Working through the backlog of Jesse Lee Herndon's Most Excellent Please Hold Commentaries, we come to a Non-Dave entry, Please Hold For Wilf Jenkins:
As you all know, Wilf Jenkins was the Aardvark/Vanaheim lawyer for years, and during that time he was on the comp list. Wilf saved all his copies. Dave and Wilf have signed them, and there's a certificate of authenticity.The books will be available from Looking For Heroes, for $10 (CAD) plus $4 dollars shipping to Canada and $5 dollars shipping to the USA. All the money goes to the Food Bank of the Waterloo Region.
Matt: Okay, we are now recording.
Wilf: Alrighty. I guess what we talked about starting with the general background of my relationship with Dave. Is that still an okay thing with you?
Matt: Yeah, that’s the big question everybody had was, how did you become the lawyer?
Wilf: Yeah, well, Dave and I, I phoned Dave yesterday, quite frankly, to refresh my memory. It turns out we refreshed each other’s. Because we sort of remembered pieces of it. Closest thing I could up with was that, he and Deni got a referral from their then-accountant, so they marched in because they needed some corporate work done with Aardvark-Vanaheim at that first session. And I remember the two of them coming, Dave doesn’t remember that at all, but, what, in a sense happened was that they decided to carve up the responsibilities and Deni would be the point person with me, and then Dave would go back and create the life out of himself and do the comic. So, I was retained to be their corporate lawyer, and as that morphed into a relationship, eventually sort of a friendship. I found myself on occasion, being out of my depth, particularly when Dave started talking about intellectual property matters and rather arcane ones at that. I didn’t refer him out, I think he found either an intellectual property lawyer or taught himself as he dealt with the comic book publishers, and I ended up doing the corporate compliance stuff, dry as dust corporate compliance stuff, annual minutes, and then dealing with some contracts through Deni. But Deni would be the one who came to the office and then that carried on until I guess Deni and Dave split up, and then Dave and I started working together. And that’s how it all began. No magic in it, but that happened a number of times where I got referrals from accountants or other clients and that’s how I arranged to have new clients. Story of the practice of law.
Matt: Okay. Were you in involved with the counterfeit Cerebus #1 at all? Or was that before they hired you?
Wilf: Yep. Either before or during and they had separate legal representation on that, if they had legal representation.
Matt: Uhh, the history goes that they contacted a lawyer at some point and the lawyer basically said, “there’s nothing I can do, cause it’s not illegal to counterfeit comic books.”
Wilf: Not illegal, what, sorry?
Matt: It’s not illegal to make a counterfeit comic book. At least, at the time it wasn’t, is what they were told.
Wilf: Oh, I see. Okay, I don’t recall giving that advice.
Matt: It’s entirely possible that happened before they hired you.
Wilf: Yeah, could be.
Matt: Somebody asked…
Wilf: There’s also, as I called it, there was something with Marvel and Wolveroach and I wasn’t involved with that either. I remember Dave telling me about it, but they had either, as I say, separate legal representation or Dave just winged it on his own. He’s not unintelligent, that’s for sure, so he would learn quickly. [coughs] Excuse me.
Matt: If I remember right, with the Wolveroach, it was very much Marvel sent a cease and desist letter, and Dave talked about it in the back of the book, but it was just a boilerplate cease and desist somebody in legal sent and editorial came back and they retroactively licensed it to Dave for $1 so that he wouldn’t get…
Wilf: Oh I see. That worked it out, eh?
Matt: Yeah, and said, if you’re ever gonna do this again, ask permission first, and Dave went, “yeah, you’re gonna say no, so I just won’t do it again.”
Wilf: Well, you know, in that case, it’s probably a good thing he went on his own, because you go in with a lawyer and that doesn’t necessarily… all the defenses spring up, all the shields are activated, and all hell breaks loose, so he probably had a good result because he went alone.
Matt: Right.
Wilf: Well that answers how I became the lawyer. Somebody also sent a question in saying, why are you all of a sudden giving up your comped copies. Space.
