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| Seen here: Senior Trump Administration Official Lucy van Pelt explains the tariff situation to the public... |
Dave: Yeah, I don’t know
what this is, cause it’s like, the computers are definitely on one time level,
and all of my other clocks are going, “Oh the computer’s full of B.S.” [laughs]
“What don’t you understand about this?”
Matt: I know the GPSes
they have to adjust for the curvature, the satellites being so high above the
Earth they had to adjust, and they lose like a second a year or something. And
I’m like, eventually this is gonna be where the computer clock is gonna say it’s
2028 and we’ll be like, uh, no 2021, computer, you gotta roll back a little
bit.
Dave: Right. Doesn’t the
theory of relativity enter into this…
Matt: Yeah.
Dave: …at this point as
well, where it’s like [laughs] No, by the time the computer at the Greenwich
Meridian head office talks to your computer and says this is what time it is,
it’s a couple of seconds later.
Matt: Yeah. They’re
supposed to round off, I believe it’s like tens of a second or hundredths of a
second, maybe even thousandths of a second. Like nanoseconds, and everytime I
read about it, I’m like, I understand why we have to do this, but it’s one of
those, if time’s made up, we made it up!
Dave: [laughs] That’s
right! Yes, it’s not like it’s an actual reality. It’s “reality”. Just because
we wanted to know what time it is! [laughs] “Well, okay, you’re gonna have to
make something up, then.” “Okay, we’ll get right on that.” Okay, are we
recording?
Matt: We are recording.
Dave: We are recording.
Okay. I essentially got a question on a phone message from Ralph S, here in
Kitchener, who leaves me phone messages from time to time. And his question
this month was, he was rereading the sermon on the chimney in Cerebus and his
question was, “is religion coerced, or is religion inherently coercive?” The
idea behind, “he doesn’t love you, he just wants all your money.” My answer to
that would be, it definitely can be. I think that’s one of those, certainly for
the longest time, for centuries we haven’t really fully grasped the multiple
levels of free will that apply to the question, in the sense that, if a
minister or somebody purporting to represent God is telling you that God speaks
to them personally and God told them what God wanted them to tell you to do,
you can use your free will to believe that. And if you use your free will to
believe that, it’s still your free will that you’re using, just because
somebody tells you that God told them to tell you to do something, that doesn’t
mean that God actually told them to tell you to do something. So that would be
coercive in my interpretation, because obviously there’s a part of you as God’s
creation that responds to somebody telling you that God told them to tell you
to do something. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that that is something that
God wants you to do. That’s just something that someone is telling you God told
you to do. And particularly, you know, in my personal belief system, where
there is a wide disparity, a night and day disparity between God and YHWH, that
if you think that God and YHWH are the same being, then you’re going to get
into that kind of trouble a whole lot. Which I think is one of the things
that’s going on in our society, and has been going on for some time. That YHWH
really doesn’t like human beings, and particularly doesn’t like men, and
consequently spends a great deal of time telling people, “this is YHWH and I’m
telling you as YHWH that you’re destroying the planet, and you have to stop
destroying the planet. You have to”, [laughs], “essentially, everybody kill
yourself! So that planet Earth can go back to being a completely human
being-free environment.” And I think a lot of people in very very good faith
are saying, no, Mother Earth is speaking to us and telling us what Mother Earth
wants and we have to do what Mother Earth is telling us to do. And my opinion,
again, just a personal opinion is, you don’t want to be listening to Mother
Earth too much, because Mother Earth really, really, really doesn’t like us.
So, there you go, Ralph! And as well, Ralph, I do still have your phone number
still at hand here, on one of my many many post-it notes, and I will be calling
you at some point. Ralph has volunteered to help with house style renovations
here at the Off-White House. I’m just at the point of having to make up a
shopping list of what needs to be done as a priority and that might be a Ralph
S thing, or that might be something that, “no, Ralph you don’t come into the
picture for a little while yet.” And particularly in Canada, southern Ontario,
there’s really only two seasons: winter and bad sledding.
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: So, the amount of
time for doing stuff to the outside of the house is severely limited. But I am
hoping to get to the point where I can start dealing with some of those things.
Matt: So, what you’re
saying is, you’re gonna renovate and it’s gonna be the marble-encrusted, and
I’m trying to remember the quote from “The Last Day”. I can’t remember it.
[laughs]
Dave: Oh, uh… no, it’s
gonna be… the priority is really to try and make it a situation where there’s
no wildlife in the house. [laughs] Because that’s sort of a top priority. I do
still want to excavate the basement and turn it into the primary part where the
Cerebus Archive is housed, all of the correspondence and whatnot. But first
thing’s first, the door going into the downstairs, I’m just not going to be
able to have an outside door with stairs going up, which would be really really
cool to have, but would be really really expensive to do. So it’s just gonna
be, time to fill in that hole and completely close off what used to be the door
where they would deliver the coal, or the coal furnace, at the house, back at
the 19th century when the house was first built. So, yeah, I’m
hoping somewhere, maybe in my 80s or something like that, we can do some
marble-encrusted stuff…
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: Marble-encrusted
stuff is gonna be very very low on the shopping list.
Matt: Well, if the Spawn
10 Kickstarter does gangbusters and sells a billion copies…
Dave: Yes, I mean,
that’s what we’re all kind of hoping, is, if Todd McFarlane could get $3.8
million on Kickstarter, can we ride those kinds of coattails, and really have
the Spawn 10 Kickstarter go through the roof? Which is starting, I am told,
October 6th, which would be my 42nd wedding anniversary.
Which doesn’t really qualify when your marriage only lasted four years, but if
Deni and I were still married, we would be married for 42 years when the Spawn
10 Kickstarter is starting. And we’re definitely doing our level best to try
and attract as much attention to… really the only time that Cerebus really
showed up on everybody’s radar screen in the comic book field. Even more than
the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crossover, the decade before. So we’re kind of
hoping that Todd looks at all of the stuff that we’re doing, and goes, “ehh,
this is really cool, I think that I’m going to tell all of my Todd McFarlane
fans and all of my Spawn fans, ‘eh, all of youse people, go give Dave Sims some
money for his Spawn 10 comic books’.” And we will find out. We are coming up on
that point now. Okay, Michael R of Easton, Pennsylvania, says, “Hi Matt!
Questions for Dave. Hi Dave! I have read VOL. 1 of ‘Strange Death of Alex
Raymond’. Once. So far. ...and while reading the book, which had me thinking
was, how far did you research when you FINALLY said, ‘hey, I need to draw the
next page?’" Uh, that’s sort of a… there’s multiple answers. If you’re
talking about Volume One, Volume One was done, and then I went straight on to
Volume Two, the idea being that they’d be about 110, 112 pages each, back when
it was going to be an IDW book. And then I got to about page 80 in Volume Two
and then the wrist problem set in, so that was when I just started mocking up
pages and going, okay, how far do I get in the story that I’m telling in the 30
or so pages that Carson is going to do? And got that question answered, and in
between those while I had all of those pages mocked up, and Carson had them,
and Carson was working on them. Then it was, okay, now I’m going back to pure
research. The biggest question that I had was, when did Ward Greene stop
writing “Rip Kirby”? Because he did quit the strip at some point and Fred
Dickinson took over the writing on “Rip Kirby”. And because it wasn’t credited,
that was a matter of, okay, I’m gonna have to try and tell from the stories
that are being told here. Which one was Ward Greene’s last story? I think I did
figure that part out, and then I wanted to make sure that I had written
commentaries for myself on all of Ward Greene’s “Rip Kirby” stories. And I
actually didn’t get to the point of being all the way through to there before
it was time to double back and start doing mock-ups for Volume Three, and I got
20 pages of doing mock-ups on Volume Three when Carson was done Volume Two.
[laughs] And then that was the red alert alarm that, okay, now it’s time to
start promoting Volume One. Which was when I started working on the “Death of a
Comics Salesman Sales Trip” to all of the California comic book stores, and
then that got scuttled with COVID-19. So, I didn’t actually get to the end of
the research, but now I’m doubling back and Eddie Khanna and I are writing
“Strange Death of Alex Raymond” from the place that I left off in Volume Three,
and trying to roadmap it just with captions. Here’s the captions, and after
I’ve got captions that Eddie and I can both live with for each sequence that
I’ve got blocked in, then I start plugging in descriptions. This is where a
“Rip Kirby” recreated panel would go, that would go with this caption. And
right now, there’s a lot more captions than there are panels. I’m having to get
kind of cute with different ways of having panels that could illustrate
captions, even though there’s not really enough… there’s more captions than
there are illustrations. That’s going back and forth between Eddie and myself.
