Hi, Everybody!
Well, I don't see a post from Jen "in the kitty", so I presume she's too busy globetrotting.
So, let's go to the big board:
 |
| You guys are no fuckin' help... |
Her last post, Jen said:
Just the GoFundMe Facts, Ma'am
- $18,480.00 raised to date from 323 donations
- 116 pages released so far as mocked up and/or drawn by Dave Sim through 21 Jan 2022.
- $120.00 away from unlocking page 117
- If you have not donated, a $5+ donation grants you access to all 116 pages and all unlocked pages moving forward >> https://www.gofundme.com/f/sdoar-2023
- GoFundMe now offers automated monthly donations! >> https://www.gofundme.com/f/sdoar-2023/donate?source=btn_donate
SDOAR GoFundMe -->> https://www.gofundme.com/f/sdoar-2023
So...less than $120? More to unlock page 118? Even more pages unlocked? Is a MYSTERY! We'll all find out when Jen defeats the World Crime League and returns victorious! (In September, probably.)
She has a winner for the SODAR Painting Raffle:
Philip Berkheimer Jr.
I've been informed that his prizes are in the mail.
And the new Raffle:
3) The next raffle is for a full-page Silverspoon strip from The Buyer's Guide for Comic Fandom #321, January 11, 1980. These are really hard to come by so, I hope everyone considers joining the raffle. Speaking of which ...
4) Last time I posted, I discussed raffle tickets were going to go for $5 a pop and no one complained, so let it be written, so let it be done. I also mentioned that all donations since the last raffle will be included, meaning we have 97 raffle tickets sold so far. If we break 150 tickets, I'll toss another Silverspoon page into the bucket.
Again, I don't expect a winner until Hanoi Xan has suffered a rousing defeat at the hands of DiGiacomo...
SDOAR GoFundMe -->> https://www.gofundme.com/f/sdoar-2023
Anyway, since I gotta fill space, here's the Jesse Lee Herndon transcription of the conversation I had with Carson when he was trying to figure out what to do to get the Strange Death of Alex Raymond published:
Matt:
Oh, now it says it’s workin’.
Carson:
Yeah. Boom. If, if the video gets glitchy we’ll have to try something else, but
so far it looks good.
Matt:
All right. So! We’ll…
Carson:
That, that…
Matt:
We’ll start with the beginning. So welcome to Carson, who knows jack and wants
the rest of us to learn all about jack so that we will no longer, “You Don't
Know Jack.”
Carson:
Yeah. [laughs] Maybe.
Matt:
That's… one thing I’m worried about, is that if we say too much, people will
learn about jack and then they won't buy the book.
Carson:
Oh yeah, well, we won't give away too much.
Matt:
So your Kickstarter is successfully funded. Is that because you guys just set
it really, really, really low or because… because you're popular?
Carson:
Okay, yeah.
Matt:
The best part. it's all digital, so, it doesn't matter where it goes. But we're
like, thinking in the future of printing stuff like that two page spread is
gonna be the middle of the book, so it can be an actual two-page spread.
Carson: Yeah, there's a lot of that on “You Don't Know Jack.” I mean, mostly it was Dave writing it anyways. And then, then I would come back and try and make it more fair to Jack, I guess. [laughs] You know, cause like it was a constant thing during it, like Dave was like, “well, I can't write this part because I'm not a feminist and like a feminist needs to write this” and then we’d tweak it to try and be more friendly to that outlook and then he would be like, “well, that's just not, like… you’re messing up the structure of the joke” or whatever. So, now that it's in our control, luckily, I can go back and make some of those minor changes that I wanted made in the book, that it just wasn't worth arguing about, and so I left them. Now it's like, ah well this is my version of the book, I can do whatever I want with it. Take out some of the longer winded passages that get a little cluttered and… We'll see. I mean, I guess we can release a digital version, maybe. Hey, Kitty. I see a cat, too.
Carson: Yeah, there's a lot of that on “You Don't Know Jack.” I mean, mostly it was Dave writing it anyways. And then, then I would come back and try and make it more fair to Jack, I guess. [laughs] You know, cause like it was a constant thing during it, like Dave was like, “well, I can't write this part because I'm not a feminist and like a feminist needs to write this” and then we’d tweak it to try and be more friendly to that outlook and then he would be like, “well, that's just not, like… you’re messing up the structure of the joke” or whatever. So, now that it's in our control, luckily, I can go back and make some of those minor changes that I wanted made in the book, that it just wasn't worth arguing about, and so I left them. Now it's like, ah well this is my version of the book, I can do whatever I want with it. Take out some of the longer winded passages that get a little cluttered and… We'll see. I mean, I guess we can release a digital version, maybe. Hey, Kitty. I see a cat, too.
Carson:
Well, yeah, actually, that's not a bad idea. Maybe we'll do a… we’ll add a tier
to the campaign, just the digital of all of Dave's… Well, when you post this,
people, let me know if you're interested in that. All of Dave's mock-ups. And
then…
Matt: I had sent two. I had a second pitch that had, it was the secret origin of Glamourpuss and I had a number of photos that I got from my uncle from the 70s of Richard Nixon.
Carson: Oh, that’s…
Matt: So I have a bunch of… Like I got, he had a bunch of NASA drawings for the moon landing, and he, so I got all these files. So I took all these Nixon ones and so it's the secret origin of Glamourpuss and basically it's, the pitch was that Glamourpuss came about in the 70s because Nixon wanted to recreate Captain America and… I forget who was. one of the other political figures in the 70s that’s in a photo with Nixon suggested couldn't this person be a woman?
Carson: Oh, okay.
Matt: And the costume is redesigned by J. Edgar Hoover, because I found a…
Carson: [laughs]
Matt: Cosplay photo of a woman as Captain America but like, it's lingerie. So she’s holding the shield and she’s got the stars and stripes, but it's like a corset and she's wearin’ stockings and garters, and in the script the line was… J. Edgar Hoover’s costume was rejected because test audiences thought it looked like it was designed by a 75 year old closeted transvestite.
Carson: [laughs]
Matt: And so I sent these two pitches in and Dave's response was “the closest you got to being funny was this line about the transvestite.” And in my head, when I wrote it, I'm like this is above over the line, Dave's not gonna like this. This is gonna be the joke that kills it. And Dave sent me this letter saying, “not funny enough” and it, stab through the heart, like, oh, what are you talkin’ about? And I came up with CerebusTV, the opening, Dave's got “Glamourpuss” artwork. And it's actually proto-Glamourpuss artwork. It’s stuff that, it was the original cover to “Collected Letters 3”. And it's “Pretty Girls and Other Subjects” and Avril Lavigne is one of the girls that he drew. And so you're watchin’ CerebusTV, he's, you know ,the camera pans in and it's doing a close up and I'm like, he's got Avril Lavigne. I bought an issue of “Vogue”, because I'm gonna write ”Glamourpuss” I need to buy a fashion magazine. It's a spread on Taylor Swift. I'm like, he's got Avril Lavigne, he's got Taylor Swift, I will do a bit that, you know, that's got this. So I wrote this five page script and I sent it in and I never heard back from him. And then, in one episode of CerebusTV, there's artwork of my characters that I threw into this script and I'm like, wait a minute, that's an Iguana and a Beer, what's goin’ on here? And so I faxed Dave a screen grab from the YouTube video goin’, what is this? And he's, “Oh yeah, you're in the book now.” And I'm like, okay, and so he sent me a check for $25…
Carson: Awesome.
Matt: He sent me the tracing paper for the page and all the photos you printed out to do this page. And I'm like, oh cool. But it's one of those like, my name is not in the credits at the front of the book, what's going on, you know? I'm not gonna be in the Grand Comic Book Database being, you know, the plotter and co-scripter of one page of the second to last issue of a book that got canceled the next issue because nobody was buyin’ it.
Carson: Well, it's on the record now.
Matt: Yeah, I mean, well, and the other one that I love is the page before that is a photo of Dave, Kayla I forget her last name, Stu Mentz who was a photographer who was takin’ pictures of Kayla for Dave to use in “Glamourpuss”, and Eddie Kahanna.
Carson: Mm-hmm.
Matt: And so, like, it's Dave and Eddie together in this issue because it was “The Last Signing” Eddie went to “The Last Signing” and Dave got this photo and he ended up using it. And I keep, every time I looked at the issue, I'm like, Eddie's takin’ over for Dave, I ended up taking over for Tim on A Moment of Cerebus, like, ya know, at the time we were just two fans of Cerebus and Dave that just randomly got put into this one comic and now 10 years later, look where we are!
Carson: There's Dave’s comic art metaphysics, right?
Matt: And that's… whenever Dave talks about this stuff, like, everybody goes “Dave's nuts, Dave's nuts” and then you start lookin’ at it, and you're like, “well, there's somethin’ there.” [laughs]
Carson: It’s the closer you get to him, he has a way of making it seem real, at least. You reminded me of where I was going, though…
Matt: Okay.
Carson: With the “Glamourpuss” stuff, so what I was saying, what I was trying to say and then I got distracted by how much I liked “Glamourpuss”, was beyond that I didn't, I'm not someone who's like read everything Dave wrote, I wasn't a Patreon person, so I’d never… when I contacted Dave, there was just some reason all of a sudden I got interested in Dave Sim again. I talk about that in the artist commentary thing that people are buying as the digital download. But all of a sudden, I was just like reading a bunch of stuff, but and thinking about him right before I… and that's kind of that comic art metaphysics, if you buy into it, thing. Like why did all of a sudden I get obsessed with Dave Sim. You know, it's like he pulled me into the event horizon, a little bit. So I had no idea about that. I had no idea he was planning these Artist’s Editions from the get go. I thought he was trying to get a book out because Dave’s always said, “I'm doing this” and then it happens and then he puts it out like, you know, if there's anyone who has a track record of getting a book completed. Right? Like…
Matt: Yeah, I mean…
Carson: Like, I'm making 300 issues and it's coming out and it's gonna be done by this point, like… so I thought we'd get the book done and he'd go to IDW and then all of a sudden these plans that I didn't know because I wasn't following the Patreon. To me, it just seemed like he was making them up on the fly. And he explained it to me as like this advertising scaffolding that he had and I said, okay, well, I’ve never self published. I didn't successfully… I didn't become the most successful self publisher, right? I haven't figured out how to sustain myself on my art for the time I was a high school dropout until into my, you know, mid 60s now, right?
Matt: Right.
Carson: So it's like.. it doesn't make any sense to me. I'll tell you why I don't think it makes any sense. But it's your book. It's your project like… and then, it got to the point where I just said, look, you know, I have my own career that I'm trying to get to and my success in that has to do with me, having my artwork and galleries, I need that on my resume to apply for jobs. And I've spent all this time working on this comic, which is great for the resume when I can say I have a book forthcoming or a book published. But now that nothing's happening, like, I just can't work on it anymore until something's published and I'm not trying to force your hand or sometimes he would act like I was trying to force his hand and it's like, no, no, no, like, I'll be here five years from now when and ever this all works out for you, like, call me back. But until then, I gotta go make paintings. I gotta have shows. I gotta focus on teaching because that's what I do. That's what I want to do. That's how I want to…
Matt: I think part of the problem is everybody's used to the monthly, or mostly monthly Cerebus of “hey, next month, book’s comin’ out next month, book’s comin’ out…” or even “Glamourpuss”, every two months, the book’s on the shelves and like Dave had told everybody that you know, the “Strange Death of Alex Raymond”, ya know, it’s gonna be perfect. He’s not lettin’ it out of his hands until he feels it's perfect. It's like, that's great, but… When it was just Dave by himself, yeah, sure. You want to take six years to do a book, take six years to do a book, but now you bring Carson and hey, you know, he'll draw whatever he wants you to draw, you'll redraw whatever he wants you to draw. But now, hey, it's been, you know, how long. The book’s not ready, and instead of saying, ”hey, Carson, the book’s not ready, you know, I'll give you a call when we’re ready to go to print it”, you know. What Dave had is, when Eddie sent me the announcement from Dave of, “okay, I'm done on ‘Strange Death of Alex Raymond’. I'm not…” you know, as Dave said, he's effed everybody so badly, and for the first time, you know, this is the worst he's ever screwed up. And I'm immediately goin’, well, you know, I still support Dave, you know, I had sent money for a fundraising edition. I told, cash the check and keep it, I don't care if I get the book or not, you know. Keep goin’, type thing. And then like, you know, then you commented of, “wait, the book’s dead?” and I’m goin’, Oh man, I forgot about Carson. You know, it's one of those, I feel bad cause like, oh yeah I forgot about Carson. But it happened a couple times, like with the signing of the fundraising editions of, oh yeah Carson’s gonna sign these, and you popped in, goin’, “I am?” [laughs]
Carson: [laughs]
Matt: Like, yeah, Dave, remember the guy that picked up the pen because you can't draw anymore? It’s like, I think you're forgettin’ about somebody, Dave.
Carson: Well… I mean, I don't, I didn't, I would have done it. I just didn't know, ya know. [laughs]
Matt: Well yeah, exactly, it's not that you wouldn’t have done it, it's just that he forgot to say something. Like, instead of sending an email to everybody on the Patreon and having me post it on A Moment of Cerebus, maybe say “put this up on Friday, on Thursday I’m gonna call Carson and let him know what's goin’ on.”
Carson: Well, I mean, throughout most of working with him that he, I mean, we were pretty good about that. You know, he'd send faxes to Sean or Eddie and they’d forward them to me or he'd call. That was the first time where I was like, I think, because a lot of the times when he called with stuff, I just was like, I'm not interested.
Matt: [laughs]
Carson: You know, it’s like, “go to the Heritage Auctions office in San Francisco and just like walk in, and check out their operations.” You know, and it was like, “well, you're talking to, like, the Vice President, why don't you set up an appointment for me and then they know I'm coming?”, like they're probably like on story 86 of some big-ass building in like one off it. It's not like the warehouse where they got all the stuff. [laughs] You know, I didn't like, what is he? I didn't know what he was expecting. And I was like, well, I'm gonna be, you know, I take students over to look at museums and stuff and you know, like, and friends. We have groups. I said, I'll keep an eye out for it. But, so I think he just got tired of having those contentious phone calls with me, maybe?
Matt: I mean, it's one of those… I’m tryin’ to see it from his point of view. “Hey, random guy, go show up and this office and say you're working with me.” There's no way of sayin’ it that doesn't sound slightly crazy. [laughs]
Carson: I don’t know that he wanted me to say that I was working with him, even, just he wanted me to go see what they do.
Matt: [laughs]
Carson: I didn't know what I was supposed to be looking for. I don't, yeah, I don't know. The same with the auction catalog. You're right. Like it, what… he wanted it to be a legitimate auction through Heritage Auctions but like with the catalog that says Hermitage Awesomes and… I mean, it's funny, I think the product is funny. I'm proud of the parody we made. There's a bit of writing…
Matt: Why are you parodying something you're trying to make money at? [laughs] Is the thought process….
Carson: I mean, I get it, like, and when you guys read the book, I think it will become more clear, like those of you who get the digital download. Like, I wrote a piece for the book about why people should be buying my art. Like, who is this guy? Why should you be buying stuff and approaching it from like my experience in the fine art world where collectors like Charles Saatchi will buy relatively unknown artists. A bunch of them. So you buy them cheap. He did this with the young British artists, of like Damien Hirst being the biggest name out of that group. I don't know if you're aware of him, but in the UK, everyone knows Damien Hirst, he’s like the equivalent to Andy Warhol or something, just huge name guy now. He takes his own work to auction now for 200 million or whatever, I mean, it's ridiculous. But at the time, like Charles Saatchi is buying these young artists straight out of graduate school, and for I don't know how much but not much. And then he creates this collection and then has a museum show and calls it the Young British Artists, here's the new wave of British artists. And so overnight Saatchi has made every artist in his collection important and now he can flip a Damien Hirst for, you know, bought it for 10,000 flips it for 10 million.
Matt: Right.
Carson: So, we were taking that approach a bit in the book, like, hey, this is the first time anyone's ever done this, you… in art collection, like the idea of provenance is important, the story behind how you got the art and who else has had it, like who else has owned the art that contributes to the value. So we were purposely playing with the collector being involved in this weird thing gives it a better story and then by buying Carson's work for however, a couple hundred bucks you get, but then contributing to this weirdness, then you're going to up your value. So, I mean, I get the logic of it. It was funny. I just, it never seemed like Heritage was actually on board and we're making these full... I mean, really, like, ready to go tomorrow products just to show them what we're thinking. Cause it's, and Dave's not crazy. He understands that he's gonna take it to someone and they're going to say, “You're crazy” if he just explains it to them. So in that, and I face this in my artwork too. I remember being in school and we'd have to do critiques every month or something. And a lot of my work takes a long time to finish, I can't just do something in a week and put it up on the wall. And so I'd be critiquing like halfway done ideas and trying to explain it. And people just couldn't see it. But then as soon as it was done on the wall, then they're like, “oh yeah. Okay, that's cool”, like, so I think it's the same idea like he has an idea of how this could go really well, but no one is going to understand it until it's actually in front of them. So we had to put all of this work in ahead of time. And that's how I got you know, that's why I kept going for a while with like, I'd like to get back to my painting, but we're working on this catalog. But I kind of see where you're going with it, you know, after a lengthy conversation about why in the heck are we doing this and then. You know, it just, when he got to the point of making the “You Don't Know Jack” TV show promo thing, I was like, okay, again, the pitch is fantastic. I mean, I think it would be a great TV show, but this isn't… I can't spend time on this cause it's just after this is done, there's going to be something else.
Matt: As I said in an email to ya, the worst someone can do is say yes, because then you have to do it. You know, you can pitch a TV show and if everybody says no. Okay. We tried we failed, but like if someone said yes. And like say Netflix picked up “You Don't Know Jack” as a TV show, they're going to want you and Dave helping with the TV show. And I can see Dave already goin’, “Oh go ask Carson, he’ll take care of that.” And you goin’… freakin’ out.
Carson: Well, I mean, if I'm getting paid for it for a TV show. Yeah, heck yeah, I would do it.
Matt: [laughs]
Matt: I had sent two. I had a second pitch that had, it was the secret origin of Glamourpuss and I had a number of photos that I got from my uncle from the 70s of Richard Nixon.
Carson: Oh, that’s…
Matt: So I have a bunch of… Like I got, he had a bunch of NASA drawings for the moon landing, and he, so I got all these files. So I took all these Nixon ones and so it's the secret origin of Glamourpuss and basically it's, the pitch was that Glamourpuss came about in the 70s because Nixon wanted to recreate Captain America and… I forget who was. one of the other political figures in the 70s that’s in a photo with Nixon suggested couldn't this person be a woman?
Carson: Oh, okay.
Matt: And the costume is redesigned by J. Edgar Hoover, because I found a…
Carson: [laughs]
Matt: Cosplay photo of a woman as Captain America but like, it's lingerie. So she’s holding the shield and she’s got the stars and stripes, but it's like a corset and she's wearin’ stockings and garters, and in the script the line was… J. Edgar Hoover’s costume was rejected because test audiences thought it looked like it was designed by a 75 year old closeted transvestite.
Carson: [laughs]
Matt: And so I sent these two pitches in and Dave's response was “the closest you got to being funny was this line about the transvestite.” And in my head, when I wrote it, I'm like this is above over the line, Dave's not gonna like this. This is gonna be the joke that kills it. And Dave sent me this letter saying, “not funny enough” and it, stab through the heart, like, oh, what are you talkin’ about? And I came up with CerebusTV, the opening, Dave's got “Glamourpuss” artwork. And it's actually proto-Glamourpuss artwork. It’s stuff that, it was the original cover to “Collected Letters 3”. And it's “Pretty Girls and Other Subjects” and Avril Lavigne is one of the girls that he drew. And so you're watchin’ CerebusTV, he's, you know ,the camera pans in and it's doing a close up and I'm like, he's got Avril Lavigne. I bought an issue of “Vogue”, because I'm gonna write ”Glamourpuss” I need to buy a fashion magazine. It's a spread on Taylor Swift. I'm like, he's got Avril Lavigne, he's got Taylor Swift, I will do a bit that, you know, that's got this. So I wrote this five page script and I sent it in and I never heard back from him. And then, in one episode of CerebusTV, there's artwork of my characters that I threw into this script and I'm like, wait a minute, that's an Iguana and a Beer, what's goin’ on here? And so I faxed Dave a screen grab from the YouTube video goin’, what is this? And he's, “Oh yeah, you're in the book now.” And I'm like, okay, and so he sent me a check for $25…
Carson: Awesome.
Matt: He sent me the tracing paper for the page and all the photos you printed out to do this page. And I'm like, oh cool. But it's one of those like, my name is not in the credits at the front of the book, what's going on, you know? I'm not gonna be in the Grand Comic Book Database being, you know, the plotter and co-scripter of one page of the second to last issue of a book that got canceled the next issue because nobody was buyin’ it.
Carson: Well, it's on the record now.
Matt: Yeah, I mean, well, and the other one that I love is the page before that is a photo of Dave, Kayla I forget her last name, Stu Mentz who was a photographer who was takin’ pictures of Kayla for Dave to use in “Glamourpuss”, and Eddie Kahanna.
Carson: Mm-hmm.
Matt: And so, like, it's Dave and Eddie together in this issue because it was “The Last Signing” Eddie went to “The Last Signing” and Dave got this photo and he ended up using it. And I keep, every time I looked at the issue, I'm like, Eddie's takin’ over for Dave, I ended up taking over for Tim on A Moment of Cerebus, like, ya know, at the time we were just two fans of Cerebus and Dave that just randomly got put into this one comic and now 10 years later, look where we are!
Carson: There's Dave’s comic art metaphysics, right?
Matt: And that's… whenever Dave talks about this stuff, like, everybody goes “Dave's nuts, Dave's nuts” and then you start lookin’ at it, and you're like, “well, there's somethin’ there.” [laughs]
Carson: It’s the closer you get to him, he has a way of making it seem real, at least. You reminded me of where I was going, though…
Matt: Okay.
Carson: With the “Glamourpuss” stuff, so what I was saying, what I was trying to say and then I got distracted by how much I liked “Glamourpuss”, was beyond that I didn't, I'm not someone who's like read everything Dave wrote, I wasn't a Patreon person, so I’d never… when I contacted Dave, there was just some reason all of a sudden I got interested in Dave Sim again. I talk about that in the artist commentary thing that people are buying as the digital download. But all of a sudden, I was just like reading a bunch of stuff, but and thinking about him right before I… and that's kind of that comic art metaphysics, if you buy into it, thing. Like why did all of a sudden I get obsessed with Dave Sim. You know, it's like he pulled me into the event horizon, a little bit. So I had no idea about that. I had no idea he was planning these Artist’s Editions from the get go. I thought he was trying to get a book out because Dave’s always said, “I'm doing this” and then it happens and then he puts it out like, you know, if there's anyone who has a track record of getting a book completed. Right? Like…
Matt: Yeah, I mean…
Carson: Like, I'm making 300 issues and it's coming out and it's gonna be done by this point, like… so I thought we'd get the book done and he'd go to IDW and then all of a sudden these plans that I didn't know because I wasn't following the Patreon. To me, it just seemed like he was making them up on the fly. And he explained it to me as like this advertising scaffolding that he had and I said, okay, well, I’ve never self published. I didn't successfully… I didn't become the most successful self publisher, right? I haven't figured out how to sustain myself on my art for the time I was a high school dropout until into my, you know, mid 60s now, right?
Matt: Right.
Carson: So it's like.. it doesn't make any sense to me. I'll tell you why I don't think it makes any sense. But it's your book. It's your project like… and then, it got to the point where I just said, look, you know, I have my own career that I'm trying to get to and my success in that has to do with me, having my artwork and galleries, I need that on my resume to apply for jobs. And I've spent all this time working on this comic, which is great for the resume when I can say I have a book forthcoming or a book published. But now that nothing's happening, like, I just can't work on it anymore until something's published and I'm not trying to force your hand or sometimes he would act like I was trying to force his hand and it's like, no, no, no, like, I'll be here five years from now when and ever this all works out for you, like, call me back. But until then, I gotta go make paintings. I gotta have shows. I gotta focus on teaching because that's what I do. That's what I want to do. That's how I want to…
Matt: I think part of the problem is everybody's used to the monthly, or mostly monthly Cerebus of “hey, next month, book’s comin’ out next month, book’s comin’ out…” or even “Glamourpuss”, every two months, the book’s on the shelves and like Dave had told everybody that you know, the “Strange Death of Alex Raymond”, ya know, it’s gonna be perfect. He’s not lettin’ it out of his hands until he feels it's perfect. It's like, that's great, but… When it was just Dave by himself, yeah, sure. You want to take six years to do a book, take six years to do a book, but now you bring Carson and hey, you know, he'll draw whatever he wants you to draw, you'll redraw whatever he wants you to draw. But now, hey, it's been, you know, how long. The book’s not ready, and instead of saying, ”hey, Carson, the book’s not ready, you know, I'll give you a call when we’re ready to go to print it”, you know. What Dave had is, when Eddie sent me the announcement from Dave of, “okay, I'm done on ‘Strange Death of Alex Raymond’. I'm not…” you know, as Dave said, he's effed everybody so badly, and for the first time, you know, this is the worst he's ever screwed up. And I'm immediately goin’, well, you know, I still support Dave, you know, I had sent money for a fundraising edition. I told, cash the check and keep it, I don't care if I get the book or not, you know. Keep goin’, type thing. And then like, you know, then you commented of, “wait, the book’s dead?” and I’m goin’, Oh man, I forgot about Carson. You know, it's one of those, I feel bad cause like, oh yeah I forgot about Carson. But it happened a couple times, like with the signing of the fundraising editions of, oh yeah Carson’s gonna sign these, and you popped in, goin’, “I am?” [laughs]
Carson: [laughs]
Matt: Like, yeah, Dave, remember the guy that picked up the pen because you can't draw anymore? It’s like, I think you're forgettin’ about somebody, Dave.
Carson: Well… I mean, I don't, I didn't, I would have done it. I just didn't know, ya know. [laughs]
Matt: Well yeah, exactly, it's not that you wouldn’t have done it, it's just that he forgot to say something. Like, instead of sending an email to everybody on the Patreon and having me post it on A Moment of Cerebus, maybe say “put this up on Friday, on Thursday I’m gonna call Carson and let him know what's goin’ on.”
Carson: Well, I mean, throughout most of working with him that he, I mean, we were pretty good about that. You know, he'd send faxes to Sean or Eddie and they’d forward them to me or he'd call. That was the first time where I was like, I think, because a lot of the times when he called with stuff, I just was like, I'm not interested.
Matt: [laughs]
Carson: You know, it’s like, “go to the Heritage Auctions office in San Francisco and just like walk in, and check out their operations.” You know, and it was like, “well, you're talking to, like, the Vice President, why don't you set up an appointment for me and then they know I'm coming?”, like they're probably like on story 86 of some big-ass building in like one off it. It's not like the warehouse where they got all the stuff. [laughs] You know, I didn't like, what is he? I didn't know what he was expecting. And I was like, well, I'm gonna be, you know, I take students over to look at museums and stuff and you know, like, and friends. We have groups. I said, I'll keep an eye out for it. But, so I think he just got tired of having those contentious phone calls with me, maybe?
Matt: I mean, it's one of those… I’m tryin’ to see it from his point of view. “Hey, random guy, go show up and this office and say you're working with me.” There's no way of sayin’ it that doesn't sound slightly crazy. [laughs]
Carson: I don’t know that he wanted me to say that I was working with him, even, just he wanted me to go see what they do.
Matt: [laughs]
Carson: I didn't know what I was supposed to be looking for. I don't, yeah, I don't know. The same with the auction catalog. You're right. Like it, what… he wanted it to be a legitimate auction through Heritage Auctions but like with the catalog that says Hermitage Awesomes and… I mean, it's funny, I think the product is funny. I'm proud of the parody we made. There's a bit of writing…
Matt: Why are you parodying something you're trying to make money at? [laughs] Is the thought process….
Carson: I mean, I get it, like, and when you guys read the book, I think it will become more clear, like those of you who get the digital download. Like, I wrote a piece for the book about why people should be buying my art. Like, who is this guy? Why should you be buying stuff and approaching it from like my experience in the fine art world where collectors like Charles Saatchi will buy relatively unknown artists. A bunch of them. So you buy them cheap. He did this with the young British artists, of like Damien Hirst being the biggest name out of that group. I don't know if you're aware of him, but in the UK, everyone knows Damien Hirst, he’s like the equivalent to Andy Warhol or something, just huge name guy now. He takes his own work to auction now for 200 million or whatever, I mean, it's ridiculous. But at the time, like Charles Saatchi is buying these young artists straight out of graduate school, and for I don't know how much but not much. And then he creates this collection and then has a museum show and calls it the Young British Artists, here's the new wave of British artists. And so overnight Saatchi has made every artist in his collection important and now he can flip a Damien Hirst for, you know, bought it for 10,000 flips it for 10 million.
Matt: Right.
Carson: So, we were taking that approach a bit in the book, like, hey, this is the first time anyone's ever done this, you… in art collection, like the idea of provenance is important, the story behind how you got the art and who else has had it, like who else has owned the art that contributes to the value. So we were purposely playing with the collector being involved in this weird thing gives it a better story and then by buying Carson's work for however, a couple hundred bucks you get, but then contributing to this weirdness, then you're going to up your value. So, I mean, I get the logic of it. It was funny. I just, it never seemed like Heritage was actually on board and we're making these full... I mean, really, like, ready to go tomorrow products just to show them what we're thinking. Cause it's, and Dave's not crazy. He understands that he's gonna take it to someone and they're going to say, “You're crazy” if he just explains it to them. So in that, and I face this in my artwork too. I remember being in school and we'd have to do critiques every month or something. And a lot of my work takes a long time to finish, I can't just do something in a week and put it up on the wall. And so I'd be critiquing like halfway done ideas and trying to explain it. And people just couldn't see it. But then as soon as it was done on the wall, then they're like, “oh yeah. Okay, that's cool”, like, so I think it's the same idea like he has an idea of how this could go really well, but no one is going to understand it until it's actually in front of them. So we had to put all of this work in ahead of time. And that's how I got you know, that's why I kept going for a while with like, I'd like to get back to my painting, but we're working on this catalog. But I kind of see where you're going with it, you know, after a lengthy conversation about why in the heck are we doing this and then. You know, it just, when he got to the point of making the “You Don't Know Jack” TV show promo thing, I was like, okay, again, the pitch is fantastic. I mean, I think it would be a great TV show, but this isn't… I can't spend time on this cause it's just after this is done, there's going to be something else.
Matt: As I said in an email to ya, the worst someone can do is say yes, because then you have to do it. You know, you can pitch a TV show and if everybody says no. Okay. We tried we failed, but like if someone said yes. And like say Netflix picked up “You Don't Know Jack” as a TV show, they're going to want you and Dave helping with the TV show. And I can see Dave already goin’, “Oh go ask Carson, he’ll take care of that.” And you goin’… freakin’ out.
Carson: Well, I mean, if I'm getting paid for it for a TV show. Yeah, heck yeah, I would do it.
Matt: [laughs]
Carson:
Yeah.
Carson:
Like, Netflix option “You Don't Know”… I mean the other thing that's really
frustrating and we posted an update about it. I posted an addition to the
update that Sean I guess put on the campaign where Jack… you know, like I
contacted Jack like once I got the permission to print the book. I said, hey,
we finally got the book back. I'm going to Kickstart it, like, can you help me
promote it? Let's make some money. Finally, and she was like, “yeah, sweet”,
you know. And so I made the little Kickstarter social media thing and gave it
to her to share and she shared it and said, like “Dave Sim has granted me and
Carson Grubaugh the rights to myself” [laughs]. And then it was, you know, so
there was always that which, like with the TV show bothered me cause like
there's some stuff that I… there's some animation I saw for the first time
yesterday that we're gonna put up for the campaign that Dave was doing. Some
drawing. He like made animation. You know, like a six second… he did like six
or seven drawings and they're on a loop and selected. It's like this jiggling
ass with the name Jack on the underwear and that was like the, you know, the
thing for the show, which is…
Carson: Yeah.
Carson: Yeah.
Carson:
I mean, they both love comic books and, like, Jack is like totally willing to
let us do this with her image and you know, so there is a common assumption of,
like, we can talk about this kind of stuff without, you know, like Jack doesn't
want Dave canceled.
Carson:
If we find a publisher and I finish the book, I saw all of this stuff in there
and then I have to present it in a way of like making it clear, or maybe just
now that it's on the record… Like I have to take Dave's premise at face value.
I can't like tweak the book, but I also have to have my own, like, look, I
don't particularly think that there's entities out there. When you're working
with Dave, you do have experiences where you're like, I, at moments felt like,
okay, oh my god, like I've been being chased by this entity my whole life. You
know, or like I've been… like here's another weird one that will definitely be…
I’m probably giving away too much, but I don't care. I mean, unless we get a
pu… if we don't get a publisher, no one will ever see this stuff anyways but.
So I'm reading, I bought and read like all of the Alex Raymond “Rip Kirby”, all
of Leonard Starr’s “Mary Perkins on Stage” because I don't know where Dave was
going with that. But the book suggests that that's important later on, that he
thinks Leonard Starr was involved with it somehow. And then, as much of the
“Heart of Juliet Jones” as Classic Comics Press has printed. So I'm reading
“Heart of Juliet Jones” and one of the strips there's a character named Carson
and I was like, Ahh! Oh cool, you know, and then I looked at it and it's Carson
G. His last name is G and the G is Gordon. So you've got like, Flash Gordon,
you know, and my last name is Grubaugh, so it's also a G. So, you have a Carson
G in the story. And I was like, whoa, you know, like you want to create a
spooky story like there's another good, like, that makes a good story right.
And I send it to Eddie, and he goes, look at the date on that strip. And I’m
like, what do you mean? He said, well, it was a September 6th. It
was basically a year to the day before the crash.
Carson:
How many people can say… that their perception of the world is taking in as
much information as that? Right? Like, that he is the guy that notices that
kind of stuff. And, I, as a drawing instructor, that is my job, is to get… And
I teach basic drawing at community colleges. I'm not teaching it to like art
students. So I am, it is my job to open people's, and when I say their eyes, I
mean, the interaction between their eyes and their brain. What actually gets
turned into conscious information that you're aware of. And I know how little
people see and I know how little information people actually take in. That's
what I tell my students on day one. This is a class, not about how to move your
hand around. Like everyone already knows how to do that. A couple things I can
teach you about how to do that. I'm here to teach you how to extract
information from reality, that you have not seen before. And so I have first
hand experience with how little most people are in-taking. I know that I
intake… I mean, when I'm going around
day to day life, I'm not always in visual artist mode and I miss a lot as well.
But Dave has leveled up to a point where he's in-taking massive amounts of
information at all times. Right. So he's like, in that Norman Rockwell example,
you have someone who really knows how to look. Now, it did trigger, he also has
a very specific interest, like anything to do with comic books.
Matt:
You gotta pay the shipping to the states, or shipping…
Carson:
And the level of detail and how tiny the lines and stuff that Dave is trying to
put in… Like I got the big “Star Wars“ Al Williamson, you know, as part of the
research. IDW, they just sent me that. It's like $150 book and you know at the
time, Ted Adams was still there, and so, they were, “hey Ted, can we get Carson
a…” yeah. So they sent me… it's huge!. It’s way… his art’s way bigger than the
11 by 17 that we draw on now. It's way bigger. And I wasn't seeing any
ridiculously small lines or detail. It's pretty… I mean, that's one of the
things that's really great about him is, as same thing Dave's talking about
Raymond, there's these moments where it just looks like, “Graaaah!” You know,
he went crazy and there’s these big brushstrokes, and there's not really much
detail, but it looks like detail and then you look at Dave's artwork and… and
it's like, I mean ridiculously little detailed. And so when I started working
on it with the initial Jack sequences, I was taking Dave's idea of like get
ridiculously small lines and I was being competitive like, can I make smaller
lines than Dave? And, you know, like, why not? And like comparing… I think I
did A Moment of Cerebus post a long time ago where I compared him. I think I
got down to like a quarter of the size of what Dave was doing and apparently
that's the stuff that he really liked! This like super densely packed stuff
that I was doing with the Jack sequence. I think, too, like Jack just looks
right for that, you know, she's got dark hair and she's not got fair skin, but
in the drawings you've got… you leave the skin white, you know, like… So she
has that really like striking combo and drawings that, and the dark background
of the shop I think it just had the contrast to it. So when I went into Volume Two,
I was actually trying to spread my lines out a little bit more, not goes small,
not go as dense to try and match like the spacing of the cross hatching that
Dave does. And then looking at the Al Williams stuff, I was trying to move it
more towards his stuff. And I mean, maybe it just wasn't as densely packed with
the detail… I mean, it's still so ridiculously detailed
Matt: [laughs]
Matt: [laughs]
Carson:
No, it's an inking thing, like shapes that you can make with the Windsor Newton
Series 7 #2.
