Resolution scans you have of any original art cards you might have snagged from Dave. Use this form. (Will my Matisse cover be used? Dunno. So donating to Mr. Shell might be the only way to get your hands on it...)
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And Sean's has launched a new Kickstarter. You can get The Exile from your LCS too.
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Oliver's Cerebus movie: The Absurd, Surreal, Metaphysical, and Fractured Destiny of Cerebus the Aardvark it's currently available on "Plex", "Xumo", "Vimeo On Demand", "Tubi". And if you're in Brazil...
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Heritage has things...or will soon.
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Up to 35% off site-wide:
October 26-30
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!
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Jesse Herndon has been continuing the Herculean task of transcribing Dave and I's Please Hold for Dave Sim conversations so people who can't stand the crap audio can understand what the hell we were talking about. And then he sends them to me and I forget they exist.
Which is a major disservice to Jesse, and you the AMOC reader.
Sorry Jesse.
Sorry AMOC reader.
MY long term plan was to publish a collection of these with added bits from myself that clarify/expand/wrap-up/whatnot the topics discussed. The first batch of transcripts is 505 pages in Word. And there are more transcripts after that.
SO, the question is do people actually want a physical Phonebook sized collection of me prattling on while Dave waits for me to shut the @#%& up?
OR does everybody just want me to post the transcripts here and call it a day?
While I await your comments either way, let's continue catching up on Jesse's excellent work.
Here's where I'm at (blue link means it's been posted):
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 3/2022
So, Here we go:
I had to meet my accountant, so Please Hold For Dave Sim 2/2020 was all text.
So, Here we go (again):
Part One:
Matt: Hello, Dave!
Dave: Hello, Matt… [coughs] Let me try that again. Hello, Matt! [coughs] Let me try that again. Hello, Matt: Third time was a little better.
Matt: So I take it you’re still not feelin’ 100%?
Dave: Uhh, I’m actually not feeling too bad, but everytime I try and talk it’s like, “Man, you sound terrible.” But it’s like, I don’t talk that much, and it always comes as a surprise and everybody goes, “Are you really okay?” And it’s like, yeah, I was feeling okay, my voice doesn’t sound very good, but… there ya go. Just had a phone message with Jeff Seiler, who is in Dallas right now, and gonna be over to Heritage Auctions to look at the “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” artwork that I’ve got in the auction down there and hopefully looking at a few other pieces. And Jeff’s not a really happy camper right now, he booked his mini-trip into his fantasy camp trip to the Kansas City Royals. He won this fantasy camp package in an auction of some kind and [inaudible] flying all the way down to Phoenix area, actually Surprise, Arizona. If you’re interested I can see if I can get Bob Headway?? of Heritage Auctions to give you a tour of the place. And he found out it would actually be, whatever it was, $15 cheaper if he did that going through Dallas, so. It seemed like a very good omen at the time, but now his suitcase has gone through to Phoenix without him.
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: He is in Dallas, as he says, in his crappy hotel room and wearing the same clothes he’s going to have to be wearing for the next couple of days. So, I don’t know if I would go anywhere near Surprise, Arizona, just because of the name. But Jeff’s made of sterner stuff than I am.
Matt: [laughs] Well, yeah, I mean, that’s… I’ve been to Eureka, Nevada and it reeked!
Dave: [laughs] Exactly! Exactly. I’m sure there’s a bunch of California names I’m not gonna be too happy about when I get there, but that’s business.
Matt: As long as you don’t visit Sad Sim.
Dave: [laughs] One of those things, yes. Anyway, while there’s still something left of me, why don’t we get right to our questions here…
Matt: Alright.
Dave: Start with our Brian West question… Actually, I was thinking of giving you the access codes for my phone messages and you could download Jeff Seiler’s very unhappy Dallas message and include it as part of Please Hold for Dave Sim and call it Please Hold for Jeff Seiler. But, nah, I thought that’s maybe a bridge too far.