Right now we’re working on “The Doll’s House” sequence and I asked Eddie to
prioritize what he thought were the top three A++ comic art metaphysics, you
wouldn’t believe that this actually happened, that this actually happened. And
he came up with those, and I’ve plugged those into my captions that I had for
that sequence, and with one of the things that Eddie thought should be in the
narrative, and I thought, no, I think this should go in the annotations. So we
put that into the annotation. It’s a long process, but it’s actually moving
along a lot faster than I thought it would. It definitely takes second place
right now behind Spawn 10. Anytime Dagon needs something for Spawn 10, “Strange
Death of Alex Raymond” goes right to the back burner and Spawn 10 goes to the
front burner. Because, I can make money, I think, off of Spawn 10, and I can’t
make money off of “Strange Death of Alex Raymond”. Uhh, Michael R goes onto say,
“BTW--- I loved the book! It was definitely worth the wait. Sigh --- then it
was over. I want MORE!” And it’s like, well, we always knew that that was going
to be a problem with this. The process of creating “Strange Death of Alex
Raymond” is excruciatingly slow, much much slower than anything I ever did on
Cerebus, and yeah, everybody can read a lot faster than I create, or that
Carson and I can create, or than Carson, and Eddie, and I can create on
“Strange Death of Alex Raymond”. But… now the folks that were interested in
having “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” who got Volume One, now you’ve got one,
and yes, you can read, and reread it. Michael also says, “All that research
felt right. The book had a good flow to it. Carson is fabulous! His bridging artwork
is seamless with yours.” Yeah, and it’s definitely… the two styles dovetail
nicely. I still got some problems with the way he drew the 1920 Ward Greene, I
want to redraw that one at some point. And there’s another panel in Volume Two
that I would want to redraw. But, theoretically, as long as we all stay alive
and we all stay healthy, we should be able to do “Strange Death of Alex
Raymond” fitfully from now on. And if anybody is interested on it, I’m pretty
sure Eddie Khanna still got another 200 copies of the Fundraising Edition. So
if you just contact him and get $50 to him and postage on top of that. [laughs]
There’s no real demand for this book. It’s really really specialized, but the
people that love it are definitely gonna love it. There you go with that one.
Matt: I got done reading
my copy and I emailed Eddie going, “this is great! So when are we gonna get
Volume Two?” and he responded going, “Ha ha ha.”
Dave: [laughs] Yes,
definitely. Because this was one of those, when I realized, okay, this just
isn’t going to be possible, my solution was just to refund the money to
everybody on the Fundraising Edition. It’ll take me a little way to pay
everybody back, but I’ll just pay everybody back. Eddie said, “aw, can’t we do
the books somehow? Can’t I do the book? These people have been waiting so
long.” It’s like, okay, remember that this was your idea, by all means. You do
the books for all of these people, and I think Eddie’s learned his lesson. Yes,
this is just a money pit. There’s absolutely no way to make money from “Strange
Death of Alex Raymond” for anybody, and anybody who tries to make money off of
“Strange Death of Alex Raymond”, that’s gonna be their reaction anytime you go,
“when can we get the next one?” Ha, ha, ha. And onto Steve Bolhafner. Hey,
there’s a name from the past. The guy at the St Louis Post Dispatch, who got us
all the great coverage on the 1992 tour in St Louis, Missouri. And I always wondered,
is Steve Bolhafner still out there? So I get Steve Bolhafner is still out
there.
Matt: Oh yeah, Steve’s
really active on the Facebook group. He drops by AMoC every now and then and
comments. So, yeah, Steve’s still out there. In fact, when the Judith thing
blew up and we had the talk and we did the “Please Hold” afterward he
commented, going, “that was that girl?”! cause he was driving you and her
around St Louis at the stop the weekend you guys broke up. And he’s like, “now
that I know…”
Dave: Now I know! Yes!
[laughs] That was definitely a very interesting situation, all the way around.
And yes, Steve was there for all of that. Well, that’s good. I had no idea that
he still was actively engaged. “Before it was 300 issues, it was 26 years, and
that wouldn't even have been a round number (I believe 156 was the original
goal).” Yes, it was. When I thought I was still going to be doing it bimonthly,
it was going to go until March 2003, just because my math was bad. It was not a
happy day when I figured out, no, 300 issues is going to go until March 2004.
Finding out that you’ve got another year on your 26 year prison time, not a
happy day. “so obviously there is something important about 26 years.” Yes. I
would agree with that. “What was it?” That I don’t know. “Why was it important
to do Cerebus for 26 years?” There’s a comic art metaphysics answer to that.
There’s a borderland between male and female answer to that. I don’t know how
much of either of those I was doing consciously. I think we talked about this
before a little bit. The fact that it’s Bran Mac Mufin who says to Cerebus in
issue 5, “How old are you?” And Cerebus says something like, “that’s for me to
know and you to find out.” He says, “you’re 26 years old”, and that got
established that Cerebus turned 27, I believe, in issue 12. So one of the
things that I was doing was saying, I want this character to actually age, and
I don’t know, it’s not going to be month for month, because that would be a
weird continuity thing to do. But Cerebus is going to be a specific age in
specific times, and I wanted to establish that early on. Why I had Cerebus be
26 when I was 22, that I don’t know. Why I would create a character that was
older than I was, is an interesting thing to do. I just realized a little while
ago, Deni was 26 at the time that Cerebus was 26, which is another [laughs]
interesting thing. Why are you making your character the same age as your wife,
instead of your same age? And part of that might have been the, I already knew that
Cerebus was going to be a hermaphrodite, or as they call it now, intersex. So I
don’t know how consciously I did that. Let’s make Cerebus Deni in terms of how
old he is, rather than Cerebus Dave in terms of how old Dave is. The 26 years
gets substantially more interesting because I found out, many years later on,
that my mother was conceived out of wedlock. She was born in December 1930, and
was conceived in March of 1930. And I found out, years and years and years
later on, that my maternal grandmother and grandfather were married in May of
1930. So, my grandmother was already two months pregnant when they got married.
What I found out, years after that, was that they were married on May 17th,
1930. So consequently, I was born on their 26th wedding anniversary
and they never celebrated or talked about their wedding anniversary because of
the baked-in out of wedlock thing. If you have a daughter born in December
1930, you don’t want people to know that you were married in May of 1930. So, it
must have been a very interesting thing all the way around, where my mother and
my grandfather and my grandmother… I don’t even know if my father even knew,
when I was born on their 26th wedding anniversary. And of course, I
didn’t know that when I was doing all of this age 26, and 26 years stuff, and
having Cerebus last [sneeze] Excuse me. For 26 years and 3 months. So, no
explanation about how all that fits together, except in terms of comic art
metaphysics, that… this kid born on your 26th wedding anniversary is
gonna have a lot to say about a lot of different stuff, and it’s gonna take him
26 years to do.
Matt: Wasn’t there, I
swear there was an interview where somebody asked you about why 300 issues, why
26 years, and I thought it tied into a comic creator that worked for 26 years.
Dave: Uh, it was
definitely, I wanted a finite career and it was Hal Foster with “Prince
Valiant”, who said that the last few “Prince Valiant” strips that he did were
lousy. So, when you’re Hal Foster, you know when you’re at the top of your
game, and when your work is lousy, so that was definitely filed away in my
mind. I don’t want to still be doing Cerebus when I can’t do it properly
anymore. So I don’t want to have the last few issues of Cerebus be lousy,
because I just don’t know how to draw at that level anymore. So that was why it
had to be finite, but then, no one actually having done that before in the
comic book field, it was up to me to decide, okay, going by my internet
yardstick and my internal slide rule, I’m gonna have to guess when do I want to
be stopping doing Cerebus. And that was what I decided was, okay, I think, if I
had been Hal Foster, I would probably have said, better to try and not knock
off in my late 40s, rather than even carrying on into my 50s. Just in case…
okay, where are you at your peak creative abilities? And it seemed to me that
it might be a 60s thing as opposed to a 50s thing. It’s really a matter of,
when you’re laboring to do your best possible work, which is what we all do
when we’re young hotshots. You don’t realize what a problem you’re posing for
your future self. Just reading more stuff about Wally Wood, Darrell Epp sent me
a long piece by Ralph Reese, who was one of Woody’s assistants, and a wonderful
cartoonist in his own right. Wally Wood definitely did that to himself. I mean,
he was so pedal to the metal, doing really really brilliant work and doing it
on deadline through his 20s and 30s and 40s and then, particularly with the
alcoholism, definitely got to the point where he was sick of hearing how much
everybody preferred his earlier work to what he was doing in his 40s and 50s.
But that’s one of those things that you do to yourself unless you say, okay,
this is what I’m going to do and this is how long I’m going to do it. If you’re
laboring to compete with Frazetta and Al Williamson, and Graham Ingels, and
everybody at EC. You want to be the top EC artist, and then you go on to work
on “Mad Magazine” and you want to be the best commercial illustrator that Bill
Gaines has for “Mad Magazine”. You’re really setting up a challenge for
yourself that’s almost impossible to beat. So that’s why I decided, okay, I
want to be at my absolute best when Cerebus is coming to an end. That sounds to
me like a mid to late 40s thing, rather than a 50s thing.
Matt: Okay.
Dave: [laughs] Okay! I
hope that while Steve’s listening to this, that when he comes to the end of
that he goes, “Okay, that’s what I was asking about.”