Matt: [laughs]
Wilf: Because we’ve downsized our house and are selling our house and have bought a considerably smaller condo, and certain things didn’t fit in, and the comic book collection and other collections, like I had about two or 3000 books, and so corners had to be cut. And besides, I’ll go into that story. I went with Dave, and this is recent history, I went with Dave, I took along my daughter, who probably had read some of the comic books as she grew up, together with her husband who happened to be Muslim. And so I wanted particularly her husband to meet Dave, and as Dave and I chatted, and the four of us talked back and forth, I said to Dave, you know I really can’t keep these and I don’t want to sell them and well, I don’t need the money, I’d rather donate them in some way. Do you know where I donate it? And he came back with, well, there’s a couple of charities that I support. If he said a couple, probably in all likelihood there’s more than that, in Kitchener Waterloo area. I said, well, rhyme them off, who are they? And so he rhymed off a couple, and the second one was the Food Bank of Waterloo Region. I said, great, cause my rotary culture worked with that particular charity on something we called a turkey drive where we buy turkey dinners and gifts for needy families around Christmastime, and the Food Bank has been a top notch organization to work with. So, I can support that. He said great, okay, we’ll set it up so the proceeds go to the Food Bank. That’s how it worked.
Matt: Okay. I’m trying to think what other questions we had. [laughs]
Wilf: Well, I’ve got the list here. Let me just see… “how did you end up becoming Aardvark-Vanaheim’s attorney?” so we talked that. “How many of your clients did you retain when you switched from full time solicitor to part time solicitor”, that’s one of Dave’s questions to me. And we talked about that yesterday on the phone. What happened was that, I was with a law firm, and then was approached by an investment management firm to become an investment adviser, because I had an interest in investments from my business school degree back at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, where I went to law school, and I retained that interest in stocks and morphed into technical analysis. Which is like reading tea leaves even to some investment advisers because you look at charts and you discern from that trends and possible boomlets in the stock price. And so that seemed to give this investment management group that I knew something about investments, and they said, “we have accountants and lawyers who are taking their practices and morphing them into an investment management practice by having their clients invest with us, and you become a partner, and then you do legal work for a while. You continue for as long as you want to, and you can do both legal work and investment management work.” Which is perfect mix for me, because then what I did was to speak to my clients and talk them into taking the money they earned by not listening to my legal advice…
Matt: [laughs]
Wilf: And then investing it. And then, over time, culling the client list so that I wasn’t working with as many clients as I had before. And that’s, I guess, Dave’s question, why me? Why did you keep me of that group? Because I didn’t handle Dave’s investments. And I said, well, I had a couple of tests, one was the investments, the other was that I didn’t want to act for jerks and you were the jerk. Not quite the contrary. He seemed mollified by that response, and that’s the explanation. Satisfied his curiosity on that one.
Matt: [laughs]
Wilf: And the relationship I had with Dave, have had and continue to have, is that I really enjoy talking to him. We never had a social relationship, didn’t go to each other’s houses and socialize, but I always enjoyed talking to him. As you were telling me, when you speak to him, the time passes rather quickly, and I found him to be a guy who appreciated irony, which I think is an important ingredient in getting through life. And he had more than a dash of cynicism, which I also identified with, but you have to be to practice law. The whole point of law is to imagine what might go wrong, or who’s telling the truth, including your client. So, both those ingredients endeared him to me. He also had an inquiring mind. I mean, the guy… I’ll back up a bit. I taught business law at both the Universities in town, the University of Waterloo, which gave birth to the Blackberry, which will come to surprise to your listeners who probably thought it was an American invention, and Wilfrid Laurier University, which is also in Waterloo. Taught business law that at night, three nights a week for 16 years, and when I dealt with the students there, I just loved it, because they weren’t like my clients. My clients would ask, “well, when are you going to have this done? Preferably tomorrow. And how much is this gonna cost me?”
