TL:DW: An Audio Moment of Cerebus; Steve Swenson (originally "broadcast" July 13th 2020)

Hi, Everybody!

Mondays!

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Jesse Lee Herndon has caught up to Dave and I on the Please Hold Transcripts, And since I'm out of Proto-Strange Death of Alex Raymond pages, I may as well start knocking out these transcripts.

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Well, TECHNICALLY, in July 2020, I did the first Audio Moment of Cerebus with AMOC Special Friend: Steve Swenson. And since Steve's a Special Friend, and sent in more of them goodies, I'ma run HIS transcript. (Hey, it's not like Jesse is gonna get pissed that I didn't run A transcript, he SLAVED doing all of these and I've just been sitting on 'em...)

An Audio Moment of Cerebus: Steve Swenson:

STILL Suitable for framing...

Steve: Well if it isn’t the Manly man himself!
Matt: [laughs] Hi, Steve, how’s it goin’?
Steve: [laughs] Things are fine, sir, and you?
Matt: Uh, fairly decent. Fairly decent. Let’s see if I can get this work. Alright.
Steve: Is this film on?
Matt: Well, I’m filmin’ it but I’m also, I now have an app for doin’ podcasts so I wanna try that. If that works, then there’s gonna be two ways of talkin’ to Dave when he calls me once a month.
Steve: So, he’s talking on a landline, I suppose. Or does he have a cellphone?
Matt: He has a landline. I had a landline, but we switched out internet provider and the phone was part of the internet provider, so the landline phone has gone bye-bye. My old internet provider, two hours of video took about 24 hours to upload to Youtube. The new provider I uploaded half of last month’s in half an hour.
Steve: That’s worth it.
Matt: I was kind of… my wife’s been complainin’ about, “it’s $90 a month for the home phone and the internet and the internet’s always slow and we can’t do anything once a month when you’re uploadin’ videos and I don’t like this and I want it different”, and I’m goin’, “okay okay, we’ll try it, we’ll try it.” And after I uploaded all of those videos, I’m like, okay, it paid for itself.
Steve: [laughs] Happy wife, happy life?
Matt: [stifles response in throat]
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: At this point, I’m not even concerned about a happy life, I just don’t wanna get yelled at for, “it costs us $90 so that you can get a phone call once a month.”
Steve: Right, right.
Matt: Alright, so, welcome everybody, cause I am filmin’ this. I’m Manly Matt Dow, talkin’ to Steve Swenson and Steve sent me that thing that the camera’s pointed at and I wanna let Steve explain what it is.

Steve: Well, it is a, to the best of our ability to determine, it is a copy of Dave’s original inked art, from what I understand from Gerhard, via email. Gerhard would make copies of the art for his own use, in an email he mentioned he still has a number of them. As you can see, with what the example that Matt has, that one’s very brown. Gerhard says his still look white and bright as new. Where it came from, how it got out in the wild, we’re not sure. But I bought it recently on eBay. I did a little sleuthing, asked some questions, found out a little bit about it. And seeing as it’s in the middle of July, I was in the Christmas spirit and thought, ya know, I’m gonna gift this to a Cerebus fan who is doing an extraordinarily amount of work for all of us fans and just out of that sense of gratitude, I passed it on to Matt. The thinking I have is perhaps Dave brought it with him for a con and sold it to someone. I don’t think that’s the case, cause that’s clearly not Dave’s signature on it. Or, as somebody told me, if Dave did sign that, he signed it with his foot. I think maybe a better explanation is the copy shop or office supply or wherever it is the Gerhard made his copies, somebody kept one. And somehow it stayed in the wild. The copy has been dry mounted and there’s a little clasp in the back for hanging it on a nail in the wall. I’m pretty sure they did not do that in the studio with the original art. I would hope not. Which, again, is why I think it’s something that was sitting around in the copy shop. They happened to have that ability to dry mount it, or the fan did. Again, my guess is, employee of the copy shop knew a Cerebus fan, took the copy, dry mounted it, put a fake signature on it, and gave it to their friend. That’s my best guess. And then here, decades later, it ends up on eBay and I win an auction.
Matt: Well, I’m just thinkin’, that it might be a case that, cause it’s the cover to #80, that would put it around, like what, 1984, 1985?
Steve: Yep.
Matt: It coulda been a, cause that would’ve been around the time that Dave and Deni had split up, so it coulda been… wasn’t that around Honolulu, when they were in Hawaii?
Steve: Oh, that I couldn’t… that’s going too arcane for me to remember.
Matt: Well that’s, I emailed Gerhard once, and he sent me everything back and forth between you and him. And I’m like, “is this okay if I run this?”, and he’s like, “well you should ask Steve”, I laughed in thinkin’, “well, I’m callin’ Steve tomorrow…”
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: But I’m gonna ask him, cause it coulda been that he and Dave were on the road, either doing signings and conventions, or when they had, cause I swear they were in Hawaii for a while, and it coulda been a case of, they had it, Gerhard finished the cover, thought it looked okay, and went, “we don’t need this” and gave it to somebody or sold it to somebody.
Steve: Sure.
Matt: I mean, it might not even be Dave’s fake signature on there… oh now that I look closely, it does look like a D.
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: I was lookin’, like it could be a T.
Steve: Well, then, I also got in touch with Brian… I don’t want to pronounce his last name wrong. Coppola?
Matt: Uhh, I believe that’s how ya… Coppola?
Steve: Yeah, anyway, Brian if I mangle your name, I apologize. And he made that point that Dave’s signature really has remained consistent for years. Even when he was purposely altering his signature, the alteration remained consistent and the writing on there is just a spastic scrawl. So that’s why I really don’t think Dave ever had anything to do with it.
Matt: Well, it could be a case of, Ger or Dave gave the unsigned copy to somebody. Someone’s like, “oh hey, that’s neat, can I have it?” Oh yeah, sure, it’s just a worthless copy, it’s not the original.
Steve: Right.
Matt: And somebody else went, “I can make money on this.” Possibly somebody got it and gave it their girlfriend, and their girlfriend didn’t care, they broke up and then, ya know, years later it’s, “hey, we can make money on eBay.”
Steve: Right, right. Now, I did get in touch with the seller several times, who made a commitment to me to get in touch with the owner. Several times, and I’ve never heard back from them. So…
Matt: Oh, they must live in Atlanta and they’re helping Dave did research on Martha Mitchell for SDoAR.
Steve: Um, who knows?
Matt: No, no, Dave said he’s had this where fans have come and said, “Oh, I live in Atlanta, I can go to the historical society and get whatever you need.” and Dave never hears from them again.
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: Like, apparently, you go to the historical society in Atlanta, mention Margaret Mitchell and you get sworn into the Freemasons and they never let you out again.
Steve: Right, right, yep. The alien light opens in your forehead and you’re pulled into the void.
Matt: I mean, I know people in Atlanta, and I’m like, “oh, I could ask”, and then Dave says that, and I’m like, “yeah, they’re relatives, and I kinda want to see them again at Christmas.”
Steve: [laughs] Well, I remember the email you sent me the day it arrived, and you were just like, “no, that’s not what I think it is. Is it? Is it what I think it is?” So…
Matt: I emailed you, and then I emailed pictures to Sean Robinson and Margaret Liss, going, “this can’t possibly be what I think it is, because if it is, I owe him money.”
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: And Margaret was, “it could be”, I’m like, no, it can’t be. Nobody just goes, “hey I have a Cerebus cover I don’t want, you like Cerebus, you can have it.” [laughs]
Steve: Right, right.

