Saturday 31 August 2024

"Eh? Flowers?"

Hi, Everybody!

First there was This.

Then:






Rigamarole:
The AMOC TeePublic Shoppe, which is on sale until Monday. Up to 35% off:

August 31-September 2.*
*Sale dates are not final and therefore subject to change.
__________________________
The Cerebus Humble Bundle is over, you can STILL get all 16 volumes for $99CANADIAN at CerebusDownloads.com (More if you want the Remastered Cerebus Guide to Self-Publishing...)
__________________________
Heritage has FIVE pages of original Cerebus art. Cerebus #28 page 3 (Mind Game II), Cerebus #70 page 6, Cerebus #80 page 15 (death of Bran Mak Muffin), Cerebus #82 page 1, and Cerebus #87 page 1. Any of them would be amazing gifts for the Cerebus Interim Editor on you Christmas list...
___________________________
The Help Out Bill Messner-Loebs Go Fund Me, or buy Rodney Schroeter's book with proceeds going to Bill. 
___________________________
The Last Day Without nothing.
   "      "     "        "  Dave's signature.
   "      "     "        "  an Old Cerebus Remarque
   "      "     "     Auction catalog for the Panoramic Remarques
___________________________
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".
___________________________
Next Time: I'm feeling lazy, more Cerebus anyone?

Friday 30 August 2024

Letraset (Dave's weekly update #554)

Hi, Everybody!

Like it says on the Logo:
The little bit on the bottom there...

It's Friday, so that means:
Dave's Weekly Update:

_________________________
A Moment of Cerebus runs Saturday through Friday.
The Week in AMOC:
  • Saturday (okay, last week Saturday...): Dave's working on the cover to the Spawn #10 Script. Speaking of which, Progress:
Click for bigger
  • Sunday: I run through all the Merch in The AMOC TeePublic Shoppe, which is on sale until Monday. Up to 35% off:

    August 26-September 2.*
    *Sale dates are not final and therefore subject to change.
  • MondayThe Monday Report, and Aardvark Comment.
  • Tuesday: Jen's update for us on The Strange Death of Alex Raymond Go Fund Me.  Speaking of SDOARGFM, $173 until the next page is unlocked. John Meijer won the Cerebus #3,4,&5 raffle. And Jen got the #0 & #1 Ashcans.
  • Wednesday: Hobbs continues looking AI versions of AV characters. This week:  Weisshaupt! *YAY!*
  • Thursday: Margaret continues GIVING away the first Notebook AKA Albatross 1 for FREE! We're trying to sell the FIVE extra copies that are at Camp David Mags! And. You're. Just. GIVING! It. Away... See here if you wanna physical copy. 
  • Friday: that's this post. You're reading the Friday post right now. This is STILL like that bit in Spaceballs. (Should I link to LAST WEEK'S Update in these things?)

Okay, so that was the past week in AMOC. You're welcome.

And now, back to Bizness as unusual:
Rigamarole:
The Cerebus Humble Bundle is over, you can STILL get all 16 volumes for $99CANADIAN at CerebusDownloads.com (More if you want the Remastered Cerebus Guide to Self-Publishing...)
__________________________
Heritage has FIVE pages of original Cerebus art. Cerebus #28 page 3 (Mind Game II), Cerebus #70 page 6, Cerebus #80 page 15 (death of Bran Mak Muffin), Cerebus #82 page 1, and Cerebus #87 page 1. Any of them would be amazing gifts for the Cerebus Interim Editor on you Christmas list...
___________________________
The Help Out Bill Messner-Loebs Go Fund Me, or buy Rodney Schroeter's book with proceeds going to Bill. 
___________________________
The Last Day Without nothing.
   "      "     "        "  Dave's signature.
   "      "     "        "  an Old Cerebus Remarque
   "      "     "     Auction catalog for the Panoramic Remarques
___________________________
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".
___________________________
Next Time: Oh who goddamn knows. Cerebus pages?

Thursday 29 August 2024

Notebook One: Cerebus #25 Part Four & a Schedule

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.

Maybe instead of rewriting this opener every week, I’ll be a bit more efficient with my use of time and have this standard opening . . .though Boss Man saying I'm giving the notebook away for free, I see it as a way of advertising all the good stuff in the notebook, and wouldn't it be easier to have a hard copy to flip through and read at your own leisure? 

Have you got your copy of Albatross One? That is Dave Sim’s name for his first notebook used in the creation of Cerebus. If you want a copy of the notebook – and trust me, as someone who has held the actual Albatross One, it is a pretty close duplicate and looks great – you can check out this post right here. Well not this post. The one at this link. Go check it out, this post will still be here.

Please buy one so boss man stops yelling at me for "giving the store away for free". Perhaps if he sells one or two or all that he has left, he'll finally give me some PTO.

And if you don’t want to buy one, you can wait as I release a couple of pages a week and check them out using the Notebook One tag. But trust me, the notebook is much much nicer then my silly little posts.

Okay, now that is done, on with this week’s Notebook One post.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

We’ve been looking at Dave Sim’s first notebook used in the production of Cerebus. A notebook he called Albatross One as he carried it everywhere and it held him down. So far we’ve seen pages that covered material from Cerebus #20 and we’re up to Cerebus #25. We saw a ‘schedule’ of sorts on page 83 of notebook one, back in Notebook One: Cerebus #23 Part Two & A Schedule. Well, the next page of the notebook continues that schedule:

Notebook #1, page 128

Let’s combine that with the schedule from page 83. The newer items are indented:

  • October 23 – 27 (1980) writing
  • October 28 29 30 diamondback
  • November 1 – 12 #23 drawn
  • November 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 Swords finished
  • November 25 – 29 write #24
  • December 1 – 12 draw #24
  • December 13 – 20 write and rough Canuck story
  • December 21 – 23, 26 – 29 write #25
  • January 2 - 20: draw #25
    • January: Swords #1
    • Jan 5: page one
    • Jan 8: page eight
    • Jan 9 - 11: no work
    • Jan 12: page nine
    • Jan 17: page twenty
    • Jan 18: Cover
    • Jan 25: Canuck story
  • January 21 - 26: draw Canuck story
  • January 27 - Feb 3: write #26
  • February 4 – 16 (1981) draw #26
  • February 17 – 23 Portfolio
  • February 24 – 28 write #27
  • March 1 – 12 draw #27
  • March 13 – 23 Portfolio
  • March 24 – 31 write #28
  • May: Swords #2
  • Sept: Swords #3

So 45 pages later Dave was on track. We also get more material for Cerebus #25. On the next page of the notebook at the top of the page we see Dave has #26 written beside X-Women. But we all know that isn’t the direction Cerebus #26 was going to go in.

Notebook #1, page 129

We also get a list of items for pages 10 through 20 on this notebook page. Kind of. We’ve seen numerous pages for Cerebus #25, with only tiny bits of it showing up in the finished comic pages. And it is the same on the above page. The little bits that stand out to me as being used on the final page is Charles X. Claremont being excited about having two apocalypse beasts and the artist chap finding a new theme. Though he still doesn’t use ‘immortal romanticism’. 

And the next page is just a sketch of Charles X. Claremont and a landscape that doesn’t look familiar:

Notebook #1, page 130

Still nothing seen for Cerebus #26 and High Society other than the incorrect X-Women.






Wednesday 28 August 2024

The Men of Cerebus: AI edition: Part Four: Weisshaupt

Benjamin Hobbs:

David Birdsong and The AI teamed-up to generate images of Weisshaupt. Some of The AI's BEST work to date:



Next Week: Thrunk! By Birdsong and The AI!

Tuesday 27 August 2024

SDoAR 2.35: Raffle Winner and SDOAR Update From Philip R. Frey!

Congrats to John Meijer for winning the Cerebus #3, 5 and 6 raffle!

Huzzah!

I need another week to come up with items for the next raffle, but anyone donating $25 between now and then will automatically be included in the next raffle.

Huzzah!

Now onto an incredibly exciting update from Philip R. Frey. Seriously. This is big news in the world of AMOC! Take it away, Philip!

Not too long ago over on the Cerebus Facebook group, I posted a cryptic message about a package from Kitchener arriving. 

Well, that package was these printer's proofs for The Strange Death of Alex Raymond 2024 Nos. 0 and 1.