Matt: Preferably free. [laughs]
Wilf: Whereas the kids would say, “why? You tell me that contract law evolved from the Industrial Revolution in the UK, and why are these concepts the way they are?” And so I would explain the history of it, and it forced me to be on top of history too. Because when you’re studying English literature, as I was, and taking my Masters degree part time, I found that I needed to know the context of the works I was reading. And of course, you can’t read Dickins without knowing about the Industrial Revolution. Or Blake, with his dark satanic mills, because obviously those sprang from the Industrial Revolution. And to make the Industrial Revolution work, you needed contract laws that favored the entrepreneurs, and the industrialists. So if you read those works against the backdrop of what was going on in the world, it made a hell of a lot more sense. It’s the why that Dave would express, which I found quite refreshing. It reminded me of my days when I was an associate professor, and I liked it a lot.
Matt: Okay. I know that Dave has expressed that, in the comic book field, subjects will come up like the rights to certain characters, and what should be done, and Dave has always been a proponent of, if two guys are fighting over a character, both of you do it, and let the market decide what’s better, because otherwise it’s just a make work project for lawyers. It’s always seemed like he’s had a negative view of lawyers, but I think that’s as a profession, not as people. I think as people, it’s “ya know, people are great.” It’s just, in the comic book field a lot of problems come from, well we went to talk to the lawyer and the lawyer says that it’s ours.
Wilf: Yeah. It’s a [inaudible] and fight about it, protect your rights. Yeah.
Matt: And spend millions of…
Wilf: Yeah. I know there’s that belief. But if you’re a proper lawyer, someone who has the interest of your client at heart, as I like to think I had, you give them the straight goods depending on what will be the best thing for them. Cheapest, or fastest, or most satisfying, and cut through all the crap. I wasn’t a litigation lawyer. Never did litigation work and frankly the litigation lawyers tend to be more combative, because that’s how they earn their money. If you’re a personal injury lawyer, in Canada or the US, time’s on your side, so you don’t want to settle, just because the people you’re acting for, if you’re acting for plaintiffs, might have something else go wrong with them and you can blame on the accident or the negligence or whatever. And if you’re getting a contingency fee, then that increases your take home pay. So I can see where that attitude has sprung. I never found that with Dave and me, I just try to give him confident, sometimes advice, he didn’t want to hear.
Matt: [laughs]
Wilf: And he always seemed to consider it and either listen to it, or not! And that was fine by me.
Matt: I got a sense from stuff I heard from Dave over the years is that a lot of his legal questions are, “can we do this, and if not, why?”
Wilf: Yeah. That’s the ‘why’ I was talking about.
Matt: Yeah.
Wilf: It wasn’t just yes or no, or it’s gonna cost you, it’s explain how the law reads the way. And I found him interesting, to have a client who’d want to know how the law evolved that we were talking about, dealing with his situation. And in some cases, as we’ve seen recently, he’s learned he’s a pretty able student because he drafted a release, your readers may not know. In order for you to talk to me about him in such a candid way, I was worried about solicitor/client privilege and the need for me to keep confidential any communications my client had with me. And he drafted a release, which I told him yesterday was pretty good. No typos, no grammatical errors, he had all the legal points. And I phoned him yesterday and had my blessing as soon as I read it. He’s a quick read, that’s for sure.
Matt: That’s what makes some of his current project… err, I shouldn’t say his current project. A project he ended up abandoning. He was researching the death of Alex Raymond, the cartoonist who created Flash Gordon, and I guess the research was getting up into the thousands of pages because he was gonna learn everything he could. And it seems like every answer comes up with 12 more questions.
Wilf: Yeah. Yeah, an inquiring mind can be a bit of a curse at times. And he’s very very thorough. Yeah, in everything I saw him do, for sure. Somebody asked Dave, did I find any particular joy or satisfaction in having a comic book writer, artist, self-publisher as a client. Something different from your regular clientele? Yeah, that’s for sure. And I’ve just explained why.
Matt: [laughs] Alright.
