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.
Here's where I'm at (blue link means it's been posted):
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Dave: Matt, how are you doing?
Matt: Alright.
Dave: Good! Everybody get off to Girl Guides okay?
Matt: Yes!
Dave: Alright. Okay! So, are we recording?
Matt: We are.
Dave: We are recording. Okay. Uhh, let me get my stuff in order here… I got Rolly to email you a picture of me.
Matt: Okay.
Dave: Did you get it?
Matt: I did get it.
Dave: You did get it? Okay. That picture of me was taken by Jeff Seiler.
Matt: Okay. That’s what I thought it was.
Dave: Um, have I said that to you before?
Matt: No, but Jeff told me about it.
Dave: Okay, so we’ll keep it a secret from everybody else and that’ll be my story next time. This time is your turn with the famous Jeff Seiler cat story.
Matt: I don’t know if this is the cat that Jeff paid Gerhard to do an image of.
Dave: That would be Pud.
Matt: I believe it was Pud, but I’m not sure. Cause when Jeff got this cat it was a kitten, and it was friends of his got this cat and they couldn’t have it anymore, and Jeff helping out took the cat in from them, and he couldn’t think of a name for the cat for the longest time. Like, I swear he didn’t have a name for it for the first year he had the cat.
Dave: Right.
Matt: At one point, he had to go visit his family, and he was living in Manitowoc, and could I go over and feed the cat? I didn’t have to do anything else, just feed it, if I wanted to stay and play with it, I could, but it wasn’t required. Just basically, he’s going away for the weekend, other than food and water, the cat should be fine. And I’m like, do I have to clean the litterbox? “Oh no no, the cat’ll be fine.”
Dave: Okay.
Matt: So, the second time I went to feed the cat, cause it was like he left on Friday night I went over Friday night just to make sure the cat was okay. Saturday I come in to see how the cat is, and the cat had crapped an X in the middle of the living room floor.
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: Nine little turds in the shape of an X. And I walked in, looked at it, and I don’t have a camera, and Jeff’s not gonna believe the cat did this. I cleaned it up, I went and looked at the litterbox, and the litterbox was full enough that, yeah, okay, it should get scooped out. And I scooped out the litterbox, fed the cat, played with the cat, went home, came back, fed the cat another time. When Jeff got back, it was “how was the cat?” and I’m like, well, he missed you. “How do you know?” He crapped an X on your rug. “No, he didn’t.” Yeah, Jeff, he did. [laughs]
Dave: I’ve got the photographic evidence right here.
Matt: Oh no, I didn’t have a camera, so I couldn’t take a picture, but it was like, I would’ve left it for Jeff but that would’ve been a really mean thing to do.
Dave: [laughs] Yes, you would be complicit with the cat at the point.
Matt: I mean… the cat didn’t like anybody other than Jeff. I mean, it was a kitten at the time, I’m fairly certain. It wasn’t old enough to learn that, “hey, I shouldn’t bite everyone, they might feed me.”
Dave: [laughs] It was a grey cat, if you’re talking about Pud.
Matt: Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was Pud.
Dave: Okay. Yeah, cause he had Yusef later on. Way later on, and that was a black cat.
Matt: Did Yusef get out and never come back?
Dave: Uhh, no, got out, but he tried to make a break for it, but they rounded him up and brought him back. I wonder where he is now.
Matt: There was… one of the last times I talked to Jeff before he got sick, he had said that he had an air conditioner in the window, and it wasn’t as wide as the window and the cat managed to get out. And he’s hoping the cat would come back, but he wasn’t sure if that was gonna happen. And I don’t know if that Yusef or not.
Dave: That was Yusef.
Matt: Well, I dunno if the cat came back.
Dave: The cat didn’t come back. The cat was brought back, I think, by somebody.
Matt: Huh. I wonder what happened to the cat.
Dave: I do, too. That’s one of those, ya know, whoever got the task of cleaning out Jeff’s apartment, probably you’d ask Mr Lindon. It’s, okay, well, what are you going to do about the cat? All I knew was that the first in line to care for the cat anytime Jeff got called away, or something happened, was his friend Lisa, and that’s the only thing that I know about Lisa, was that she was the first in line as cat care person.