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: Let’s all send happy thoughts to Jeff Seiler in Dallas, Texas, as he says, he certainly hopes his major piece of luggage is in Phoenix when he gets there, because otherwise he’s going to be going to his fantasy baseball camp in the same clothes that he’s been wearing for the last four days. Very potentially unhappy situation, so I hope that gets all sorted out. Anyway, yes, Brian West: “Hey Matt, I got couple questions for Dave. Does he think the feminists' belief in "interchangeability" in gender, sex, race, even species, has gotten more or less pervasive in our society since he penned "Tangent" nearly 19 years ago?” That’s a very, very interesting question, and I think the most interesting that I can be on the answer is we are in a time period and I think we are going deeper and deeper and deeper into a time period where it is so uncertain what people actually believe as opposed to what they appear to be believing, that it’s very very difficult to know in that case how much did feminists believe inherently in interchangeability between genders, sexes, races, and even species 19 years ago and do they believe in that more now or do they believe less in that now. Possibly the same question, possibly a different question is do fewer of them believe that and do more of them believe that than did 19 years ago? Since we don’t know how many did 19 years ago, there’s no way to know how many do 19 years later. Possibly the same question, possibly a different question, are the feminists who are very very devout believers that everything having to do with gender, sex, race, and species is interchangeable, are they just getting louder than they were 19 years ago? Cause that’s one of the questions that I don’t know about. Like, to me, interchangeability when you’re talking about gender, I just can’t see it. No woman could get another woman pregnant, and no man could gestate a fetus, or get pregnant. So, consequently, it seems to me that there’s a fundamental primary, look, bottom line, men are men and women are women kind of thing that I don’t see reflected in our society, depending on what you’re talking about when you’re talking about in our society. Reading and getting all my news from the National Post, it’s definitely women reporters and journalists and columnists and the male reporters and columnists and journalists, all appear to believe that interchangeability is the core thing. Men and women are the same, with minor differences that are really completely irrelevant. It’s like, I don’t think really the ability to get somebody pregnant and the ability to gestate a fetus are minor distinctions. I think they are major distinctions, but everything after that seems to be minor distinctions. So, very very hard to tell, because obviously a feminist who believes in interchangeability is going to be a more masculine woman than the average woman. If she believes that men and women are the same, she’s going to be behaving in a masculine fashion and perceiving herself in a masculine sense. Do most women perceive of themselves that way? I tend to think that we’re listening to more masculine women than we have been listening to the more masculine women in the last 50 years because they’re the ones who want to speak up because they’re the more masculine women! And feminine women tend not to do that because they tend not to be masculine. So, consequently, I don’t know the answer to all three of those questions.
PART TWO:
Dave: …Getting later, and more so, or later and less so, and, as Brian says, his question is, “Is it more or less pervasive?” I think it’s, like I say, I think it’s getting louder. Everyone is very very insistent on this whole male/female quality thing, and it’s like, well, okay, I’m a big believer in equality before the wall, but we don’t have that in our society. If a woman got pregnant and she wanted to have an abortion, and the guy who got her pregnant took her to court to stop her from having the abortion I think we know what would happen in that case; she would have the abortion. In which case, the two of them having each donated 23 chromosomes to the baby, her 23 chromosomes in our society, we believe, is trump... If you’ll pardon the expression. And his 23 chromosomes are completely irrelevant. To me, I don’t think we’ve even gotten to the point of having even a relevant discussion about these things, we just have very very strongly held prejudices that completely negate dissenting viewpoints. Brian goes on to say, “Also, does he think that the debate about interchangeability is another enactment of GOD vs. YHWH unfolding before us or not?” Yes, definitely, I mean, it seems to me that that’s what we’re listening to, is the women who are the most vocal in our society are directly linked to and are channeling YHWH. So, you essentially get extremely… how would I put this? Extreme viewpoints on the interchangeability of gender, because, I think, all of that issues from YHWH being convinced that YHWH is God. So consequently, the only fallback position from there is both God and YHWH are both deities. One of them inhabits the Earth and the other created the entire universe, and it’s like, well, I don’t think that’s the case, but I’m also the only one who thinks that God and YHWH are two different beings. Definitely, the whole he/she/it seems to me to come directly from the YHWH, and the YHWH doesn’t strike me as being in debate category or a discussion category. It’s definitively held viewpoints that are just… this is not open for discussion. In order to try… if you were to try and begin a discussion with feminists, which I really don’t think is possible at this point. Let’s theoretically talk about being able to talk to a feminist about something. A good starting point would be, okay, if the genders are interchangeable, why don’t we just have one set of Olympic events? Men and women both competing at the Olympics in the high jump, or whatever. You don understand if we ever did that and said, “okay, no more sexes dividing up the Olympics, there’s one Olympic and we’re going to find out who the best athlete is, whoever he or she turns out to be.” You do realize that no woman would ever compete in the Olympics again? That would be the starting point, because I’m not sure that feminists understand that, and I’m not sure that any feminist would actually acknowledge that. If you can’t acknowledge as something as self-evident as the fact that if men and women both competed in the same event in the Olympics, no women would ever compete in the Olympics again, then you’re just not capable of perceiving reality. You’re… ya know, it would be maybe an exaggeration to say you’re clinically insane, but that wouldn’t be far from the truth. So it’s like, okay, if we can’t even find a meeting point on that, then, okay, there’s no point in even discussion interchangeability of gender, sex, race, and species, because you won’t allow yourself to perceive fundamental accuracy. And consequently, there’s nothing to talk about. All we can do is just keep persevering in whatever it is that we’re turning society into and just hope that somewhere up ahead this gets better. Either the really really loud feminist who has really zero grasp of reality either decides, okay, it’s time to start doing this. We have to start getting back towards reality. Something that women would acknowledge. Yes, if we did have one Olympics with men and women both competing in the same events no women would ever be competing in the Olympics again. That’s hidden from us. That’s… okay, the loudest women would turn that into character assassination. Ya know, “You’re just a nazi” or whatever it is that they would say in response to me saying that. And it’s like, well okay, if you can’t confront the actual discussion and you have to default into ad homonym attacks, then, again, we’re not at the point of being able to discuss anything intelligently. All we’re getting is complete YHWH id projected at us that has absolutely nothing to do with reality. I mean, there’s… there are more nuanced interchangeability…
PART THREE:
Dave: …A good one to me, is the, I don’t know if it actually turned into a class action lawsuit against Harvard for discriminating against Asians. I think that’s a very interesting discussion. If what we’re doing is saying, okay, these universities, these place of higher education, and obviously Harvard is considered the highest of the high education standards. If Asians are writing the entry exams and are winning in terms of they have the highest marks on whatever the entrance exams are for Harvard, and you’re not filling Harvard with Asians, then, okay, we’re not having an intelligent discussion about that either. Okay, that’s fine, I understand you saying, “we want legacy students from previous Harvard graduates reserved this many spaces, we need this many black people, and we need this many whatever it is that we decided… we need this many women are Harvard.” Okay, then don’t talk about Harvard having the highest possible academic standards, because you’re changing your academic standards in order to generate quotas. I’m happy to have any discussion that any feminist wants to have about anything, but let’s decide what it is that we’re discussing and discuss that. If we’re discussing academic standards, then, okay great. Harvard should be almost all Asian students. If we’re talking about quotas, this is how many women that have to be admitted at Harvard every year, well okay, but that has nothing to do with academic standards. That has to do with identity politics. That’s a completely different thing. Do you want to talk about academic standards, or do you want to talk about identity politics? I’m happy to talk about either one, but don’t start talking about the one, and then start talking about the other, and try and convince me that you’re sane. You’re not! You’re nutty as a fruitcake.