Matt: Well, I’m just
thinking about, like Jack Kirby and Will Eisner, there are guys who went well
into their late 60s and even 70s and I’m like, but then again, Jack had that
drive of, if I don’t draw, the kids don’t eat. When you read about Jack going
into the service in the 40s and he did like 1000 pages that he could print
while he was gone. [laughs]
Dave: Right, right. And
Jack had a very specific style that… I mean, the impact of it. Nobody drew
comics like Jack Kirby, and he trained himself to draw in a specific style that
he could do quickly and could certainly pencil a lot more pages than he could
pencil and ink, so he became a penciler and he could layout pages faster than
he could pencil. Just the sheer volume of work that he did, it all looked like
Jack Kirby. Nothing against Jack Kirby, but he wasn’t trying to figure out,
“how do I do the best possible Jack Kirby artwork in my 40s and 50s?” In his
20s, he was going, “what’s the best way to draw so that I can do this stuff
really really fast? I have to do a style where I can do 5 finished pages a day,
or 4 finished pages a day.” When he and Joe Simon had their studio together,
Jack Katz talked about trying out to work in the Simon & Kirby shop. And
it’s like, “the stuff is good, you’re able to do a style, but you’re just not
fast enough. We need guys who can do this stuff unbelievably fast because that’s
how we make money here, is doing complete comic books and turning them around,
like, a complete comic book in a week.” That’s very very different from what
Will Eisner was doing, very very different from what Hal Foster was doing. Will
didn’t actually draw a lot of “The Spirit” stuff when he had his studio put
together by the late 1940s, it was all guys who were huge Will Eisner fans,
doing their best Will Eisner. And he did work on it, but it was definitely
working with young hotshot kids who wanted to do Will Eisner work and when he
did come back and do graphic novels, when he came back in the 1970s, that was a
completely different thing. That was, okay, this is what I have to say as an
artist. I’m not trying to figure out how to crank pages, I’m trying to figure
out what’s the best possible Will Eisner style to communicate the kind of work
that I want to do. I want to be the Norman Mailer of graphic novelists, and I
want to do stories that Saul Bellow and people like that are doing in novels,
but I want to do them as graphic novels. That’s a very different thing, and was
a completely different style. So, you’re really comparing apples and oranges in
that situation. You’ve gotta be very very careful to do that. And it is
something that every cartoonist has to decide for themselves. I mean, I was
somebody who went, no, Cerebus is what I’m going to do. I’m not going to do
Cerebus and a bunch of other stuff. I’ll maybe do a few things on the outside,
but not a lot of things on the outside, because, yes, I definitely want this to
be done at this level of ability and I want the last issues to be much much
better than the first issues and at a definite creative peak. And most guys
don’t do that. Most guys, “if you’ll pay me to draw Spider-Man, that’s great,
I’ll draw Spider-Man for this length of time, and then when you don’t want me
to try draw Spider-Man anymore, then I’ll figure out something else that I want
to do.” But most guys don’t decide, “okay, this is what I’m going to do and I’m
going to do it as graphic novels. I’m going to do 16 graphic novels around this
character, and it’s going to be a 6000 page story.” That’s a completely
different decision making process.
Matt: Right.
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: It’s one of those,
ya know, you’re gonna do 6000 pages, you can do 6000 pages of one character you
own 100% and every page is, this is pretty much the page I want to put out in
the world, or you can do 6000 pages and half of them are filler Batman stories.
Dave: Right! I mean…
yes, go ahead.
Matt: And the smarter
answer, in the long run, if you want to make a lot of money, is Batman, but if
you want to have a career and when you look back going, I have 6000 pages and I
own them and I own everything that’s on every single one of them, that’s self-publishing.
And it’s one of those, I can see guys coming into the field, going, “6000 pages
is 6000 pages, what does it matter?” Well, ya know, ask the guys who have 6000
pages they’ve drawn and they’ve only ever seen the original art for 100 of them
afterward.
Dave: Right. Right. Or
they only own X number of intellectual properties. Nobody knows what was deep
inside Steve Ditko contemplating Spider-Man after he left, cause, you would
know the different. Like, Spider-Man was a phenomenon pretty much right from
the beginning. “The Fantastic Four” was the first 1960s Marvel superhero title,
but Spider-Man became the Marvel flagship and Steve Ditko looking at that,
going, okay, well, it’s whatever level of curiosity he had of, what is it like
to be Siegel and Shuster and know that you created Superman? Well, now you
know! You’re Steve Ditko and you created Spider-Man. And same kinda deal,
you’re in that Spawn 10 situation where the character is behind those bars over
there, and you’ve got a hood over your head and your hands tied behind your
back, in a specific sense. You have to realize at all times that that can
happen to you, anytime that you’re signing at the bottom line, saying, “yeah, I
understand that I don’t own this, but they’re willing to pay me $45 a page, or
$60 a page to draw this, and hey, this is turning into a relatively longtime
gig. This is three years in and usually I get the phone call saying, ‘stop
drawing the book, stop drawing the book, it’s been canceled. We’ve got the
sales figures in on the first five issues and we’re not keeping it going, but
hey we gave it our best shot. Come on into the office and we’ll talk about
other stuff that you can work on’.” It’s… Marv Wolfman with Blade, Steve Gerber
with Howard the Duck. You don’t know when you’re creating something what that
reaction is going to be. And the situation of the character being trapped
behind the bars and you are on these sides of the bar and you’re never going to
get those two things together again under any circumstances, it does happen. It
definitely does happen.
Matt: I’m just thinking
about having just read “Men of Tomorrow” which is the story of Siegel and
Shuster, I come back to “Funnyman”, the “we’re gonna make Superman again, and
this time we’re gonna own it” and it got canceled after like three issues cause
it just wasn’t Superman.
Dave: Right. Yeah, you
only get one of them. I mean, I did know that as a creator, which is why I made
the choices that I made with Cerebus, because it’s like, okay nothing has
compared to this that I’ve worked on. “The Beavers” was nothing like this,
“Revolt 3000” was nothing like this, this is getting definite traction, this is
definitely getting reaction from people, and I did tell myself, if that
happens, stick with that thing and make sure you always own it and put your
time in on that. Don’t put your time in on something else that you can make
good short term money on. Don’t stop doing Cerebus to write Howard the Duck
just because Marvel asks you, “do you want to write Howard the Duck”? It’s
like, I don’t own Howard the Duck, and I do own Cerebus, so that’s where I’m
putting my time in on. And everybody has different choices that they make in
that situation. Okay! Moving on to Margaret Liss, “Does Dave have any of those
unauthorized Citadel miniatures? And if he doesn't, would he like some?” That’s
an interesting question. Yes, I do have a few of them that somebody sent me in
the UK. They were in little plastic bags individual miniature figures and
stapled cardboard sort of labels that said what this was in the package. It
would be nice if Margaret could explain that she has a lot of these? Did you
find somebody that has a bunch…?
Matt: I think she’s been
picking them up off of eBay when they show up on eBay and they’re relatively
cheap.
Dave: Okay, alright. I
think maybe the way that we will do this, is I’ll get Roly to take some
pictures of the Citadel miniatures that I’ve got, and then Margaret can compare
that with the Citadel miniatures that she’s got. If she’s got duplicates of any
that I don’t have, yes, I would be very interested in having those for the
Cerebus Archive, and if Margaret wants to photograph the ones that she has and
post those to A Moment of Cerebus, just so everybody can see what these look
like, then I think that would be interesting, as well.
Matt: They show up on
the Facebook group every now and then of somebody finds, “Did you know about
these?” It’s like, yes, we all know about them, but somebody’s always selling
theirs and they’re painted. Somebody else sells them and they’re unpainted.
Dave: Oh! Right, right,
right, cause they’re miniatures and there are people of… Colin Upton makes, or
made, a very good living painting miniatures for people.
Matt: Back when I was
paying the rent at the comic book store, the owner was into miniature battles,
and he was paying one of the kids in trade of, “you can get stuff, but you
gotta paint my army for me” and there was one day where the kid was down there
painting, I’m like, “so you’re painting stuff for Jim?” He’s like, “No, this is
my army.” I’m like, “don’t you get paid for painting Jim’s stuff?” and he’s
like, “yeah”, and I’m like, “then why aren’t you getting… you’re spending two
hours painting something for yourself, versus two hours where you’re gonna get
money or product”, and he just kinda looked at me and I’m like, that’s right,
he’s 14, you’re 22 now.
Dave: [laughs] Yeah,
yeah. That’s one of those, you will learn the value of a dollar, or maybe you
won’t.
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: And if you don’t,
we really can’t help you out. So, yeah, it’s an interesting thing, that I’d be
very interested. Both of the Citadel miniatures that I’m missing and also any
photographs of Citadel miniatures. I hadn’t even thought of that, that some of
these would be painted by somebody. That would be pretty cool to see,
particularly with the kind of photograph that we’ve got now, where you can
really get something microscopic and all of the detail in there. So, yes, thank
you Margaret for the offer, and I will make a note of that on my cheat sheet
here, that I have to deal with that, in the very near term. Sean Michael
Robinson, “If Dave could own one single piece of original art-- any time
period, any medium-- what would it be? With the caveat that it can’t be sold,
or viewed taken outside of the Off White House.” Sean Michael part two, “For
the sake of discussion, let's say it can be a grouping of original art instead.
Say, every page of a certain comic story, for instance, or a sculptural group,
etc. etc.” If I had to pick just one, the page that I would pick, and it’s
actually been in a couple of Heritage Auctions catalogs over the last couple of
years, which, made my heart sort of skip a beat, going, it still exists.
Somebody actually owns page 44 of “Superman Vs Muhammad Ali”. In order to
explain why I would be interested in having page 44 of “Superman vs Muhammad
Ali” takes a little bit of explaining, and it’s a spoiler alert for “Strange
Death of Alex Raymond”, because that would be in the probably the last volume
of “Strange Death of Alex Raymond”, a modern 1970s example of extremely potent
comic art metaphysics. So, spoiler alert, if you really don’t wanna know,
something that would be way way at the end of “Strange Death of Alex Raymond”,
and I may never actually get there, you don’t wanna listen to this part. So, I
dunno, maybe we could cue the “I’m a Little Teapot” from “Jeopardy” so that
people can decide, do I want to listen to this part, do I not want to listen to
it? And..
Matt: I just added a
flag to the audio file so that I can say, at 53:48, if you don’t want it
spoiled…
Dave: [laughs] Okay.
That’s right, you can do that! We have the technology. Okay, so that having
been said, what happened there, like you have to understand, I think a lot of
people have trouble understanding why did they do something called “Superman vs
Muhammad Ali”? Where did that come from? In the early 1970s, 1971, 72, 73,
Muhammad Ali was like Superman. [laughs] It was, can nobody beat this guy? From
the Sonny Liston fight on all the way out, and particularly the Rumble in the
Jungle, the George Foreman fight. It was just, this guy was the most
unnaturally brilliant boxer of all time. Basically the same way that Michael
Jordan was in basketball. That’s what Muhammad Ali was in heavyweight boxing.
And an unnatural figure, because not only was he the world’s greatest
heavyweight boxer, he is also so pretty, and that’s nothing that you would
think of when you would think of a heavyweight boxer! No heavyweight boxer is
so pretty! [laughs] And Muhammad Ali, Cassius Clay, was definitely pretty, and
knew he was pretty. So, I was sort of reviewing all that, because I’m going,
okay, this ties in with this, because he was also, not only pretty, and not the
Superman of heavyweight boxing, but then he converted to Islam, which was, man,
you just don’t do that, particularly the brand of Islam, the Nation of Islam,
Louis Farrakhan sort of thing. And then calling yourself Muhammad Ali, which is
like the name of the Prophet Muhammad and Ali who was supposed to be his
designated successor if you were a Shiite Muslim, which isn’t the way the thing
went. The thing went with the Sunni side, which was the followers of the
Prophet Muhammad, not the relatives of Prophet Muhammad. So to call yourself
Muhammad Ali and the greatest of all time, was, I mean, talk about hubris. But
at the same time, Muhammad Ali, definitely explaining himself to people, said,
“it ain’t braggin’ if you can do it.” And that was Muhammad Ali to a T as well,
he would just say, I’m gonna drop the guy in the sixth round, and he would drop
the guy in the sixth round. It’s like, you don’t do that. Like, hubris does
work, so you’re just asking for trouble. So what’s interesting is, I don’t
really know the genesis of “Superman vs Muhammad Ali”. Somebody took it into
their head to go, “let’s contact Muhammad Ali’s people and see if they’re
interested in doing a ‘Superman vs Muhammad Ali’ giant size book for DC.” And
they were interested. I don’t think Ali was ever interested, personally, but at
that time he had a whole coterie of followers who went, “no this would be a
really good thing to have the chance, in this book, having a boxing match with
Superman because it’s something that kids will dig, particularly the black
kids.” Because it’s like black kids really didn’t have anything to identify
with in Superman, so this would be great that Muhammad Ali would be in a
Superman comic book. It’s one of those red flag comic art metaphysics kind of
thing. Whoever came up with this, I think it was come up with at a much higher
comic art metaphysics level than anybody’s conscious mind. They thought they
came up with it, but I think it was planted in their minds and what was
interesting was that obviously in signing an agreement... [audio repeats from
“which isn’t the way the thing went” from earlier onward] to do this crossover,
which Ali would have to sign because it was his likeness that they were using,
there’d be a lot of boilerplate legalese that’s just in the contract, that his
people would add some stuff in, and they would take some stuff out, DC would
put some other stuff in, and they would just keep negotiating until they got
down to the point where, yes, now we have a valid contract. Which would mean
that Muhammad Ali was contracting to have a two dimensional comic book version
of himself in this storyline, which is very potent comic art metaphysics, when
your three dimensional self signs an agreement to have a two dimensional
version of yourself, particularly drawn by Neal Adams, so it’s gonna be super
realistic, in this comic book. On page 44, the robot that was supposed to
referee the fight between Ali and the alien, gets supplanted, suddenly, by
Pallas Athene, the Greek goddess of wisdom, suddenly appears in this story out
of nowhere, and is going to be the referee of this boxing match. And it’s like,
that’s nothing something that you’re going to notice, but Muhammad Ali as a
Muslim and as this apex Muslim, doesn’t want to be signing a contract which
gives Pallas Athene, a pagan goddess, jurisdiction over this boxing match that
he’s having with this alien. Your average person is gonna look at that and go,
“ehh, what’s the difference? It’s a comic book.” It’s a comic book, but you’re
giving Pallas Athene jurisdiction in the comic book in two dimensions, which
means you’re giving Pallas Athene jurisdiction in three dimensions, four
dimension, five dimensions, I dunno, how many dimensions does Pallas Athene
have? There’s a lot of goddesses of wisdom, and sure enough, that was right at
the time that Ali lost his first fight, and lost badly and got his jaw broken.
I think it was.. I had sort of lost interest in boxing at that point. It was
either Jerry Quarry or Ken Norton, I think, who broke his jaw. And it’s like,
well, that’s what happens when you give a pagan goddess jurisdiction over a
devout monotheist. So the fact that that page exists, it’s like, that’s a very
very potent page. If Muhammad Ali had no signed the contract for the “Superman
vs Muhammad Ali” book, where would that have gone? He hadn’t even come close to
getting defeated. Everybody thought George Foreman was just gonna take his head
off. It’s like, “you shouldn’t even be getting into the ring with this guy.
This guy is going to kill you.” And Muhammad Ali figured out how to beat
Foreman, which was, he just loosened the top turnbuckle on the ropes in the Rumble
in the Jungle, and loosened the top rope enough so that when he leaned back
against it, he was leaning out of the ring, and Foreman had to reach to get in
at him, and he was still pummeling him pretty good. Like, Ali, that was
rope-a-dope. He would just get his arms up and just block as many punches as he
could, and tag Foreman a couple of times if he could, but what he was doing
consciously was wearing him down, because you can’t keep leaning that far in if
you’re a heavyweight, because you’re knocking crap out of your upper body in a
heavyweight fight, and you don’t wanna do that. And he did that for however
many rounds he did, and then just came off of the ropes, and just, boom, boom,
boom, boom, three or four major punches, and Foreman hit the canvas. It’s like,
oh okay, that’s one of those things that just invites the upper levels to go,
“uh, no that’s not really fair. You can loosen the turnbuckles. Both corners
get a chance to look at the ring and say, ‘no the ring isn’t up to snuff here,
this rope is too loose’.” Foreman’s corner didn’t do that, obviously, and Ali
was pretty confident that they wouldn’t do that, and consequently, that’s the
way he was able to beat him, so it was one of those, “well that’s pretty cute.
Here’s an even cuter thing from even higher up in the echelons. Are you gonna
realize that you don’t wanna sign this contract? Oh no, you didn’t? Okay, well,
you aren’t going to be the Muhammad Ali that you were before you signed that
contract for ‘Superman vs Muhammad Ali’.” There you go, a very long-winded
answer as to why I would want page 44 of “Superman vs Muhammad Ali”, more or
less as a cautionary note. It’s like, you’d better just be an obedient servant
of God, because there are many many plateaus between you and God where, if you
try and get cute, or you try and sort of pull a little bit of funny business
and you know in your heart of hearts that you’re pulling funny business, but,
ehh, maybe nobody will notice. No, at that level, you’re really asking for
major trouble from levels of being where, oh this is no problem. Any human
being is definitely got their head on the chopping block at all times. The
thing is to live your life so you don’t deserve to get your head chopped off.
And if I had that page, I would definite have it framed and on the wall, and
everytime I’d look at it, I’d go, “there’s the Neal Adams page that brought
Muhammad Ali to his knees.”