Matt: ‘kay. Yeah, I hadn’t heard…
Dave: Yeah, that’s a funny thing about animals. They do understand that feces is a very good way to express your disapproval of a human being, or anybody else. I think that that transcends species of all kinds.
Matt: [laughs] Well… I mean, Jeff’s cat, it didn’t want to cuddle with me, but at the same time, when it got really lonely when Jeff was gone for the weekend, by the last feeding, it was, “oh you’re here, I guess I like you.”
Dave: [laughs] Well, I always maintained, cats always like anybody who feeds them. I mean, the better the stuff you feed them, the more they like you. Which is why I always said, cat lovers don’t agree with me on this, but when I see signs that say “lost cat” it’s like the cat isn’t lost. The cat found a better offer, and as soon as the cat decides that the cat disapproves of whoever they’re with right now, then the cat will come back and go, “okay, did you miss me? Let’s see what kind of food you give me. And I’m either sticking around, or I’m heading off for greener grass and better pastures as soon as you’re not looking.”
Okay, moving on from there. There we go, that’s our second Jeff Seiler memorial segment. Then we moved onto… oh yeah, Nadab. Nadab! “A question from last month that I didn’t send from Nadab Art:” Uhh, that would be a good name for a gallery. “Hi! Dave! On Latter Days Page 430 there's two characters that look like they came straight out of the show South Park. My question is: "How about that, huh?"" [laughs] “It's probably the most "modern" reference in Cerebus and I'd like to hear you talk about it. Thanks, Nadab.” And yes, I’m looking at the image. I didn’t remember putting the South Park kids in there. Are you enough of a South Park expert that you know who those two are?
Matt: Uhh, I’m not looking at it, but I believe it’s Cartman and Stan.
Dave: Okay.
Matt: They both have stocking caps on, right?
Dave: Yeah. Yeah, one has the ear flaps… oh, yeah, I guess they both-- anyway, yeah, that’s all that I know about South Park. What I’m curious about, looking at it, that was February 2003, which means I didn’t have my television anymore, because that went Summer of 2001, and I’m wondering, where did I get the reference for South Park, because I’m pretty sure I wasn’t doing any kind of internet research at the library or any other place. And as far as I know, there’s never been a South Park comic book. That’s one of my fallback positions, “is there a comic book of this currently coming out?” In which case I grab whatever’s the latest “Previews” came in, and flipped through that, and looked for reference there. I’m curious as to where I would have found… the only name I know from South Park is Cartman, because it’s a very funny name for a little kid.
Matt: Well, it could’ve been you could have been at the library doing research cause that would’ve been the lead up to 289/290.
Dave: Right.
Matt: So, I’m assuming that there must have been an image in the newspaper. Cause the show came out in 97, this was 2003, so that’s what, six years later?
Dave: Yeah.
Matt: I think the movie had come and gone by that point.
Dave: Yeah, I mean it was, even Dave Sim had heard of South Park by that point, which tells you it’s a real cultural touchstone. I find it a very funny image. I was very happy with the whole Mia Farrow / Woody Allen ending on “Latter Days”. And it’s one of those, you know, I look at the image and I go, see for progressives this is “hey, look at our great family”, and it’s like, for me, no, this is pretty weird. I mean, I’m not… I realize progressives would view me as a racist for saying, no, this doesn’t look like a family to me. Which is one of the reasons that I put Will Eisner’s Ebony White in there, was, okay, this is how strange this looks to me, although I’m sure it doesn’t look that strange to you. But it’s that weird, this is one kind of “family” to Woody Allen and a Family to Mia Farrow and I thought they were both completely off base on that. I mean, one of the kids in this picture is the one that’s… I’m trying to remember his name. His last name is Farrow, and he’s the one that’s been basically..
Matt: Rohan.
Dave: What’s that?
Matt: Rohan.
Dave: Yes! That’s the one. And it’s like, I really find that odd to have an adopted… well, is he the adopted son, or is he the natural son?
Matt: He’s the natural son, I believe.
Dave: He’s the natural son. It’s like, one of those, I don’t think that you make the Woody Allen version of the Woody Allen / Mia Farrow family normal in any kind of sense, and I don’t think you can make the Mia Farrow version of the Woody Allen / Mia Farrow family normal by any stretch of the imagination. And I think that’s one of the things that kept this on a slow boil for all of these many years, but it’s very difficult to understand, as a progressive, what is it that you find so completely deplorable about this? It just looks like, ya know, two different versions of what a family is, neither of which seems to me like a particularly good idea, but I’ve been written out of the public record for so long nobody would care what Dave Sim thought about something like this.And I thought that the South Park kids fit with that. One of those, like you know what these kids are like on the cartoon, and here they’re being presented as, ya know, one big happy family. And, Joe Matt [laughs] is a happy member of the Mia Farrow / Woody Allen family, that seemed appropriate to me. So, yeah, I didn’t mention them in the notes at the back of the book because I’m almost kind of embarrassed by how little I know about popular culture. It’s like, everybody else knows what these two kids’ names are, and I only know them as, yeah I found the reference somewhere in time to put them into “Latter Days” into the Woody Allen / Mia Farrow family, and was happy that I did. It is probably… as Nadab is saying, it’s the latest probably cultural reference coming on the scene in “Cerebus”’s 26 year history, that South Park debuted seven years before the end.
Which segues into “Baby’s First Tattoo”, and I thought I came up with that. I didn’t come up with that? Like I stole that from the zeitgeist or I heard somebody say it, or I read it and forgot that I read it and put it into “The Last Day”, right?
Matt: Yes.
Dave: Yeah.
Matt: It’s one of the posters outside the Sanctuary.
Dave: Right! Right. Which I was always very please with, that I came up with that. And now I find out that there was this book. Did the book come out first, or did the poster in “Latter Days” come out first?
Matt: The book’s copyright 2002.
Dave: Okay.
Matt: It doesn’t actually say what year it was published. It just says copyright 2002 and the illustrations are copyright 2000.
Dave: Right. In fact, it’s a very funny premise, a very funny politically incorrect premise. I’m wonder if it’s one of those things where I thought I came up with it, and I read it somewhere and it just stuck unconsciously in my mind. Or it was one of those really weird ones where both of them come into existence simultaneously and there’s just no explanation for how they came into existence simultaneously. Where did you find it? Was it just in a book store or…?
Matt: So when my nephew was born in 2004, my brother, somebody gave him a copy of the book or he bought a copy of the book. Like he might have been in a bookstore, saw it and went, “oh that’s hilarious”. So when my niece was born after that, I can never remember what year she was born, cause I’m a great uncle.
Dave: [laughs] I wasn’t gonna say anything.
Matt: Oh, oh no! Every year it’s… her birthday rolls around and it’s, how old is she again? Paula tells me, and I conveniently forget five minute later.
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: I think she’s three years younger? So 2007?
Dave: Okay.
Matt: They’re having a second baby and Paula and I went out and bought another copy of the book of, okay, here ya go, and gave it to him. And when Janis was born, he gave it back, going “yeah, we didn’t fill that one out at all.”
Dave: [laughs] Regifting back to the person that gave it to you. That’s cold!
Matt: Well, it’s… in my family, it’s “yeah, remember that thing you gave me? Yeah I completely don’t need it, but it sounds like you do!” [laughs]
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: It’s a funny book, but at the same time, it’s a “Cerebus in Hell?” book. Like, it presents things like, “on the day the baby was born there’s a checklist of what to take to the hospital.” And then the next entry is, “person who forgot to take the bag we packed with all that in it. Baby’s hometown, hospital we were going to when baby was born, hospital cab driver was going to when baby was born..”
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: [laughs] “Cause of traffic jam that kept us from getting to the hospital, name of cab driver / police man who helped deliver baby, nationality of cab driver…”
Dave: [laughs] I appreciate you faxing over the introduction, it was pretty funny too. But that’s a very specialized sense of humour. I mean, that’s one of those, I can definitely picture someone getting that as a gift and going, “oh no, we don’t want this. We’re good parents.” Okay, so, thank you for at least updating me on that, on the “Baby’s First Tattoo”. I should probably get a copy of that for the Cerebus Archive, just to let future generations ponder over the question of who came up with it first.
Matt: I think I’m gonna look Jim Mullen, the author, up on the internet and see if he’s on Facebook or something, to contact him, to find out, is he a Cerebus fan, and if so, if he inadvertently ripped you off.
Dave: Yes, yes. Or even intentionally! I mean, that’s one of those, we all let that kind of stuff slide around here. We’re not too big on suing people for [laughs] unauthorized uses of things. We’re living in the glassiest house of all glass houses.
Okay, and moving on from there, to Dan Eckhart, “In his fax about a new cover for CEREBUS No. 1, Dave said he had “no idea how to draw in my CEREBUS No. 1 style anymore.” Could he please elaborate? Presumably, his style changed slowly, without intent, and without his noticing it.” So, let me see, I’ve got some notes here… somewhere, oh now, here we are. So, we’re gonna stop at that point. It has more to do with the inking, I went from obsessively trying to ink like Neal Adams and totally sucking at it, to the point where I swerved into doing Al Williamson. Looking at Al Williamson strips and trying to do that style, instead of trying to do Neal. Then I was sucking less badly at doing Neal. Through looking at Williamson I understood that Neal wasn’t this profusion of details piled onto the picture. I mean, my theory was just ask more oblique angle crosshatching, the more crosshatching, the more it looked like Neal. And it’s like, no, that’s the amateur approach to trying to figure out how to do Neal Adams. Designing Cerebus a big part of the gag, but it needed to look as if everything was drawn by Barry Windsor Smith. So there was a fusion of those two that took place. Still badly imitating Neal out of habit, and more consciously badly imitating BWS on top of it. It’s an of the moment thing, my enthusiastic amateurism, my ingrained Neal habit, and focus on BWS, [inaudible], create, again, an of the moment artistic timmer. Dave Sim, 1973 to 1977, pretty much exclusively focused on Neal, redirected into Dave Sim 1977 forward where the conscious focus shifted from Neal to BWS. And Dan asks, “Or, perhaps, he consciously worked at it to achieve what he saw in his mind’s eye.” And it’s like, well partly that, yes. But what I saw in my mind’s eye was BWS “Red Nails” Conan pages, with Chuck Jones and Robert McKimson animated aardvark cels on it. I didn’t have the chops at the time really to do either of those. So, that fact that I didn’t have those chops, [inaudible] up what I was picturing that, added another layer, what my imagined pages actually looked like. Like, when I tried to make them look like that, pointing at my head, the mental picture I have of BWS “Red Nails” Conan pages and Chuck Jones cels, this, pointing at my pages that I was producing at the time, is what they come out looking like. I was drawing frequently enough, bi-monthly, that I started to recognize my style. But that’s very different from consciously creating a style. I was very much a spectator in the process as everybody in the audience was. Those two realities gradually move closer together. As I had more and more “Cerebus” pages to look at, and refer to mentally, that “Cerebus” pages I had done that I’m remember “this is what Dave Sim ‘Cerebus’ pages look like.” And, the fact that I was no longer consciously doing Neal on a daily basis, and having built up a repertoire of fake BWS riffs. And that point, I end up being between the artist I was and the artist I was becoming. I’m more frequently picturing what my work actually looked like instead of what I want it to look like.