Matt: [laughs] Well, Brian asked!
Dave: [laughs] Brian West did ask. There’s my answer, that I think all of this is hidden, because how many women actually believe that identity politics is as important or more important than academic standards when you’re talking about Harvard? I don’t know. They’re not saying much, but I think that has more to do with the fact that feminism is a dictatorship, and I know if you say something that the feminists don’t agree with, there are very very severe consequences of that, particularly in the academic world. But that’s another discussion again. That’s like, well, do you want to be Beijing or do you want to be Washington? Again, I’ll be happy to talk about means by which Beijing is able to impose itself and completely negate human freedom. But if you want to discuss that, let’s discuss that. If you wanna discuss democracy and you want to discuss how our society should be run, you can’t do that under Beijing rules, you have to do that under Washington’s rules.
Matt: Well, thinkin’ about it beforehand, Brian’s question about interchangeability and identity, I kept, for some reason, thinkin’ about, there was Ripley’s Believe It Or Not had a TV show for the longest time. And one of the guys they showed in the opening of the show was this guy who went out and got surgery on his tongue, so it’s a split tongue, and got tattoos all over his body so he looks like a reptile, and he wears contact lenses so he’s got reptile lookin’ eyes. And, ya know, whenever I think about it, ya know, he identifies as a reptile, but… he’s not?
Dave: [laughs] Okay, see, right there, I’m not sure that you’re on side with our society when you say that. I agree with you 100% that that’s exactly what we’re talking about.
Matt: Well, I mean, this is one guy who’s… I’m gonna say, fun at parties, to be polite.
Dave: [laugh]
Matt: I don’t think that we need, I don’t think if he were to come forward and say, “I’m a reptile American and I need to have special accommodations from a reptilianess”. At a certain point, listen buddy, it’s nice that you have a lot of money and a lot of free time, but unless you’re setting up a community in Arizona of like-minded individuals who’re all gonna lay on rocks in bikinis and speedos and be reptilian, I don’t see it that you’re a reptile, you’re just a guy who figured out a way to get on TV every week.
Dave: Right. Right. And it’s the same as one of the clerks at one of the stores downtown, was talking about the sketchy people coming in today. And it had been an interesting day at the store, I guess. And it’s like, yeah, and then we sort of started talking about, what are you even allowed to call people now? Like, sketchy seems, considering the people that we’re talking about, charitable Extremely charitable. Not that I have anything against sketchy people. Not that I have anything against people who are homeless, not that I have anything against people who are poor. When I’m going to the dollar store to buy my tuna, because the dollar store tuna is a buck a can and everyplace else is $2.50, 3 bucks. If there’s somebody outside the dollar store and they ask me for change, it’s like, no, I’m not gonna give you money, because I have no idea if you’re gonna spend it on alcohol or drugs or something. But if you want to come in the dollar store, I’ll buy you some food, if you want some food. The last guy, he was like…, okay, I’ll buy you some food if you’d like. And he goes, “can you get me some licorice all-sorts.” And I went, no, I’m not going in to shop for you, I will pay for your food, you go in and buy your food but it’s like they want five chocolate bars. And it’s like, okay, I will buy you the five chocolate bars, you are theoretically an adult, but there are much better choices in the dollar store for the money that I’m gonna spend on those chocolate bars for you. And then there was like, cans of energy drink, I don’t know if it’s a Canadian energy drink, Rockstar?
Matt: No, no, that’s… they have that everywhere.