Matt:
I was thinking about it when you were showing me the test pages. I was like,
it's kind of got that Bob Ross “Joy of Painting” thing where, you know, Oh, you
just do this. It's like Bob, no one on the planet can do that.
Carson:
On Volume Two, it's all stats. So the page is like a blank page with one
picture in it, you know it's not going to sell for as much. I wanted them to
look at on the wall. Because remember, like most of what I do is fine arts and
so I think about it on a gallery wall and can I put it in a gallery and add to
my resume that way. So that's why I was doing that, but I was talking to
someone while I was inking, I had a friend over and we were just hanging out.
And I was talking about was drawing and there was one moment where I did one of
Jack's eyebrows and it was like the perfect calligraphic one shot eyebrow that
I didn't need to fix. You know, I didn't need to go back and add a little bit
to, and I went [gasps]. And like the conversation stopped and I was just like
oh my god, and it was this beautiful moment of like… That's what in your… I'm
sure Raymond wasn't like that all the time, but my assumptions about those guys
is every stroke was like that for them, right. Every stroke was just, boom.
It's done. Move on. It has that perfect calligraphic simplicity and so I had
that moment on that one eyebrow. [laughs]
Matt:
[laughs]
Carson:
It was swamp cooler units in the window, I'm sure. Right. Like, that's an older
form of air conditioning. And then you're in the Northeast like during the
winter, of course, it's going to be… like you're in Connecticut in the winter,
it's going to be all kinds of moisture. You know, and it's just so there's a
lot of factors like this, the paper that you use, like, you know. I got all
kinds of different papers and I tested them. I really liked whatever paper I
had when I worked on Volume… Well, no. I mean, you never find that perfect
combo and it's like I'm absolutely sure that the brushes were better. We know
for sure because Sean found the old… the Gillott 920, I think is the one that
Dave was talking about Neal Adams using that's like an impossible to use pen,
and he was dunking it in the water? He was talking to you about that…
Carson:
There's been a couple people that have, there's a couple smaller people that
people have recommended I talked to, which is cool. And there's one like
publisher that I really love the stuff they do. That had just asked us to read
it.
Matt:
I mean, hopefully those 250 end on a big enough of a cliffhanger that somebody
comes back with, “I want to find out what else what's gonna happen”
Matt:
Yeah.
Carson:
No.
Carson:
Oops. [laughs]
Carson:
Yeah, and…
Matt:
The intention with that post was, okay. This is going to be as close to a
boilerplate pitch of, this is the basics of what it is, you know, because that
way it gives you or Dave or whoever, somebody, of go here read this. You'll
know what's going on. And I'm glad it worked. But at the same time, you know,
there's this part of me that, just like I have no idea what I'm doing. I
shouldn't be offering to help people!
Carson:
And so that was a probably an error on my part with a couple of the companies
that I sent something to. I should be playing by the rules from the get go to
show them that I'm not going to try and negotiate publicly with them. I'm not
gonna make them…
Carson:
Whatever.
Matt:
It's gonna… the book will come out in some format. You know, I'm sure there's
going to be a publisher, that's going to be, “Hey, no. This is an interesting
concept.”
Carson:
I hope so.
Matt:
I can't imagine that every publisher is going to go, ya know, cause somebody's
gonna go, if they hear the horror stories of working with, you know,
negotiating with Dave and go, “Wait, that guy? We don't want to negotiate with
him.” Hey, he's involved, but only a little bit. And as far as the selling the
book part he is adjourned from being in charge of that.
Carson:
Yeah, I mean, he's technically not involved at all anymore. It's like you know.
It is his book. I'm not. I don't want to steal it from him and make it my book,
but…
Carson:
So that's awesome, because that's what I was planning on doing anyways and it's
good to hear that. Anyways, we've been going for like three hours.
Matt:
I'm not gonna lie, this entire thing was all so that I could see if the stupid
app actually works the way it's supposed to, so that when Dave calls in August,
I can go, push button. Hey, it works! People will be able to hear Dave.
Carson:
Well, unfortunately, I talked you into using a different app. [laughs]
Matt:
Oh, no no! Okay, so I got a new cell phone yesterday. I have my old cell phone,
that doesn't have service, but it's got Wi-Fi and I'm using the app on my old
phone to record everything while we're talking, so I'm gonna see if the audio
works.
Matt:
Nothing works with Dave!
Carson:
Yeah, well, your kid’s going to be doing it again. [laughs] Yeah, it will give
telephone numbers and he can just call that telephone number, and then it will
log him into this meeting and Zoom can record it for you.
Carson:
[laughs]
Carson:
Yeah, well, then don't listen. [laughs]
Matt:
Yeah well… it's one of those, I'm trying to make people happy and invariably I
get… 90% of time it’s some anonymous person, that's when… like, we’ve been
doing the daily “Cerebus in Hell? strips on the blog and it got to the point
where we're getting anonymous comments about how bad they are. And… fair
enough. You know, some of them aren't that funny. But then again, this is a
daily strip where, you know, we're pounding these things out. And I finally
just commented of “anonymous comments will now be used as future A Moment of
Cerebus ads in future issues of ‘Cerebus in Hell?’”. [laughs] And people have
been going, “well, fine, use this ad.” And I'm like, you guys don't get it
because, like, one of them was just like, I'm trying to remember how they phrased
it. It was really… it was scathing. It was nasty.
Matt:
So when you're telling me is that you're going to send him a copy of “You Don’t
Know Jack” with a letter saying, “please film a video of you ripping this in a
half.”
Matt:
Yeah, I better go check, make sure I have two kids that are alive. I saw one of
them, but we’ll find out.
Carson:
Actually no, I'm gonna be moving in when the campaign ends, so. I dunno. We’ll
talk at some point again.
________________________SDOAR GoFundMe -->> https://www.gofundme.com/f/sdoar-2023
_________________________________
Friend to the Blog, James Windsor-Banderas-Smith has a new Kickstarter for Papa Balloon & Cactus #5. He's got a few copies of one of Dave's variant covers for the previous iissues as rewards.