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: John Glisman,
“This letter was in the last issue of the first Mage series in 1986. Does Dave
know what Matt Wagner meant when he wrote “Dave Sim and I have been
talking...”? Was there a planned collaboration that never happened?” Uh, no, I
don’t think that that was a collaboration. I had been invited and went to the
End of Mage party at Matt Wagner’s apartment in Philadelphia in 1986. The 1986
throws me, because it’s like, my mental image of the End of Mage party was,
wasn’t that in the early 1980s, like 83, 84? No, no, 86, so that one really
threw me for a loop when I looked at that. I even had to check in the
Overstreet Guide, no nope, it’s 1986, Issue 15. In terms of talking about the
layoff, I remember Matt and I talking about that at the party. Like, how long
are you not going to draw comic books, and what are you going to draw when you
come back? And how long are you going to do it? So, the whole conversation that
we just had about Hal Foster and the 26 years versus sticking with it until you
just can’t do it properly anymore and your last few pages are lousy. I think
that’s what Matt was talking about, because I was talking to him about that,
that you can do your victory laps, and you can decide that you’re gonna move
onto something else, but years have a way of slipping away from you when you’re
not putting out a regular book and you really have to bear that in mind. In
1986, I was definitely pitching self-publishing very hard, so I would have been
talking to Matt about that at the party. Why don’t you self-publish, like you
did “Mage” through Comico. You’ve got an audience now, do you really need to do
a colour book, or can it be a black & white book? Which [laughs] would have
been Joe Matt not very happy, who was one of Matt Wagner’s roommates at the
time and was his colorist. It’s like, no, Matt’s gonna need a colorist on
whatever book he’s coming back on. “Oh, I don’t know if that’s true, maybe
Matt’s gonna come up with something that’s interesting in black & white.”
I’m stepping on people’s toes. The same sort of thing, I was looking at the
galley proofs, which were done for issue 15. I don’t think the letters page was
done at that point, but the comic book itself and some of the text was there,
and I was sort of talking to Matt about it. Reading it and looking at it at the
same time, and Diana Schutz was there. I don’t think she was Matt’s
sister-in-law at the time. I don’t know when Matt married Barbara Shutz, who
was Diana’s older sister, but Diana was definitely at the party and was Matt’s
editor at Comico and was saying, “well, Matt’s gonna need an editor. What’s the
budget on this book going to be if Aardvark-Vanaheim publishes it?” Because
that was the thing, it was like, okay, you can self-publish it, why don’t I
just show you how to self-publish it, or I could maybe do a book through
Aardvark-Vanaheim depending on what the book was and how interested I was in
doing it, ya know, somewhere up ahead. And it’s like, I don’t know if Matt
Wagner needs an editor. You’re Matt Wagner’s editor, so of course you think
Matt Wagner needs an editor. [laughs] And we getting, obviously, kind of huffy
with each other, cause it’s a party and we’re drinking. No, I don’t really have
a vested interest in not hurting Diana Shutz’s feelings as Matt Wagner’s editor,
and just going, “well, Matt definitely needs an editor. I’m doing corrections
on his work all the time.” [laughs] I’m going, well, that’s not an editor,
that’s a proofreader. [laughs] Unless you’re telling Matt, “you have to draw
this sequence differently.” I look at Matt and go, does she ever tell you that
you have to draw a sequence differently? And Matt’s going like, ehh, this isn’t
just my editor, it’s my sister-in-law. Or my future sister-in-law. I was always
getting into trouble with people like that, and I’m reading the pages, while
Diana is sort of reading me the riot act on how necessary editors are, and
particularly for people like Matt, and it’s like, I found a typo while I’m
reading the galleys. [laughs] And it’s like, I said, that’s not how you spell
that word. And I show it to Diana and it’s like, [laughs] Oh now that’s cruel.
Don’t do that at another discussion about whether Matt Wagner needs an editor
or not. Then she looks at it, and sure enough, it’s a typo. She turns to Matt
and goes, “get me a red pen!” [laughs] And I’m going, what do you mean, get me
a red pen? Why don’t you go find a red pen on your own if you’re an editor. Why
are you telling the artist to go and get you a red pen? So that’s a very vivid
memory that I have of that party, which was a really great party. It was one of
those things that you don’t know, what is this going to be like? Is this worth
flying all the way to Philadelphia just to go to a party? And it’s like, it
definitely was, it was a very cool party and Matt was definitely a hot
commodity at that point and Joe Matt was a great colorist. Lots of folks there,
so.
Matt: I met Matt Wagner
in 1998? At the Wizard World convention in Chicago. Wizard bought the Chicago
ComicCon and it was the second year they were doing it, and my buddies were,
“c’mon, we’ll go to Chicago, it’ll be great”. So I brought my copy of “Origins
of Marvel Comics”, cause Stan Lee was gonna be there for the 35th
anniversary of the X-Men.
Dave: Oh okay.
Matt: And I’m like,
maybe I can get Stan to sign it? And then I had this genius idea of, I’ll get
everybody I run into that’s a creator that’s worked at Marvel to sign it first,
and then when I present it to Stan, it’ll be, ya know, all these people that
had jobs cause of Stan.
Dave: Good! Excellent.
Matt: And Graffiti
Designs had done the Mage action figure, and they’d also done the Madman, so
Mike Allred and Matt Wagner are signing at their booth. And I know Mike Allred
had worked for Marvel, so I go up and I have him sign the book, and I turn to
Matt Wagner, and I’m like, “did you work for Marvel” and he quitely goes, “I
did their Christmas card one year.”
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: And I sheepishly
say, well you can sign if you want, and he just kinda looked at me, like, “you
don’t know my career, you don’t know who I am. Go away.”
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: He politely
declined and I walked away. [laughs] But I went back and bought a Mage action
figure, not knowing anything about the character, just because I felt like such
a jerk.
Dave: [laughs] It was,
okay, let’s see if I can top that. That’s a good story. That’s a very good Matt
Wagner story. Eventually, telling tales out of school, Diana and I started
sleeping together in 1992, which was like years later, and 93, it was about a
year. And I was at a signing, I think it was actually for an event in Vancouver
and Diana came up from Portland for the event. And we were staying at a very
nice hotel. There was a Peter Gabriel concert that night and Diana and I are
having drinks at the bar and in walks Peter Gabriel and some hangers on, with
Peter Gabriel. Concert was over, and of course, they were coming to whatever
this hotel was, Four Seasons or something like that, to have drinks. And it’s
like, Diana is going, “It’s Peter Gabriel! He’s right there. He’s sitting at
the table right behind you.” It’s like, okay well, [laughs] it’s Peter Gabriel.
I don’t know if people know this, but Matt Wagner is a dead ringer for Phil
Collins, and Diana is barely able to concentrate on my conversation because
Peter Gabriel is like 12 feet away and I said, “why don’t you go up to the
table and say ‘my brother in law looks exactly like Phil Collins’!”
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: And she decided
not to do that. I thought it would be fun. I thought it would be funny. So,
anyway. So there ya go, John, I hope that answers your question as to what I
think the reference was. I think, even at that time, that Diana was writing
Matt’s letters pages for him, so the reference could be Diana writing “Dave Sim
and I”, Matt Wagner, “have been talking” doing it sort of through clenched
teeth because Dave Sim was talking about getting rid of Diana Shutz if
necessary and Matt Wagner not really needing her, which hasn’t been the case. I
think Diana has been Matt’s editor definitely on everything that he’s done
[inaudible] the Dark Horse Comics. Dave Kopperman, “I got one for Dave: what
was the meaning behind his use of the (modified?) ‘Song of Amergin’ as the
epigraph for Mothers & Daughters?” That was. I’m gonna read it real quick,
I’ve got “Flight” pulled out. “I am a stag; of seven tines. I am a flood;
across the plain. I am a wind; on a deep lake. I am a tear; the Sun lets fall.