Dave: Okay, alright. He saw that, and it’s like, “ooh, can I have that instead?” [laughs] And it’s like, no, you can have that in addition, you can have licorice all-sorts and a can of Rockstar. And I said, do you want two cans of Rockstar? Yeah, he’ll take two cans of Rockstar. It’s like, okay, I’m not doing you any favors health-wise, but there you go. There’s something wrong with these people walking around loose as far as I’m concerned, and it’s like, don’t tell me that I’m a bigot because I’m buying these people food, but I’m saying they shouldn’t be running around loose. It’s not a good idea for them, and it’s not a good idea for us. You’re not allowed to say anything about any of that anymore because it’s… everybody is everybody is either an extreme left wing feminist or a Nazi. So, pick your team. And it’s like, I guess I’m over here with the Nazis.
Matt: I worked with a guy who was drinkin’ energy drinks a lot. Like he was havin’ two or three a day, and he’s got a family history of kidney stones and he started havin’ pain in his abdomen and he talked to his dad, and his Dad was like, “you’re gettin’ kidney stones, cause you’re drinkin’ too many energy drinks. It’s got, I forget what vitamin it is, but it calcifies and gives you kidney stones.” And he’s like, okay, I gotta quit this. So everyday, he tells me this, and then I see him drinkin’ one, and I’m like, I thought you couldn’t have those, and he’s like, “yeah, but I really needed it” and I’m like you know it’s bad for you, like physically have proof it’s not good for you and you’re still doin’ it. And he’s like, “well, I’m drinkin’ a lot of lemonade, cause the citrus in the lemonade helps melt the calcium deposits.” And I’m goin’, or you can stop drinkin’ the energy drinks?
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: So then this kid that I still…
Dave: Ya know, it’s… go ahead, keep going.
Matt: This kid that I still work... that I work with now, yesterday, came out of the break room and he had an energy drink, and I’m like, ya know you’re gonna get kidney stones, and he’s like, “what are you talkin’ about?” and I’m tellin’ him about this other guy that I used to work with and he’s like, “oh I think I’ll be okay”, and I’m like, you’re 19, I understand you think you’re invincible, as a guy that’s 40 I’m tellin’ ya, the decisions you make today are going to come back to haunt you in 20 years.
Dave: Yeah. Yeah. As my Dad used to say, “if I’d known I was gonna live this long I’d have taken better care of myself”.
Matt: …Which, isn’t that a line you gave Cerebus in “Guys”?
Dave: Oh, I’m sure I did! As I always tell people, I don’t think my father ever made up one of those, but anytime he heard a good one it got filed away and he would trot it out… yeah, you’re walking around outside on a nice day and you go, “it’s nice out”, then you leave a pause, and then you go, “I think I’ll leave it out.” [laughs]
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: Okay, that’s politically incorrect humour too. This is probably my career going down the tubes again for the 15th time.
PART 4
Matt: Well, one last thing on identifying, Oliver Simonsen every week sends me an email with a bunch of links, so Sunday’s column is “Cerebus Around the World and Web” and it’s… anytime anyone mentions you, Cerebus, Gerhard, Strange Death, Glamourpuss, any of that stuff, and he finds it, usually on Twitter, and he sends me links and okay, I format it and make a column. It’s usually just a series of links and I check everything out before I post it just to make sure it’s not a link to a petition to hunt down and kill Dave Sim and Matt Dow, ya know, stuff like that.
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: So I go on Twitter a lot.
Dave: That would be newsworthy too.
Matt: Well, but that’s… so, I go on Twitter a lot and one of the things I notice on Twitter is that people have started doing, because Twitter is technically anonymous. You can use any name you want, ya know, you can have your screen name be “guy on corner” and they don’t need to know what your name is. So people have been puttin’ descriptors of how they identify themselves. Ya know, like, if you identify as female they’ll put she/her, or if it’s someone identifying as male, it’s he/him. And I saw this for a couple of weeks and finally I’m like, ya know, I shouldn’t do this but I’m gonna, so on my Twitter profile it’s… link to my blog, then identify as “Duke McAwesome Overlord of Existence, so male I guess?”
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: Nobody’s said anything yet! [laughs]
Dave: Not necessarily! Not necessarily. It’s one of those all of this is open for debate, as far as I can see. I have to tell you, I appreciate you and Oliver spending that much time online in these environments just to get content, cause man oh man, the more I hear about the internet, the more I hear about Twitter, it’s like… why would you do that to yourself? That sounds like drinking the lemonade so it’ll melt your kidney stones cause you’re drinking too many energy drinks; this is just plain unhealthy.
Matt: One of the links on… it was either this past week or the week before, was somebody talkin’ about various Batman artists and Gene Day’s name popped up and in the context of… it was Name A to Name B to Name C, and eventually Gene’s name popped up so I posted the cover he did for “Detective Comics” as a reply of, Gene did do Batman once. And somebody asked about it, and it’s one of those, I’m… in my head, I’m goin’, “get off Twitter, get off Twitter, get off Twitter”, but, nope, okay, so, explainin’ a little bit about how Gene was gonna draw Batman before he died, and somebody, of course, it’s the internet, nobody believes anybody. So ya know, okay, here’s a link to Dave talkin’ about Gene talkin’ about… your eulogy for Gene about how Gene got fired, got hired by DC, then he died. Somebody was like, “oh okay, now that you have a source” and I’m just like, this is a full time job for a team of 4000 people, verifying things on the internet. And that’s when I go, alright, I’m gonna log off Twitter now and forget that I have to do this until next week.