Matt: I’m still debatin’ on if I’m gonna frame it or just hang it on the little hook, or I don’t know yet.
Steve: Well and that’s, I would, personally I think if you would frame it, maybe see what it would cost to do some conservation on it.
Matt: Oh, the other one I was thinkin’ of, cause I know Gerhard will take old sketches of Dave or anybody else’s and for a fee will add a new background, and I was thinkin’, I kinda want to send it to Ger and be like, “hey, put a background on, but instead of doing the actual background, do it as ‘Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century’ and just do rocketships and all sorts of inappropriate anachronisms” and then if ever I decide to get rid of it it’ll be, “oh yeah yeah, Gerhard put a background on it” everybody will be like, “oh that’s great, it’s a recreation.” No, no, it’s completely not a recreation.
Steve: Right.
Matt: But I’m thinkin’, yeah, ya know, rocketships, jetpacks. I think Ger would have fun with that.
Steve: Absolutely. But what I would… in that same vein, because I kind of toyed with that too, but I’ve made so many email commitments to Gerhard for projects that I can’t follow through on because, yeah let me…
Matt: Because you haven’t won the lottery?
Steve: Right, right. Scan it and clean it up.
Matt: Well that’s… I might get it scanned and I might talk to Sean about cleanin’ it up, cause I know about what his price range is and now that I’ve said that he’s gonna jack the price up on me.
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: The other one is, I wanna ask Ger, “so you have all these copies of covers and stuff that you’ve never done anything with. Why don’t you do something with them?”
Steve: I was thinking the same thing. Absolutely same thing.
Matt: And the answer, I think is, that Gerhard would say is, “because I wanna go on the boat.”
Steve: [laughs] Yep. Well, and it makes sense to… we all have things that we enjoy. And there’s the nostalgia side of it, and I don’t know if it’s the same for Gerhard, but… it may simply be his preference to generate the income the way he already is than, say, slap a signature or some background art on a 40 year old photocopy. I think there’d be a market, absolutely be a market for it, from the fans.
Matt: It’s the old problem of, as fans we would pay money for this thing, and as creators, Dave and Ger go, “you guys are insane.”
Steve: Right. [laughs]
Matt: That’s why we don’t have a Cerebus miscellaneous volume, it’s why, like, the past six ideas I’ve pitched to Dave he has very politely, but very firmly, shot down of, “no, no we’re not gonna do that. We’re not gonna make any money”, and I’m like, “but this is stuff people have flat out told me, ‘I will give him money for this’.”
Steve: Yes. Well, and do you remember the posting where he said “Strange Death” is dead, and talking about money, and I spent a couple hours and I pulled up Cerebus on eBay and I posted the finances generated in the prior 90 days of Cerebus auctions.
Matt: Yeah, I forgot to send that to him, I apologize.
Steve: Oh, but… so on the one hand, he’s a pariah. On the other hand, just from selling back issues, thousands of dollars are being generated. So he has, I don’t know if they’re still available to him, all those warehouse books. Monetize it!
Matt: Well, I know he’s got upwards of 250 copies of each issue that was available from the warehouse that he pulled and is in the Off-White House.
Steve: Right.
Matt: And those were gonna be, not the file copies, but the…
Steve: The Off-White House…
Matt: The Off-White House copies that are designated for after he dies and Eddie needs revenue, sell these books. So I know he probably wants to sit on those, but at the same time, it’s like… if you know you have the issue and you know that it can be sold and you don’t even have to go through CGC and slab ‘em and make ‘em unreadable. As reading copies, at $10 a pop with a certificate of authenticity, Dave’s signature… ya know, an Elrod bunny or a Cerebus tree, I mean… you’re 100% right. That is a guaranteed way that money could come in. Dave’s response, I already know, is gonna be, “but then you gotta factor in paying Roly to bag and board and ship everything and blah blah blah”, and I’m like, I keep tellin’ him, factor that into the price. Whatever you’re gonna sell, add the money in. And Dave consistently goes, “no no no no, it’s not gonna work, it’s not gonna work.” And I bang my head against the wall and every time it comes up, I’m like, I’ll go one more round to see what happens.
Steve: [laughs] When those copies first came up, either in… maybe I didn’t contact him directly but through A Moment of Cerebus, I again brought up doing custom hardcovers. And again, for whatever reason, Dave doesn’t see a market out there. So, 15, 18 years ago I was buying runs of the Biweekly Reprints, for crying out loud. Going to a local binder, having custom hardcovers made of them, and selling for hundreds of dollars. I’d spend $30 buying the books from Mile High Comics. I’d spend $25 having a local bindery make a custom hardcover, and I’d go and sell them to the second highest bidder on eBay without ever having listed it. It’s possible! It can happen! And fans want the covers, they want the essays, they want the Notes from the President.
Matt: I… I can see why… part of Dave’s objection is a lot of this, we did the book this way and if we change the format, now you’re askin’ people to buy a new format. That’s why, it’s 16 volumes, it will always be 16 volumes.
Steve: Right, yeah.
Matt: Things will be added in, possibly, if, like “Church & State II” might get “Square One” if they can get it bound without the pages fallin’ out, but it’s one of the thickest phonebooks and it’s why it’s not in there right now. And it’s like, ya know, somebody was complainin’ on Facebook of that Dave’s stickin’ to the phonebooks when he could do a much better format, and my response to this, which I haven’t posted yet, but next time it comes up I’m gonna say somethin’, is, when I was at a comic convention with my wife and we were at the CBDLF booth and they had a bunch of signed “Strangers in Paradise” trades. And she was gettin’ into “Strangers in Paradise”, and hey, this was signed by Terry Moore. This’ll be perfect. And there was the regular thin trades, there was the pocketbook trades, there were the omnibus trades, and she’s lookin’ at this, going, “which format do we have at home?” because we had the first trade and I’m like, “at his point, does it matter? You can buy the five omnibuses, have the whole thing.” She’s goin’, “but I don’t wanna buy something we already bought” and I’m like, “and that is what the format problem is if Dave switches horses.”
Steve: Right, right. Yeah. Well, I think, to me, personally, the work around on that is, you do a limited edition.
Matt: Well, and that’s… if you’re doin’, if you take, buyin’, bindin’ up six copies and sellin’ six copies at a premium price of, ya know, there’s six copies of this run and that’s it.
Steve: Right.
Matt: Well, Jimmy Gownley of “Amelia Rules” told Dave, “you need to do hardcovers and the way you do it is you order an extra 100 copies of the regular edition and then send them out to get bound.”
Steve: Yep.
Matt: And they’re limited to 100 copies, with a bookplate, signed and numbered, all that, all the bells and whistles. And Dave’s response was, “kinda sorta, yeah, no.”
Steve: Well, you can lead a whore to culture but you can’t make her think.
Matt: [laughs]
Steve: Ya know, and we all care about Dave, the work that he’s created, we all do our part to support it. And the rest is up to him.
Matt: Well, that’s, at the end of the day, it’s, Dave’s not going to do something Dave’s not gonna do, and no matter what kind of 15 minute PowerPoint presentation with all the bells and whistles is gonna convince him to otherwise. It’s like Oliver and the Cerebus animated movie that he’s been working on for a decade, that Dave has been adamant of, “I’m not gonna approve of this until I see a completed movie” and the comeback to this is, nobody’s gonna put a million man hours into this movie if nobody’s ever gonna see it.
Steve: [laughs] It’s a catch-22.
Matt: I’ve seen workprints of it and it’s Cerebus, but at the same time, it’s… the hardcore fan in me, goes, “but it’s not Cerebus. This is different, that’s different” and it’s like, one of these days I’m gonna sit my wife and kids down and be like, “we’re gonna spend a couple hours watching this animated movie and then when we’re done, you’re gonna tell me if you think it’s good. I, as a Cerebus fan, am highly offended that Oliver changed or added or altered, this, this, or this. Is this because I’m a pendactic asshole, or is this because it’s a change that shouldn’t be made?” Cause Oliver will send it to me and the Cerebus in Hell team goin’, “you guys have any notes?” and my notes are always, “it’s a movie and not a comic book.” It’s the same problem I had with “Watchmen”. Ya know, I love “Watchmen”, watched “Watchmen”, and I’m shakin’ my head, goin’, “why, you’re slavishly adapting this graphic novel, and yet, at the end of the day, you changed this, this, and this for no apparent reason.”
Steve: Right, right.
Matt: So, I’m like, I watched the movie once, and I’m like, I’m never gonna watch this again. And I don’t want to do that with Cerebus, because I want Oliver to succeed, I want this movie to get released. I don’t want Dave’s idea of havin’ Brad Pitt do all the voices.
Steve: [laughs] Yeah, I don’t that one would go over.
Matt: Oh no, that was the last time Dave was actively working on it, they had an in with a production company that had worked with Brad Pitt, and their solution was, offered to have Brad Pitt do all the voices, and I’m just thinkin’, “Brad Pitt doesn’t get paid 10 times if he does 10 voices. He gets paid once.”
Steve: Right, right, yeah.
Steve: Right, right, yeah.
Matt: Also, that’s the complete backwards way of animation, because, as far as I understand, animation is you do the voices and then you animate.
Steve: Yeah, I don’t know enough about that to say.
Matt: I mean, it’s one of those, the fun with being the interim editor, I learn all this stuff from all these interesting people.
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: Like today, I’m doing the blog post, and it’s, ya know, all the Todd Klein stuff and I’m literally adding the biographical stuff at the bottom so I can hit post, and I get an email from Dave. Oh yeah, here’s another fax about Todd, and I’m like, alright, gotta send this to Todd. Gotta wait 20 minutes to see if Todd has a response.
Steve: [laughs] He’s been very very gracious with his time, with his responses. I’ve been grateful for his willingness to participate in the feedback from the fans.
Matt: And what I liked was the fact that he sent Dave a fax with two pages, and they were two very early pages, and I looked at it and went, “those aren’t the first two pages that jump to my mind when I think of Cerebus lettering” and Dave rightfully, ya know, instead of saying ”those two pages aren’t good, you can use these two pages”, Dave knew, turn it over to the fans because we’re going to have that one page where the lettering was amazing. And I think that that was the right call on Dave’s part, and yeah, the fact that Todd Klein was willing to say, “my first two choices weren’t my first two choices” and he went online and was lookin’ and he found the two from “Guys” that I think he’s going to end up using.
Steve: Sure. One of the things that became more readily apparent to me, is in “Guys” and some of the later books, Dave uses the words structurally. As part of the architecture, so to speak, of the story.
Matt: There’s, I swear there was a dialogue between Dave and Eisner, where one of them asked the other one, “do you put the lettering in before you ink?” and I sweat it was Eisner, it might’ve been Eisner talkin’ to somebody else, cause I have of “Shop Talk” that I’ve read. And it all starts jumbling together.
Steve: Right, yeah.
Matt: Eisner flat out said, that when you design a page, lettering is not an afterthought. You have to have the lettering in mind when you’re designing a page. For all the, that Frank Miller is Will Eisner’s heir apparent, Dave is a very close second, because he really internalized that, a page isn’t a page until it’s done and you have to have everything laid out. Like, there has to be room for the word balloons…
Steve: Yes.
Matt: And really, I think, part of it was the series being as long as it was, I know there’s the Masters of Comic Book Art interview where Dave says “comics are their core is two talking heads” and I think, that was “Jaka’s Story” Dave, I think by the time he got done with “Mothers & Daughters” it was, no, comics are more than just two talking heads, comics can do things no other medium can do and I’m going to prove that to anyone that doubts it.
Steve: Yes, yeah. Yes.