Then we have, Dan says, “I think the characters all look like they’re going to look by Jaka’s Story. “ Ah, yes. All the characters look like they’re going to look by “Jaka’s Story”, but Jaka 1978 doesn’t look like Jaka 1983, doesn’t look like “Going Home” Jaka, doesn’t look like “Form & Void” Jaka, I mean, as I’m going along, how I’m drawing Jaka is evolving. But they’re all still Jaka. I mean, that’s one of those, you say to a Cerebus fan, picture Jaka. It’s like, okay, which one did you picture? Beginning of “Jaka’s Story”, “Cerebus” #6, #36 “The Night Before”, issue 48, the appearance in “High Society”. They’re all Jaka, but different people have different iconic Jakas. Okay, getting back to Dan’s original, no idea how to draw in my “Cerebus” #1 style anymore, and can I elaborate on that? The distillation on that would be, I can’t be 21 years old again, and I can’t duplicate all of those overlapping realities that generated my Cerebus style in 1977. It’s this weird internal Dave Sim mixture where, it was a mental and physical meeting place between Neal Adams and BWS as I perceived both of them. And when I look at, looking at it now, having had since that time more than 40 years of drawing experience… it’s like the story Russ Heath told me about being asked to do a recreation of his “Marvel Boy” #1 cover. And he asked the guy, “do you want it really badly drawn like this, or do you want me to make it look good?” Which, you know, is a funny question, but it is definitely the question. When Russ Heath at that point was looking at his “Marvel Boy” #1 cover, it’s like, “I actually know how to draw now. Wouldn’t you rather have this same cover by drawn with more talent and more drawing education behind it?” It is one of those weird things because, Cerebus in #1, the cover definitely, the cover of “Cerebus” #1 is in a weird category all its own. And I don’t know why that is, but it definitely is. When I said a little while ago, ya know, I might be overthinking this, trying to figure out how to make a steady living in the comic book field in my 60s, and then saying, okay let’s do this aardvark short sword and flames sketchbook covers. Essentially, that’s what I was playing into. Okay, where’s the Cerebus hot button? We already found out, like as soon as you “Cerebus” #2 instead of “Cerebus” #1, you don’t have the cache of “Cerebus” #1. Nothing has the cache of “Cerebus” #1. Aardvark short sword and flames. Let’s get it right down to basics, and see how many times we can make the trip to that well and still be able to auction them for a good price. Since I did those, ya know, having done 28 of them, I’m now starting to… overthinking those, that what I have to do is actually do the “Cerebus” #1 cover. And one of the things that pointed me in that direction was, sending Heritage Auctions the originals for all four or five “Cerebus” #2 covers and my revisited “Cerebus” #1 cover that would be part of the same campaign, and Todd Hignite says, “Uhh, okay, thanks for these.” Put all of the #2 covers in their weekly auction, the weekly online auction, but the front cover for #1 reimagined is in their Friday, November 19th session 4 auction in the Heritage Auctions catalogue. Which means [laughs] they’re looking for big things out of this, it’s like this is the big leagues. I just got the catalogue in today, and it’s like, okay, well, I gotta see it. I’m looking through the S-I section in the back of the catalogue, and I’m going, it’s not here. It’s not here. Todd said it was going to be in the signature auction. Why isn’t it in here? [laughs] It’s like, it’s in the front of the catalogue! It’s like, are you kidding? The front of the catalogue?! The front of the catalogue is like big stuff. I’m in between a Bill Sienkiewicz preliminary for a “Daredevil” cover and a BWS Vision splash from “The Avengers” one a two page spread. It’s like, okay! [laughs] like I say, am I really overthinking this, because then I’m thinking, I’m just going to take the “Cerebus” #1 cover, it’s tiny, it’s like size as in the comic book, and just double it in size on the photocopier, trace it off, and let’s do that really really primitive bad Dave Sim style, but watercolour! Watercolour it with really really red flames, which, I know how to do now! Having done, I think 14 of them are red flames and 14 of them are yellow flames, and hey Todd! Here’s Dave Sim’s latest “Cerebus” #1 and it looks just like the 1977, but Russ Heath style, hey I know how to do this accurately now. And let’s see, maybe I can make the front of the catalogue… maybe I can make the front of every catalogue! It’s not a Heritage Auctions catalogue unless you’ve got your Dave Sim “Cerebus” #1 reimagined piece in the front, and going for mucho, mucho dinero.