I am a hawk; above the cliff. I am a thorn; beneath the nail. I am a wonder;
among flowers. I am a wizard; who but I sets the cool head aflame with smoke? I
am a spear; that roars for blood. I am a salmon; in a pool. I am a lure; from
paradise. I am a hill; where poets walk. I am a boar; ruthless and red. I am a
breaker; threatening doom. I am a tide; that drags to death. I am an infant;
who but I peeps from the unhewn dolmen arch? I am the womb; of every holt. I am
the blaze; on every hill. I am the queen; of every hive. I am the shield; for
every head. I am the tomb; of every hope.” When I read that in Robert Graves’
“The White Goddess”, I went, “okay, having read the whole book, if there was
one thing that, to me, epitomized the White Goddess, it was that.” He asked
“(modified?)”, if it’s modified, I didn’t modify it, Robert Graves modified it,
or somebody modified it before Robert Graves got to it. I think it’s definitely
YHWH before I knew who YHWH was. It ranges from different forms of animal life,
to different natural phenomenon, all the way to something as small as a tear,
as small as a thorn, a spear, a salmon, a lure, a hill. Like, you get this
microcosm, macrocosm, microcosm… an infant, which would seem to be at odds with
a boar, at odds with a wizard, at odds with a stag. Definitely at odds with a
womb, at odds with a queen, at odds with a tomb. And to me that just seems to
epitomize paganism, YHWH, the androgyny of paganism. It’s saying, “if I’m all
of these things, how could I not be God?” and it’s like, well because they’re
just things. They’re not God. But not knowing that at the time, not having any
ideas and dichotomies between God and YHWH, I think it was just an extremely
resonant thing of, because I was reading “The White Goddess” as research for
“Mothers & Daughters” and going, okay, well, this is supposed to be the
gold standard for the idea that there is a female equivalent of God. If I’m
gonna find the goddess, this is theoretically where I’m going to find her. So
it was resonant with something inside of me that I wasn’t aware of yet, and
wouldn’t be aware of for another decade or so, but it’s definitely an extremely
evocative piece of work. Which is why I had it typeset the way that I did. I
think you have to read it with those kinds of resonances. Efficacious poetry,
poetry that is supposed to essentially move mountains if that’s what you want
the poetry to do, needs those kinds of resonances. It’s not just the poetry,
it’s the delivery of how it’s recited, and always has the sort of, as it’s been
described and I think Graves himself described it as, you get that
scalp-tingling quality anytime that you read it. You can’t just read it
neutrally. So, embarking on the second half of Cerebus, which would be the
female half of Cerebus, I wanted to get her off to a roaring start and a
roaring start on as many different successive chessboards ascending up from
where I was, as I possibly could. And reading that I went, “uhh, yeah, this
seems to fit the bill.” Okay, onto Jeff Seiler! Hello, Jeff. “Questions for
Dave: Why so many versions of "High Society", other than the obvious
answer/s. I mean, I have (I think) three versions, including the first printing
copy with (as you noted when you signed it for me) "a rare intact
cover". And, I will definitely buy a Regency Edition. But, I mean, we're
up to around six or seven versions now, if you count the Red, Blue, and neutral
election versions. And that count doesn't include the hardcover,
foreign-language editions. Not to be a thorn in your side which, (obviously) I
have been at times over the years, but when do you move on to more remasters?”
Yeah, so, Jeff’s kind of a White Goddess, “I am a thorn beneath the nail”, if
my side was a nail, I guess. David Birdsong then answered, “Jeff, my suggestion
is that High Society is the biggest selling volume and is in need of reprinting
more often and is the obvious choice for the first deluxe hardcover treatment.
I hope it won't be the last.” Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. That’s one of
those, for whatever reason that the comic book field decided to not acknowledge
that the 6000 page Cerebus as being anything. I think the consensus is
epitomized by whoever it was on A Moment of Cerebus saying that “Dave Sim has
done some of the best comics ever done and some of the worst comics ever done.”
The unhappy consensus for me, as the guy that did Cerebus, and particularly the
unhappy consensus for Gerhard, poured his heart and soul into doing the
backgrounds, is that the present verdict and the think that is going to exist
for the rest of my life, however long I live, is that “High Society” is pretty
much it. There’s maybe some good stuff in “Church & State”, but even
“Church & State” isn’t as good as “High Society”. “High Society” is one of
the most wonderful graphic novels ever done. Well, there’s nothing you can do
about the consensus when it takes shape, and I think it has taken shape in that
sense. And consequently, well that being the consensus yes, this is always
going to be, lead with your best shot. When I was first talking to Dagon about
Waverly Press licensing to do a Cerebus book, it was, let’s do a book together.
I got his Jimi Hendrix book in and looked at it and went, yeah. Waverly Press
always does immaculate books. It would be really cool to have a Cerebus book
that was immaculate, just because Dagon James did it. And of course, that led
immediately to, well let’s do “High Society.” And it’s like, oh I don’t wanna
do “High Society”. Everything having to do with Cerebus is “High Society”. I
don’t like that focus, and it’s like, well, no, if you’re going to Dagon James
and you’re saying, let’s do a book, you know where the hot button is going to
be for Dagon. And it’s going to be, yeah, I get to do the first “High Society”
hardcover, and soon as I hear hardcover [laughs] my attention just goes
completely in the opposite direction. It’s like, yeah okay, just don’t make too
much noise while you’re doing it.
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: So, go ahead, you
sounded like you wanted to jump in there.
Matt: Steve Bolhafner
just said on Facebook, something came up about the phonebooks. I think somebody
said that they read “Jaka’s Story” and they kinda did an encapsulated review
kind of thing of how much they liked it. And Steve said, if he’s giving Cerebus
to a superhero fan, he lends them “High Society” because this is the good
introduction to Cerebus from the superhero world. But if it’s somebody that
knows comics as graphic novels from… I can’t remember, he named two different
titles… and he’s gonna give them Cerebus to introduce it, he goes with “Jaka’s
Story” because this is what, in Steve’s eyes, “Jaka’s Story” is one of the high
water marks of this is what the series is. And he went on a long thread saying,
this is the difference between the two and this is why I will share whatever.
And it’s one of those, why so many “High Society”s? Cause it sells. Why does it
sell? Well, cause everybody goes, “you can skip the first volume, it’s not
important. This is the meat and potatoes of Cerebus.” and it’s like, well, it’s
step one, but it’s 16 steps until you get to the end.
Dave: Right! Right.
Matt: Yeah, you can skip
the first volume but there’s a lot of backstory in the first volume that kinda
comes into play in “High Society”. There’s been people who’ve said, “I started
with ‘High Society’ cause that’s what I was told, and then I went back and read
volume one and ‘High Society’ made a lot more sense!”
Dave: [laughs] Yeah.
Yeah. That was one of those things that happened, I think, before “Church &
State” came out and people were saying, “yeah just chop off the first 25 issues
and pick up right here.” And it’s like, well, a lot of the later books are not
going to make sense to you if you don’t read the first one, although, I can
understand people having the opinion. Yeah, it’s all we can do, and I
appreciate Steve going to that trouble to explain why he does it that way, and
why it works that way. You have to look at the person that you’re giving to and
go, okay, what sort of person is this, and consequently, what are they more
likely to respond to? I think even at this point, I would advocate, if you’ve
got $100 to throw around, get all 6000 pages digitally, and then just like
cruise them, and anytime you see something that you go, “oh what’s that? That
was kinda interesting.” Well, read that one, read the page after that, read the
page after that. And if you go, “well, okay, I don’t really understand what’s
going on there, but that was kind of interesting”, it’s like, see the USA.
[laughs] There’s a lot of different places to see in the USA. You can say,
“well, go to New York City it’s the biggest, it’s got the most stuff, it’s what
everybody talks about. You can just skip the rest of the country.” [laughs]
Well, you can, but there is a certain amount to recommend Chicago. There is a
certain amount of stuff that you might want to go to Milwaukee, or Madison, or
you may want to go to San Antonio. San Antonio is definitely not New York, but,
if you like San Antonio sort of stuff, then you’re not gonna know that, so you
check out San Antonio online, it’s like, “ehh, let’s not try to understand
Cerebus too quickly.” Which I think has been the habit of people in comics
trying to explain, “okay, just read “High Society” because the rest of it is
just misogynistic crap” kinda of thing.
Matt: When you said “see
America”, it reminded me of the Canadian National Railroad did a short film, I
believe it’s titled “See Canada”, it was a Buster Keaton silent film made in, I
think, the late 60s or 70s.
Dave: 1967, our
centennial year.
Matt: Okay.
Dave: I remember seeing
that in school and going, I know that guy. Where do I know that guy from?
Matt: My Mom had a tape,
back in the stone age when we had VCRs…
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: …my Mom had a tape
of shorts, all short films, and that short, it came on, she liked it, it came
on again, so she taped it. And as a kid, I used to watch it all the time, not
knowing who Buster Keaton was.
Dave: Right.
Matt: So then I found
out about Buster Keaton, and I’m like, oh I know that guy! And of course, it’s
one of these, Buster Keaton is a brilliant silent film star, he made the
amazing films, like, I’m trying to think of the titles of any of them, but you
know, these are classics of cinema. But I go, but I like his later funnier
stuff! [laughs]
Dave: [laughs] And it’s
amazing, because he only had another three years to live when he did that… I
think he did it for the National Film Board in Canada, and his comedic chops
are amazing in that. I mean, his reactions, and it’s all silent. Just him on
this pushcart going across the Canadian National Rail tracks across Canada and…
yeah, I saw it centennial year, so I would have been 11. How long is that film?
Do you remember roughly how long it is?
Matt: I can’t imagine
it’s more than 10 minutes.
Dave: Really?
Matt: I will look it up,
because it’s the internet and find… and they’ll give me the Wikipedia all about
how they filmed it, who filmed it, all that stuff. But yeah, it’s not that
long, I don’t think.
Dave: Right, right.
Which is interesting because I was so hypnotized by it and it’s so effectively
did the whole country, at least what it looks like from the railway going
straight through, that I think I pictured it as being like a 90 minute film,
and it’s just a short.
Matt: It’s just a short.
It’s one of those, it was on this tape and as a kid, there’s nothing on TV,
okay throw in a tape, and I would throw this tape in, cause there’s a lot of
great stuff on the tape. I’m pretty sure that’s the tape that my parents have
“We Are The World” because this is an important cultural moment, we must record
this for posterity, and everytime I’d get to it, I’d fast forward, “ehh, I
don’t need to see Michael Jackson again.”