Matt: And that’s why he has a blog devoted to him that some schmuck agreed to take over when the original guy said, “I have to go now.”
Steve: [laughs] Well, and, in thinking about the lettering, the first thing I thought of is, here I am, early 20s, Margaret Thatcher comes on the scene. Of course, I know how her voice sounds because I hear it in the news and he captures graphically her vocal inflections. And that’s the, for me, that’s the artistry in what he did with his lettering. It’s not just block type. You’re reading it audibly. You hear the swoosh and the pause of her vernacular in the lettering. And it’s just, I don’t know that that had been captured so persistently, consistently by other creators.
Matt: I, off the top of my head, I can’t think of anybody. I mean, Seiler wanted one of the pages of Mick & Keef on the side of the mountain, because, ya know, it sounds like Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
Steve: Yes, yeah.
Matt: And somebody else wanted Rick Harrison and Starkey… or Richard and Harrison, because, ya know, they sound like the Beatles. And part of me wanted to throw out the Gudre and Stromm from issue 18 cause, ya know, they read as German. They sound like Schultz and Klink, because they’re supposed to sound like Schultz and Klink.
Steve: Yes.
Matt: And it’s, yeah, the lettering wasn’t as stylized as it later got, but it was, I mean, Dave’s… that’s one of the things about Dave winning Best Letterer, well yeah, he should’ve won best letterer and I understand that he’s a little bitter that he was only ever nominated as a letterer, but at the same time, ya know. Yeah. Also I think that Dave, part of the problem came up in the Todd Klein thing, Gene Day thought he was a great letterer and had Dave do a bunch of work, and then Mike Friedrich had it re-lettered because he didn’t like Dave’s lettering. [laughs]
Steve: [laughs] Right, yeah.
Matt: And I think that slight stuck with Dave a little bit of, “you say I’m a great letterer but I still remember when Mike Friedrich said that my lettering wasn’t good enough.” And it’s like, “but Dave, it’s been 40 years, I think that you can let it go.”
Steve: Yes. [laughs] Yeah. Well, and I think there, his point was, you have this view of yourself, “okay I’ve made it” and then somebody the next rung up is saying, “yeah not quite.” I think that’s kinda the point that Dave was thinking. Because he was asking of Todd, ya know, “when did you know you had arrived” sort of a thing.
Matt: Right.
Steve: So I think we might’ve read that a little differently.
Matt: Well, I mean, well… Dave over the years has, ya know, the only recognition he’s ever gotten was for his lettering and ya know. I dunno what Dave expected to have happen once he got done with issue 300, I know that he’s said in interviews that it wasn’t… he said in essays and stuff that it wasn’t what he thought it was gonna be. And it’s like, well, at a certain point, you get issue 300 out and it’s three hundred issues of a comic, you can’t skip anything. It all builds on itself. It’s not like 300 issues of Spider-Man where you can skip 150 to 200 and you’re not [silence].
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: Ya know, it’s, I think Dave wanted a pat on the head from the industry. Ya know, gettin’ invited to the various cons of, “yo, hey, Dave you did it”, but by that point it was just, “oh he’s done? Good.”
Steve: Yeah, yeah.
Matt: And, I can see why Dave would be annoyed with that. It’s like, I got my contributor copies of “Walt’s Empire Strikes Back” in and I’m goin’, I’m really proud of this, and I called my Dad and I’m like, Dad, I got one and I’ll send it to you. And my Dad’s like, “yeah, I don’t need anymore stuff in my life.” And it’s like, I wrote a comic book, you dick!
Steve: [laughs] Oh.
Matt: Well, my Dad for the last 15, 20 years has been downsizing, ya know, cleanin’ his apartment, gettin’ rid of stuff. “I got this, do you want it? I have a barrel full of hats from the 1980s from” he worked at a nuke plant, and ya know, “do you want these hats? I got 50 of them” and I’m like, I’ll take one, I don’t need 50 hats. “I got all these old t-shirts that don’t fit me anymore”, well Dad they’re old t-shirts, I don’t necessarily think they’ll fit me and I don’t think I want shirts that you wore 20 years ago.
Steve: [laughs] You want my Dad story?
Matt: Sure.
Steve: Buy the house that I’m living in. I had the liberty to do some remodeling on it before I actually had to move in, and one of the things I’m doing is changing out the baseboards all around the house. And my Dad’s retiring, he’s helping me out, and he’s taking the nails out of the baseboards. “Dad, what’re you doing?”, “I’m taking the nails out. Bend them back, then we can reuse them!” I’m like, “Dad, they’re nails. Just go buy some!”
Matt: [laughs]
Steve: “But the baseboard’s still good!” it’s like, “No, I’m working with a friend and I’m going to custom make a baseboard for everything.” “Really?” Like “yes!” In talking with him about it, mid-50s, he’s out in the boonies in Connecticut, he and Mom are having kids, and he’s having to make the house bigger. Well, mid-50s in Connecticut there isn’t a Lowes or Home Depot 20 minutes away.
Matt: Yeah, you go to the local store, and if they don’t have a box of nails, you gotta wait two weeks
Steve: Exactly. And so, if you can bend the nail straight, you bend the nail straight. And so, yeah, the idea that you want the hats, you want the t-shirts, I know exactly what you’re talking about.
Matt: Well, and, part of it is, I’m 4^th generation pack rat and my Dad’s third generation. And because he had to clean out his Grandmother’s house after she died, and she was a pack rat who went slightly senile so she was hidin’ stuff, so like they found her Crisco canisters with Crisco in ‘em in her sock drawer cause she was hidin’ it from the neighbor that she thought was gonna steal it.
Steve: Oh, goodness.
Matt: Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, we were cleanin’ her place out, and it was pretty horrible, and then when my Grandma died it was, she had downsized from a house to an apartment but she didn’t realize downsize and we’re goin’ through and she’s got all these clothes that didn’t fit it, and “who wants these clothes?” It’s like, “give ‘em to Goodwill”, it’s like, Goodwill’s not even gonna take ‘em. And she had five end tables for a living room set, and who needs five end tables? So she had one, and she another one that she got from and all this. She had a storage unit and when she died we had to rent another storage unit to sort the first storage unit into to figure out what was all there to get rid of it.
Steve: Absolutely.
Matt: So, my Dad’s pack rat, but he’s seen the light, and it’s like, “I need to get rid of everything and live like a monk.” And I’m like, okay Dad, I totally support that, just don’t call me and ask, I have my own horror I have to take care of.
Steve: [laughs] I would be very surprised if some level of hoarding isn’t symptomatic to comic collecting as a whole.
Matt: My wife was working with somebody, “my brother and I have old comics, are they worth any money?” and the wife comes and asks me, and I’m like, well, what do they got? And she comes back with a list. And it’s just titles. Spider-Man, and Thor, and I’m like, Spider-Man and Thor can be worth money, yes. Ya know, schedule a time for us to go look at it, and next thing I know, my wife comes home with a plastic bag full of random comics. “She’s got these, and she says she’s got more” and I’m lookin’ like, it’s Walt Simonson Thor, those things are relatively worthless, you can’t make money on them.
Steve: Yeah, yeah, right.
Matt: And it’s only like 2 issues, and it’s a random issue of Spider-Man, and then there’s some Archie and Veronica & Betty, and I’m goin’, these are worthless. And she’s like, “well, what should I do with them?” I’m like, take them back and let her know her comics are worthless.
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: And a week later, another bag comes home, and I still have the first bag. And it’s more worthless comics. “Well, she’d like you to sell these” I’m like, I can’t make money on this. Even eBay, I’ll make more money payin’ for shipping than I would for the books.
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: And I started goin’ through my comics and I found these bags and I’m like, my wife hasn’t worked with this woman for like two or three years. I’m like, get a hold of her and see if she wants the comics. It’s like, nah, she doesn’t care, we can keep ‘em. Like, great, now I’ve got worthless comics on top of my worthless comics.
Steve: But you can’t throw ‘em away, right?
Matt: Well, there’s this part of me that’s like, okay, cause I have a friend who I let store stuff at my house. The deal is, any books and comics that he doesn’t want he can leave at my house cause then I can read them whenever I want. And I have a longbox full of comics that he bought, brought to my house, let me read, and when I gave them back, he was like, “no no, you can keep these and do whatever you want with them” and it’s like, I have 500 comics that I don’t want, that are relatively new, so they’re relatively worthless. Cause it’s like, all the Brian Michael Bendis Superman stuff. They’re like, it’s not like these are rare books, they printed hundreds of thousands of these things.
Steve: [inaudible] all over them now.
Matt: Oh, it’s just. It’s one of those, I put ‘em in a longbox and then I’m goin’ through my comics, and I’m like, I’m short a longbox, I need to get his books up so I can put my books in.
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: But you can’t throw away that issue of Archie because you never know, it might be the only one that’s worth money!
Steve: So, speaking of Archie Comics…
Matt: [laughs]
Steve: Two things to look for. One, early appearances of… oh, what’s her name? Cherry or something like that?
Matt: Oh, Cheryl?
Steve: Yeah. I can’t remember her character name. Those, but then also, the so-called innuendo covers.
Matt: Oh, like the one from the 50s about of Betty was drowning and Archie rescued her and he had to beat off three guys to do it?
Steve: Yes. Yeah. That’s actually 70s.
Matt: Oh, okay. I don’t…
Steve: And then Archie getting a pearl necklace for her. It’s just like, you gotta be kidding me. So what do I do? I go through my box of Archie comics to see if I have anything.
Matt: Well, the beatin’ off three guys one is on deck for a Cerebus in Hell parody cover.
Steve: [laughs] That’s good.
Matt: Well, it’s the one Archie cover that I know people know and I’m like, so I gotta find a way to do it with Cerebus in Hell. Cause that’s Dave’s big thing with the Cerebus in Hell guys is, “I’m outta covers, you gotta give me more covers so I can do more strips.” And they’re like, “oh, Matt’s got great ideas!” and I’m like, “really, cause I sent you guys a bunch of ideas and I haven’t heard anything back. Like, ‘oh yeah, that’s approved, that one’s approved’.” Some of them are, but like, I did one… “Fantastic Four” 48 parody and Galactus is changed to Gal Lactating.
Steve: [laughs] Oh, genius.
Matt: And I’m like, Dave’s gonna love that one, and as far as I know, nobody’s sent it to him. I’m tryin’ to think, there are a couple of others that I thought of that were iconic covers that he could do. But part of it is, I have to make a crappy mock-up, send it to them so that they can make a good mock-up, and then they send it to Dave and he likes it and does it. Technically, I’m supposed to be writing the third “Vark Wars” issue, I’ve been sayin’ that for two months now, or three months now, and I’m like, I’m gonna do it this weekend, and then I get busy.
Steve: Life interrupts. Like this phone call.
Matt: Well, it’s not even life interrupting, it’s like, I’m sittin’ at the computer and I don’t feel funny and I don’t wanna type, and those are the two things that I need to do right now.
Steve: Yeah. Keep a notebook so when the idea hits you, you can write it down.
Matt: I have all these little scraps of paper. The worst one is, I sent Dave a fax sayin’ that I had really brilliant gag but I need a number of Dante… err, Dore images. And I emailed all the guys on the Cerebus in Hell team that work on the book and I faxed Dave sayin’, gimme your top two favorites so that I can make this crowd scene. And I was goin’ through my email today and found Dave’s response where he went, “oh just pick any two, it doesn’t matter”, and I’m lookin’ at it goin’, for the life of me I can’t remember what this gag I supposedly had in mind is.
Steve: [laughs] Oh jeeze.
Matt: It had to have been, oh! Now I remember what it was. So, one of the pages in the issue is gonna be a parody of the old Heroes World Marvel ads.
Steve: Right.
Matt: Which were always really poorly drawn, so I’m just gonna draw the page. So that it looks really poorly drawn.