It's taken a lot longer than we originally anticipated to get to this point. As I may have mentioned in my previous guest appearance, No. 0 proved to be a lot more work than No. 1. We knew that the project was going a bit south when Dave referred to it in a "Please Hold……" as "The Strange Death of Alex Raymond 2023, soon to be "The Strange Death of Alex Raymond 2024" and also mentioned he was planning to hold it to a "Sean Robinson" standard (which guaranteed I was going to be doing a lot more work on both the then-upcoming pages and the ones I had already thought completed).

But now, at long last, I feel comfortable putting the work in front of Dave's eyes and steeling myself for the inevitable changes I expect he will want.

I'm sending along a picture of the two issues (the only difference on the covers is one version reads "Restored" and the other reads "Remastered"). Also, some comparison photos to see the differences between the versions in print.

As I mentioned, I'm expecting to still have a bit of work to do, but I'm confident that we're close enough that this won't turn into The Strange Death of Alex Raymond 2025. (Although maybe it will for issue No. 2!)

Jen (again) to put a bit of a damper on things (sorry, Philip!) as I still need to do one more review this week on these proofs and probably order new ones because 1) one page that was supposed to feature a color rainbow, was printed in black and white, and 2) the black back covers are scuffing up the covers, so we'll need to come up with a better cover paper solution.

That said, none of these changes (so far) will require any additional tweaking from Philip who has already put in a herculean effort on these pages!

Just the GoFundMe Facts, Ma'am

  • $14,627.00 raised to date from 249 donations
  • 77 new pages released as mocked up by Dave Sim from 11 June to 20 December 2021
  • 98 total pages available on Dropbox, including Dave's 2019 mocked-up pages
  • $173.00 away from unlocking page 99
  • If you have not donated > $5+ donation grants access to all 98 pages and all pages moving forward
  • If you have donated, thank you, but if you want to donate monthly, GoFundMe does not offer that option, so please do so as we are at the end of month #8 of Year 2.

The Strange Death of Alex Raymond Preview, Part Thirty-Four

This
Thisthis
Thisthisthis
Thisthisthisthis
Thisthisthisthisthis
Thisthisthisthisthisthis
Then... 
Ciao!

xx

Jen


SDOAR GoFundMe -->>
 https://www.gofundme.com/f/sdoar-2023 <<-- SDOAR GoFundMe

Monday 26 August 2024

Aardvark Comment/Please Hold preview/AMOC Sale/Monday/

Hi, Everybody!

Speaking of "Mondays", Birdsong sent me this. I offer it without comment:
____________________
So the Labor Day sale at The AMOC TeePublic Shoppe is LIVE!

I forgot one yesterday
"SIM-biote Spider-Vark". I made this one hoping that Dave and the CiH? team would use him in future issues, but so far, no dice.

Only one sold, making the variant more popular than the regular Spider-Vark.





And I got a "Cease & Desist" DMCA Takedown Notice on the Taylor Swift merch.

I guess I'ma have to fight it, but it kinda sucks. If you ordered anything, let me know if you get a refund, or what.
____________________


Click for bigger



So when Dave and I do Please Hold next week Thursday, this'll be part of it. If YOU wanna be part of it, get your questions in to momentofcerebus@gmail.com.

Okay, is that Moment enough?
No.

You guys suck...

Next Time: You're all Jen's problem...

Sunday 25 August 2024

The AMOC TeePublic Shoppe: New Merch, Old Merch, soon to be discontinued Merch

Hi, Everybody!

So, The AMOC TeePublic Shoppe is gearing up for their Labor Day sale:

August 26-September 2.*
*Sale dates are not final and therefore subject to change.
Up to 35% (or more, they do get crazy for the Holidays...), and I decided to take a look back at all the designs, give notes where I feel they're necessary, and highlight the Merch that's going away in September (and why!)

The AMOC TeePublic Shoppe has sold 404 items making $699.75. 

"Wait, aren't the shirts like $22? How's that math work?"

Well Imaginary AMOC reader who lives rent-free in my head, the profit margins kinda...stink. For a regular priced shirt, AMOC makes like four bucks. If the shirt's on sale (like they will be starting Monday), AMOC makes two bucks. I think we clear twenty-five cents on stickers. Ain't nobody getting rich off this. But that's not why The AMOC TeePublic Shoppe exists. It exists so I can get the Cerebus Merch I want. Like:
Click for bigger

The "Cerebus Head" design. The one that started it all. I wanted a facemask (remember COVID?) with Cerebus' mouth on it. But they wouldn't let me JUST sell a facemask, so this design had to be on ALL THE MERCH. 