Dave: Right. Right. Yeah, it’s… my work is done here, kind of thing.
Matt: And then of course, I go back on the next week to check links, and I have the little notification button, ya know. Usually it’s like two or three people have notified me… notified about two or three, like Brian West likin’ somethin’ I posted or something, okay, fine whatever. But I go in and there’s 17 notifications, and I’m like, uh-oh, what did I do this time?
Dave: [laughs] This can’t be good!
Matt: It’s like, I’m going viral and ehhh… Ya know, in today’s modern society, going viral on the internet is a good thing, and I keep coming back to, viral is not a good thing. When you have viral menugucacus, you have to go to the doctor.
Dave: Right. Well, it depends on what you’re going viral about. I mean, my heart goes out to people like Stephen King who try to have intelligent discussion about something and okay, that’s it. Goodbye to my Twitter account, because whatever it is that he said, he said it at the wrong time and it linked to the wrong people and they just buried him in negative comments, so, okay, bye-bye Twitter. Might come back sometime in the future, but don’t hold your breath on that.
Matt: Actually, ‘cause I follow him on Facebook, so I saw the initial brouhaha and I’m goin’, okay, wait a minute, what? And I read what he tweeted and I’m goin’, okay, there’s nothing inherently wrong with what he said. Yes, I can see someone taking objection to how he said it, but then, he followed up with an actual lengthy blog post posted on some news site where he wrote a little article saying, “this is what I said, I understand why people are offended, but this is what I meant.” Cause it all boiled down to, what he tweeted was, he would never vote, as an Oscar voter, cause he is a member of the Academy, he would never vote in the three categories that you can vote for, based on diversity. It would all be on quality. And everybody, ya know, the Twitter mind storm attacked him, because, “how dare say you wouldn’t choose something”. He sees two movies, and he thinks one is better than the other, it doesn’t matter what color either movie is in his eyes, he thought movie A was better. And it’s, oh no no, ‘cause only white people are winnin’, well, I mean, yeah, the Academy has to change, they’ve tried to change, but at a certain point, ya know… the best movie is the best movie. It doesn’t matter who was in it, who directed it, everybody saw that movie and went, that’s the best movie.
Dave: It was also… when you’re holding for Awards like that, particularly on that level, is… it’s got more to do with “who would I like to see on the Oscar telecast getting up and going,’wow, I can’t believe this, it’s like a dream sort of thing’” and it’s like, uhhh, Quentin Tarantino hasn’t been up there for a while and I liked “Hollywood in the West” or whatever that thing was called. I’ll vote for him. It’s, I think he’s one of our best directors and it’s been a while since I saw one of his films and thought, yeah that’s Oscar bait and I did think this one was in that category, so I’m going to vote for him. And it’s an award! It’s not a life or death thing. It’s nice to get an award, it’s nice when you don’t get an award. It’s really neither here nor there, but people who are taking it as, “no, you have to vote in the awards to established social justice”, and it’s like, no I think awards are in the social justice category. I understand that obviously tons and tons and tons of people do think that, but I don’t think that that’s the case. And that’s one of those, okay, are those people the majority? If Stephen King is saying “I will vote for what I think is the best movie based on the movie not who made it or not the color of the skin of the person who made it or the gender of the person who directed it”, that seems valid to me. There seems to be not shortage of valid reasons to vote for something, and that’s up to you. You shouldn’t have to defend your criteria. Somehow we’ve gotten so far away from where we used to be in a society, where if you’re talking to an adult and the adult is talking about something and it has to do with criteria, it has to do with here’s what informs my decision making. In a responsible adult society, you have to take it as a given that people arrive at the conclusions that they arrive at through legitimate methodology. It’s uncivilized not to think that way. So the best you can say is, oh that’s interesting. Ya know, I could have a conversation with any number of people who vote for the Academy Awards and okay, what is your criteria? How do you decide who you’re going to vote for? And if it’s not on the basis of,”I thought this was the best job of directing and I thought this was the best film and I thought this was the best actor and I thought this was the best actress.” it’s, “no, I always try to pick somebody of color and if there isn’t somebody of color then I don’t vote in that category.” Well, that’s interesting. I wouldn’t vote that way myself if I had a vote, but that’s interesting that you do that. I don’t think it’s anything to get upset about, and that seems really weird to me that we’re in a society now where it seems like the obligation is to get upset. If you’re not getting upset, then there’s something wrong with your politics, there’s something wrong with your decision making, there’s something wrong with your opinion, there’s something wrong with the way that you’re living. And it’s like, I don’t think that’s your call to make! And I don’t think that’s a particularly… I think that’s a distinctly undemocratic way to look at decision making in a democracy. By becoming aware of it, either I’m one of the few people who think that way, or the people who do think that way understand, oh you’re not allowed to say that. So, it’s just, here’s your checklist. These are the subjects that you can talk about, and these are the subjects that you can’t talk about. And I’ve never been that way. It’s like, I’m always happy to hear other people’s opinions and I’m happy to offer my opinions in dispense because I can’t think of anything that I agree with anybody on and that anybody agrees with me on, so I’m pretty used to it by now.