Wilf: What else did we have here… Oh, I know, we talked yesterday about the drafting I did. He liked plain language drafting, he didn’t like legal documents with legalese, which is why I liked that relation, because it was plain language. So many lawyers are afraid of not using the tired and true formulaic language they learned in law school. Give, devise, and bequeath. There are subtle differences in those three words, but not much. Not enough to keep all three of them, and I tried to draft documents which were clear to laypersons, and I did it in a selfish way. For two reasons, one, it gave me a lot of satisfaction to have shorter agreements and have them more to the point. Secondly, I like the crafting of musty old legal documents, wills, last will and testaments, that kind of thing and it just made more sense. And thirdly, I just thought of a third reason, it gave me an advantage in working for my client, because if we’re in negotiations with another lawyer and his client, and it was my agreement we were negotiating over. So I always tried to draft the first agreement. The other client would be able to understand what it was, wouldn’t have to go to the priest, confessor, lawyer he was paying to interpret it and would put his or her spin on whatever the words were, even in my presence. In effect, I could make points and be talking directly to that other client, which is verboten, of course. You’re not allowed to speak to another lawyer’s client without the lawyer being present, but even while the lawyer was there without sort of addressing your comments to the lawyer. And because of that, you could get, the lawyer would say, “well, you know, Mr Jenkins, I think we should be changing this, and changing that.” And the other client would say, “no, I understand what he’s getting at. Let’s leave it the way it is, or let’s make this change.” And it worked like a charm, so many times, that I insisted on doing it with documents which didn’t require negotiation. Like last wills and testaments, and trusts, and estate freeze documents, that type of thing that there wasn’t anybody on the other side of when you were drafting them. So that caught Dave’s fancy, I think again.
Matt: Yeah, I can’t see Dave being a very big “party of the first part shall be known as the party of the first part” kinda guy.
Wilf: Yeah. Yeah. You know, a lot of times the other lawyers would be loathe to do that, because they’d never really thought about changing the magic formula. “The gift, devise, and bequeath, that’s been adjudicated a gazillion times, I know that’s gonna work, and I’m not sure of what he means or I don’t have the guts to make a change and just say I give to such and such, this item, or this amount.” And the younger lawyers were more prone to that than the older lawyers. The older lawyers would have had some experience with tinkering with documents and departing from convention. The younger lawyers were terrified. Out of law school, making changes in the documents? Hell, they were having trouble remembering the class material, ya know?
Matt: [laughs] Right.
Wilf: So, what else we have here? I’ve got that list… you’ve got the ones you sent me, too.
Matt: Yeah…
Wilf: Yeah, in the practice that I had, and this effects the way I dealt with Dave, morphed from a straight corporate law practice into an estate planning and estate administration after the client died, practice. And so, as a result, I was doing his will. I was also doing Gerhard’s too. I acted for Gerhard on his sum estate planning work, and got both their approval to do that, as I had to, and was able to keep both of them at arm’s length and exchange... And certainly keep in confidence what one said to Dave. But one of the questions was, “tell me about that breakup” and frankly, I don’t know much about it. I only know what the two of them told me, and they obviously got together, worked it out as adults would, and came to me with, here’s how we’re gonna do it, which is fine by me. They both agreed to it already. I’d point out, perhaps I did, I would point out things they missed or hadn’t considered, but with those two, they pretty well crossed the T’s and dotted the I’s as completely as I would want to. So, all I did was paper it. Do the documentation, do them in plain language, of course, and they could understand it, and then the deal was done. And what I found with both of those guys is that they were as honest as the day is long. And that, you can’t believe, is a rare commodity in clients, because sometimes they only tell you what they want you to hear. But in dealing with each other, they were both fair and reasonable, and I would like to think parted friends. I haven’t talked to Gerhard in a long time, and that was a pleasure. When you see things work out, where they really don’t need you and things don’t have to get acrimonious and expensive for them, it warms the cockles of whatever heart a lawyer has.
