Mail Day! AKA Boss Man is Away

MARGARET LISS:
A few years ago I scanned all of Dave Sim's notebooks. He had filled 36 notebooks during the years he created the monthly Cerebus series, covering issues #20 to 300, plus the other side items -- like the Epic stories, posters and prints, convention speeches etc. A total of 3,281 notebook pages detailing his creative process. I never really got the time to study the notebooks when I had them. Just did a quick look, scanned them in and sent them back to Dave as soon as possible. So this regular column is a chance for me to look through those scans and highlight some of the more interesting pages.

Yah, guess what? Boss man is on vacation. So while the boss is away, I'm going to have some fun. No more notebook #6. No more notebooks. At least for this week. So what 'moment of Cerebus' do I have to share? A few actually. I love getting Cerebus goodies in the mail.

This one was a surprise. I backed Moonray Book One by Brandon Graham and Xurxo G Penalta on Kickstarter, put on by friends of the blog Living the Line. A week or so the package came. I brought it inside and put it on the stack. If you're a book reader, you know The Stack. There it sat until this past Sunday. I opened up the box, took out the beautiful book and other goodies, and toss the box on the recycle pile. Then yesterday I picked up the box to flatten it out, and on the back of it, I saw this:

Yes, folks, I am the proud owner of a Sean Michael Robinson original! I just don't understand how I missed it until just as I was about to break down the box to go  in the recyclables. Now I can't throw the box out. . .it is art! And what a fine Cerebus it is. 

Speaking of mail and Cerebus goodies, when you pay Matt fifty bucks, you get your money's worth. At least I do. Sure he sent me that cool Cerebus sketch cover - full wrap around! - but what you didn't see are the sketch cards he sent me. Here are the fronts:

Looking at these cards makes me wonder if anyone has done a comic of just sketch cards. 

And the backs:

One of each type of the sketch cards from Waverly Press. Thanks Boss Man!

Ohh, but the goodies aren't over yet. You probably saw that I got the artwork for the Peanutz verison of myself that Dave did. Here is one of the tracing papers he used for it:

Wait. Do you see that? A barely noticeable sketch of a guy in trousers right above the Peanutz version of myself on the right. Perhaps if I zoom in:

Do you see the guy now? Dave must've drawn on top of the other piece of tracing paper to leave what looks like part of The Strange Death of Alex Raymond on my Peanutz tracing paper.

Oh, and one last tracing paper sketch. Sure you've seen it before, but I like it. And this is a close up of it: