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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.
Here's where I'm at (blue link means it's been posted):
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Matt: There we go. Alright, we are recording!
Dave: Alright. I think we’re gonna start with Jeff Seiler’s question, because he always leaves his as a phone message. Actually, he left one of them as a phone message, and he was giving me these teasers all month about he’s gonna have a question for me about theosis. And I went, “I have no idea what that is.” So I checked it in the dictionary, and I couldn’t find it in the dictionary. So, then I was really curious about what he was going to ask me about theosis, and hoping that he would explain it, and I haven’t heard anything from him. But, he did have another question, we know Jeff Seiler privilege, he gets two every month. This is Jeff Seiler’s question. So we’ll have a little listen, here.
[robot lady: Bitch. (Okay, so she’s probably finishing the word “message” but it sounds like “bitch”).]
Jeff Seiler: Yeah, Dave, it’s Jeff, still here. You really gotta get that nasty woman to let people talk longer on your phone. Hehe Although, I can certainly understand you don’t want to let people talk longer on your phone. Anyway, to finish up, yeah, so my question for May, and this is question number one, and yes I’m early, and I will come back with the more studied question about theosis later in the month, but my question right now is, the Oliver 3D movie, if it’s still called that, what is your take on that now? Is it still just wait and see, or is it “yeah I’ve gotten some information”, and Oliver and other people, myself included, have given me information about the movie and you know, I don’t know if you really want to quote me and put it out there, but, I gotta say, I’m not enjoying the way it’s put together so far. But, I understand that so far doesn’t mean that that’s the way it’s going to be put together at the end. So, any thoughts you might have, without you or I, either of us, offending Oliver, I would be interested to see what you have to say about this. Okay, there you go, and I’ll be back soon with the question on theosis.
[robot lady: end of message. To delete this mess--]
Dave: Two, three, four, five… okay. So, the subject is Oliver’s movie, which I think is the way that we need to look at this. Oliver’s 3D Cerebus movie, which started, of course, when Oliver said, “can I make a Cerebus movie?” and I said to him, “I dunno, can you?” [laughs] And he went, “may I make a Cerebus movie?” and it’s like, oh oh oh. I went, “yeah, go ahead.” Figuring, ya know, when does… how would something like that ever pan out? So yeah, sure, knock yourself out. Make a Cerebus movie. So, he’s obviously getting much closer to the end then he is to the beginning, and as you can tell by Jeff’s phone message question, he’s a little concerned about the movie that it is. I would say about that, there’s all different kind of movies out there, and usually on a spectrum between avant garde and summer blockbuster. So, the way I look at Oliver’s movie, and I haven’t seen anything since 2011, I tried watching what was done so far, and “okay let’s talk about this”, then it’s like, no, we’re going back to the original deal, which is, when you say that the movie is finished, you show me the finished movie, and I’ll go thumbs up, or I’ll go thumbs down. But, having seen a good chunk of it, I think on the spectrum, you have to look at it as “what if I gave all 16 volumes of ‘Cerebus’ to Ron Howard? Or to Joss Whedon? And said, here, make a 90 minute Cerebus animated film out of this.” They would make one kind of film. If, on the other hand, I gave all 16 volumes to David Lynch and Tm Burton, they would make a whole different kind of film, and I would maintain Oliver’s film just happens to be far closer to the David Lynch/Tim Burton end of things, than the Ron Howard/Joss Whedon end of things. But you have to remember, Jeff, I’m not a movie fan. I’m not a person who has great reverence for cinema as some exulted state of existence that’s developed in the last 100 years. So I’m more more interested in Oliver’s movie from the standpoint of the unprecedented autonomy that he has in doing this, and that’s a big part of it, because I’m a big believer in creative freedom, so I’m far more interested in what somebody does as expression of their creative freedom than I am in “is this going to make a billion dollars?” Not only the unprecedented autonomy, but the unprecedented animator participation, that everybody that works on the film has a share in the whatever it is happens with the film down the line, and that’s baked in. So, those two things, as, ya know, Dave Sim, creative freedom advocate, and Dave Sim, letting everybody off their leash, “ya know if you’ve got something that you think Cerebus needs to be done in, and you feel very strongly about that, you’re a better judge of that than I am, so go ahead and do whatever it is.” [laughs] “Don’t mind me.”
Matt: [chuckles]
Dave: Go ahead.
Matt: No, I was chuckling. I mean, that’s…
Dave: Oh okay! Yes, but to be serious about it, it must be finished, because… well, on the one hand, because that was the deal. I don’t pass judgement on the film until it’s finished, but more importantly, finishing it would be as unprecedented and, probably in terms of the real world’s way of looking at it, more unprecedented than Oliver’s autonomy and the participation of all of the animators. So, jumping sideways from that, the latest studio response, and Oliver and I are in complete agreement, we don’t say “so and so said this” or “this person said that”, the last fax that I had from Oliver was, “they said we don’t have the paperwork for this.” And, of course, Oliver was kind of disheartened about that. Like, hadn’t heard back from them for a couple of months, and when they come back, they go, “we don’t have the paperwork for this.” But what I said to Oliver was, “actually, that’s a very astute point. I mean, on the one hand, it’s blowing you off. It’s saying, ‘we don’t have the paperwork for a project where all of the animators participate and you have complete autonomy and final cut.’” So my advice to Oliver was, I dunno what kind of money you got these days, but it would probably worth you taking a meeting with an intellectual property lawyer, as close to Hollywood as you can get, and so to them, “this is what we’re doing, this is the structure of it, which is completely unprecedented, so as this studio said, ‘we don’t have paperwork for this’, what would you charge me to make the paperwork for this that would say, ‘I have final cut, I have complete jurisdiction. All of the animators have equal financial stake in this, and Dave Sim the creator, his company Aardvark-Vanaheim, gets like that same amount.’” So we’re talking about the Oliver amount, the animator amount, add those two together, that’s the Aardvark-Vanaheim amount. I don’t know how long it’d take an intellectual property lawyer to put that together, but, like I say, it’s a very astute point, because then, when you do have a finished film, you can not only show the studio the finished film, you can show them the paperwork for it. “Look, this is what an intellectual property lawyer told us would keep all of these things straightened out, and all of the right eggs in the right basket.” The other good sign out of that, is that studio, the person Oliver was talking about, no, it probably wasn’t gonna fly there, but they are passing it around. It’s like, it’s a really interesting thing to Hollywood people, to Hollywood insiders, because, again, it’s completely unprecedented, so it’s like, “hey! There’s this 3D animated film that this guy and a bunch of animators have put together on a strictly volunteer basis, and are gonna be shopping it around when it’s done. Wanna see it?” And it’s like, “are you kidding? Yes, I’d love to see it!” I just don’t have any way to get it up to the business level floor, but in terms of “wow, that’s really interesting, I’ve never of anybody doing that”, it pushes their cinematic hot button, which is good. Cause, it’s very easy for all of them to get very blase with all of the properties that they do look at.