Matt: [laughs] Right. Yeah, I don’t think the two of them have communicated since, ya know… I don’t think they’re sending Christmas letters, but at the same time, I know that Dave’s being honest. A percentage of everything that comes in, I forget exactly what it is, he sends to Gerhard as, this is your share of whatever I made off of our work because, as Dave has said, it’s Gerhard’s work, it’s not like Dave is gonna just, “okay, never darken my doorway again.”
Wilf: Yeah.
Matt: Which, ya know… if you’re splitting up the team, that’s the only way to do it, cause otherwise you’re screwing the other guy and it’s gonna get out and people are gonna be like, well you gotta pick sides.
Wilf: Yeah, for sure.
Matt: And as fans, none of us have either wanted to be like, “alright, it’s Dave or Ger, you gotta pick one”. No, no, no, whatever happened between them, happened between them, and it’s for us to wonder but it’s none of our business, really.
Wilf: Yeah.
Matt: That’s how I always looked at it. But then again, apparently Gerhard told Dave that they wanted to split up when they were doing a signing in Salt Lake City, and I was at the signing hanging out with them the whole weekend, and I keep going back to, was it something I said that gave Ger the idea that I don’t want to be in the team anymore?
Wilf: [laughs] Yeah.
Matt: And I’ve never asked, because I don’t wanna know. [laughs]
Wilf: Yeah. Somebody asked if I ever seen them work together, like actually watch them put together comic book edition, and I haven’t. I didn’t know much about the White House, for example, I didn’t know that was the hub they were using. So I think Dave has given the impression by sort of publishing his dealings with me, which again was a novelty for me, that I had a client broadcasting what kind of advice I was giving him. It was a bit scary.
Matt: [laughs]
Wilf: It seemed to work as well as could be. It was a learning experience for both of us, that’s for sure.
Matt: Right.
Wilf: Some of the other questions that were posed were about Deni and Dave. I wasn’t involved with that at all, except to be told what happening, because I don’t do matrimonial law. I try to stay away as far as I could from litigation law. The main reason was because it’s so chaotic, you never know what a witness is going to say, and you’re at the mercy of the jury or a judge. It’s not as clean as doing a will or an agreement, that type of thing. And I had more than enough experience with the pathology of human relationships and doing wills and estates. Especially the things that beneficiaries would fight over, which shocked me. It wasn’t usually the money, it was the [inaudible] figurines and the dog and crazy stuff. And I would imagine that matrimonial law would be the same kind of thing. So I’m just as… I’m always relieved that my clients don’t drag me into their matrimonial problems. Happy to refer them, Dave says I did give them a referral, but I don’t remember who, but that seemed to work out again, to..
Matt: Right. I know that years ago my Mom had a set of friends that I used to babysit their kids, and they ended up getting divorced, and they had to go through their contact list of, “who’s going to be my friend and who’s going to be your friend?” And my Mom was the one who said I’m gonna be both of your friends. Ya know, I was friends with both of you beforehand, I’ll be friends with both of you after hand, so don’t complain to me about the other one, type thing. And my Mom pretty much stuck to it of, if the guy wanted to complain about his ex-wife, my Mom went, “well, I don’t care”, and if the ex-wife wanted to complain about her ex-husband, my Mom’s like, “well that’s great, but I don’t care.”
Wilf: Yeah commendation for your Mom, that’s for sure. That’s a real high-wire act. Especially when the parties want to involve you. They want to enlist you. Either cry on shoulder or get advice, or whatever. Yeah, it’s not easy to do.
Matt: Yeah, my Mom was very much, she had the line, and when they got up to it, it was, “okay, that’s it, I’m done for now.”
Wilf: [laughs] It’s like, at my age, when we have get togethers with people in the dim past before COVID, and we would reserve 10 minutes in the minute every evening to talk about ailments and then that was it. So maybe we should do the same with personal troubles when we get together with somebody. “Okay, vent for five minutes, and then let’s move on.”
Matt: [laughs] Right. Let’s see, what else is on the list here… Just trying to think, was anything on the list…
Wilf: Yeah, Dave asked a question, “what was the book you were writing with John English, would it be known to your non-Canadian listeners/readers.” He was a member of parliament and a good friend, who had been a neighbor, and he seemed to think I was involved in writing the Trudeau books. John had written two books on Pierre Trudeau, and who knows, maybe he’s even going to be involved with Justin, but I think what Dave was thinking of when he made the comment, was the fact I went with John to library book sales. And that’s how I got my two or 3000 books, because we would go through these books and come back with car loads. The library that I built for the Master’s Degree in English, as I say, is mainly a working library, so I didn’t have to get up off my chair when I was doing my English work at night, and try to go to the University library to read a text or a book or a critical analysis. I’d have it handier if it were in a bookcase beside me. And I still have lots of them there, because I haven’t read them all yet. Somebody asked about “I, Claudius”, and that advice they gave him, trust no one?
Matt: Right.
Wilf: And I don’t know whether he’s mentioned that. He mentioned it once, he told me, but apparently he’s mentioned it more often than that. And I’m one for aphorisms. Shakespeare is a love of mine, and so is Dirty Harry. Because, ya know, a man’s got to know his limitations, and deserve’s got nothing to do with it. All that, they’re very handy things to have at your command when you’re meeting situations. And Dave, we were talking about something, I can’t remember what, maybe his will, because we were talking about structuring it whether he should have someone as an attorney as a power of attorney while he was alive, and to the American listeners attorney in Canada just means that. It means an attorney under a power of attorney, it only takes effect during the life of the person who’s granting it. And attorney at law is a term that doesn’t exist in Canada, whereas attorney under power of attorney does. Up here, we call them barristers and solicitors, and I happen to be a solicitor, and I was qualified as a barrister and solicitor, but a barrister goes before the bar, or does litigation, and I said, I chose not to do that. And a solicitor does almost everything else. Conveyancing the wills, ya know, everything but getting in the court room and putting on a scratchy outfit. So I think Dave was asking me if he should trust someone to act as his attorney under a power of attorney, and I suggested that he pick someone he trusted. And he said, “well how do you know that?” and I said, well, frankly, it’s pretty hard. And I told him about the parrot in the TV presentation of “I, Claudius” advising Claudius that trust no one, not even your wife, your parents, trust no one. Which is pretty extreme advice, obviously you have to put your life or faith in someone at some point, but you should not do that without knowing very well the person you’re doing it with. And he seemed to use that little mantra in lots of situations and repeated it to people, obviously. So that was the occasion in which I gave him that advice. And if you’re a private person, as I am, and as Dave is, you really aren’t forthcoming. You don’t have to emote with people, and trusting no one is… maybe trusting no one with your emotions is a handy safety mechanism to have. Hope that answers that particular question, anyway.
Matt: [laughs] Right. I remember that when Dave needed a power of attorney for medical cause Gerhard couldn’t do it, cause it’s a conflict of interest to be the medical and the financial, and he was, “okay, anybody in the readers want to sign up for this?” And I was on the list of guys who was gonna do it, but Dave had conditions and I wanted to follow all of the conditions, and one of the was read the Bible. And as soon as I get it done, I’m gonna let Dave know. But it was one of those, a lot of people were like, “Dave’s crazy because he’s doing this”, well who else is he supposed to pick? It’s a very small inner circle and I can’t imagine that Dave’s got somebody that he trusts well enough to say, “okay, pull Dave’s plug or don’t pull Dave’s plug, as the situation arises.”