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: On another tape,
my parents taped “The Making of ‘We Are The World’”, and it’s like, in
hindsight, I know exactly why my Mom and Dad did it, but as a kid, you’re like,
“alright, fast forward to the bit we want to see.”
Dave: I’m in your
parents’ age group. I still like “We Are The World” even though it’s…
Matt: It’s one of these,
Paula and I have satellite radio in her car, so we’ll listen to the “80s on 8”
and it’s all 80s songs, and occasionally “We Are The World” pulls up, and I
start, ya know, my crotchety old maness comes on, like, “I remember when this came
out and it was a big deal.” After the third time, Paula’s like, “you told me
this story”, I’m like, “oh did I tell you my parents recorded the making of it?
And that Michael Jackson came in early in the morning to record his part when
nobody else…” And she’s, “yes, you’ve told me this, four times.” So now I have
kids, so when it comes on, I turn to the kids, and of course, they don’t know
any of the artists that perform because it’s 1980 vs 2020.
Dave: [laughs] Right!
Matt: 40 years, it’s
like, I bet if I showed the video, they wouldn’t be able to name anybody. I’d
be like, “this guy’s still active, and this guy’s still active.”
Dave: Yeah, I’m not sure
I could name too many of them. I couldn’t name too many of them at the time, I
just thought it was really cool that all of these people got together. I always
liked the story of the fact that, the rule was, no entourages and no hangers-on.
Just the artists. And as soon as it was just the artists, they all got along
like a house on fire. It’s always the hangers-on and the managers and those
people that cause friction and get in the way of everything.
Matt: Right.
Dave: Anyway, okay,
coming to the end here… oh, yeah, David Birdsong, “Question for Dave: I have a
very good working relationship with some fine men I would have never known of
if I hadn't first read Cerebus and then written you that first letter in the
1980s. With today's technology it is now possible for Cerebus fans to have an
almost instantaneous connection and you are the reason why. Did you ever think
about that any time since 1977? If so, would you be willing to share your
thoughts? You're no Keith Richards, but you do have fans, followers, haters and
not a few groupies over the years.” I remember Michael Loubert, Deni’s brother,
the guy who did the maps and the background and stuff like that, having a very
lengthy discussion with my Dad one time about where we saw things going. And
definitely, we both thought that at some point all culture was going to be made
available in some way that everybody would be able to access and that this
would be a transformational moment. And my father took, not only issue, but a
certain amount of umbrage at that, and saying, “I don’t see what you’re saying.
How would such a thing as that happen?” and it was like, we couldn’t really
explain it, because we didn’t really know what we were talking about. We were
talking about the internet and we were talking about Youtube, basically. And my
father was saying, “but why would that happen? Why would, when you can sell
something, would you make something available for free?” And it’s like, I don’t
really know, but I was picturing like, I’ll have my own television channel.
Someday there’ll be a Dave Sim Cerebus television channel, but it won’t be on
TV, it’ll on whatever this thing is, and my Dad going, “but how would that be
possible? Wouldn’t everybody have their own television channels if you have a
channel?” and it’s like, yeah, and it’s like, “well then, there wouldn’t be
enough people to watch it to make it worthwhile.” And it’s like, we anticipated
that but there was no way to predict what that was going to be like when it hit.
And particularly, 20 years past the detonation point, it’s certainly
interesting. I think it’s sorting itself out. I think A Moment of Cerebus is
far more effective and less irritating thing than the Yahoo Newsgroup was. You
know, I don’t have time, and I don’t have the access to follow A Moment of
Cerebus, because I haven’t even been on the internet since the lockdown started
in March because I just didn’t have access to the Wi-Fi environment. But
definitely I remember going to the library and going, “well okay, it’s the
Cerebus Yahoo Newsgroup. This is theoretically about your book, and this is
supposed to be about you, you should be able to look at this for longer than
five minutes without going, ‘I really don’t get this. I completely give up.’”
And I would do it. I would go to the library and finish doing whatever it is
that I had to do at the library and go, okay, let’s check the internet, I can
access it with my library card. And I would read the Yahoo Newsgroup for all of
four minutes, and go, “okay, now I’m equal parts irritated, bored, frustrated,
because it’s just the same eight people all talking about Star Wars! [laughs]
And I don’t see why this is called the Cerebus Newsgroup, they’re talking about
Star Wars.” But I was pretty sure, alright, everytime I’m on here they’re
talking about Star Wars, so I don’t think it’s just that I happen to log on at
a time when they were talking about Star Wars. This is a Star Wars newsgroup
that happened to all come together because they also happened to read Cerebus.
So…
Matt: Every now and
then, cause I have… once I joined up in 2004 or 2005, I had gmail, and gmail
gives you unlimited storage, it’s all digital. And I was saving all the emails
so I could go back if I needed something. And every now and then when I do a
search, old Yahoo Group messages show up, and there’s a part of me that goes,
“there’s something here I want, and I have to find it.” And there’s another
part of me that’s like, “Matt, the title of the email that I wrote is ‘Off
Topic But Begrudgingly Going Back on Topic’.” Ya know, trying to drag the
subject back to Cerebus, and I’m like, you knew then that this was, like you
said, eight guys who want to talk about Blondie and five guys going, “what does
Cerebus have to do with Blondie?” and somebody going, “oh well, I’m here trying
to drag the discussion back” and it’s like, at a certain point, no, somebody
mentioned Blondie, we’re gonna talk about Blondie for a couple of days.
Dave: [laughs] Yeah,
yeah. And it had a moderator.
Matt: There were three
moderators!
Dave: Right, right. And
it’s like, a moderator is supposed to be able to get this under control.
Matt: Margaret did a
great job. Margaret would, if somebody was off-topic but the title of the post
was on topic, she would slap people down pretty quickly of, “change the title”,
or she would change the title and say, “I’m changing this to ‘off-topic’ because
it’s off-topic. You can talk about Blondie till you’re blue in the face, but
label it off-topic.”
Dave: Okay.
Matt: She was really
good. Tundis was alright. Lenny was great, cause we would talk about something
and two months later Lenny would finally see the email and come back in with
his view on it. Every now and then Lenny will send an email, and it’s like,
Lenny, it’s been like 7 years, nobody’s in the Yahoo Group anymore.
Dave: [laughs] Lenny’s
been mulling it over!
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: It’s like, Lenny’s
got a Talmudic scholar inside of him that goes, “hmm, I think I better mull
this over a little while before I actually say something.” And like you say,
six years later he goes, “okay! I think now I’m ready to tell you people some
stuff.”
Matt: [laughs] One of
them, it was a TV show, somebody had recommended it and five years later Lenny
got around to watching it. He’s like, “yeah it was a really good show. Thanks
for the recommendation!” I’m like, I’m pretty sure that guy doesn’t have a
computer anymore, Lenny!
Dave: [laughs] He hasn’t
posted since the late 1990s, but that’s good. We’ll leave that just the way it
is. Okay, yeah, I had forgotten that, the three moderators thing, and it’s
like, yeah, that was, “this is the way we’re gonna do the internet until we
start figuring out, no there’s got to be a better way to run a railroad than
this.” Who knows, maybe we’re gonna get even better at this, and the A Moment
of Cerebus co-equivalent in 2040 will just be so scrupulously informative, and
so infrequently digressive that it will be just enough to melt your little
Cerebus mind right here in 2020.
Matt: [laughs] Maybe,
maybe. If I’m in charge, probably not!
Dave: [laughs] Well,
we’ll find out. Sometimes it seems like we’re making progress. Reading the
descriptions of the first Presidential debate in the newspaper, [laughs] I’m
going, uhh, this sounds more like the Yahoo Newsgroup than it sounds like a
Presidential debate, but, ehh, what do I know, anyway.
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: “TMI bit: In that
first letter I mentioned that I hoped to pass on my Cerebus trades to my son
some day. As it turns out he is not likely to read it, but he is a big fan of
Cerebus In Hell?” Excellent! I did not know that. That the little Birdsong is a
“Cerebus in Hell?” fan. That makes me feel good inside. “As is my daughter
(well, Baby Yoda Cerebus at least).” A privileged daughter who gets to read
“Baby (Yoda) Cerebus” before “Baby (Yoda) Cerebus” comes out. Which we will
remind everybody is going to be May of 2021 and we’ll do a little showing off,
Matt and I both being members of the “Cerebus in Hell?” team and go, January is
the “Cerebus in Hell? Preview”, which will preview all 12 issues coming out in
2021, and as the solicitation says, yes, they’re all done. Eat your heart out,
fellow comics publishers. We are the point man in the comic book field. I’m
pretty sure there aren’t any other comic books from December 2021 that are done
right now. So, high five, Matt!
Matt: They’ve been
sending me the proofs, going, okay, here’s the proof, take a look. Find
anything that’s wrong so we can fix it. And I’m like, okay, I’m gonna read
this, and soon as I have time, and it’s like, alright. And normally it’s Ben
Hobbs sends it out and you got a couple of weeks to look it over. And lately
he’s been sending me one every day, and it’s like, I’m somehow five issues of
“Cerebus in Hell?” behind and they’re not even published yet?