Steve: Right, right.
Matt: And it’s gonna be an ad for the Vark Wars action figures. And part of it, why I haven’t done it is I haven’t had time, part of it I gotta find one of these old crappy drawn ads so that I can do, oh yeah, I gotta make it look at least this good. And it’s one of those, the gag completely left my mind until I just said it now. It’s like, oh yeah, that’s what it was, and I gotta say so that I have it on record so I can play the video back.
Steve: [laughs] And remember what your gag is.
Matt: I work an 8 hour factory job, so I go to work and I pretty much shut my brain off and I pretty much just think all day, so I think of blog posts that are always brilliant and I get home and about a third of it makes it to the screen. Cause it’s like, I start typin’, and I’m just like, ahh, tired, don’t care, hit post. Which is how I did the screaming post where everything was large and in capital and it was like, originally it was supposed to be that, but then the post calms down and it goes from there, and it’s like. I did it, and I’m just like, I’ll just post it, it’ll be fine, then I’m like, I know it’s funny, but everybody else thinks I’m on the edge of a building with a shotgun gettin’ ready to take everybody out.
Steve: So, speaking of the blog posts, and I know that you responded to the message that I left on the post showing the PetuniaCon poster.
Matt: Yes, I’m probably gonna post that again on Monday.
Steve: I think one of the things that’s happening…
Matt: Too many things in a post?
Steve: And they’re too dissimilar.
Matt: Okay. See, every now and then I have to back through Tim’s old stuff and I’m like, Tim did these amazingly short posts about one thing, and I just can’t focus like that. I keep goin’, there’s 12 things I need to talk about, I’ll just talk about all 12 things, and it’s like, yeah, nope. I’m shotgun blastin’ it and I need to get more precise.
Steve: Well, cause I was honestly thinking about the guy who spend all of this time making these ceramic figures. Ya know, he’s showing like 10 or 12 of them. Those things were very well crafted!
Matt: Well, you saw the one of Dave holdin’ one, right?
Steve: Yes, yeah! It’s big!
Matt: That’s… I mean, those are not small.
Steve: Those, yeah, okay. Alright, so the smaller pictures are actually the size of what Dave was holding. Okay.
Matt: I believe, yeah.
Steve: I mean, I felt badly for the guy, because here’s he’s, this is something that I’m doing, and all us fans are like, crickets chirping. Nobody says anything about them.
Matt: The thing is, he sent the message to Dave of, “I want to sell these”, and Dave responded through me, and it’s like, I kinda gotta track him down to be like, here’s Dave’s response, yes, you can sell these. Cause I don’t think he knows. Cause he hasn’t posted anything in the Facebook group about, “hey, I’m making these figures.”
Steve: Right.
Matt: Part of the problem of helpin’ out Dave is that Dave’s like, “hey, you’re on the internet, go talk to this guy” and I’m like, I don’t know Adam Beechen, he’s like a big shot in Hollywood, I’m some schmuck from Wisconsin. Do you understand how this works? And ya know, Adam’s a really nice again. Like, the whole Todd Klein thing, every single email I send him I address to Mr Klein, I don’t know this guy well enough to call him Todd.
Steve: Right, right.
Matt: I mean, I’m sure he’s gonna say, “oh yeah, call me Todd” and I’ll be like, “yeah, uh huh, you worked on ‘Sandman’ that’s not gonna happen.”
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: Like, Neil Gaiman, I can get away with callin’ him Neil because everybody calls him Neil, but I don’t think I get away with callin’ Todd Klein, Todd.
Steve: Right, right.
Matt: But yeah, Dave will assume you’re on the internet, find this guy. We’re all equal, we’re all human, type thing. It’s like, yeah Dave, it doesn’t quite work that way in the real world. In the real world, it’s you’re sending an email to a guy who has assistants that take care of this. Kinda like back when I first started and I posted about Spawn 10 and I faxed Dave goin’, the hands through the bars, do you know who… was that in the script? Specific which hand was which, or was it just directions to Todd of “do a bunch of iconic hands”? And Dave responded of… [coughs] It was do iconic hands. Batman was in there, Green Lantern was in the thumbnail that Dave drew, maybe Wonder Woman, but like everybody else it was pretty much generic hands. But here’s Todd’s assistant’s email, and you can ask her to ask Todd, and I’m like, okay, so I sent her an email and I have not heard anything back in three years.
Steve: [laughs] Right, right. Yeah.
Matt: You know, the email came in, she’s like, “well, I’ll be sure to pass your message on to Todd” and I’m like, yeah, I’m pretty sure Todd got it and went, “Cere-who?”
Steve: Yeah. Yep. Well, our little corner of the world is very big to us and very big to Dave, but, ya know, these other guys, they’re still working on their careers. They have deadlines, they have families, they have other things that they’re doing. And somewhere in there, you have to, ya know, fish or cut bait. You just have to, like Todd kind of said, “I’ll just stick for two more days to see what people’s comments are, and then I’m out of the pool!”
Matt: And, I mean, Dave’s latest fax, his final fax that I put at the end of today’s post was him sayin’ that he really believes that “My Life as a Letterer” by Todd Klein will be one of the greatest books ever written, with personal anecdotes and all sorts of stuff like that. And I can see Dave’s point, yes. But is Todd Klein going to write this book and try to get a major publisher to publish it? No, he’s gonna do the history of comic book lettering with probably a chapter or two on himself, if that.
Steve: Right.
Matt: And it’s like, I can see Dave’s point. Dave is fascinated by this, and there’s other people who will be fascinated by it, but that’s not the book that Mr Klein’s workin’ on.
Steve: Yeah, no. No.
Matt: And it’s one of these, I get a fax from Dave, and I was at work, I got the fax, and I’m like, hey I can download this on my phone, and I can open up my email and send it off to Mr Klein and then wait for his response, and when I get home I can post it. And like, there was one day it was like, ya know, hey here’s a fax from Dave and I’m thinkin’ as I’m sending to him, like, yeah, this is Dave goin’, “hey, you and I are gonna talk about lettering for the next year” and Todd Klein’s like, “I am going to talk to you for a week and then I’m going back to working on my book.”
Steve: [laughs] Right, right, right. Yeah, and that’s… that tendency to get high centered on a particular idea of theme or rabbit that Dave wants to chase. I think that’s a reoccurring theme in how he approaches things, how he does things. All the years of research into “Strange Death of Alex Raymond.”
Matt: [sighs] There was a point where I was faxin’ Dave when he was workin’ on the research, and I was faxin’ him and then in one of the faxes I signed off with “Matt, PS. Give my regards to 1956.” And there was like six or seven faxes exchanged between the two of us, and the post script was more interesting than whatever we were faxing about. Cause he’s talkin’ about his research, but he’s jokin’ about it. Like the 50s bruise so easily, they think everything is about them, and I keep tryin’ to explain that, just wait til 1963 comes, then you’ll understand what big and important events are.
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: And I’m dyin’ laughin’, like, at one point he had a letter he sent me that got returned cause my address had changed. And there was a code from the Canadian postal service on it, and Dave jokingly said that it matched G Gordon Liddy’s CIA number from the 70s and I responded… and it set off this thing where we responded back and forth, just riffin’, about the big conspiracy, tyin’ everything together, including the “Strange Death of Alex Raymond”, and at one point, I Googled about… Grace Kelly gave away… she presented the Oscar for Best Documentary in some year. Cause he had mentioned Grace Kelly, and it was, her daughter, whichever one it was, I think it was Princess Stephanie, was the name. And he had mentioned, brought that up. And my response was that somebody had been killed and the letters on… I typed it out, the letters, they were beaten with a blunt instrument and left an imprint on the skull, and the letters I typed out were, spelled backwards, “best documentary for” whatever Disney film won the documentary that year. Dave just picked it up and took it back, I’m amazed that not only is he up to his ears in research, but he has such an encyclopedic knowledge of all this minutia that nobody knows.
Steve: Oh right, yes.
Matt: That not only can he riff on it, but when you riff on it, he already knew that and he can riff right back, and it’s one of those, every now and then, I’m like, I gotta dig this fax exchange out and do a blog post about it but then I start diggin’ it out, and I’m like, oh right, that’s right, this is an exchange that the only people on the planet who would care are me and Dave because we were talkin’ about wasn’t that important.
Steve: But the PSes were.
Matt: The PSes were hilarious. I mean, normally, cause this was before I was the interim editor, I was just a fan that would occasionally fax, and it was one of those, anytime I fax him, it either has to be really important, or it has to be, ya know, “Dave, here’s a way to make money”, and he come back with, “yeah, no, that’s not gonna make any money.” Like I came up with the idea for doin’ postcards, cause Vistaprint you could get a postcard for pennies, I think it was like 50 cents per postcard if you buy like 500, if you sell ‘em for $5, you’re makin’ this amount of money.