Now, having said that, I’m hoping that Oliver is onboard with the same attitude that I’ve got with Cerebus as an intellectual property, and as 16 trade paperbacks, that if you’re using it as a raw material in another creative work, you’re completely at liberty to do that. I wouldn’t put that question to Oliver until the movie is done, so that their is a completed Oliver movie. “Here it is! This is exactly the way Oliver wanted it to be, beginning to end.” He can step back and say, “it is now finished.” But, if, at that point he shops it around everywhere that he possibly can, and everybody says no, or, ya know, he just runs out of places to go to, is he willing to have his movie as a raw material in another creative work? And this was the stage that I got to with the last version that I saw, where I was going, “well okay, this is definitely Oliver’s movie.” It’s like as “Captain Zapp” is to the comic book field, Oliver’s movie is to Hollywood, and all you can really do is say, “Oliver, ya know, keep going and when you get it exactly the way you want it, I’m definitely looking forward to see it” and I’ll be very glad that that’s part of Cerebus’ legacy is that Cerebus was the subject of the first completely autonomous creator owned, 3D, full length animated film. But, at that point I started going, “okay, if what I have seen so far in Oliver’s film, if I was treating it as a raw material, what would I do with it?” Not having a studio or anything like that, it would be, okay, here’s all the different parts of Oliver’s film, and here’s where they start, and here’s where they end, and I would script bridging material in it. And the concept that I came up with, might as well talk about this. I mean, we’re 10 years in and we might have 10 years left to go before Oliver finally goes, “yes, now it is done.” So, let me just say, that my premise is that, what I would add to it, is that all of this is just flashbacks from the first meeting between the Friends of Yoowhoo journalist, who eventually becomes New Joanne, and Cerebus the absolute dictator. The whole premise of “Latter Days” which we don’t find out until we’re almost at the end of “Latter Days”. That explains why the Oliver Simsonsen movie is like “Cerebus” but not really, because it’s New Joanne’s version of “Cerebus”. It’s also what Cerebus the absolute dictator told her and left out, because, like he’s got the hots for her. He’s not gonna tell her all about Jaka, and all of that sort of stuff, which explains why Jaka isn’t in the Oliver Simonsen movie, and it also includes only what interested her as a journalist, which she included, and what didn’t interest her, either as a journalist, or as the New Joanne, which she left out. The challenge and the fun for me, which is what this all comes down to, I come up empty if I go, “okay, what would a billion dollar Cerebus movie be like?” I’m not gonna come up with anything for that. “What would be fun and challenging to write?” That I’ll come up with. What I would be doing is two overlapping movies. Movie #1 would be the civilian version, where a person’s sitting there going, “this is great! I know nothing about Cerebus, but this is an interesting battle of the sexes, ya know, between Cerebus the absolute dictator and New Joanne, and it’s got lots of really cool flashbacks to Cerebus the absolute dictator’s sword and sorcery past. This is like a really interesting weird character, so I’m engaged here.” Movie #2 would be the Cerebus fan version, where they’re going, “this is hilarious because they’re telling it wrong. It’s Cerebus rewriting ‘Cerebus’ to make it impressive to New Joanne, and ya know, it’s a real balancing act to write those two things, and I’ll flatter myself that I’m probably the only person who could write those two things, but that would also probably cause the movie to balloon considerably from Oliver’s… he’s sticking pretty close to a 90 minute length. So it might be a matter of, okay, Oliver’s 90 minute film, once it moves over here, and I get a studio interested in me having final cut and saying, “this is what your script is gonna be. This is the animation that you have to add to this animation” and it ends up being a four part Netflix movie, or it ends up being two movies, or it ends up being seven television shows, or whatever it is. So, there you go. That’s…
Matt: Well, if Zack Snyder can do a four hour “Justice League” movie… [laughs]
Dave: Exactly! Exactly. It’s like, I don’t think you want to say that Joss Whedon’s “Justice League” was, or rather that Zack Snyder’s “Justice League” was butchered by Joss Whedon, but they’re two different things. That’s going the other way, which is, “here’s the long version, and Joss Whedon’s job is to take however much footage their was, four hours or something like that?”
Matt: I think they went back and filmed new stuff for the longer version, because it was one of the, I don’t know how far they were when the split happened of “okay, we need a new director to come in and save this.”
Dave: Right.
Matt: But I keep coming back to “Apocalypse Now” of, ya know, Francis Ford Coppola spent how long “finishing” this movie and there’s been like three versions since then of, “no no no, this time for real, I’m finishing the movie!”
Dave: Oh, I didn’t know that! I didn’t know that.
Matt: There’s the theatrical cut, then there’s I think a director’s cut, and I think he did an anniversary’s director cut.
Dave: He’s probably got one just for himself, too. [laughs]
Matt: It’s like George Lucas has said that movies aren’t released, they escape.
Dave: Right. Right.
Matt: And everytime he goes back, he tweaks another little something because, “well, ya know, the angle of his head wasn’t right and with the computers we can make it so the angle of his head is perfect.”
Dave: Right. Right. And it’s, they don’t so much escape as get liberated from the point of view of the studio. “Let go of it! Let go! We need your movie! Because we gotta have the copies printed by next Friday. You are done with the movie!” And then, ya know, from my point of view it would be, whatever I come up with, and whatever the studio I worked with came up with using Oliver’s film as a raw material, that would then be a raw material. So if somebody wants to do the 28 part marathon Ken Burns “Civil War” version of Cerebus, by all means. Ya know, I’m all done, but I’ll be happy to sit in there in the front row and eat my popcorn at your movie. So there you go! That’s the best I can do Jeff, in terms of, “what about Oliver’s movie?” We are here, and Oliver is still finishing it, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing what the finished Oliver Simonsen movie looks like.
Okay! You’re up next! It’s your letter in question. Look here. Lookee here, folks. Let’s see, "The lettering thing. I was wondering if Sean could make a font based on your original 1970s lettering? I thought he had “cloned” letters to fix pages.” Yeah, he did do that, but that’s really kind of a different thing than actually making a font. As far as I know. There are rules about letters, an E and A take up less space than an M, so you have to really put a lot of work in on the digital side saying, “anytime that an M occurs next to an A, the A has to have this much space on either side of it, and if it’s followed by an E, it needs this much space. If it’s followed by an O, it needs that much space.” Obviously that’s something that Comiccraft Richard Starkings absolutely perfected, knowing how to do that and making it flawless. Which is what you get into, “Might be a worthwhile endeavor, in fact, I was thinking, maybe Richard Starkings would want “Dave Sim” font. I dunno, just a thought. (Maybe it would come in handy for the Spanish language Cerebus comics.)” Uh, yeah! Actually, they did that, I forget whether it was folks in France or the folks in Italy did come up with a font from my lettering style and that was used for all the translations. The France and Spain and Italy edition. So it can be done, I don’t know if that’s an area that Sean has expertise in, and it’s probably not something he’s interested in learning too much about at this stage. My thing was that I wanted to do this one last Cerebus lettering job from that time period, and trying to do the actual lettering style, which really turned out to be part of the long slow climb since the wrist went south in 2015, six years where for I think easily the first year? Certainly by the time I was mocking up “Cerebus in Hell?” strips, it was all I could do to a word balloon. And the word balloons were on a percentage basis, not very good. But they didn’t have to be very good, they were just showing Sandy Atwall, “here’s where the word balloons go, here’s how large the word balloons should be.” So, obviously the hope is I could get back to doing photo realism at some point? Because what we’re talking about is the accuracy. The ability for me to put a very tiny line exactly where it needs to be. The amount of flexibility I’ve got doing bushes and planes and basic cartooning and stuff like that, there’s a lot of latitude there. Lettering? Mm, no. It either looks like Cerebus lettering, or it doesn’t, and it has to go exactly where it has to go. And I’m just not there yet. That was a little frustrating, but it was at least satisfying to letter one last Cerebus story from that time period. And then you say, “Since we’re discussing “Dead Hand” lettering, how’s about “Dead Hand” drawing? Any chance you’d be willing to try to finish Anatoli’s Solecism? Or “The Challenge”? I know 2021 Dave can’t draw like late 1970s/early 1980s Dave, but you might be able to finish it in the style of end of Cerebus. Thoughts on why not? (I know how this one ends…)”
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: Uh yes you do. Yes you do. Which is, from the moment that I took “The Passage” story, which I only had on photocopies, I don’t have the artwork from “The Passage” and was actually missing a couple of pages of that, and I got the original pages back from John David Cothran. And I thought, well, okay, the photocopies are light, but they’re pretty accurate. All I have to do is reink them, and it’s like, mm, no. No, I was completely astonished to find out, no, I can’t do this. I can’t draw like 1970s Dave Sim. Even trying to retouch 1970s Dave Sim, my hand just doesn’t go like that, and the lines don’t go like that, and I’m dissatisfied personally with the first two pages of “Cerebus “ that I recreated. I mean, it was one of those things that I wanted to do, thinking, “boy, now that I know all of this about drawing that I didn’t know then, boy could I just knock page one out of the ballpark, and page two out of the ballpark now!” It’s like, mm, no. It’s like Neal Adams said, you lose that rock & roll quality. Even the Beatles, as they became more adept as musicians, they weren’t as lively as they were at the Star-Club in Hamburg. You don’t get to add all of this knowledge to what you’re doing already, you lose the knowledge that you had and the sheer visceral impulse that you had in favor of something far more calculated, which is usually why any creator’s work from his 20s and 30s, before we knows what he’s doing, is the most popular. Because the general public responds far more to visceral than they do to accumulated knowledge, just by the nature of what that is, which I don’t think we really understand.
Matt: Okay.
Dave: Okay? [laughs]
Matt: Well, I knew going in the answer was, “yeah, I don’t think so, Matt” but I figured I’d ask just because, doing the remastereds, if you’re gonna start putting in the Revised Expanded editions you’re gonna put stuff in, ya know, I mean “The Challenge” is like seven pages?
Dave: It’s a short one, yeah. Yeah.
Matt: And Anatoli is five or six, I think?
Dave: Uhh, five pages, I think. Oh no no, six pages, yeah.
Matt: So you’ll have 12, 13 pages of, “if you were to try to be “how do I do this with a wrist saying ‘no’”, and also, just the going back to the page one, panel one of “okay, how does this work?” [laughs]
Dave: Right, right. I mean, there’s different levels of that. Like I got Alfonso at Studiocomix Press to do an original art size blueline of the cover of “Cerebus” #2 and then inked over it. The same thing that I did for “Turtles” #8 cover, although that wasn’t mine, that was Kevin. So, that’s a way to get sort of closer to that. I think there probably have been a happier results on the “Cerebus” #1 page one recreation if I had done that. “Let’s just copy the one that you did, and then ink it, and bring some more inking knowledge to it.” But in terms of actually trying to do a finished something of something that’s just in thumbnails, no, I thought the closest it’s gonna look like that, like something from that time period, would be to have Sean basically clean up the reproduction of the thumbnails, put my best 1970s lettering on top of it, and let the reader’s imagination fill in the blanks on that. There is kind of an update on “Anatol’s Solecism” where I went, I don’t even remember who I did this for, I know I did it for “Magic Eggroll Funnies”, but I don’t remember who was publishing “Magic Eggroll Funnies” and one of those weird things that only happens at the Off-White House and only happens to the Cerebus Archive, when I was putting the original thumbnails back in the “eight and half by 11 and smaller” file, and all of the photocopies of the script and everything right that so they’re all in one plastic bag, the letter that was turned up sideways to mark where to put the thumbnails back, was from the guy who was going to publish “Magic Eggroll Funnies”. So, sometime in the next little while, next few days, next week or so, I’m going to fax you that letter, and get you to like block out his name and address, but you’ll have his name and address, and you can see if you can try and find him on Facebook or on the internet somewhere, and go, “excuse me, are you the ‘Magic Eggroll Funnies’ guy? And do you still have a six page story by Dave Sim?”
Matt: Well, I was thinking about, ya know, it’s the 21st century, you can find anyone or anything! And everybody goes, “yeah yeah, no you can’t.” So, this is one of them Matt personal stories that is gonna make Dave go, “no, Matt, you’re making that up”, but it’s 100% true. So, when I was like 10 or 11, I was visiting my aunt down in Milwaukee and she lived near the college down there. So there were a lot of bars, lot of college kids that got stupid on Friday night, and one day she went in her backyard, and she has a fenced in backyard, and there was a black t-shirt wrapped around the wheels of the tricycle that her granddaughter rides around. And she washed it, and when I showed up for a visit with my mom, she said, “hey, do you want this shirt?” and I’m like, yeah sure, and it’s got a skull, and axes, and swords, and stuff, and it says, “Blacklist” and it just looks very metal. It’s the quintessential 80s metal t-shirt. And I loved it, cause it was such a neat design.
Dave: Wait a minute, what year was this?
Matt: Uhh… probably like 1989?
Dave: Okay, when metal was new.
Matt: Yeah, this is mid to late 80s. So I had this shirt, and I mean I wore it all the way through high school until I got fat enough that it doesn’t fit. And it’s a true metal shirt, cause it’s black and the sleeves were cut off, and ya know, whoever had this shirt obviously was having a great party when he threw it in my aunt’s backyard.
Dave: [laughs] Yeah, like “where did my shirt go?”
Matt: So, I have this shirt, and I love it, but I can’t wear it because I’ve gotten bigger. So I took it to the local screen printing place and said, “I’d like you to make a copy of this shirt” and the guy went, “well, it’s not gonna have all the details of the original” and I’m like, okay, how much? $30. So I go, get the shirt, it’s white instead of silver like the original, but okay, whatever, but the design is, ehh, 90% there. So, Paula and I are going to this rock festival that a friend of hers invited us to, and okay, we’re gonna go see Alice Cooper…
Dave: No way. No way!
Matt: No no! We’re gonna go see Alice Cooper, and okay, so I wear this shirt, cause it’s my metal shirt.
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: And we’re walking past the beer garden, and Paula and her friend are going to get drinks, and I don’t drink, so I’m just hanging back, and the bartender calls me over. And it’s this, ehh, 20-something year old woman, and she’s like, “where did you get that shirt?” I’m like, “oh, I made it!” She’s like, “you know Blacklist?” I’m like, “yeah… kind of? I’ve watched videos on the internet that I’ve found.” She’s like, “My dad’s the drummer.”
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: And I’m like, “really?” and she’s like, “yeah! Well, what’s your favorite song?” And I explain I got this shirt, I liked the shirt, I made a reproduction of the shirt. She’s like, “can I get a picture, ya know, of the two of us?” And I’m like sure, and she’s like, “well I can’t use my phone cause I’ll get in trouble cause I’m bar-tending.”
Dave: Right.
Matt: So I took a picture with my phone, and then she gives me her email, and I email her the picture so she can show her dad. So the odds of me finding “Magic Eggroll Funnies” is probably really small, but it’s not zero. [laughs]
Dave: Well, if it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen to Matt Dow.
Matt: Oh, most likely!
Dave: Because, you’ve had a few of those where you go, uhh, what was the last one? It was somebody else… oh, the guy who threw away all of the reader’s written comics.
Matt: Yeah. That one was really easy, because he’s got a blog.
Dave: Well, there you go! We’ll find out, maybe this guy has a blog. The thing is, once comics gets into your blood, it’s usually there to stay, and it’ll be something that you do say you identify yourself by on the internet, either a Facebook page or a blog or a group that you belong to. Or whatever. We’ll see where it goes. That’s a great story! That’s a great heavy metal story.
Matt: Hopefully, this story goes to, “oh yeah, he’s got a folder with the original art and he’s gonna mail it back to the Off-White House.” [laughs]
Dave: Yes! Yes. Didn’t know that Dave Sim was remotely interested, so here you go. Okay, so moving onto “Raymond Mountford asks: Hi Dave… Seeing as you’ve gone mainly towards Kickstarter...have you ever considered trying something other than comics? I ask because of the upcoming TMNT remaster. As a kid I had a ton of the 3000 figures that Eastman and Laird milked out of the book and show, I retroactively feel cheated that we never got a Cerebus (possibly the ONLY character to not transfer to plastic?) anyways… Was there a reason why we didn’t get a Cerebus action figure back in the day and have you considered trying your hand at doing one now?” Uh, okay, let’s answer the second part first. No, I’m not an action figure kinda guy. Worked on one because… there was a guy who was a big action figure fan and wanted to do the Cerebus action figure and would I draw all of the stuff that he would need. Front, side, back, top, bottom… all the rest of it. I think you know who I’m talking about.
Matt: Yep. [laughs]
Dave: Okay. Long as you know, and I know, everybody else can figure out as we go along. He only got as far as a figure, and it’s like, well, okay, it’s plastic sculpting stuff. What do they call that? 3D plastic…
Matt: 3D printing.
Dave: 3D printing, that’s what it is. And you would really have to find somebody who knew how to do actual action figures and knew how to do, ya know, print those on the plastic printer in pieces and then have the pieces fit together, and find somebody interested enough in painting all of those little pieces gray and painting the eyes on Cerebus. By the time you’re getting into that, you gotta really really expensive action figure. Not something that I would rule out as a possibility, but somebody else would have to do all of the heavy lifting on it, because as Dave Sim is to hardcovers, Dave Sim is to action figures. So that’s the way that goes. Go ahead.
Matt: My personal problem with the figure was that it was gonna be like 6 inches tall, and I’m like, alright, that’s a little big for Cerebus, but we can all live with that. And then it came out with, “no no, it’s gonna be 9 inches”, and I’m like, Cerebus is three feet tall, if the toy is 9 inches, that means he’s in scale with action figures that’re 18 inches and they don’t make a lot of those, and the ones they do make… like they do make an 18 inch Wolverine figure in the brown costume so you could cut the claws off and have a Roach if you really wanted it. But that’s it. That’s the only figure you could have besides Cerebus, because, ya know, it’s like…
Dave: You have an 18 inch Wolverine?
Matt: They have an 18 inch… yeah. A little while, they were doing, I think, Spider-Man, Wolverine, I think Deadpool, and maybe 3 or 4 other heroes, and they’re expensive collector editions.
Dave: I’ll betcha! How much did they cost? Like ballpark?
Matt: I think it was like 50, $60.
Dave: Right, right.
Matt: When the third Spider-Man movie came out, they came up with the Ultimate Spider-Man, because at the time in toys, they kept putting more and more articulation in, so instead of just moving the shoulders and the hips and the neck like original old school toys did, now they’re giving them elbows, now they’re giving them wrists, and when the third Spider-Man came out, there was one that had individually articulated fingers that you could have the hand shooting webs, or you could have the hand in a fist, or you could have ‘em grabbing something. Well, they came out with the Ultimate Spider-Man, that’s 18 inches tall, and each knuckle was articulated.
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: And I saw it in the store, and went, there’s no kid on the planet who wants this toy.
Dave: Right.
Matt: Dads want the toy. Dads are like, “why couldn’t I get this toy in 1978?”
Dave: [laughs] Right! Even as you’re describing it, I’m going, “I have no interest in action figures, but I’d definitely like to see one of those, and then as soon as I saw it, then I’d want to own it.” So yeah, getting… go ahead.
Matt: And so the problem I had was it’s gonna be a 9 inch Cerebus, and I’m like, I have an original 1984, 85, Wolverine figure that’s like 3 and half, 4 inches tall. I want a Cerebus that’s in scale with that! [laughs]
Dave: Right. Right.