Matt: [laughs]
PART 5
Dave: Okay. That’s… there ya go, Brian! That was… however long, almost 45 minutes, and if you want to ask the question a different way next month, feel free.
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: Then we’ve got Dave Kopperman asks, “Is that SDOAR date of Christmas 2021 accurate? I think that's the first announcement I've seen.” Thank you for asking the question because it might be accurate and it might not be accurate. I did get, had a back and forth with Chris Ryall at IDW as I was bringing him up to speed on the Death of a Comic Salesman Sales Trip, coming up and all the things I’m working on with the retailers. And he, very emphatically said that he didn’t want IDW connected with it. Don’t invoke IDW because “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” is not on their schedule and there’s no time in the foreseeable future when it would be on their schedule. Which is actually fine by me, because it’s like, I was trying to figure out, okay, how quickly can I do this California test market edition in Christmas 2020 and then bring IDW in. And I thought, well okay, however much I learn and however much that I’m able to develop to promote “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” through 2020 with the 190 California comic book stores, that’s not going to be translatable up to worldwide sales I think in a year’s time. So as far as I know the agreement with IDW right now is don’t schedule “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” for general release at this point, we won’t have a date associated with it, and we will try to figure out what is a sensible amount of lead time for the full on release, could be 2021, could be 2022, depends on how much I learn and how much I still have to learn between now and July when I go to California. How much I learn in the two months when I’m actually meeting face to face with the retailers and how much that can be incorporated between July and November and it could be, okay, this is actually pretty easy. As long as you do ABC and D and XY and Z, this is the stuff that works, then very possibly, it could be Christmas 2021. If it’s just, okay, now there’s a number of different complications that I didn’t understand but at least I know what I don’t know and now I am going to be able to develop a program based on what is actually working. I apologize to all of the people who are desperately waiting for the “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” Volume One, the general edition, but this is how it has to be done. As far as I’m concerned, the biggest problem in the comic book field is the throw it against the wall and see if it sticks because that’s how everything’s done. You do the solicitation, you put in the solicitation, it comes out in Previews, you get this many copies ordered, that’s fine. Everybody has moved on. Having worked on the “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” for 10 years, I can’t just can’t have it appear in Previews in the IDW section once and get orders for 409 copies and go, well, okay, there’s full value for the 10 years I put in on this. So that’s the short answer on that one. No, I think it will come out from IDW, but in what form and on what schedule, that’s going to depend a lot on my meeting with Chris Ryall at the end of the sales trip when all of the information is still fresh and I can say, okay, here’s where we are. Here’s what retailers want and what they’re talking about in 2020. Is that still gonna be true in 2021? Very possibly. Also, could be not possible, but at least Chris and I will have information to discuss. Here’s how I did, here’s what I think works, here’s what didn’t work, here’s what the retailers are telling me, here’s what I… here’s the gears that I’m gonna be shifting and the different things I’m gonna be doing between July and November and hopefully we can meet after that and say, okay, at this point I’m just handing everything over to you. Here’s all of the promotion that I did, here’s all of the designs, here’s everything that this guy’s store found helpful, here’s everything the chain store… comic book store chains found helpful, and over to you. If you want me to help just as the guy who wrote and drew it, I’m fully available now for the general release volume one, but here’s all of the stuff that I did on my own just so that it wasn’t a “let’s throw it at the wall and see what sticks” situation. And I’m getting a very good response. I finished all of the phone calls to the California retailers and I’m getting… I have a lot of feedback, I’m getting more feedback all the time on what it is that they’re looking for and it’s going to be done, whatever it is that I end up doing in November, it’s gonna be completely different from anything that’s ever been done before in terms of selling graphic novels in graphic novel stores. I don’t think I’m gonna make any money, but I think I’m gonna find some very interesting ways to break even and helping the stores to break even, saying it’s just moving books around. It’s getting books into your store and making promotional material available months ahead of time instead of days ahead of time. I mean, the number of stores that I’m talking to and are saying… the little promotion that they’re getting from the companies, a lot of them are getting promotion for books that they turned in their orders a week ago. And it’s like, that’s not helping the situation. I understand what the companies are doing, they’re going, “okay, however many you ordered, here’s your promotion, now you use this on your customers when your copies come in.” It’s like, uhh, no, I only have 4 customers for that, which is why I ordered 4 copies of it. You’re giving me promotions for something that I don’t know if I can get anymore copies of it. If I can’t get anymore copies of it, there’s no point in me selling it to my customers. What I’m doing is I’m starting like way, way way way back. I’m going to be in your stores talking to you and doing the promotional video with you for “Strange Death of Alex Raymond”, just you and me and your cellphone and showing you here’s what it is that I’m selling. It does exist, you don’t have to worry about that part, it will be coming in in November, anything that you could think of, anything that you can show me that helps sell graphic novels in your store, I’m here. And then we’re going to have another three or four months of lead time between the time that I go home and put all of those pieces together and hopefully the 190 California comic book stores will sell a lot more copies of “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” Volume One than they thought they were going to, or that they possibly imagined that they could because somebody started early enough on them and put in enough time and enough money to make it happen in a major way. And, hey, if I can do it, anybody else can do it down the line. Selling monthly “Cerebus in Hell?” comics is one thing, selling a $20 graphic novel that’s the first in a series, that’s a different thing entirely. So, thank you, very sincerely Dave Kopperman for asking that, that’s the situation that we’re in right now. The exact, and excuse me, I have to take a snuff break.