Steve: Yeah, you got bank.
Matt: And the idea would be, reissue The First Fifth as a series of postcards and then continue it with the second, third, fourth, and fifth fifths, and Dave’s response was, “you can’t do that, cause the people that have the original First Fifth want it in original First Fifth dimensions. If you change format, now you’re asking them to buy somethin’ else and it’s not the format they already bought, and they’re gonna be mad. Plus, what do you do if the postcards get damaged?” and ya know, he shot it down in detail, very thoroughly and very politely, and I’m like, okay, whatever. And then he announced the Cerebus in Hell Postcards from Hell, and I’m like, wait a minute.
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: You said this wasn’t gonna make money, Dave! And I’ve never brought it up, I’ve never brought up, hey wait a minute, the postcards are my idea thing, because A) I don’t care, and B) I don’t want Dave to be like, “oh I should give Matt a check” cause I don’t want a check.
Steve: Right, right, yeah.
Matt: But yeah, workin’ with… not workin’ with, associating with Dave is a lot of fun, but at the same time, it’s a lot of, you hear “we can’t do that because” and I always want to be like, but Dave, ya know, everybody told you you couldn’t do a 300 issue series self-published and you did that.
Steve: And yeah, Dave pulled it off to a T!
Matt: And maybe, maybe you should just, ya know, once again, throw the bones and see what happens. I mean, I know he doesn’t like to gamble, but c’mon!
Steve: Right, right.
Matt: Maybe, maybe this one time we came up with the idea that actually will work.
Steve: See, that’s actually similar to where I was thinking, again, when those warehouse copies first came up, is, you’re not talking about redoing every book. You’re talking about monetizing part of them. Do a run of 25 issues, or any… do a run of “Guys”, or do a run of “Mothers & Daughters” or something.
Matt: Well, anything that he would have a complete run of…
Steve: Yes!
Matt: Even if it was just 10 issues in a row that might be the end of “Guys”, the beginning of “Rick’s Story”, ya know…
Matt: Even if it was just 10 issues in a row that might be the end of “Guys”, the beginning of “Rick’s Story”, ya know…
Steve: And, you do, you just print out a “Dave Sim Warehouse Copy limited hardcover, #1 of 5” and there aren’t enough fans to print 2000 hardcovers of all 16 phonebooks. There are enough fans to do 5 or 8 hardcovers. You’ll have a market for that. You won’t have a market for 2000, you’ll have a market for 5. And you tie it in as a tier on, say, a Kickstarter reward.
Matt: Well, the one that always got me was, Dave went through the negative flats and pulled them apart, cause they’re giant flats, he needs to make ‘em smaller so that he can store ‘em at the Off-White House, cause they’re not gonna be at the printer anymore. He talked about doin’ it in the Blog and Mail, and I read it and immediately called him, like, what happened to the negatives, cause he had two sets of the first three phonebooks. Because he had the original negatives for the “Cerebus” phonebook and then the negatives for Cerebus Biweekly.
Steve: Right.
Matt: And “High Society” and “Church & State”, and it was, “I don’t need two sets of these” and he threw them away. And it’s like…
Steve: Arrggghhh! [laughs]
Matt: Dave, you could’ve sold those! Margaret said the same thing, and Tundis, and it was one of these, the Blog and Mail was done weeks in advance, and ya know, Dave was kinda jokingly saying, “well, if Cerebus fans really want to, I can try to find out where in the landfill they are”, and I’m just thinkin’, ya know, ET the videogame, they found that.
Steve: In New Mexico.
Matt: Well, and the part I love about it is that, then a couple of years later, they’re scanning the negatives and Sandeep’s apartment starts on fire and they get destroyed and I’m just thinkin’, well, if Dave had two sets of negatives…
Steve: Yes.
Matt: But then again, as I said, I’m a 4^th generation pack rat, I’m not gonna get rid of anything. It’s like the tracing paper drawings that Dave, ya know, for years he produced these things and then he threw ‘em away, because they’re just, ya know, they’re garbage. It’s like the photocopies that Gerhard made, these are garbage, nobody’s gonna want these. It’s like, yes we are!
Steve: Yeah. Well, and you with the blueline for…
Matt: For “Melmoth”.
Steve: Yes, yeah.
Matt: That was one of those, I saw it on… at the time, I had extra money, ya know, I mean, this is probably 10, 11 years ago, when it would be, “okay, I have extra money, I can go on eBay and find random Cerebus crap and buy it.” Not the really expensive statues, but just, ya know, moderately priced stuff. And I found it, and I’m just like, okay I’ll buy this. And ya know, I get it, and I’m like, alright, ya know. And I noticed there’s pencil corrections on a couple of the pages, cause like page numbers were missin’ and stuff. And I’m like, okay, whatever. And I took it S.P.A.C.E. and ya know, “hey Dave”, cause I’m the kind of fan that if you’re gonna sign something, I’m not gonna have Neal Adams sign a “Detective Comics” that he’s signed 8000 copies of that day.
Steve: Right, yeah.
Matt: I’m gonna have Neal Adams sign my copy of “Following Cerebus” #9.
Steve: Right.
Matt: Because, then I get to talk to him and his wife for 5, 10 minutes about, “oh yeah, that trip was great”, like she just raves how much she liked going to Niagara Falls with Dave.
Steve: He drove them and talked to them the whole way?
Matt: Uh, he hired a car, cause Dave doesn’t drive.
Steve: Oh that’s right! That’s right, yes. Yeah, and was talkin’ to him the whole way.
Matt: Yep! And recorded it, and I mean, that issue of “Following Cerebus” is, I think, 104 pages. I mean, it’s like 3 issues in 1, because, the whole thing. I also had him sign my copy of “Anything Goes” #3 because, ya know, again, how often are gonna get to see Neal Adams. And then it turns out the comic book store that I go to up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, they get him once every couple of years to come. So last time he came, I brought my wife and one of my kids, because the other one was at Girl Scout Camp, and had Neal sign the Neal Adams Cerebus birthday card that I got for each of my daughters.
Steve: Oh sure, yeah!
Matt: And then, ya know, cause it’s one thing for free and then you gotta pay, I’m like, I’m not gonna pay a lot of money. Cause, I mean, Neal’s charging Neal Adams prices because he can, he’s Neal Adams.
Steve: [laughs] Right.
Matt: My wife’s getting the one card signed for the kid that’s not there, the other kid’s gettin’ her card signed for herself, and “okay Matt, are you gonna get your card to get signed, or are you gonna take somethin’ else” and it’s like, as much as I would love to have my card signed by Dave and by Neal Adams, I had him sign my copy of “Skateman” #1 cause it’s the most obscure comic book I could find that Neal Adams had anything to do with.
Steve: [laughs] Sure, yep.
Matt: And I had him sign it, and my wife goes, “what the hell, who thought this was a good idea?” Neal Adams kinda bristles about “we sold 80,000 copies!”
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: And afterward, I told my wife, I’m like, yeah, the problem is he sold 80,000 copies at a time when 80,000 copies at Marvel would’ve gotten you canceled.
Steve: Right, right, yeah.
Matt: But yeah, so I like getting weird stuff signed. So I took the blueline to have Dave and Ger sign it and immediately they’re like, “where did you get this?” and I’m like, eBay, and Dave turns to Ger going, “how did this get out?” and Ger’s like, “I have no idea” and then I’m like, “oh yeah, it’s got the penciled corrections” and Dave’s eyes got a little bit bigger like, okay, they got the book, they corrected the signatures, they sent it back to Preney and then they got destroyed, is what Dave thought. So obviously somebody was hangin’ onto ‘em.
Steve: Right. So, you wonder what else is out there.
Matt: And that’s… I mean, I stopped goin’ on eBay and typin’ in Cerebus because it got to the point where I’m like, “I can’t afford that, I can’t afford that, I really want that but I can’t afford that. I absolutely could afford that if no one bids on it.” Like the Ral Partha, err, Citadel miniature, whichever company it was the did the bootlegs. I’ve wanted one of those for years. I think I know someone that had them back in the 80s when they were new. Like, I think my comic book store had ordered them and had them on the shelf and somebody had bought them and painted them cause they thought they were neat. It’s like, I could ask my friend, hey, do you still have those and if you don’t want them, can I buy them from you? And then it’s like, again, pack rat, my kids aren’t gonna care.
Steve: Right.
Matt: It’s just gonna end up back on eBay in 20 years, I can just leave it on eBay, it can stay there.
Steve: [laughs] Oh, I… yeah. Did you see what the Pope statue went for?
Matt: No.
Steve: $1700.
Matt: [speechless]
Steve: I was flabbergasted.
Matt: I was at S.P.A.C.E. one year, exhibiting, with Dave and Ger at the next table, because it was them, Jeff Seiler doing “Cerebus Readers in Crisis”, me, and then the next table over was supposed to be T. Casey Brennan because they were gonna fly in him so he could do the convention. And somethin’ happened to him and he didn’t show up. But I’m at the end of the row. It’s, ya know, Dave, Gerhard, Jeff, me.
Steve: Yeah.

