We are nearing the home stretch of Assistant Interim Editors Week at A Moment of Cerebus. But before we get to that: it's Friday and that means it's time for another Weekly Update.
Dave's Weekly Update:
I still couldn't find the comic anywhere in town at the local comics shops. So, I ordered it thru Mile High Comics by telephone. When I ordered a near mint copy the rep at Mile High told me that I had to meet a minimum purchase of at least $20 dollars USD if I was paying by credit card. So, I thought about it for a second, and then knew that volume one of Cerebus was on sale at Migh High for about 19 or 20 bucks American. I had heard about Cerebus for a while and was curious what it was about. Problem solved.
Personally, I think Dave got a deal from Doug Sulipa with THOR #338. It's part two of a cliffhanger in which Donald Blake loses the enchantment of turning into Thor. Also, it's the second issue of a legendary 45-issue run by artist and writer Walt Simonson. The first issue is one of the key comics of the Bronze Age: THE MIGHTY THOR #337 (NOVEMBER 1983).
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| My own personal copy of THE MIGHTY THOR #337 (NOVEMBER 1983). |
This leads me to my first moment of Cerebus.
I didn't start collecting Simonson's run of Thor in earnest until I was in college during the late 1990s.
It was thru this that I actually was introduced to Cerebus. I had gotten all of the back issues of THOR up to issue #379. But, I couldn't find the following issue anywhere in town.
THE MIGHTY THOR #380 was hard to find in the 1990s for two reasons. First, Simonson had returned to drawing duties after a long hiatus for this issue. He still wrote every issue of Thor during his run, but once he started working on his co-creation of X-FACTOR with his wife, comics editor and writer Louise Simonson, the penciling duties for THOR were handed over to Sal Buscema, a solid artist in the Marvel Bullpen, just not quite as inventive as Simonson in my opinion.
Second, THOR #380 was a hot comic because it found a de-powered Thor achieving a Pyrrhic victory over the Midgard Serpent. The way Simonson laid out this entire issue was with splash pages, sometimes double splash pages like this one.
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| Click for bigger. |
I got my issue of Thor #380.
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| I still have this issue 25 years later. I gave up my Cerebus Phone Book though to a thrift store during the aughts. |
And also received my first Cerebus phone book in the mail too. It's been downhill from there ever since.
Onto some updates.
Looks like Kathleen David and organizer Graham Murphy have been able to fully fund the GoFundMe for Kathleen's husband Peter David who has been suffering from several health complications of late.
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Cerebus in Hell?
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There are 13 DAYS left for Living The Line's Kickstarter for CENTRALIA by Miel Vandepitte.
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Physical copies of Cerebus Archives on CerebusDownloads.com
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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 a bunch of neat original art.
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Up to 35% off site-wide:
December 1-16
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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Next Time: It's all fun & games until there's a Marvel Comics Shoot.
5 comments:
My memory must be going; for some reason I thought that cover was the first Simonson Thor issue. But even so, yes, I think Dave got a deal.
I was never a Thor fan, but I vividly recall at the time that issues of Simonson's Thor were going for quite a hefty premium, within a couple of months of their release. A foreshadowing of the batsh*t crazy "Collector" market that was to come.
I got into THOR early in my life. I bought issue #346 when it was originally released but was totally lost about what was going on in the story. All I knew was that there was some giant devil holding a big sword, a fat grey headed guy was being chased by a sand worm and Thor’s girlfriend turned into a tree trunk at the end of the issue. It was too weird for seven year old me at the time. And I had no idea that Simonson was a “hot” comics creator. Actually I found his style too be too weird. So, I didn’t look for any other issues by him.
Took a number of years, and acquaintance with Thor via the Al Milgrom/Ron Frenz run of the early ‘90s, before I finally dipped my toe into the waters of Simonson’s Thor. By then the comics were fairly cheap. I might have paid $7 to $10 USD when I finally found a copy of issue 380. Collecting that run all over Louisville was fun, fun, fun. Highlights for me were the annual drawn by Sal’s brother, Big John Buscema, another issue by John, a fill-in by him with Thor and Loki dueling in the old American west, 380 of course, and the end of the Surtur Saga.
To those who like to keep score: Technically, the Surtur Saga runs from issues 337 to 353 of THE MIGHTY THOR, but its climax occurs between issues 351 and 353.
I loved that Walt Simonson run on Thor. I never collected or read Thor other than him being in The Avengers. Since then, I’ve collected many things he had written and drawn. I even had the pleasure of meeting him and his wife, Weezy , at 2 very small high school comic cons. What a joy they both were. He sketched a Thor one year and Loki the next time.
Side note—-I believe in Cerebus Archive (the comic) #2, Dave speaks of Louise Jones and sending his stories and artwork for possible work. I totally forgot about that she was in the comic and could have signed the comic for me. Sigh.
Michael R.
That sounds like a great experience, Michael R.
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