Wilf: Yeah, you’re not doing anybody a favor by appointing them… I still say executor, executrix for female. But the fancy terminology up here in Ontario is administrator with the will and ext, but other words you have letters of administration with the will and ext, which is a real mouthful when it comes to probate. Probate, it rolls off the tongue more easily, but when you appoint someone in your will, they don’t have to accept the position. But you’re putting a real onus on them to do so, and you should probably should have talked to them while you’re alive instead of having it sprung on them from the grave. Because it’s just like painting a target on somebody’s back. If the will is contentious at all, or vague, or omits critical elements, then it’s the administrator, the executor who has to defend the will and administer the estate. And if he or she doesn’t know how to do it, they have to end up in court, asking the court’s opinion, and that’s the only real protection an executor has against lawsuits, personal lawsuits perchance, but certainly lawsuits against the estate. And it’s a heavy heavy responsibility. And Dave’s legal situation, his estate wishes, were very complicated. So complex that as I morphed from lawyer to investment adviser and sort of scaled down my practice, I told him I couldn’t keep up to that extent with estate planning and administration, and I thought he should get another lawyer, and I believe he did and has something, or is working on something, or has something to his satisfaction in that regard.
Matt: He ended up finding someone that he wants to be his successor as the President of Aardvark-Vanaheim, so that when he dies, Eddie takes over. The legal framework is, the best case scenario so that no one can come and challenge his will is, he named his successor so that when he dies, somebody else takes over.
Wilf: Yeah, well… will challenges are a myriad and complex, and you can’t insure yourself against them.
Matt: Right.
Wilf: Best you can do is draft it as airtight, thinking of all the permutations and combinations that could happen. People don’t die in chronological order, for example, and making sure there aren’t any gaps in the will that require judicial guidance to interpret them. And also, that you honor whatever legal obligations you have to support people after you die, and that’s a complex area. So, that’s why I referred him away, and I’d say, I think he’s done, either his doing, or has done his planning in that area. I may be wrong.
Matt: As far as I know, he has, but, like I said, I know that it’s one of those, it was very much a, this wasn’t a “we’re gonna have an agreement by Tuesday” kinda thing, it’s been years. And as far as I know it’s all settles and locked in, but even then, I might not know everything. There might still be a few balls up in the air, but I can’t imagine, I’m pretty sure Dave’s got everything locked down as best he can.
Wilf: Yeah, I mean, we tried before I told Dave that he should get other advice. We tried to find people, institutions, there were a couple of Universities I mentioned I used to teach at, and some other organizations to take it over, because a corporation is usually a good idea just to protect from liability. And we couldn’t convince anybody to do it, or Dave wasn’t happy that they weren’t actually interested in what he was asking be done. As usual, he’s out there on the fringe of possible and so you’re not gonna get some institutions to venture out there with you.
Matt: Right. Plus, I know that part of leaving it to an institution is that he’s looked at estates that have done that, looking for research materials, and like Stan Drake, the cartoonist worked from photos, so in his records there should be hundreds of thousands of photos, because he would take Polaroids and use those for his photo reference doing the strip, and in his estate at whatever universities it is, there are two photos. That’s it.
Wilf: Wow.
Matt: Because his ex-wife at the time, when she was donating the papers, a lot of the photos were of his previous ex-wife and she probably went, “okay, we don’t need these types of things” and it’s like, okay well, that’s it, they’re gone.
Wilf: [laughs] Okay, well, I told you about estates! [laughs]
Matt: Yeah, yeah, yeah! [laughs] That would by you want to make sure you have your I’s dotted and T’s crossed, so that you’re not donating a handful instead of the boxes and boxes you have.
Wilf: Yeah. [laughs] Yeah.
Matt: I know that Dave’s talking about, at one point, it was he was gonna have the house all locked up and you can pay a security guard to watch you walk through it, after he dies, and at that point in the planning it was like, well, that’s a great idea on paper, but in reality, how well is it gonna work?
Wilf: Yeah.
Matt: And then he came out with, Eddie’s taking over and Eddie gets the house and everything in it, so it’s Eddie’s problem.
Wilf: Complicated world.
Matt: It can’t just be simple!
Wilf: Yeah. That’s about everything I can think of to talk about that I either want to or did talk about.
Matt: Okay. I told everybody, ask a question, I’ll send it up. If you get an answer, you get answer. If you don’t get an answer, well… we tried our best, but at the same time, we can’t make everyone 100% happy.