Matt: Oh, hold on a second… and, so then, I’m there, and at the end of the day, I made $17. Of everything I sold, I made… I’m sellin’ mini-comics for a dollar, ya know, and it’s goofy crappy art, ya know, I’m just a small press guy.
Steve: Right, right.
Matt: And Dave and Ger had sketches they had done. They’d started doin’ the sketch, and then they would sign stuff in between. Well, it was the Moon Roach, and it was a really nice sketch, probably 6 by 6. Dave turned to Ger, and was like, “ah, we’ve still got one sketch left” and I’m like, “I got $17”, and Dave’s like, “that’s good for you!” and put the sketch in his sketchbook. Cause he was sellin’ it for $75.
Steve: [laughs] Oh man!
Matt: And I think Gerhard remembered that, cause a few years later they did the “Ye Bookes of Cerebus” stop in Salt Lake City, and my wife and I drove 25 hours one way to go to this art show that we’d previously seen in New York and I told her that before we left the house and she swears I didn’t. So we get to this art show of art we’d already seen, and we’ve been up for 25 hours, and she’s really mad at me. And she finds out that it’s an art show we’d already saw and I’m pretty sure that she was gonna kill me. And Gerhard was doin’ a sketch and it’s… not necessarily the bar from “Guys” but it looks like a bar, ya know, table, chair, ale mug, a window, all brick, all Gerhard rendering, and in the middle is a space shaped like Cerebus, and he wrote, “insert aardvark here.”
Steve: Oh, that’s good.
Matt: So he’s doin’ this sketch, and I assume he’s doin’ it for these people that he’s talking to that are at the table. And I just come up, say hi, we’re gonna got check into our hotel room, we’ll be back in like a half hour, or an hour. So I got to hang out with Dave and Ger the whole weekend, cause I drove 25 hours one way. Like, ya know, Dave’s like, “one of my crazy fans is here, you get to hang out all weekend, Matt” well, okay fine, so we got to go to Mimi Cruz’s house from Night Flight Comics and we got to hang out at the comic store signing. It was one of these, they did a presentation at the library on Friday, they were doin’ a signing at the store on Saturday but during the day on Saturday they had time to kill, so Mimi’s like, “Hey, you guys wanna go up to Lake Placid where the Olympics were and see the ski runs and stuff? We’re not gonna go skiing, we’re just gonna go up and look at the Olympic village.”
Steve: Yeah, yeah.
Matt: And Dave’s like, “oh yeah, Matt and Paula are comin’ along.” And gets into my car, and I drive Dave up to the Olympic lodge while Ger’s ridin’ in the other car. And it was really cool!
Steve: Well, yeah!
Matt: But at the end of the signing on Saturday, Ger has this sketch still, and he rips it out of his sketchbook and goes, “here you go, Matt” and hands it to me and I’m like, “sweet!” And I’m thinkin’, did he remember that I wanted to buy that one sketch a coupla years back, that I didn’t have any money for? And I don’t know.
Steve: Yeah, yeah. I… well, in all of my dealings, just email and the commission work that Gerhard has done for me, consummate gentleman. He’s gracious. I think that it’s…
Steve: Yeah, yeah. I… well, in all of my dealings, just email and the commission work that Gerhard has done for me, consummate gentleman. He’s gracious. I think that it’s…
Matt: Seiler describes him as the nicest guy in the room, and I’m like, Gerhard is impeccably nice, the problem is I’ve met so many people in comics that are impeccably nice, it’s almost like a fight to see who’s the nicest.
Steve: Right. Yeah, yeah.
Matt: I mean, yes Dave can be a pain in the butt, but Dave also can be really really nice, like when my first daughter was born, a dozen roses showed up in a glass vase at the hospital from Dave.
Steve: Hmm.
Matt: And I’m kinda like, that’s kinda crazy to me that… assuming that Seiler was involved, because Seiler was livin’ near me at the time, and I think it was one of these, he went, “Hey Dave, Matt’s daughter was born” and Dave went, “oh, well you should send flowers on my behalf.”
Steve: But still, the thoughtfulness.
Matt: I mean, it’s one of those, people go, “oh Dave’s horrible” or this, but it’s like, he sent a newborn infant a dozen roses.
Steve: Right, yeah. Like all the rest of us, he’s a complicated, multifaceted, he has his good days, he has his bad days.
Matt: Yeah. And the fun part is, I have to write the blog posts on the bad days.
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: I mean that’s… everybody goes, “you were so even-handed with the Comicsgate thing” it’s like, not cause I wanted to be. I was very much, I wanted to be like, I wanted to say, okay Dave, if you work with those guys, I’ll have to seriously reconsider our relationship because, ya know, I had heard very bad things. And then, ya know, okay, if I’m gonna be open minded, maybe I heard very bad things from people who have an agenda type thing. And no no no, I heard very bad things because there’s very bad things.
Steve: Yeah, yeah.
Matt: On the Facebook group, one of the old time Cerebus fans that predates me, posted somethin’ that was a little more political than normally is posted, and everybody’s goin’ off, and I’m having flashbacks because somebody from the old Cerebus Yahoo Group days, I’m like, “this is exactly what used to happen on the Yahoo Group.”
Steve: I’ve never… it’s why I sent you the PetuniaCon poster, I lose too much of my day already online to start in on Facebook and all of that. It’s just like, I have to draw the line somewhere and say, can’t do it.
Matt: Well that’s… Twitter is a wretched hive of scum and villainy, but because of Oliver I’ve been goin’ on it a whole lot more. Because Oliver sends the links and I click the links to make sure that the links actually work, and to make sure it’s not a link to a tweet where somebody’s calling for Dave’s head or my head or worse, both. So then I start engaging people on Twitter, and it’s like… now I’ll go on Facebook, okay I’m done on Facebook, I open up Twitter, and I’m startin’ to check Twitter, and it’s like… I know this is becoming an addiction and I need to stop it, but at the same time, who am I really hurting? Just cause I’m stayin’ up an extra half hour at night, reading my phone instead of reading a book.
Steve: [laughs] I appreciate the work that Oliver does ahead of you, and I think one of the things that shows, is, every week he’s coming up with a couple dozen individual distinct… references to Dave or Cerebus.
Matt: He’s got, I believe, he’s got a Twitter alert set up, so that on Twitter anytime somebody mentions Dave or Cerebus he just gets an alert and that’s how he’s gettin’ all this stuff. Which is cool. I mean, it’s a simple way of doin’ it, but it’s one of those, yeah, if it were just me, 90% of those would never show up, because I really didn’t do Twitter and I don’t wanna do Twitter. I’m startin’ to feel bad cause the Moment of Cerebus Twitter, which Tim still runs, is doin’ a lot more Moment of Cerebus than the blog is and that’s only cause I’m underwater with, ya know, Dave sends me seven faxes and how many of these can I actually share, how many of these do I… ya know, spacin’ it out so that it’s not, ya know, five days of Aardvark Comment. I’ve already decided, I think, startin’ Tuesday I’m just gonna go back to every Tuesday is six pages from the phonebooks in order until I’m done with the phonebooks.
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: Well, I did the math. It’s 6000 pages divided by 6 images is 1000 posts.
Steve: Right, right.
Matt: Which, if I only do it once a week, that will probably take me into a decade or more.
Steve: Right.
Matt: And I skipped the first phonebook. Part of me wants to circle back and start with issue one and part of me is like, no I’m gonna continue with “High Society”, now I’m gonna start commenting on it. Cause, part of my reread stall is that it’s a pain to read 25 issues and then comment on them in one post.
Steve: Oh yeah, yeah. Your view is too broad.
Matt: The worst part, for me is, it started as, I’m gonna reread the series to get my Cerebus legs on so when I’m talkin’ about stuff, I’m not going from half-memories, it’s, okay I just reread this, I remember this.
Steve: Right.
Matt: And so as I’m reading, I’m thinking, okay this is interesting, I need to make a note of this to talk to Dave or make a post about it, or whatever. And doing it as, ya know, okay I reread the first issue’s worth of the phonebook, here’s my comments, then… it worked for a little bit, but the whole point though, was I’m supposed to read this to get the whole thing under my legs, not a “let’s live blog rereading all 300 issues”. I was off of work for a coupla months cause the kids were home from school and I was home schoolin’ ‘em, so it was one of these, “Dad, can we go out and play?” Sure, you guys go play in the backyard, I’m gonna sit in the garage in the shade and read Cerebus.
Steve: Yeah.
Matt: And just power through, because the whole idea here is I wanna get… I mean, like, I just reread “Jaka’s Story” and there’s two things with Oscar in there that I may have noticed in the past, but I didn’t really think about it, but now with my blog eyes I’m like, oh my God. One of them is, there’s a couple of things with the narration for the Jaka’s Story half of it that don’t quite add up. Like… the way I initially thought of it when I caught it was, Dave cheated. And I was starting to mentally write this long kind of angry blog post about hey, Dave cheated and I caught him cheating and this is how Dave cheated.
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: And then I’m like, no, no, cause I thought about it more it’s not that he cheated, it’s that Dave presented us with a scenario we assumed that it was the scenario as Dave presented, and then he changed the scenario without us realizing it.
Steve: Ah, yeah, I could see…
Matt: Well, what happens is, Oscar gets arrested, Jaka gets arrested, but the narrative continues, and yes, Oscar does say at one point he’s ahead in the story and he’s circling back to write the dancing bit. But then, at the end of the phonebook, there’s more narration of Jaka that can’t be written by Oscar and it’s the bit at the end where she’s lookin’ out the window and there’s only the one bird.
Steve: Okay.
Matt: In the phonebook, when she’s young, she looks out the window of her apartment in Palnu and there’s a flock of birds off in the distance, and how she wishes she could fly away with them. At the end of the phonebook, there’s one bird in the same image, and Dave has said that that’s very much the metaphor for “Jaka’s Story” when she was young, she had infinite possibilities in front of her, at the end of the phonebook, she has one possibility of what her life can be. So that sequence is formatted the way the rest of the Jaka’s Story segments are, which are written by Oscar, but this particular one can’t be written by Oscar because of the fact that she’s back in Palnu.
Steve: Right.
Matt: In “Flight” and “Women”, Dave uses the same typography and the same layout to talk about Jaka, and again, Oscar can’t be the one writing this. But we, as fans, were trained, when you see one single image next to a block of text in this font, with the stylized first letter, it’s “Jaka’s Story” and it’s talkin’ about Jaka. And then in “Minds” he does the bit where Cerebus is crawlin’ towards the door to the suite on Pluto and he’s got the same, ya know, he’s doing… it’s one of those, he played us! We think that we know this is about Jaka cause it fits the Jaka format, but the Jaka format was supposed to be just Oscar. So I catch this, and I’m like, arrrrgggh, you got us! And it’s one of those, I didn’t notice it. Or did notice it but I didn’t notice it until this last reread. And the other thing is, when they’re paintin’ the guffin, Oscar’s talkin’ to Rick about the Black Tower Empire and if I’m reading it right, the Black Tower Empire was the female Pope during Astoria’s trial.
Steve: How does that tie in?
Matt: Because, when Oscar’s talkin’ about the history of guffins, that the upper city had a matriarchy and the way he’s talkin’ about it, he’s implying that the black tower is the tower of skulls that grows in Iest.
Steve: Okay.
Matt: And it’s one of those… I gotta post the pages, cause if you read ‘em, then there’s other pages from various parts of the series, that if you look at ‘em all in sequence, it’s layin’ out that Oscar’s talkin’ about the Black Tower Empire, the Black Tower Empire was the mountain of skulls. I’m tryin’ to think… in MagiKing… no, Poe at one point talks about the fall of the Black… the Pigits caused the fall of the Black Tower Empire, which destroyed all the magic in the world. Everybody talks about Dave was building up to this elaborate world building, and then he jettisons it at the end of “Mothers & Daughters”, and it’s one of those, this scene in “Jaka’s Story” is a major lynchpin tying everything together, and I don’t think it’s so much that Dave jettisoned the storyline, I think Dave tied it up into a pretty bow and then had another hundred issues to fill.