PART 6
Dave: Just to give you an idea of the exact moment that we’re in, I’m doing advertising posters for The Death of a Comic Salesman 2020 Sales Trip and the “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” on the same poster and it will say, the name of the comic book store, the address, the city, at the bottom. And what what Sean is working on right now is templates so that the name of the comic book store is in a nice poster type of typeface, and the address is in a good typeface, and the store doesn’t have to worry about that. They don’t have to go, “oh well, I would do this, but I don’t really have time to find somebody who does Photoshop to put all of my information on a poster, etc etc.” It’s like, no, we’re going to do that. Sean’s going to come up with templates for short comic store names, medium size comic store names, large comic store names, and it’s called VDP, very low data printing, and what he’s working on right now is doing the first poster that I blocked out. I printed out the poster, looks really good, everything is exactly the way it’s supposed to be, but it needs the store name and address and the city in California printed on it. So, he’s figuring out exactly how to do that. Once we have that, then we will have two or three different templates so that when I’m designing the next poster I just have to leave that much room for the small named stores, medium sized named stores, and the long named stores. This is why I started in December working on this when the books are not actually going to be in the California stores until November, cause there’s a lot that needs to be done and what I’m gonna be trying to do is to get the stores to do the actual printing their selves. It’s like, if I was to sell you a poster. Here’s the poster, I have to go get it printed here, Rolly’s gonna roll it up in a mailing tube, put your address on it, put the postage on it, send it to you, this is how much it’s gonna cost you. It’s this many dollars. Whereas, if you go to your local Kinkos, because Sean is coordinating with Kinkos as to here’s their paper stock, here’s the format that they use, and all you have to do is go to Kinkos and it’ll only cost you 79 cents or a dollar and a half or whatever to do that poster. And if you can sell them for like $10, okay, take these $9 that you made on the Death of a Comic Salesman poster and put it towards your “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” promotion. Just keep a running total in your head, here’s how much money I’ve made on the stuff that Dave’s letting me print and okay I will put it into t-shirts and buttons and posters. And this is the way that I am trying to do this, which, like I say, nobody has ever done it before, and if it absolutely doesn’t work, then I’m sure nobody will ever do it again. But I have to do the exact opposite of just “throw it against the wall and see if it sticks”.
Matt: It sounds like the evolved version of the Campaign 93.
Dave: Yeah, it’s definitely got elements of that. It’s the next generation on and going… the technology is so much better and the internet, just being able to just throw digital files all over the planet and it doesn’t cost you anything. Okay. It’s time to start bringing that into the promotion of graphic novels. So it’s, in a major way, just staying on the comic stores’ radar screen. Every week, once we’re up and rolling, here’s another promotion idea. Here’s another promotion idea. Here’s another promotion idea. We’re not gonna use all of them, but if you see one and you go, oh I really like that one, I think I can sell that poster, I think that would make a really good t-shirt, you can do it as staff t-shirts, you can do it as t-shirts that you can sell. That’s how you stay on the stores’ radar screen and it doesn’t cost you anything, this is just promotion to them that they can use. They keep it in digital form and just put it on their website or put it on their Facebook page, that’s fine. A lot of stores are gonna do that. But the stores that go, wait a minute, we’re actually getting promotion not only from a publisher but the guy who wrote and drew the thing, we should be able to do something with it before November and start backing it up from November and going, what promotion are we going to be doing in October? What promotion are we going to be doing in September? What promotion are we going to be doing in August? What promotion are we going to be doing in July? Do we want to do a weekly promotion? Do we want to put something in everybody’s pull file? Do we want to email stuff to people? So, it’s definitely interesting and there’s definitely no shortage of work to do on it.
Matt: I would definitely keep track of everything ‘cause it sounds like you have the basis for the “Cerebus in Hell Guide to Self-Publishing.”
Dave: [laughs] Well, I’ll tell ya, A Moment of Cerebus is gonna be a big part of it. It’s gonna be, here’s Matt Dow’s email address. As soon as I leave, you let him know how the sales visit to whatever… Comics Experience or the Perky Nerd or whatever store it was. Like, my attitude is, I’m probably only gonna be in your store for a half an hour. I’ve got days here where I’ve got five stores to go to that are all at least eight miles apart, so however many people are interested in Dave Sim and want to show off with their cellphones and take cellphone footage and still photos, you’re more than welcome to do that, as long as you understand that I’m just here to talk to this person, this guy or this woman who orders the graphic novels. But, anything that I say or do when I’m there, as far as I’m concerned, the store owns that and they can put it on their Facebook page and they can put it on their Twitter feed and they can put it on their website. That’s why I’m going there in person, that cache that you can’t get any other way.