Matt: And there’s other people, that all their toys are 6 inches, so they’re gonna want a 3 inch Cerebus, and then there’s the guys that have GI Joes that are 12 inches, and I’m going, this is the point where Dave’s eyes glaze over, and he’s like, “I don’t even want one and you’re asking me for seven.”
Dave: Right. And you want them all to be perfect and just be little proportionate versions of each other. Yeah, it’s a nightmarish ball of wax. Like I say, it’s not something that I would completely rule out, but it is… [laughs] It’s definitely not front-burner for me. Okay, moving on, "I, personally, would love to see a couple of these. Cerebus. The Goat. Lord Julius. Jaka.” That’s interesting! I hadn’t thought of that. It’s like, all you’d have to do is find a action figure goat of some kind online. I’m sure they must make action figure barnyard animals, and we’ll make it Lord Julius’ goat. All we have to do is come up with a really cool logo, and bubble pack, and there you go! The Lord Julius’ Goat action figure with 80 points of articulation. Or zero points of articulation! It’s just a goat figure. But trust us, it’s the one from “High Society”. "the possibilities are endless (Mind you, it’s probably best to stop before you get to “Underwater Grappling Hook Battle Armour Rick”” [laughs] I would agree with that. “(who would even need a grappling hook underwater? Swim damnit))” [laughs] That’s a very good, astute point. Maybe after I’m dead. Within 50 years of Dave Sim’s death, they were already producing Underwater Grappling Hook Battle Armour Rick and the Jaka that goes with it.
So, okay, we got all the way through that, let’s double back to, was there a reason why we didn’t get a Cerebus action figure back in the day when Kevin and Peter were doing everything in their book that wasn’t nailed down as an action figure? And the answer to that is at the… either the Toronto summit or the Northampton summit, we had a… not a commitment, but an agreement in principal that Playmate Toys would do a Cerebus action figure. Unfortunately, the way I was picturing it was, this would be cool. We’ll just get a bunch of them done, like say 20 or 30 or something and each of us can have one. Because it’s not gonna be part of the Turtles universe apart from “Turtles” #8 and we don’t want to be confusing people on that point. But it’d be kind of cool to have a Cerebus action figure. I had my Turtles action figure that Kevin gave me for the longest time, where it was just, this is really cool! I know the guy who does this comic, and here’s an action figure from it. Unfortunately, Pete Laird basically just went to whoever their contact guy was at Playmates Toys and said, “here, this guy, Cerebus the Aardvark, we’re gonna do an action figure of it. So you take care of all the details.” And the guy turned out to be one of those real, “we’re so excited to be working with you” kind of things and “ya know, as you can see, there’s this paperwork that you’d have to sign off on and this boilerplate ‘we own this in perpetuity and you’ll never get this back and don’t even think about doing your own action figure’” and it’s like, got through this, whatever it was, phone conversation or whatever, and called Peter, and went, “Peter, this guy is like just a real jerk. A real Pink Floyd ‘have a cigar’ type.” [laughs] And Peter goes, “They’re all like that.” [laughs] And it’s like, I went, okay, well I didn’t know that. There’s something you don’t know about until you have a property like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and I’ll take Peter’s word for it. “They’re all like that.” So I just said, well, uhh, okay, in that case, I really don’t want to do this, and I think Peter took that personally. Definitely it drove a wedge between myself and Peter that he thought this was really cool, that he agreed to do a Cerebus figure, and was gonna make it part of the Playmates Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle line, this’ll be really great. It’s like I slapped in the face, which I can see that that’s the way he took it, and I understand that that’s how he took it, but that’s definitely not how I intended it. I intended it as, hey, you can get Playmates to do whatever you want. I mean, they’re making so much money off of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by whatever this was, 1988, 1989. Just tell them, “okay, you’re gonna make a bunch of these Cerebus figures for the guys and I don’t want any backtalk and one of of them goes to this guy, one of them goes to that guy.” And that was how I pictured it, was that, okay, you’re Pete Laird, or you’re Kevin Eastman. If you want Playmates to do a Playmate toy, ask how high on the way up, cause if we stop authorizing on these figures they’re gonna be missing out on tons of money you would otherwise be getting. That’s the unhappy story in that situation. When I did Spore and the Spore Wagon, I was hoping Todd would see that in the comic book and go, “I’ve gotta make that. I’ve gotta make the Spore figure, and I gotta make the Spore Wagon”. And same sort of deal. “We’ll never be able to sell these to anybody, but I gotta at least make a few dozen of these for myself and a few friends, and one of them for Sims as well. Sims will get one of them.” And that didn’t happen, so, that’s the bottom line on that story, to the best of my recollection.
And moving on from there, “Dion Turner has been doing this thing on the Cerebus FaceItBooks Group where he picks a single issue to get remastered from each phonebook (I’m not sure why…) anyway, he recently posted:” Uh, well let me interrupt before we get to his post, and say, I think that’s a great idea. It’s like, we’re definitely gonna do “Cerebus” #1, and #2, God-willing, through Waverly Press, but I’ve been thinking along those same lines. We’re probably not gonna get too far past issue 2, we’ll see how the revenues are, and then we’re gonna have to get tricky about it, and definitely we want “Turtles” 8 in there somewhere. But the first thing that I thought of was a facsimile “Cerebus” #186, and we would pitch it as “the most controversial comic book ever published! Ever! Ever” And this is an exact facsimile of that comic book. And have everybody paying, whatever, 20, $30 for each of them, and getting them in and reading them and going, “I don’t get it, what’s controversial about it? This is what you destroyed this man’s career over? What are you, insane?” and it’s like, ehh, I think we have to agree, or I will at least suggest at this point in time that’s a rhetorical question. But, yeah, that puts a smile on my face anytime I think of doing an exact facsimile of “Cerebus” 186. “anyway, he recently posted: Back to our regularly scheduled pick for the #FantasyCerebusRemasteredLeague Issue 166 for Women. Great classic cover” Thank you! I could’ve sold that cover a bunch of times over. ”inside we have some awesome spreads of dreams (I’m a sucker for any of the dream issues). The page of Cerebus and Jaka on the chess board with the moon in the background puts this issue at the top of my list. I can completely understand someone picking some of the Roach-focused issues if that tickles their fancy more. Like the Mind Games issues Cerebus seems to be at his most powerful or most ‘pure’ of intent when he’s unconscious or not being poisoned by his own ambitions.” Very well put. Very well put. “Everyone dreams in Women” [laughs] Okay, I’m not gonna catch a straight line like that. “Everyone dreams in Women, all characters have a vision or two that moves them around the chessboard for the start of Reads. Despite Sandman being popular I don’t think that was the reason that the Roach become Swoon in these issues. At the back of the issue is a transcript of Dave’s address to the Diamond Seminar in ‘92, it’s a great read and a little bit depressing given the view of the comic shelves these days. It would be interesting to know if Dave had anything to add to this near enough 30 years later.” And thank you for your question, Dion, because you asked a question, I went to the Off-White House library and I dug down in pile #2, from issue 200 down to 166, and I pulled the issue out, and I reread the Diamond Seminar speech. Jotted down a few notes here… I think the biggest thing, reading the speech, and reading… like I can what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to make a place for self-published comics in the direct market and in all comic book stores. I’m talking to, I don’t know how many people, probably 1500 retailers at the Diamond Seminar, doing the speech. And, I think if I could go back in time and explain to myself what the internet is, and what websites are, and what eBay is, and what Kickstarter is, I would be saying to myself, you think that you have to do all of this on your own, cause you’re the only person at this lynchpin position between the retailers and the publishers and the distributors and the fans and the comic book stores. You have this overwhelming sense that, if not me, who? If not now, when? This is a brief window of opportunity, if this closes then it’s gonna be the same as the little that the Beatles and the Rolling Stones did to make the rock & roll field, pop music more compatible for artists than it was. To make room for the Beatles who were at the Star-Club in Hamburg, instead of going, “uhh, there’s just piles and piles of money all over the place. So it’s not problem for anyone!” It’s like, no, you can’t take that attitude, you gotta go, “what do we do to build a firewall between what the business side can do and what it can’t do and make sure that they don’t encroach on the creators.” As I say, because I didn’t know about the internet, websites, and eBay, and Kickstarter and stuff like that, this wasn’t the make or break point that I thought it was. That we have Diamond and Cap City and unless we make a place for self-publishing here and get the retailers thinking about this, that’s gonna be it, and I will just be this weird exception and Richard & Wendy will be a weird exception. The Turtles will be a weird exception. There are, I’m sure, dozens, if not hundreds, if not thousands of very successful self-publishing cartoonists on the internet who became successful enough right out of the gate, or built enough of a success on their own, that they don’t even think about Diamond Comics. They don’t even think about being in comic book stores. It’s like, when they see what the structure is, it’s like, “no, I would far rather do this on my own and have complete autonomy and not have to give somebody 60% off on the books”, so consequently there was no need for me to take as much time out of my career as I did to try and make this happen, because it wasn’t that necessary. But it is interesting reading Dave Sim from 30 years ago, and going, “wow, you’re being really good and balanced about this. You’re definitely selling this from the retailer’s side and you’re not trying to sound as desperate as you are to preserve self-publishing”. So like, good for you, but it would be nice for me to go back to 1992 and say, “you don’t have to do this. None of these books that you’re trying to preserve and support are going to be around in five years and the ones that are, they’ll be around because they’re really popular, no matter who they’re coming out from.” So consequently, I would say, don’t worry about doing that, when Image comes along, do two comic books a month, ya know, like you did in Hawaii, do the latest issue of “Cerebus”, but do something for Image, [laughs] because these book are selling a million copies each! All you have to do is do the first five months after Image is viable and up and running, and you’ll have enough money to make all of your Dave Sim dreams come true for you and Cerebus and the Off-White House and all the rest of it. Be a little more self-centered, be a little less altruistic, but of course, if I had done that, and I had generated that kind of money, I didn’t have the proper personality for it at the time. I would’ve done something like Kevin. Go and marry the Penthouse Pet of the Year. It’s like, ooh, bad idea. Bad idea. But if you’ve got millions of dollars that other people don’t have, it’s one of the hurtles that you’re gonna have to get over. And that’s probably a hurtle that 1992 Dave Sim would’ve gone, “ah, do I have to jump over this? I don’t wanna jump over this. I want to trip over this one. Can I pick my Penthouse Pet of the Year?”