Steve: Right.
Matt: Like, at the end of “Form & Void” when Cerebus and Jaka get to the tunnels about the Black Tower Empire is big, big is the Black Tower Empire, ya know, yadda yadda yadda. It’s one of those, oh yeah, Black Tower Empire, I remember this. And then, reading this in “Jaka’s Story”, I’m like, wait a minute, no, Oscar’s giving us a major clue to the history of the world, but the way he’s presenting it, it’s easy to miss.
Steve: That’s where Dave was a master of these very subtle… signposts. And it’s almost like things that he built into the story just for his own satisfaction.
Matt: It’s one of those, I need to get the question formatted right, cause that’s the big thing when I ask Dave a question, I’ve learned over the years, if you ask it right you’ll get an answer you didn’t expect but it’s along the lines of what you expected, if you ask it wrong, you’re gonna get Dave basically complaining about the question.

Steve: Right, yes.
Matt: And having seen enough answers where Dave’s answer is, “your question is a poor question”. It goes back to “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” you must choose but choose wisely.
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: Cause otherwise you’re gonna get the “well, you’re asking this, but I think you’re asking that, and I’m gonna answer that but not this.”

Steve: Right, right, that’s well put.
Matt: Part of it, if you ask it right, Dave will engage you. If you ask it wrong, Dave will fight and you don’t wanna fight with Dave cause you’re not gonna win in the long run.
Steve: Right. Well…
Matt: That’s one of the things that I loved about the Yahoo Group is that Lenny was a lawyer and he would ask lawyerly questions, and the problem with asking Dave a lawyerly question is you will get his “Dave as Perry Mason” answering it.
Steve: [laughs] He is thorough. Exhaustively, and excruciatingly so.

Matt: He’s thorough, and if you ask right, he will be thorough, and it will be Christmas morning, he will give you all these gifts. He’s thorough and if you ask wrong, he will go into the exhaustive answer that goes nowhere, but takes forever to get there.
Steve: Right.
Matt: I like that about about Dave, cause I’ve seen a number… there are times where he’s answering somebody, and I’m reading an answer to a question, and ya know, Dave’s in a mood, and you’re chuckling because, this is gonna end poorly but not for me, cause I didn’t ask the question.