But, getting back to Dan Eckhardt, so [laughs] sorry to digress that way, but it really did dovetail. You can see that when he was asking about the “Cerebus” #1, it’s funny you should mention that, Dan, “Cerebus” #1’s definitely been on my mind. So, getting back to Dan, he goes, “Charles Schultz’s style also changed from when Peanuts started, but steadied eventually to the characters we all recognize.” Yes! Yes, exactly. Charles Schultz is the same process, but different touchstones. His earliest “Peanuts”, when he was still hoping it’d be called “Lil Folks”, he drew his cartoons to be accepted in the Saturday Evening Post. Like, he was a major comic strip fan and he definitely wanted to do a comic strip, but he was also expansive enough of his perception of cartooning to go, “uhh, Saturday Evening Post is probably going to pay me a lot more than a comic strip, even if I got accepted by the syndicate.” Which he didn’t. He had shopped his work around to all of the syndicates. So I think when he was designing his own cartooning style, he was definitely looking at a specific style common to the Saturday Evening Post, and going, “okay, this is what I’m gonna draw in the hopes that I’ll get accepted by the Saturday Event Post.” And then that did happen. It did work. They went, “yes, this looks like a Saturday Evening Post cartoon. It’s very light, whimsical, family-style humour. Mom, Dad, and Grandma will all enjoy these cartoons.” But as I say, he was still a comic strip fan, so it was, he wasn’t just going to be a magazine cartoonist. He was gonna keep shopping his strips around and trying to get a comic strip. Once he got his own strip, there was no more need to look like a Saturday Evening Post cartoonist, and at that point, he starts changing to a less magazine-slick-cute look, to something more contemporary to the 1950s. He, “steadied eventually”, quoting Dan there. That’s an interesting way of putting it, but “Peanuts” experts like Seth could tell you to within a year or two of when a given Charlie Brown, or Sally, or Peppermint Patty appeared if you just took it out of the strip and just presented it to Seth, and said, “Charles Schultz ‘Peanuts’, Sally, what year is this?” He would be able to tell you 1958 Charlie Brown, doesn’t look like 1965 Charlie Brown. He looks much closer to it than 1950 Charlie Brown, but that’s one of the levels of expertise that Charles Schultz would’ve had about his own work. He could probably narrow it down to a six month period if you showed him a Charlie Brown divorced from context and said, “what year is this?” Seth is probably pretty close to that capability. We’re leading this to “Cerebus”, Sandeep, when we were starting “Cerebus in Hell?” and it’s like, okay, find a small handful of iconic Cerebus drawings that we can just use over and over. And the placid Cerebus drawing, the Cerebus just standing with his sword in front of him, staring straight out at the reader… Sandeep said to me, “Where did I get this one from?” [laughs] And it’s like, uhh, mmm, okay. And I looked at it and went, it’s “Church & State II” Cerebus. Reasonably late “Church & State II” Cerebus. And he’s going, “what issue is it?” And it’s like, that was mm, okay I’m picturing the whole second half of “Church & State” looking at this going, where is there a placid picture of Cerebus just staring at the reader in “Church & State”, it’s a pretty pouncy storyline. It did take me a little while then I went, oh! 112/113, right at the very end where he says “somebody pushes a button and blows up the sun”, and the old guys and bartender are looking at him, and then he just turns around and walks away. And it’s like, yep, that’s where it was. Sandeep almost, almost stumped me on that, but as I say, I can look at a Cerebus drawing divorced of its context and tell you, mmm, usually which graphic novel it’s from.
Dan goes on, “Do all artists go through this process? Are there some that never settle in?” All productive artists go through the process because of the volume of work they produce. There are guys who just develop a certain facility, and then just crank the work out at the same level for the rest of their lives. Jerry Lazare, when I interviewed him when I was 17 years old, said that about Stan Drake. “Stan Drake hasn’t improved in the last 15 years or whatever”, but [laughs] I didn’t think it at the time, but the more that I think it over, it’s like, Stan Drake’s facility was orders of magnitude higher than everyone else’s. The stuff he cranked out was better than 99% of the guys working in that style when they’re absolutely pedal to the metal, trying to do their best work. But even there, the work evolves or devolves depending on the level of engagement. Whether they have assistants, how much the assistants are doing, all of those questions enter in. Stan Drake, it was always waiting for “Heart of Juliet Jones” to become something, and it certainly narrated becoming something just as a technical achievement. And then at a specific point, just going, “this is never going to happen. I’ve been doing this for literally decades now, and this is just not showing up on the radar screen.” That had more to do with the fact that it was a romance strip. Comics is, and certainly has been for the longest time, a boy’s medium. Nobody was interested in “Heart of Juliet Jones” because it was a girly strip. Hopefully we’re getting more of a level of sophistication than that now, but for years and years, that was definitely the case.