Also reading it, I went, I didn’t know Diamond was going to supplant Cap City, which, ya know, at one point it was “this town ain’t big enough for the both of us” and so Diamond signed up all of their exclusives and they got the top five publishers and that basically put Capital City out of business. When that was happening, it was like, “this situation is even more desperate than I thought it was. “ And it’s like, no, it wasn’t desperate at all, the universe was unfolding as it should. Diamond having all of the direct market business actually streamlined things to a great extent, and still makes them the most viable way to distribute virtually all English language comic books. To the extent that they don’t have to worry about “well what about the hundreds of self-publishers out there, who aren’t even going to come to us, because they’ve got this viable online business?” it’s like, that sorted itself out perfectly, and Dave Sim is sort of on the 50 yard line thinking, “I have to do something here because I’m the only one who can do something about this.” And it’s like, mm, no. You’ll back and say, ahh! Didn’t know what was gonna happen up ahead. And I also, like looking at it, I was going, I have to use my cache and I have to be always thinking of the cache, not just the creative cache, or the business cache, but the cache with the retailers and the cache with the fans and the distributors and the warehouse people. So I have to stay focused on that. I didn’t know that the comic book feminists were going to cancel me in two years. And that changed everything. It’s like, don’t worry about your cache, you won’t have any! [laughs] And once it goes away, it’s never coming back. So, it was interesting from that standpoint. I think probably one of the most valuable things I was saying in the speech, was that the retailers life is always composed of comic books now and comic books two months from now. The comic books they’re ordering and the comic books they’re putting on the shelves. And it’s very hard to talk, this is a note I wrote down, it’s hard to talk to a flowing river, which is what I trying to do. Yes, it is always now, and it always two months from now to you guys. But now is going to be a month from now a month from now, and two months from now is going to be three months from now, and consequently, very little of what I said would have stuck with them, apart from, ”yes, we do want to make room for variety in our stores”. The retailers ended up taking care of that themselves. When we got to what I was describing in the speech, absolute now, where the hits and misses were no longer a percentage of hits and a percentage of misses. The hits and misses became hits, sort of misses on everything, and lottery tickets. Like the hits were so infrequent, that you’re having to buy 100 comic books in order to make sure that you had that comic book that everybody was going to want that you had no idea when you ordered it everybody was going to want. When they hit that point, and after that point, because they have to keep going it’s a flowing river, that was when they came up with, “Okay, the problem is racking. I can’t rack every comic book that I’ve ordered. Here’s Previews. We will sell you Previews. If there’s any comic book in there that you want, you let me know by this date, and I will get you one of them.” And that became the decision in the store, which is a very very sensible solution, to say, “I will get you any comic book that you want”, but if you’re just coming in shopping, just looking at what’s on the racks, which I think is what Dion you’re describing as “depressing” because, yeah, these are the most popular comic books. These are the ones, there’s a lottery ticket in there somewhere, the rest of them are gonna be sell-half, sell 3/4, sell a quarter, and then have to blow out the rest in a 50 cent box or whatever. As somebody with esoteric, adult taste, that’s not something that you’re gonna be seeing just dropping into the comic book store and scanning the racks. It’s the same experience that Blockbuster Video got to where, “hey, let’s go down and rent a movie.” Okay! Go down and rent a movie. Here’s a giant wall full of movies. Here’s racks and racks and racks of movies, all movies that I have no interest in seeing. I have no patience to look through here to try and find a movie that I do want to see, so instead of renting a movie tonight, let’s go and do something else.” So that’s my reaction to the speech 30 years later, it was one of those, when you’re a guy who is really at the top of your game, the top of your popularity, somebody that would be picked to do the keynote address to Diamond Seminar in 1992… there’s a bad mix of egotism in there where you think, “1992 is the make or break time for the direct market.” It’s like, ehh, there’s been a like a dozen make or break times since then, and they’ve all leveled along without you. Stop thinking you’re that important.
When I got to the end of the speech, and I said, Martin Wagner was doing “Hepcats” at the time, and Colleen Doran who was doing “A Distant Soil”, “and I look forward to seeing you in the exhibit room” and I thought, oh, right! Diamond Seminar 1992! Where it was… Martin and I had done the Cap City show doing a jam print, me and Martin, we both sign it and do a little headsketch on it. And it’s like, “okay, let’s bring Colleen on this.” It worked really good with just the two of us, let’s see how it works with three of us doing a jam print! Which we maxed out at five. But it was interesting because ya know, we’re sitting there and glad-handing the retailers, getting business cards, and signing our art print, personalizing it to them, and basically occupying a good number of the retailers who are all lined up to get one of these. Then it’s the end of whatever day it was, I’m sure it was Saturday night or Friday night, and “okay, what’s on the schedule?” And it’s like, the Diamond Gemmy award. And it’s like, wow, okay. Well, let’s see, here’s all the nominees. Okay, I’m not nominated for anything, you’re not nominated for anything, you’re not nominated for anything. Let’s go out for a nice dinner someplace. It’s Baltimore, we’ll go out, there’s some great seafood somewhere. And I gotta along with Colleen Doran’s mother, who is a wonderful woman. And it was like, okay this will be an experience because Martin has just met Colleen, and now he’s gonna have dinner with her. [laughs] It’s like, Martin… his food kept falling out of his mouth, because it was just like hanging open listening to Colleen because once she gets going, she gets going. But it’s like, okay, well, we’re all self-publishers so we all have to get used to each other here. And we had this wonderful dinner, and then came back when the Gemmy awards were letting out, and it’s like somebody from Diamond came running up and went, “Here you are! Where have you been?” and it’s like, uhh, we went out for dinner! Why? And it’s like, “they gave you a Gemmy award. You got the small press pioneer Gemmy award” and Steve Geppi’s up on stage going, ‘Dave Sim, come on up here!’ and of course everybody’s all jazzed up for my speech, so it’s like, giant standing ovation for Dave Sim, and Dave Sim is out for dinner with Martin Wagner and Colleen Doran. And, somebody told me, yeah they got the spotlight sweeping around, trying to figure out, “where’s Dave Sim? Dave Sim’s got to stand up.” and somebody comes in from the back corner, and a giant roar goes out in the crowd, cause there he is, and it’s like, “no it’s just a waiter”. No, it’s not me, it’s not me. So there you go. I have never been anywhere where I won an award, and there was my chance to be there, to get my award, and I just looked down the whole list, and went, “well, I’m not nominated for anything. Let’s just go out for dinner somewhere.”
Matt: And you haven’t missed an award show since, but you haven’t won an award since.
Dave: That’s right! It’s God’s whoopee cushion. It’s like, anytime you go there, you’re not gonna win, anytime you don’t go, you are going to win. And it’s like, okay, I’m not playing this idiot game anymore. This was interesting, this Erik Larsen thing that you did. “Erik Larsen posted on HIS FaceItBook: Color the page using flat colors made up of 25%, 50% and 100% only. No gradients, no cheating. No black percentages. Make a copy of this and keep it always. If the other stuff looks crappy or if you decide later to print it Marvel Masterworks style--you may want a clean, perfect, beautiful version.” What is he talking about?
Matt: It was a page from a backup story from an issue of “Savage Dragon” and it’s flat colors. It looks like older comics from back in the day.
Dave: Oh! Oh, alright. He’s using the percentages, the magenta, cyan, and yellow, that you did back in the 1960s.
Matt: Yeah.
Dave: Okay! As opposed to the full computer colour in the front of the book.