________________
Our pals at Living The Line are getting it from "Diamond" (Or Whoever Owns Them Now):
Legal trouble. Lost inventory. But great books keep coming.
Hello everyone—
It’s been a wild few weeks at Living the Line HQ here in Saint Paul.
If you follow comics industry news, you may already know that our former distributor, Diamond Comics, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in January. Then, on May 16th, they were sold! End of problem, right?
Not only have we not been paid for any book sales since that sale closed… We've been refused access to our consignment inventory—books that legally belong to us and were merely stored in Diamond's warehouse.
Worse yet, they’ve now petitioned the bankruptcy court to sell that consignment inventory—including our books—without our consent.
This means we haven't been paid for books already sold, and we’re at risk of losing the rest of our inventory in their possession. For a small publisher, that’s an existential blow.
But we’re not taking this lying down.
Living the Line, alongside several other trusted publishers, has retained legal counsel and formally objected to this maneuver. We’re fighting for our rights in bankruptcy court. But legal battles, even righteous ones, are expensive, and we could use your help.
How You Can Help Right Now
1. Preorder My Gorilla Family (Iijima Ichiro)
Our September release is live! My Gorilla Family, sure to be one of the wildest books of 2025, will see wide release the first week of September.
Order direct from us (ships from St. Paul): https://livingtheline.company.site/products
Order through your local comic shop via Lunar Distribution: https://www.lunardistribution.com/home/search?term=My+Gorilla+Family
(We’re temporarily listed under our friends at Uncivilized Books — be sure to request it!)
2. Watch for Our New Book-Trade Distributor (Announcement Soon)
We’re onboarding with a new distributor for the wider book market. First out of the gate: reprints of UFO Mushroom Invasion (2024 American Manga Award Nominee, Best New Edition of Classic Manga) and MANSECT (2025 Nominee for the same category!). Sign up for announcements here: https://www.livingthelinebooks.com/mailing-list
3. Grab a Backlist Title Direct
Most of our inventory is frozen in the Diamond warehouse, but we have limited quantities of many titles on hand in Saint Paul ready to ship in 1–2 business days while supplies last. Browse what’s physically in stock here, including our much-beloved science fiction titles by Brandon Graham, Xurxo G. Penalta, Matt Battaglia, and Miel Vandepitte, and the stunning psychological fiction of Erik Kriek: https://livingtheline.company.site/products
4. Spread the Word
Know someone who digs beautiful, strange, unclassifiable graphic novels & manga? Please forward this email, share a link, or talk to your local shop. Every order and every share helps.
A Few of the Books We’re Fighting For
MANSECT — Koga Shinichi
Order MANSECT direct: https://livingtheline.company.site/products
FACE MEAT — Bonten Tarō
Order FACE MEAT direct: https://livingtheline.company.site/products
Thank you for reading, for caring about independent publishing, and for helping us fight the good (and occasionally slimy, mushroom-ridden) fight. We literally couldn’t do this without you.
With appreciation,
Sean Michael Robinson
Publisher, Living the Line
St. Paul, Minnesota
https://www.livingthelinebooks.com/
_____________
TwoMorrows has a new book on Marshall Rogers. Does it include the Name of the Game is Diamondback? Do they talk to Deni? I dunno. You might if you buy a copy...
_____________
Acquaintance to the blog Travis sent in:
My Kickstarter was unsuccessful. Thank you for adding it to the blog in the last several days.
I appreciate it.
I decided to just put the comic for sale on Lulu.
https://www.lulu.com/shop/fanny-kelly-and-hal-kolbeck/my-captivity/paperback/product-459wr8z.html?page=1&pageSize=4
______________
And Tim Gagne sent in:
If you can link this on AMOC Matt Allsion could use the help. https://crowdfundr.com/a2Yvxb?ref=ab_3UXdKBiCFCH3UXdKBiCFCH Bargain @ $10.
______________
I'm selling bootleg Cerebus trading cards featuring my art, coloring by Hobbs, and unused art of MY characters by Dave. $10 a set for 11 cards plus TWO HANDDRAWN cards (by me). Email momentofcerebus@gmail.com and I'll explain how to pay.
______________
The Help Out Bill Messner-Loebs Go Fund Me, or buy Rodney Schroeter's book with proceeds going to Bill. OR(!) you could buy Bill's book with the Dave backcover. I have discovered links:
Wanderland (Paperback but slightly more expensive...I dunno why...)
The site offers UK shipping, so PRESUMEABLY it's printed and shipped there(?).
And Journey Complete:
The site offers UK shipping, so PRESUMEABLY it's printed and shipped there(?).
And Journey Complete:
____________
____________
Our very own Jen DiGiacomo is part of a film production titled The Day Elvis Died. She'll never ask anybody here, but they're crowdfunding to finish the post production on the movie. (It's set in 1977, will a certain obscure Canadian cartoon aardvark make a cameo? (No. Elvis died in August. Cerebus wasn't published until December. Any appearance in the flick would be an anachronism that would ruin the movie for everybody. EVERYBODY!).) Here's the first trailer. And if you're going to Edinburgh Fringe, Jen's doing her One Woman show Woman in the Arena, pretty much all month. If you go, "swordfish". And send pics...
______________
Up to 35% off July 24-27.*
*Sale dates are not final and therefore subject to change.
______________
You can get all 16 volumes of Cerebus, many of them Remastered for $99CANADIAN at CerebusDownloads.com (More if you want the Remastered Cerebus Guide to Self-Publishing...)
_______________
Heritage has (coming soon):
- Page 16 of issue #44
- other stuff
- CEREBUS #18 PAGE 4 DAVE SIM COMIC ART SALE
- CEREBUS #181 PAGE 6 DAVE SIM COMIC ART SALE
- CEREBUS #67 PAGE 5 DAVE SIM COMIC ART SALE
- BATMAN AND CEREBUS ILLUSTRATION DAVE SIM COMIC ART SALE
Thanks to Steve for sending the links.
_______________
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".
_______________
Got a message from Studio Comix Press:
 |
| Click for bigger... |
If you wanna support "local" Canadian publishers...
_______________
Next Time: Ben? Man, I hope it's Ben...
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