It's also THEE most popular design we sell, with 120 products sold (I COULD look through the sales report and tell you which products, but the metrics just lump everything together in the basic report. And I ain't getting paid to sort that shit). This one is...NOT getting retired in September.

Our second most popular design, "Batvark" (41 products sold), started as the "Virgin" variant cover of Batvark: PENIS. Created by Ben Hobbs (NOT using AI...). It was another design that was uploaded to make facemasks (which, ironically, they don't sell anymore...). 

At the same time I uploaded this one, I uploaded the Batvark: PENIS and "Censored-for-grandma" Batvark: XXXXX variant covers as well. Both those are MUCH less popular, selling in the single digits. (With XXXXX selling one more "unit" then PENIS. 5 vs 4.)
Batvark is staying, but I think XXXXX and PENIS are getting retired in September.
                            















This is one of the many designs that came from 1982 Tour Book "Back Matter" I either stole, or Dave  sent to me. (It's been so long, I can't recall anymore.) This was one of the first times I got to experience how much of a pain in the ass editing stuff in my photoshop knock-off program is. 

I think this is a design that got ripped off and put on weirder merch like music boxes and stuff. It's also the third most  popular design, with 39 products sold. This design is staying.

Dave's parody of the movie poster for Conan the Barbarian, dubbed "Cerebus the Barbarian" is the next most popular design with 21 items sold. This was another '82 Tour image.

I actually bought this as a sticker, that I still haven't used.

This one is sticking around past Labor Day.




"Matt Dow's A Moment of Cerebus Logo". I kinda can't believe that this design has sold 20 products. I only bought two of them (three if I sent one to Dave, which I may have, but I don't remember...).

Obviously, this is staying. 

Although, I may replace it with the Cerebus #4 logo...

Sourced from the scans of the original art to issue #4 when those were up for auction, "Death's Dark Tread" has sold 12 products, most likely to the guys and gals who joined me in my quixotic attempt to win the original art and send it back to Dave. (We failed miserably, but Dave DID get high quality scans of the art, and now Kevin gets to scan most of the original Dave art that makes it's way to Heritage

I own a sticker of this that, I believe it was, Spatula sent me.

This one isn't getting retired just yet, but  might go in the next cull...

One of the designs I "inherited" from Birdsong, he sold a few on Amazon until he realized the futility of trying to sell Cerebus Merch. 

"Approval is an Authoritarian Construct" has sold 11 products (I bought it as a sticker and a magnet.)

This one is a classic, and won't be going away.

The first of my "I want this on a shirt." designs.

I don't actually remember what is says, but I believe "Star Trek Fans are Nerds" is the phrase. (I had my friend who had a copy of the Elvish alphabet do the translation, and he's dead now, so I can't ask to confirm.)

Because TeePublic has a "Fan Art" program that deals with Star Trek, I had to wait for approval before this design could go live. Which is why there's two or three versions on the shoppe. This one also sold 11 products. I have a shirt, and a sticker. I'm gonna get rid of all but one, and even that one might go away too.

Another image sourced from the original art to issue #4, "STATUS, BOY! STATUS!" is a panel J. Michael Straczynski had on his office door for years.

The last member of the "11 products sold" club, this classic image of Elrod is staying around until I don't think it's funny anymore...

The first of the Spawn #10 covers on the list, and the first of the "10 products sold" club, "Weird Society" is also the first design with a weird split between Dave, Birdsong, and Hobbs for the profits.

I REALLY need to sift through the list of what sold, and figure out how small a check I need to send to everybody for their share.

A part of me wants to retire this one just because of the mental anguish it's caused me over not promptly paying out the CiH? guys...


The next "10 products sold" member, "Original Art to Comic's Journal #83 cover" is another in the '82 Back Matter stuff I put on Merch.

I've put up newer Roach material recently, so I think this might be the first retiree from the Shoppe...

Thoughts?

Last member of the "10 products sold" club, the "I Vote for Cerebus" design is one of the three Campaign 2020 designs from the High Society 11th printing deal Dave was doing.