Matt: Right, and it was one of these, what it is I have this spare Facebook account that I don’t ever really use, but when I find something I gotta ask you about, I share it to that Facebook account. So then I, when it’s time to send up the questions, I got, okay, what does Jorge have to tell me? And I go, and this was one of them, and I’m like, “why would I have thought Dave needed to know this?” and I’m like, “maybe it’s a ‘send this to Birdsong, Hobbs, and Sean for when they’re doing covers?” because I think it tied into something you had talked to Hobbs about for, he did a color mock-up and you’re like, “no no no, you’re doing computer colors, you gotta be thinking old school colors.”
Dave: Yeah, right. Go ahead.
Matt: But I’m like, it’s on the list for Dave, so let’s send it up and see what happens.
Dave: Well, I gotta tell you, even just looking at it at the microscopic size, whoever drew it is doing Gene Colan, and he’s doing a really, really good Gene Colan. I mean this is, “I always wanted to draw Captain America vs Iron Man in Gene Colan style”, and well, you can check this one off your bucket list, because you did it. He’s even got Gene Colan sound effects. Colan would rough them in for the letterer, because nobody could do lettering for Gene Colan figures like Gene Colan could, and I was really really impressed looking at it. Okay, now I understand why it was that you thought you should send it to me. And whoever it is, let’s definitely give them credit and that whatever this is, home page for Please Hold for Dave Sim for May 2021. “You will not believe the Gene Colan clone you are about to see!” I’m very very impressed.
Okay! Moving on from there, we’ve got Jennifer, Jennifer DiGiacomo. I don’t know if I’m pronouncing that right? Jennifer DiGiacomo, “posted in The Official Cerebus Facebook Group: Is there a missing Cerebus Jam issue with the Salvador Dali-Cerebus jam? Because I would totally buy that.” And then you’ve got a link to an eBay auction for "Salvador Dali - Cerebus Divine Comedy Custom Framed Print”. And it’s like, uh, anybody wants to Photoshop Cerebus into a Salvador Dali print, I would totally sign that. I think that’s a very cool idea. As a matter of fact, the more than I looked at it, the more I thought, yeah! I don’t know Jennifer if you’re a huge Salvador Dali fan and that’s why you thought of this, or you just saw this specific print and thought, yeah, I would picture this as a “Cerebus in Hell?” but it’s definitely a completely original idea. Nobody has thought of this before, and I’m gonna suggest, you don’t have to do anything about it. I don’t know how busy you are with your job and stuff like that, but why don’t you do a Cerebus/ Salvador Dali “Cerebus in Hell?” crossover? And if you don’t have Photoshopping chops, ya know, just print out the pictures and print out some Cerebuses from “Cerebus in Hell?” and do them panel sized, and if you think of a joke, put the joke there. Or otherwise, just say, “okay here’s how I picture it as a panel” and send them to me as blanks, ya know, four panel pages, or we’ve got ful pages, or we’ve got two panel pages, we’re pretty flexible like that. We always like to come back to home base with the four panels and the “Cerebus in Hell?” logo, and yeah, anything that’s interesting like that, let me throw that open to anybody. This is how we do “Cerebus in Hell?” Somebody comes up with something that’s a very funny image and sends it to me, and it’s either just “very funny image, haha, that’s great.” Or it’s a very funny image and it’s, “yeah I want to do an issue of that. I’m not really sure what the whole issue is gonna be like, but I can think of three or four gags already.” And yes, this is JDG’s to either follow through on, or just say, “no it was just a funny idea on the Facebook page. This would definitely be a good way to get your own personalized copy of the Salvador Dali Cerebus print.
Matt: Well, I think she shared it because it’s the Deni problem of thinking of Cerberus and writing Cerebus.
Dave: Right.
Matt: Cause in the description, it’s very much is a three-headed Dali dog. It’s Dali, I mean, it could be an aardvark. [laughs]
Dave: Sure! Sure, that’s the thing. It’s like, all you need is a premise. That’s why I was thinking, JDG, if you’re a huge Dali fan, or if you know something about Dali, and I assume you are that’s why you…
Matt: She’s very much a Cerebus fan. Right now, she’s been posting going through old copies of the Comics Buyer’s Guide and putting up anything that’s Aardvark-Vanaheim/Cerebus related, and she actually found some stuff that Margaret doesn’t have on the checklist.
Dave: No way!
Matt: Yeah!
Dave: [laughs] That’s impossible. No one can find anything that Margaret doesn’t know about.
Matt: Oh no no, when she’s like, “Margaret, do you have this one?” and she’s like “no, let me update the checklist” and I’m going, “yeah, stumping Margaret’s hard. It’s possible, but it’s real hard!” [laughs]
Dave: Wow. I’m impressed. I’m impressed. Does she have all of the Comics Buyer’s Guide?
Matt: I don’t know if she all of them, or if she was using Margaret’s list to buy them and like, going on eBay and finding a lot of like 10 issues and five of them are on the list, so she buys it, and it turns out the other five have stuff.
Dave: Oh, alright! Alright, I gotcha. I gotcha.
Matt: I don’t know, but I would assume, cause that happens a lot, where you go to buy one thing, and “hey look, there’s something else in there.”
Dave: Right, right. That’s interesting.
Matt: Kinda like, when I sent you the Gene Day comics, what had happened was my friend’s into comics, and everyone knows he’s into comics, so, “oh look, the thrift store got a bunch of comics. Here look, you can have these!” and he gives them to me, he’s like… he buys comics, he gives them to me, and says, “take them to the comic store and sell them back” cause he doesn’t have space of them. So he’s like, “just add these to the pile” and I’m going through and I’m like, “’Star Trek?’ Huh?” and I flip it open, Gene Day! That’s kind of funny! And “Star Wars”, hey, that’s Gene Day! That’s kind of funny. And there’s like four or five of them came out of that stack, and I’m like, yeah, these are all going to Dave. I’m just gonna throw them in a box.
Dave: Yeah, yeah. The people at Marvel used to think Gene Day was just the name to this massive studio of inkers in Gananoque, Ontario. They couldn’t believe that it was just Gene and Danny doing all of that stuff. They were an amazing duo. But yeah, getting back to this, Jennifer, if you’re a Salvador Dali fan and you know stuff about Salvador Dali that you could turn into a good natured parody, I think there would be nothing funnier than a “Cerebus in Hell?” Salvador Dali issue. It’s like, mm, who’s gonna sue us for doing Salvador Dali? Like, I’m pretty sure there was an estate, but the estate is sort of long past that point, and ya know, what are the odds that somebody in that context, going, “I really should Google search the comic book field and find out if anybody’s going illegal Salvador Dali comics.” I can’t picture that. We can mess around with it and turn it into something else. Once you’ve got Medieval Spawn, the world is your oyster, as far as I’m concerned. So…
Matt: I’m personally a big fan of the Dada movement, just because I found a book on Dada, and the cover is… I forget which artist it was, but it’s the postcard of the Mona Lisa that they drew the mustache and goatee on.
Dave: Right, right.
Matt: And it’s now an original artwork! And I’m thinking, “it’s a postcard with some pencil on it. But okay, I’ll play along!”
Dave: Sure! Sure.
Matt: All we’ve got to do is give Dali Cerberus a Dali mustache, we’re done! It’s a brand new property! [laughs]
Dave: Brand new character! Brand new character, absolutely nothing to do with the artwork that’s under there. Yeah, it would also be nice to have another female “Cerebus in Hell?” writer. I just got in today the printer’s proof copy, my proofreading copy, of “The Unethical Spider-Vark” and it’s very funny. Laura McFarland wrote that, Benjamin Hobbs’ fiancee, they do stuff together, but this was the comic book that she did as part of an ethics class, [laughs] and it’s somebody who’s just about had enough of the fully woke college environment that was just getting rolling a few years back, and definitely saw “Cerebus in Hell?” written on all over this. And there’s a good three or four or five complete laugh out loud strips in there. That’s the July issue coming up ahead, you can order that one from your Diamond Previews right now, as far as I know.
Matt: Yes!
Dave: And, yes, it’s in the on-deck circle, and yes, very gratifying to have a really really funny “Cerebus in Hell?” issue, not only written by a female, but I didn’t have to do anything on it. Just correct some spelling errors and tweak some of the gags, and Bob’s your uncle. So, Jennifer, if you want to join the “Cerebus in Hell?” team, now’s your chance. Salvador Dali, “Cerebus in Hell?”