Dave: [laughs] That’s me
leaning on Benjamin and going, if you can get caught up to me, like I’m working
on the March 2022 issue. I’m telling him and Birdsong, you have no idea how
liberating it is to be all the way caught up and a year and a half ahead of the
publication date, which are only a year ahead of the solicitation date. Which
is one of the problems there. It’s like, all I really have to do with “Cerebus
in Hell?” is do one strip a day to stay a year and a half ahead, and makes you
feel like Superman. It really does. But you’re right. Roly and I went up to the
Frederick Mall today and I got three, count ‘em, three Cerebus prototypes to
proofread. So I got Benjamin sold on, this better be pretty cool when I get
caught up, cause man, this is a lot of work. Tying off all of these loose ends.
The issue isn’t done until the preview for 2022 for the issue is done, the
solicitation is done, the inside front cover is done, the front cover is done,
the back cover is done. They’ve all been approved in prototype form and we just
gotta get every part of the juggernaut caught up to where we are in 2022. And
then, as I explained to the guys, same deal with Gerhard and I going to Hawaii
for three months and getting give issues done, it’s as much aversion therapy as
anything else. Never, never lose lead time, cause it’s almost impossible to
build up, and desperately easy to have it disappear out from under you. But,
definitely, Mr Birdsong, sir, let me know your son’s name. I don’t even know
your son’s name, and your daughter, and I will definitely sign “Cerebus in
Hell?” for both of them and send them to him. Because, nobody’s getting paid
until sales go up, so we’re all looking forward to getting paid for “Batvark:
Penis”. Who knew that a penis would be the first profitable thing that we did
on “Cerebus in Hell?” and we’re all looking forward to that, even though sales
go right back down after that to 1800.
Matt: Larry Wooten… I
got my 10 virgin “Batvark: Penis”es in the mail and I took a picture, and put
it on Facebook, and Larry Wooten was like, “where do I get one of them?” I’m
like, “well, you gotta ask Hobbs!” There’s a meme of Pennywise the Clown from
“It” from the TV Movie in the sewer and he says, “I got whatever” and then the
next three panels is a woman crawling in through a storm drain. Now, the
original images of her doing this, I guess there was a cat stuck in the sewer
and she rescued it? But it’s always, Pennywise saying, “Hey kid, I got Pokemon
Go down here.” and it’s girl crawling into the sewer. So, Larry made it so
it’s, “Hey kid, I got ‘Batvark: Penis’ down here” and the girl’s crawling in.
And he made a second version where it’s Elrod doing the same bit of, “I got
‘Batvark: Penis’ down here.” and crawling in, and I responded with a photo of
me going, you gotta talk to Hobbs, and Larry posted it with him superimposed,
yelling down to the sewer, “Hey, Hobbs! Hobbs! I got money! I need ‘Penis’!”
Dave:
[laughs] Virgin “Penis”!
Matt:
Virgin “Penis”!
Dave: Not “Penis”,
virgin “Penis”. That’s…
Matt: He did say “Virgin
‘Penis’” in it and when that showed up, I just started dying, like, this is
almost as good as “Woman” of, ya know, all the phone calls of, “Hey Dave, when
are ‘Women’ going to be available?” [laughs]
Dave: That’s right,
we’re all out of “Women”. Order your “Women” now. Yeah, I’m curious as to what
Hobbs is gonna do with those. He’s got like 200 of them. This is the first time
we got a reorder for 1600 and Diamond has authorized us to do a second printing
of “XXXXX” the Grandma Version, but I don’t know what I would do if I was
Hobbs. It’s like, he can autograph them and auction them on eBay.
Matt: I asked him what
he was gonna do and he’s like, “Yeah, I’m still trying to figure that out” and
meanwhile, I put it out there that I have a couple copies and I’m getting
emails going, “well what do I gotta do to get it”. One of the things I said on
AMoC is that “Batvark: Penis” is available at your local store, we’re not sure
about “Batvark: XXX” because there’s two listings in Diamond, so it might not
be there yet. And then there’s “Batvark: Virgin Penis” but you gotta know a guy
who knows a guy, and then in parenthesis I put, “(I’m a guy)”.
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: Cause I’m a guy
who knows a guy! I know Hobbs. [laughs]
Dave: [laughs] Who’s
looking for “Penis”es? Got your “Penis” right here! Got your virgin “Penis”!
How much do we bid for a virgin “Penis”?
Matt: I’m gonna…
Dave: It does make me
wonder, because [repeats from “he’s got like 200 of them” from a few minutes
ago onward] Rich and Jeff Seiler got the inside-out “Amicable Spider-Vark” with
“Batvark: Penis” on the front, up to $150 US. That was when I stopped just
sending them to people and handing them out. It’s like, wait a minute! Whoa
whoa whoa! I only got another 50 of these.
Matt: After Rich won the
auction for $150, I sent him, cause he had asked me about “Glamourpuss” cause I
had talked about… I went through the “Glamourpuss” archive of, this is the
story behind page 9 of issue 25 and how it came to be. Because I just was quoting
the actual pamphlet that I created, it said something about, ya know, “now that
you bought the issue” type thing, and he’s like, “that sounds like you got
copies. Can you hook me up?” type thing. And I’m like you paid $150 for a copy
of Spider-Vark that’s mis-stapled. So I signed and sent him “Glamourpuss” 25 /
“Zootanapuss” #whatever, and I got in my copies of the virgin “Penis” in, so
I’m like, I’ll throw one of these in there too. So he got one of my copies,
cause I’m like, alright, you know, you spent $150, you get something neat.
Dave: Aww, that’s so…
stupid of you.
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: No, no, no, I
meant to say nice. Nice. That’s so nice of you! That’s nice of you.
Matt: It’s one of those,
I went, on the one hand I’m like, I only have 10 of these and they might be
worth millions, and on the other hand, this guy spent $150 on a misprinted
comic book. I can afford to be nice.
Dave: I picture Hobbs
just sitting in his bedroom with the stack of them going, “Mine! All mine! All
the virgin ‘Penis’es… well, not all of them.”
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: Like, he sent me
three of them, and he signed them in gold on the front, so, I’m gonna sign mine
in gold and number them #1 out of… that was one of the disappointments. He was
supposed to get his own print run number on the front so that it would be “out
of 200”, but…
Matt: I thought it was,
on the back, that it’s out of 253.
Dave: Oh is it?!
Matt: It’s on the back
cover.
Dave: It’s on the back
cover? Oh, he really didn’t want any type on the front cover.
Matt: Yeah!
Dave: Oh man, okay.
Yeah, when he’s lookin’ for a virgin “Penis”, he’s lookin’ for a VIRGIN
“Penis”! He don’t want no “Penis” that’s been messin’ around with no type, no
how! Okay! Alrighty, Benjamin. You go boy!
Matt: One of the reasons
I gave one of my 10 copies away was cause there was a part of me going, I have
a box in the basement with the “Glamourpuss” issues I still have. I
consolidated cause I got like 10 or 11 boxes from Aardvark-Vanaheim that I’m
hanging onto cause I’m a hoarder, and I consolidated them all into one box, and
I’m thinking to myself going, one day I will die and my daughters will open up
this box that has my name on it and Cerebus is the return address and go,
“what’s in here?” and find a comic titled “Penis”…
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: And, hopefully
they’ll be old enough that they won’t just snicker like schoolgirls the entire
time, but I’m pretty sure they’re going to. And it’s like, I can afford to get
rid of one cause 10 copies is weird, 9 copies is odd, 5 copies is “okay, Dad”,
except for maybe if I get a couple of them CGC slabbed, then they’re gonna ask
even bigger questions.
Dave: [laughs] Right,
like “what was wrong with Dad that we didn’t notice this while he was alive?”
Matt: Why was Dad
spending $60 getting a comic titled “Penis” encased in carbonite so that it
will be pristine forever?
Dave: Well, I gotta tell
you, it’s the first comic book in history have “Penis” on the cover. And the
second printing is going to have two of Michelangelo’s David’s penises on the
front. I had them as little tiny penises, because I’m an old guy and Benjamin Hobbs
just went, “nah nah no, we need nice big penises for the second printing!”
[laughs] Okay, I gotta go, Matt. This time of year the prayer time’s backing
way up, so…
Matt: I kinda figured
when you called early, I’m like, oh wait, it’s that time of year where it might
be a, I gotta get out early, I gotta call early. [laughs]
Dave: Yes, yes, and man,
these Muslim prayer times keep you on your toes, 365 days a year with “wait a
minute, wait a minute. When did it start being just after 7 o’clock? The last
time that I looked it was 9:30.” Well, there ya go. You gotta be a much better
monotheist and pay attention to those things, and it’s like, yeah, yeah. Keeps
ya humble. So we will do this again next month, Matthew.
Matt: Not a problem. I
will be around.
Dave: Take care.
Buh-bye.
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