Wilf: Yeah, and I think some of the questions sprang from reading Dave’s depictions of what I talked bout with him, and people maybe extrapolated from that I was advising him on everything Dave was involved with. That wasn’t the case. It was a fairly narrow ambit of responsibility I had with Dave. Which I enjoyed greatly, but as Dirty Harry says, a man’s got to know his limitations.
Matt: Correct! Okay.
Wilf: Alright? You got enough for your…
Matt: Oh yeah, I got more than enough. We got 48 minutes and that’s enough for me.
Wilf: [laughs] Probably more than enough for anybody who’s gonna hear it or read it.
Matt: Oh no, you don’t understand, there are people that are gonna listen to every word of this and probably come back with questions, and be like, “can you do another one and ask follow-ups of it?” Uhh, if Wilf wants to, yes, and if Wilf doesn’t want to, know.
Wilf: Listen, if it helps sell those books and get that money to the Food Bank, I’ll be happy to help you with anything.
Matt: Okay.
Wilf: Remember that. I told Dave that yesterday. He was worried that it was too much of an imposition. Un-uh. Not when it comes to charity. So, I’m sure our paths will cross again, Matt.
Matt: Okay! Well, I hope they do!
Wilf: Thanks for the invitation, and I enjoyed talking with you.
Matt: Yeah! Enjoyed talking to you too.
Wilf: Okay.
Matt: I mean, it’s a side of Dave that a lot of people didn’t see, which is the, ya know, freaking out about whatever situation and finding out that, no no, you don’t need to freak out, Dave. We got it in hand.
Wilf: Yeah. Yep, it’s fun to talk about, once you get into it, that’s for sure. So, have a good day.
Matt: You too!
Wilf: And [inaudible], I’m sure we’ll be chatting.
Matt: Okay. Talk to ya…
Wilf: Bye, Matt.
Matt: Bye.
Wilf: Buh-bye.
Matt: Alright, everybody. So, Lookin’ For Heroes, I’ll put the link up, has the Wilf Jenkins collection books, I don’t know if they’re actually for sale yet, or if it’s still being processed, but as soon as I know, I will let everybody else know. And thank you, as always, for listening.
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For the record:
Jesse Lee Herndon has been plugging away transcribing the Please Hold videos. Let's run another one...
Here's where I'm at (blue link means it's been posted):
1/2020 2/2020 3/2020 4/2020 5/2020 6/2020 7/2020 8/2020 9/2020 9/2020 (Wilf) 10/2020 11/2020 12/2020
1/2021 2/2021 3/2021 4/2021 5/2021 6/2021 7/2021 8/2021 9/2021 10/2021 11/2021 12/2021
1/2022 2/2022 3/2022 4/2022 5/2022 6/2022 7/2022 8/2022 9/2022 10/2022 11/2022 12/2022
1/2023 2/2023 3/2023 4/2023 5/2023 6/2023 7/2023 8/2023 9/2023 10/2023 11/2023 12/2023
1/2024 2/2024 3/2024 4/2024 5/2024
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Rigamarole:
Albatross #1 Facsimiles. See here if you wanna copy.
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Heritage has Dave's Cerebus cover recreations coming soon.
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The AMOC TeePublic Shoppe: up to 35% off:
Your store will be up to 35% offJune 10-20 and 40% off June 21-24.**Sale dates are not final and therefore subject to change.
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NEW Spawn 10 Lenticular covers from the The Waverly Press. You can click the link and get your own for $100 each. Jim Lawson's cover is now $125, Brookes Morris is still $100 (they said the prices would only go up...)
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The Help Out Bill Messner-Loebs Go Fund Me, or buy Rodney Schroeter's book with proceeds going to Bill.
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The Last Day Without nothing.
" " " " Dave's signature.
" " " " an Old Cerebus Remarque
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Oliver' Simonsen'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". If you're in Brazil..., "Mometu", "Nuclear Home Video".
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Next Time: The Monday Report, and...other things!
1 comment:
This was interesting; thanks to Matt, Wilf and Lee.
cheers,
A Fake Name
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