And, “lastly”. Not it wasn’t lastly, you were lying, because I got another fax in after that, but we’ll pretend, “Lastly, I had a couple questions about the Waverly Press Hardcovers. 1. Are the 150 copies per trade “set in stone” or would you guys up the amount offered if there was demand?” Uh, well, the 150 was Dagon’s call. So it was kind of arbitrary. The whole relationship with Waverly Press started when Dagon sent me a copy of Baron Wolman’s Jimi Hendrix book and the appeal that it had for me. I mean, Dagon does great books, he does great books and great magazines. Whatever he does, it’s always… I get something in from him, stop work, sit down, flip through it, pretend to flip through it, actually read it. What really appealed to me about this one, was that it was complete. It was all of the late Baron Wolman’s, he just died recently, Jimi Hendrix photos that he had done for Rolling Stone Magazine. And it’s like, wow, that’s very impressive. He didn’t photograph Jimi Hendrix too many times, but he did photograph him like two or three times. Here’s the story behind it, and here’s all of the photographs. And I thought, I would like Dagon to do a Cerebus book like that. So I called him when I got the book in, and ya know, raved about the book, and then said, “let’s do a book. Let’s do a book that’s like this. I’d like to do something self-contained that is, ‘here’s all of it, and here it is beautifully reproduced with some notes in the front’’ and he’s like, “yep, that would be fine, that would be great.” It started out being “Swords of Cerebus”. Let’s do, actually “Swords of Cerebus” #1, let’s do a thorough going, “here’s all of Marshall Rogers’ pencils for the Diamondback story, here’s the four issues that were in ‘Swords of Cerebus’, here’s all of the annotations, here’s my new commentary on it, here’s sketches I’ve got of the cover.” All kinds of stuff like that. And then, it got shifted over to, “well, what about ‘High Society’?” And it’s like, no, I don’t wanna do one of my trade paperbacks. My trade paperbacks are a pain in the backside. Cause, all they are is a lot of money, and a lot of sweat, and a lot of aggravation, keeping them… getting them into print, getting them remastered. But, of course, Dagon’s a “Cerebus” fan, “but I really want to do ‘High Society’, we could do all this stuff with it” and it’s like, “oh, we could do hardcovers”, well, I don’t wanna do hardcovers. And then I go, well, you could do hardcovers because I’m doing a new printing of “High Society”, so all you would have to do is print a bunch more copies of “High Society”, just the guts and then you turn them into hardcovers, and you stick all the bells and whistles and stuff on them. But I wasn’t really interested in all the bells and whistles, I just wanted a really cool book.
Matt: Which is about when Matt got the email from Sean of, “hey, there’s this guy that’s gonna do new copy of ‘High Society’ and we want you to help sell it” and I forget exactly the wording was. And I’m like okay, ya know, here’s my email, my secondary email, my phone number, my fax number, and my address. Give it to him and he can contact me however he wants, and that’s when I started getting on the email chain of, “okay, this is what we’re gonna do.” And it was, I dunno, about a week into it when Dagon came back with, “hey, for ‘High Society’, we’re gonna include a reproduction of ‘Cerebus’ #1 remastered!” and I’m going, alright, that sounds neat, I’m about that, I want one of those. And the next thing I know, “we’re just gonna do a remaster of ‘Cerebus’ #1!” [laughs]
Dave: Right! Right. It shifts around as Dagon goes, “what is the coolest thing that we could do here?” Because, like you say, as soon as he says to you, “we’re gonna put a remastered ‘Cerebus’ #1 in it” it’s like, “hey, I’m a Cerebus fan! You just lit up the 500 point bumper. It’s, man, yes, I’m in.” That whole thing sort of moved over, way over from what I had intended, into something that’s actually a wonderful revenue stream for “Cerebus” and Aardvark-Vanaheim. But is just now part of the big pain in the butt, posterity-aggravating Dave Sim’s trade paperback thing. So… but getting back to your question, the 150 was arbitrary. It was like, we will just tack on more copies, how many do you want to do? And then it became, uhh, well, how many makes sense? You have to find a Goldilocks spot then, and you have no idea what the Goldilocks spot is. Too many, and you have to store them for decades, too few and they sell out right away.
Matt: Yeah, and that’s one of the reasons I’m asking was because with “High Society” of the fallout of, ya know, there’s only 20 of the topper-most, popper-most edition, and the 21st guy goes “hey, wait a minute”. It’s like, oh you know, it’s limited and he doesn’t have any left! It’s not like there’s gonna be a stack of them available, again, unless…
Dave: Okay, that’s your second question, though, let’s keep dealing with your first question.
Matt: Okay.
Dave: Which is, because it was an arbitrary amount, that’s what it was, was 150. Now we’re facing the same thing, because the next remastered book that’s actually going to get printed, being brought back into print, is “Form & Void”, so you have the same question, but hinging on, we all know “Form & Void” isn’t “High Society”. The Cerebus fans are not nearly as excited about “Form & Void” as they are about “High Society”. So, is the 150 a sensible number for “Form & Void” to the extent that it wasn’t a number for “High Society”? We don’t know that, because the problem that you run into is, you don’t know what the demand is before you actually print the books. You’re guessing, all you can do is guess, and you can either guess low, or you can guess high, but odds are you’re not gonna guess right. So, I certainly welcome input, I’m sure Dagon welcomes input, on how many’s a sensible quantity for “Form & Void”, and what makes sense to include with “Form & Void”? I’m inclined to say the photographer for Look Magazine, who all of his photos are archived at the JFK Library, pick 10 of those and do really high quality colour printing of Dagon’s San Francisco colour developer, as a suggestion, and make that the incentive. There, again, it’s like, “well, I’m a Cerebus fan. I’d much rather have pictures of Cerebus than pictures of Ernest and Mary Hemingway.” Which I can understand. But it’s one of those, well, are we trying to do the best book we possibly can, or are we trying to do the most popular Cerebus book that we can? And those are different questions as well.
Matt: When is “Form & Void” coming back? Do we have a ballpark just for the regular trades, when it’s gonna be in Diamond again?
Dave: I think it’s been solicited, but we haven’t gotten to the solicitation stage where I’m gonna get a purchase order that says “this is how many that we want.”
Matt: Okay, the only reason I ask is because literally today, when I was waiting to get Natasha off the bus, I checked Facebook and Dominick Grace is looking for recommendations on where he can find a reasonably priced copy of “Form & Void”, and it’s like, good luck, it’s been out of print for years.
Dave: [laughs] It doesn’t exist in the reasonably priced category.
Matt: Uh, actually it does. Mimi Cruz at Night Flight Comics says they have a bunch in their warehouse for $30 a piece, plus shipping.
Dave: God bless you, Mimi Cruz.
Matt: And I read that, and I’m like, “she doesn’t have them for long!” [laughs]
Dave: No! I imagine those will be gone in a trice, as they used to say. Yeah, um… okay, yeah, in terms of “Form & Void”, I’m still waiting to hear back from Diamond that, yes, they’re interested in 1000 copies for their inventory. At the rate the books are selling, 1000 copies will last them years. Fallback position would be doing a Kickstarter for it, along the same lines as the “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” one that’s going on right now for Carson’s version, and hardcover and softcover. Part of me wants to do a variant cover, and I’m going, I’m not sure if that’s just in the “pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered” category. Here’s three different “Form & Void”s with three different Ham Ernestway covers. I would really like to have one for myself, Ham Ernestway taking the slip off when he’s talking about being Mary’s girl. It’s like, let’s really sell this! Stop talking about Ernest Hemingway’s sexuality as if it’s some big secret, it’s everywhere, you’re just ignoring the elephant in the room. I will be the first one to do the Ham Ernestway trans cover, and ya know put an interesting Gerhard background in behind that, and here’s your variant cover, and now instead of buying one new trade paperback you’ve gotta buy two new trade paperbacks. And we can do it as a [laughs] a dust jacket on the hardcover, and now you gotta buy two hardcovers. It’s like, mm, no, I don’t think you wanna go there, Dave. These people are spending more of their money on Cerebus stuff than they want to, as it is. Although I’m sure everybody everybody listening to this, they’re going, “yeah, I’d kinda like a Ham Ernestway trans cover myself.”
Matt: You could do it as a print! [laughs]
Dave: Yep! Yep. There’s always that. Like doing stuff book size or smaller, which is the same thing that Sean and Carson are trying to stick with on “Strange Death of Alex Raymond.” Offer them anything as long as it can go in the same box with the books, so it’s not any bigger than that.
Matt: Or, if you do it as a hardcover, do it so that the trans cover is the cover of the hardcover, and then the regular cover is the dust jacket, so you pull the dust jacket off and go, “uhh, either you like it or you’re gonna glue the dust jacket on.”
Dave: Right! There’s a thought. There’s a thought.
Matt: I’m full of ideas!
Dave: [laughs] I know you are! We’re not there yet, anyway. “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” had to play itself out, everybody has to get their “High Society” books, then we move on to “Cerebus” #2. Dagon is full of ideas too, and I frustrate him, because I go, “no, we’ll talk about this when ‘Cerebus’ #2 is further along in the process, because otherwise we’re gonna get into a situation where we’re working on five book simultaneously, and then pitching them to everybody, and then bankrupting everybody, and I really don’t want to do that. If I don’t get paid for “High Society” until June, because that’s when it actually ships, that’s going to keep me far more honest about any of these future projects. But the “Form & Void” will be done I think the same way that “High Society” was done. It’s probably not going to be a Kickstarter, it’s going to be a, “here they are kids! They’re going to be available starting on this date and at this time, and when they’re gone, they’re gone.” Which then moves on to your next question, “As it is 150 each time a book is printed, does that count new versions of previously offered books? Or do those get “skipped”?” Uh, the answer to that one is, at the velocity “High Society” is selling through Diamond, I mean, that’s a 2023 or 2026 question. And as Teddy Kennedy used to say, we’ll drive off that bridge when we come to it.