I only put it up because Birdsong thought it was a good idea (if'n I recall correctly). 

I might keep this one, but the "Debate 2020" (4 sold), "Joe Cerebus" (2 sold), and "Donald J. Cerebus" (1 sold) are going away... 

(I don't think the High Society bookplates were any more popular than these...)

The "Cerebus the Aardvark Page 1 (2023) recreation" design has only sold 9 products, which I frankly find rather surprising.

This is Dave's recreation of the 1977 original, coloured by me.

This one's staying around, but I should probably supplement it with the Dave and Ger version, just for the contrast...

The second Spawn #10 design, "Vault of Spawn", has only sold 7 products, and is another were I stress about splitting the profits between Dave, Birdsong, Sean, and Hobbs. 

(It's probably eight bucks, split four ways, but I still feel bad...)

Since Dave is recreating this for the forthcoming Scriptbook, I might deactivate it for the new version...



The "Young Cerebus" design is another low seller (6 products sold), but I was gonna split the profits with Gerhard, but he didn't want them, so it's supposed to go to Pride Stables, but again, we're talking less than ten dollars.

I'm probably gonna just donate a hundred bucks and not sweat it anymore.

Unless this suddenly becomes popular.

Not gonna retire this just yet...

From Tokyo, "Hell-Oh! Spawnee (Mark III)" AMOC's favorite "Dave-fucked-up-Matt's-gotta-make-jokes-to-stave-off-the-mob" mascot!

Hell-oh! has sold 5 items, and I bought 3, but I love her, so she stays...


"Benjamin Hobbs' Dave Sim's Hermann" has sold 5 items as well.

Since this is a Cerebus in Hell? design of a character that ain't a Manga, I doubt we'll be seeing him in future issues, so I think Hermann is getting "sent to the farm." Where he'll run, and play, and pet the rabbits...


"Ladies and Gentlemen: The Varkles!". Sure, it's another '82 tour "find" (we say "find" and not "steal"...).

Only 4 products sold, and I bought two of them.

I guess the boys are splitting up. (George already quit once, and John is going to Mealc with Red Yoko... Paul's taking about a new group..."Snouts".)

"Crossing over" the white on black version has sold one more that the black on white version (4 to 3).

I forget who requested this one, but it WAS a request.

(I take them from time to time...)

I might cut these two loose... I don't know yet...


"Original art to Comics Journal #82" has also sold 4 products. I have a new Roach design, so this may be retired too...









"Strictly Terrestrial". I should probably explain this 4 product seller...

So, I got this idea for a radio show style podcast. Full Audio drama. "Skip  Tracer: Telephone Detective". In the script, at one point Skip gets hired to find a guy's fiancée, and figures out that she's been shanghaied by the Vice-president of Mars (a reoccurring villain), and the guy wants Skip to go to the Moon with him to save her, and Skip delivers one of his trademark catchphrases, "Sorry pal, I'm strictly terrestrial."

I freely admit this is a design I made just for me. What? I have a T-Shirt shoppe.

"NANANANANANANANANANA Batvark Logo" has only sold 2 products.

I can't believe nobody thought this was cool.

I'll probably have to retire this one.

Nobody tell Adam West...



This is another design I made for myself. "Binary Protest"

For those of you who AREN'T C-3PO, it says:
FUCK ASMINOV AND HIS STUPID LAWS

I bought both of the products sold. One was a magnet that I fight DAILY to NOT put on one of the robots at work.

This is a keeper.

And now the one product sold stuff. 
First "Haunt of Spawn". Probably gonna let this one go to the cornfield.
Same as "Fear of Spawn".
I HAVE to keep "Che Iguana" (He's a Commie Martyr!)
The other "Star Trek Fans are Nerds" design is going.


NEW MERCH!
"The Merely Magnificent MoonRoach"

Another '82 Tour sketch.

I didn't make it JUST for Spatula, but I definitely was thinking of him...





Yep, another '82 tour backmatter design.

Spatula ain't gonna have any money...





Dave's Eras Tour
Dave's OTHER Eras Tour


I'ma gonna make so much money youse guys...

You have no idea...





Anyway, the sale is:
August 26-September 2.*
*Sale dates are not final and therefore subject to change.

Next Time: Monday!