Matt: Well, I hope it goes good!
Dave: Well, it’s gonna go interesting. Whether it goes good, I think, interesting… like one of the things is going to be face time with Dave Sim, if you can [phone beeps] transportation costs of figuring out how to get to the bus station so that I’m getting to the next city that I’ve got to get to, or the next store that I’ve got to get to. If you’ve got a car and you’re welling to drive Dave Sim to his next store, well, there ya go, you’ll get face time with Dave Sim. I’ve got Cerebus fans who are letting me sleep on their couches, I’ve got Cerebus fans whose…. he and his life are gonna sleep in the living room and I get the master bedroom, it’s like… uhh, I don’t think that I would be comfortable with that. But if you insist, that’s how it’s going to go. Believe me, Dave Sim is a very cheap date.
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: I have my ABCs of nutrition. I eat apples, bananas, and carrots. Two Granny Smith apples, two bananas, and two carrots, and then something interesting after that [inaudible] an apple, a banana, or a carrot. If you can afford apples, bananas, or carrots, you can afford to host Dave Sim on Death of a Comic Salesman Sales Trip.
Matt: Okay.
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: Well, I’m not gonna be in California so it’s not like I can offer anything. All I can…
Dave: That’s one of the things, I don’t know how many people will go, “well, in that case, I’ll take my vacation in California, I’ll just follow the guy around.”
Matt: Everybody from the Cerebus in Hell? team sounds like they’re gonna be in San Diego and I’m like, oh, I kinda wanna go, and Paula’s like, okay, you can go, but you have to go really cheap. And I’m like, how cheap is Amtrak? Can I get my Dad to go on a road trip to San Diego with me? And I’m workin’ it out, and she told me that in October is the world Girl Scout’s convention in Florida and she’s going and I’m going with her, and I’m like, well that’s where all the money from vacation is going.
Dave: There you go. There you go. The only outside… I’m not sure if I’d even say this as a joke… depending on how the Coronavirus takes off or doesn’t take off, by July, you could maybe get a flight to California for $10.
Matt: [laughs] Yeah, even then, though. I gotta save every penny I can for goin’ to Disney World.
Dave: Okay.
Matt: Part of the package is there’s gonna be Girl Scout day at Disney World, so we get to go for one day.
Dave: Alright.
Matt: I know how this is gonna go, it’s gonna be, show up at Disney, and we have six hours to look at a third of the park.
Dave: Yep. But you’re old enough that you know that now.
Matt: Yeah, it’s not like when I went 35 years ago and we go to do the entire park because it was a third of the size.
Dave: Right.
Matt: I rode the Epcot ball six times!
Dave: I gotta go! But I gotta tell you, I really liked your “meanwhile Cerebus #240 is wondering where the hell Gerhard is.”
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: [laughs] That was very very funny. Let me know when Cerebus #300 is old enough to buy me a drink, and I was going, what do you think about that if Cerebus #300 was a person, this month it would be able to get a driver’s license. The only thing that I could think of was taking a copy of issue 300 or if you have multiple copies of issue 300, and doing dancing Cerebus #300 to Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen.”
Matt: [laughs] I could do that, maybe.
Dave: Well, there ya go… I was going to even make that as an offer. The person who gets me the funniest Chuck Berry “Sweet Little Sixteen” dancing Cerebus #300 will get an autographed advanced copy of a Cerebus in Hell? monthly coming up.
Matt: Okay, I will… I’m makin’ this a contest now. I will put somethin’ up on Saturday when this goes up.
Dave: [laughs] Alright, and we will say… gentlemen start your engines, and we will see who comes up with the best one. That really is a depraved song, though, “Sweet Little Sixteen”. It’s no wonder that they had to turn that into “Surfin’ USA”.
Matt: [laughs] I’m tryin’ to think, there’s another Chuck Berry song but I can’t remember what it is that… he’s got two songs, different lyrics, the exact same tune.
Dave: [laughs] That’s Chuck Berry, alright. Okay, always a pleasure, Matt!
Matt: Always a pleasure, as always! And I want to thank you, and I also want to thank all the viewers at home for watching this the day after tomorrow when I get it on the internet and to remind everybody that since it’s Saturday technically, tomorrow you gotta set your clock back an hour… or set your clock forward an hour if you’re doin’ Daylight Savings Time.
Dave: There you go.
Matt: That’s my public service.
Dave: We live but to serve.
Matt: Yes, we do.
Dave: Okay, have a good night, Matt. Say Hi to Paula, and Janis Pearl, and Natasha for me.
Matt: Will do! Take care, Dave.
Dave: Buh-bye.
Matt: Bye.
__________________________________
Thanks again Jesse!
Next Time: The Monday Report and whatever else I find laying around my third desk...
1 comment:
I prefer reading them on here.
cheers,
A Fake Name
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