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: My guess is no. Dagon doesn’t repeat himself.
Matt: Which would imply that if he were to do a new version of “High Society” it would truly be a new version of “High Society”. Ya know, it wouldn’t be the same book again, it would be, ya know, the guts of the trade with all new bonus features.
Dave: Right.
Matt: To drive Nate Oberstein nuts, because, ya know, hey, it’s another phonebook.
Dave: Right, it’s like, ya know, there are people who are saying, “how many times are we supposed to buy ‘High Society’?” And it’s like, well, the thing about me entering into a business arrangement with Dagon is that Dagon, these are the notes that I wrote for myself, he satisfies his desire, rather than demand. And he tends to create desire. It’s like, you say to yourself, “that’s it, I have more than enough copies of ‘Spawn’ 10, I don’t need anymore” and then he posts a new “Spawn” 10 cover on the Kickstarter, and it’s like, “oh, I really want one of those.” So he does that to himself first, and then he does it to everybody else, is how it works. So it would be, I will tell him, ya know, in 2026 or 2027, God willing we’re both still here, “okay, ‘High Society’ is finally sold out, so we’re ready to do ‘High Society’ again. Do you want to do ‘High Society’, or do you want to say, ‘no, I already did ‘High Society’. That’ll do it for me.’” We want to make sure that all of the books definitely look the same on a bookshelf, so that when the “Form & Void” hardcover is done, it’s got the same spine and the same sleeve that “High Society” does. “High Society” and “Form & Void”, they’ll just be way too many numbers apart, so all you can picture what the whole shelf is gonna look like when it’s done, and hope that you live that long. At that point, the only thing Dagon would say, would to be either “no” or “I have a new, even better ‘High Society’ that I want to do.” And then everybody, hold onto your wallets.
Matt: [laughs] 2027, “Higher Society”.
Dave: [laughs] Or “More Expensive Society”. I mean, one of the things that he talked about was, “what about five star hotel merchandise?” [laughs] And it’s like, okay, I know what you’re talking about. If you’re staying at an upscale Hyatt and you want the bathrobe to wear in your room, they’ve got one kind of bathrobe. If you’re staying at the Park Plaza Hotel, or if you’re staying at the Savoy or any of the real world Regency Hotels, I recommended that you got online and find five star hotels that start with R. Most of them are not doing real good right now, so they might sell you a bunch of bathrobes at a really good price. But they would probably be, like, ya know, $200 bathrobes, because, that’s what you get at a five star hotel. Same thing with “we’ll do beer steins or wine glasses, and we’ll have the Regency monogram on them.” That’s like, that’s great, but there’s only so many Cerebus fan dollars. But at the same time, ya know, when I know that I’m gonna get a free box of six of them, whatever they are, it’s very tempting for me to say, “ah, screw the Cerebus fans, because they have to buy them, I get mine free. I really really really want this!” And that’s the end, that’s the full circle. Dagon knows fan desire like nobody’s business. Okay… go ahead…
Matt: To be fair, fan desire is Dagon desire at a certain point, because he is a fan.
Dave: Right, exactly. He gets to print them and go, “I’m rich! I’m rich! I own all of these.” He’s got, with all of his damaged “Spawn” 10 lenticular covers, he’s got more of them than anybody else. No matter how damaged they are, it would be pretty cool to sit there and look at your little pile and go, [sigh] That’s virtually all of the “Spawn” 10 lenticular covers. People are still talking about that. I still have my five that don’t have comic books attached to them, sitting on the coffee table in my studio. And it’s a real picker upper, anytime I’m walking past, it’s like, “let’s look at that lenticular cover again. Wow! Those snowflakes look like they’re hovering right there. That lamppost looks like it’s right in front of me. Market Square is exactly as it was back in 1993. That’s so cool.
Okay, and then we had the overtime message. Brian West, our man on Twitter, asked, “Where in your opinion does Cerebus return to when he dematerializes near the end of SPAWN TEN REMASTERED?” Uhh, well, it’s… it’s not really Cerebus. It’s Cerebus in between Cerebus and Dave Sim. It’s like a Dave Sim Cerebus, because he hangs out at 1990 street, Dave Sim Cerebus, because he hangs out at Peter’s Place. He watches hockey on TV, which he doesn’t do anymore. He drinks, he phones Mike and says, “hey Mike, meet you at Peter’s Place”. So, where he went, he probably, I would venture to say, his Cerebus part disappeared back into Cerebus and his Dave Sim part disappeared back into Dave Sim, the same as the Todd McFarlane Spawn in the same book, the Spawn part disappeared back into Spawn and the Todd McFarlane part disappeared back into Todd McFarlane. “What are your reasonings in changing how Cerebus dematerializes from how McFarlane had rendered it in SPAWN 10 in 1993?” Well, [laughs] I’ll never have much call for drawing Cerebus dematerializing ever ever again in my life. This is my chance, so, we’ll blow it up real big, for Grandpa, and then figure out a way to do dematerializing in ink, that basically looks like the transporter in “Star Trek” but instead of television effects, it’s comic book effects.
Matt: Okay. I mean, that’s what I kinda figured the answer was.
Dave: [laughs] It is one of those things that there’s a lot of Cerebi running around at this point. Why, just the “Cerebus in Hell?” Cerebi alone is enough to make a Jack Kirby sized print of all my Cerebus characters. And that’s something you can do after I kick the bucket. I’m not interested in doing that. But hopefully somewhere in that giant master picture, there will be a Jennifer DiGiacomo Salvador Dali Cerebus, which maybe all you have to do is put a giant black mustache on him, we’ll find out, that’s up to JDG. Okay, that’s gonna do it for me, Matt, this is Ramadan and I had to do this without Diet Coke this time!
Matt: [laughs] I’m so sorry. So sorry!
Dave: What’s that?
Matt: So sorry! So sorry! Many apologee.
Dave: Oh, no prob… oh, that’s right. [laughs]
Matt: I’ve been getting the faxes for “Kurtz vs Kurtz” so that’s on my brain. [laughs]
Dave: Okay, alright. Yeah, it’s day 24 of Ramadan, six more to go, and all I have is a bowl of Special K original, yuck, in the morning, and then this time of year at 10 o’clock at night I get a garden salad of lettuce, cucumber, and dried bag coleslaw with my own special lemon ranch dressing on it. And, apart from that, I get to drink glasses of water, and I eat a can of pineapple, every night for 30 days. 24 down, six more to go. 150 prayers, and I’ve made six mistakes so far, which compares very unfavorably with last year, which was my record, only two mistakes over 150 prayers, but six days from now it’ll all be over, and it’s not like I’m in a Ramadan league where we all sit down and compare stats. I’m just playing against myself. Okay! You be sure and say hi to Paula, and Janis Pearl, and Natasha for me.
Matt: Will do!
Dave: And we’ll talk next month.
Matt: Hopefully, yes, yes.
Dave: God willing.
Matt: Yes.
Dave: Take care, Matt.
Matt: Take care, Dave.
Dave: Buh-bye.
Matt: Bye.
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| Like the logo? I stole it... |
Big books (Form & Void and The Last Day) are at Waverly's regular site: [https://www.thewaverlypress.com](https://www.thewaverlypress.com/)
Smaller books (comics and the goodies) are on their eBay page: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?item=257022613619&rt=nc...
Just so everybody is aware...
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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 issues as rewards. ACTUALLY, he found a bunch of copies of issues he thought were out of print, so I think you can get the whole series. He's got T-Shirts too.
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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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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:
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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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Up to 35% off August 21-24, & 29-31.*
*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
- Page 5 of Cerebus #20
- Inside Back Cover art from Cerebus #3
- The covers to Issue #74 and #76
- 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.
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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:
.jpg)
If you wanna support "local" Canadian publishers...
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Next Time: Like Jen's gonna come 'roun' 'ere...
5 comments:
theosis (a.k.a. "deification"). I'm guessing a Jew or a Muslim would consider the idea blasphemous, but there you go. Long Live the First Amendment!
When do question submissions open/close for September's Please Hold?
I have all the audio files, so...last month.
We're gonna start using a month s lead time to give Dave time to answer, and me time to format everything.
Manly
Ah makes sense - thanks Matt. If I submit a further question I'll mark it as "For October".
"Destroyed this man's career" -- ha ha ha ha ha ha hah! Dave's still telling that same ol' zombie lie after all these years. But Dave was never run out of comics; he left. He's not the Pariah King; he's the Recluse King.
-- Damian
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