Steve: [laughs] Hang on a sec… Everything okay? Checking in on my kiddos.
Matt: I just gonna say, I’ve left the 4 year old alone for about an hour and half now, and I don’t hear loud noises, so that’s a good thing, but it could be a bad thing. So I’m gonna thank you again for the piece, I mean it is amazing and yes, it was a mild heart attack when I opened it up, I’m like this isn’t what I think it is, because if it’s what I think it is, I have to send him a check. But I think we’ll call it here cause you did say you had family comin’, so.
Steve: Oh yeah, yes. I would imagine. The sister’s in town and we’re all just getting together with the folks at another sister’s house, so.
Matt: Well you don’t want to be late to that, it sounds like it’s gonna be excruciatingly fun!
Steve: [laughs] So much fun I won’t even be able to get my own daughters to go.
Matt: [laughs]
Steve: Crack down on those kiddos. You gotta see your family. How old are your two girls?
Matt: 9 and 4. And the 9 year old and my wife are at Girl Scout Camp for the weekend.
Steve: Oh, oh that’s fun.
Matt: Oh yeah, no, it’s great, they left this morning, and I’m like, great! You’re gonna leave, I’m gonna distract the little one with a bag of sugar and a movie, and I’m gonna make a phone call.
Steve: Sounds like the fatherly thing to do.
Matt: Well, I already promised her that when I’m done with the phone call then we’ll play, and she’s like, okay! At one point I heard the sound of a thousand little beads falling on the hardwood floor above me, so I’m thinking there’s a good chance I’m gonna have to clean a mess.

Steve: Play thousand bead pickup?
Matt: Well, no no, how I clean up the mess is, “hey you missed that one. Hey you missed that one. Hey you missed that one.”
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: I didn’t drop them on the floor!
Steve: Vacuum cleaner!
Matt: No, no, no, these are beads she needs for her necklaces. You know it is with little kids.

Steve: Absolutely.
Matt: “I need this rock I found in the garden.” That’s a piece of dirt. ”No it’s a rock!” Squeeze it real hard. It explodes. “Look I’m Supergirl!”
Steve: [laughs] Oh gosh, that takes me back.
Matt: I’m guessin’ your kids are in their teens or 20s?
Steve: Oh, coming up on 18 and just turned 16. So… a few more years and we’ll be empty nesters if I’m lucky.

Matt: Oh, now you jinxed yourself. It’s gonna be like…
Steve: Never?
Matt: “The Cosby Show” where towards the end Cliff was trying to get all the kids out of the house. I remember there’s an episode where Bill Cosby, it’s the last of the kids is gonna leave and one of the older kids is coming back and he turns to the wife and goes, “what are you doing? I’m trying to get them out!”
Steve: [laughs] I’ve already told them, once you’re gone, I’m taking your room over. You can’t have it back. I’m tired of having my bookshelves in the garage. Get the bookshelves in the garage and then the cars can’t go in the garage. Oh, priorities.

Matt: That’s…
Steve: Matt, it’s gonna be neat to see what you end up doing with your Thrunk cover there.
Matt: It’s going to be something, I don’t know what yet. I might just spend the next couple of days starin’ at it from an inch and half away goin’, how does he do that?
Steve: Oh yeah, the detail work is just wonderful.
Matt: I mean, it’s the same pattern as Weisshaupt’s vest, so immediately, I’m startin’ to go, did he hide anything? And I’m like, I don’t see anything, I don’t see anything. I think he got that out of his system.

Steve: Or, is that a clue?
Matt: Well, no, no. You know about Weisshaupt…

Steve: Is the pattern distinctive of… a position of power?
Matt: Well no no no, when Weisshaupt first shows up, he’s got the same squiggly lines in the vest, Dave hid words in the vest.
Steve: Yep.
Matt: I believe, I’m tryin’ to remember, it’s like Karen and a few other things.
Steve: Yep.
Matt: But it’s one of those, ya know, I’ll probably turn it upside down and then it’ll say somethin’ and I’ll be like, ya know, Dave that wasn’t funny.
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: Alright, well I’m gonna let you go be with your family. I’m probably gonna post this video on Monday unless you really don’t want me to.
Steve: I’ll be fine. I’m hoping that this proves to be something that works better for you and it works with your calls with Dave.
Matt: I’m really hopin’ that the podcast app thing actually works because everybody complains about the audio and I’m tryin to find a nice way of sayin’, it involves me learning something, I don’t wanna do it.
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: It’s not that I can’t use whatever app or internet thing that you want me to use, it’s that I just don’t wanna learn.
Steve: I understand that.
Matt: The way we have been doin’ it, is I film it on my tablet, and I use my landline. The problem is Dave’s phone is on speaker, if I put him on speaker, now you’re on double speaker.
Steve: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Matt: I’m hopin’ that going through my cellphone, even though I’m on speaker, it’s going to be one less generation. I don’t know. The other one is I don’t know if Dave’s phone is gonna like calling my cellphone. He’s had trouble in the past calling my cellphone. So there’s a good chance he might call my phone, it might not work, and Please Hold might turn into, you can fax me one question and I’ll answer one sheet of paper.
Steve: [laughs] It would take less time!
Matt: I mean… or the other option is that I beg and plead with Dave of, if we buy you a cellphone would you turn it on once a month?
Steve: Once, right. And you’re not gonna give anybody else the phone number.
Matt: Well, I mean, it’s like, Dave has an email address, but Dave doesn’t have an email address.
Steve: Right.
Matt: You can email at Dave and he will see it, but it goes through a couple of different people. To which, I mean, it’s like, Dave, join the rest of us in the 21^st century, I understand you’re afraid the internet’s gonna swallow your soul, and I agree with you that Twitter probably will, but at the same time, it is kind of fun to go, what was the name of Norm’s wife on “Cheers” and within 30 seconds Google’s told you.
Steve: [laughs] Right. It did seem like, not to keep us on the phone here for another hour, it did seem like in Dave’s response to Todd that he went and read Todd’s blog postings.
Matt: I sent him the blog postings.
Steve: Ohh, duh, okay, there ya go.

Matt: I know how this works, if you send an internet link to Dave, you’re basically wasting ink and paper, but if you send him an internet link followed by whatever is at that link, then he’ll read it. It’s one of those, if you fax Dave enough and you get faxes back, eventually you’ll learn that, okay, somebody wants you to see this thing on the internet. And I went through the links, I’m like, okay, this one is somethin’ I think Dave would want to see, one of them was a link to a series of links, I’m like yeah I’m not gonna send that.
Steve: Yeah, right.
Matt: Cause, what happens then is Dave faxes it back, circled, of “send me these five, I want to see those.” And then I turn into Eddie Ka-hanna and he ends up giving me the business.
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: I mean, I love Eddie dearly, but, ya know I don’t think when he sendin’ letters to “Glamourpuss” he was angling for a job.
Steve: Right, right. [laughs] Jeeze. Alright, so, Matt, good to visit with ya.
Matt: Yep, I mean, if this prove to be a popular feature, then maybe once a month I’ll call other people.
Steve: I think the other fans would enjoy it. Just giving, like I say, we all have those aspects of Cerebus we’re high centered on, and give us an opportunity to hear each other’s voices and learn a little more about each other. That’s not a bad thing.
Matt: As long as somebody doesn’t make me hunt down Mike Bannon and call him up.
Steve: [laughs]
Matt: Or Connie Lingus, I refuse to call Connie Lingus after the last story Dave told about her.
Steve: Yeah, no, let’s not do that.
M [laughs] I don’t think Connie would want to talk to anybody. She’d be like “Cere-who”?
Steve: Right, yeah.
Matt: Alright, well… take care, have fun with the family.
Steve: So, [inaudible] anymore.
Matt: Exactly. Alright.

Steve: Alright, Matt. Signing off, take care.
Matt: Signin’ off, have a good, have a good…

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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.

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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/

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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...

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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

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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.

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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.

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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)

Wanderland (Hardcover for the guys who get "hard" for hardcovers...)

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:

Hardcover

Paperback

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Larry Shell could use a hand to keep his house.

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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...

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The AMOC TeePublic Shoppe

Up to 35% off July 24-27.*

*Sale dates are not final and therefore subject to change.

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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...)

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Heritage has (coming soon):

• Page 16 of issue #44
• other stuff

And ComicLink (remember ComicLink? Seiler brought us ComicLink. R.I.P Jeff.) has:

• 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.

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Oliver' Simonsen's Cerebus movie: The Absurd, Surreal, Metaphysical, and Fractured Destiny of Cerebus the Aardvark it's currently available on "Plex", "Xumo", "Vimeo On Demand", "Tubi". If you're in Brazil..., "Mometu", "Nuclear Home Video".

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Got a message from Studio Comix Press:

Click for bigger...

If you wanna support "local" Canadian publishers...

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Next Time: Jen? Man, I hope it's Jen...