So rounding this… oh, that’s right. I answered that out of order. He was asking, “what is it about the early style that Dave thinks that he couldn’t do?” that was the part of the answer that I gave where, I can’t be 21 years anymore, I can’t be suddenly moving from devotion to Neal Adams to trying to do a specific style for a specific effect doing BWS. And I can’t subtract 40 years of drawing knowledge just because I want to do this specific style. It just really, really doesn’t work that way. You can only be who you are when you’re in the present context, and as soon as it’s 10 years ago, it’s 10 years ago. Doesn’t matter which cartoonist it is.
Matt: What was it that the guy said, “once a profound truth has been seen it can’t be unseen”?
Dave: [laughs] Yeah! Yeah, might be a lucky guess rather than profound, but yeah, that’s very definitely the situation. And also the fact that cartoonists are spectators to their own work. You don’t really know what part of your personality, your mind, your brain, your soul you’re using as an artist. You do go into a zen state in an ideal situation where you’re not consciously doing what you’re doing, you’re either trying to fix it because you couldn’t get what you’re trying to do, or it’s just one of those wonderful pages that’s just falling on the page exactly. You couldn’t imaging doing it any better than you’re doing it, and you have no idea why that’s the case. You’re just a spectator to that. And then, after the fact, you look at the work, and it’s almost always much better. It’s like, Gerhard used to have that experience all the time, when the new trade paperback would come in, and he would be thinking about all of the anguishing he had done about the backgrounds and whatever else. “Ya know, this looks great! This looks wonderful! What was I worried about? What was I complaining about?” The same as, when Todd Hignite told me that the “Cerebus” #1 cover was going to be at the signature auction, it’s like I’m going, [laughs] It’s not really that good! It’s, ya know, I was pretty happy with it. It’s all pretty much dead-hand inking, but as soon as I saw it in the Heritage Catalogue it’s like, no, that’s great! I wish I could do that again. I wish that I had pictured that more favorably. [laughs] I didn’t do it that long ago.
Okay, and I think… we’re gonna split the few sessions that, because I’ve got the prayer time coming up. When we come back, just after my prayer time, MJ Sewall? Or MI Sewall?
Matt: J.
Dave: J? Okay. The J’s on your font look a lot like I’s. [laughs] Those of us who don’t have the eyes that we used to have. "Not sure this is too personal. I just watched the DVD audio/visual of High Society. Loved that Deni read her publisher letters. How is your relationship with Deni? Or Gerhard, since you still live near each other? Are there chats over a beer? Or just polite Canadian animosity? Cheers, M J Sewall.” So, when we come back, we will be answering MJ Sewall’s questions. Talk to you in a few minutes there, Matt.
Matt: Okay! I’ll be waiting!
Dave: Bye! [hangs up]
Dave: There he is again!
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: Okay! Are we recording?
Matt: We are recording.
Dave: We are recording. Okay. This question had scrawl written all over it, so in order to limit the scrawl, I actually wrote out my answer. So this is gonna sound a little more stilted than our usual conversational stuff here. Yes, it is too personal, but that concept, if it isn’t gone from our society, definitely has its hat and coat on and one foot out there door. So, not to worry MJ. I don’t have a relationship with Deni and I haven’t had since the 1980s. On the rare occasion when I talked to Harlan Ellison on the phone, he’d invariably ask, “do you ever hear from Deni?” After Deni and I broke up, Harlan and Deni didn’t “go out”, but they did have a one night stand or a fling of some kind. I think it was Harlan’s idiosyncratic condescending way of saying “now that I’ve had her, you should think about taking her back.” I’d usually just mumble something in answer. But finally, on one of the phone calls, I said, “no, Harlan, do you ever hear from any of your ex-wives?” and put an end to the question. In the fornication/adultery universe I used to inhabit, a clean break seemed the most sensible thing. I would see guys dating women who were still good friends with their legion of ex-boyfriends, and it just really looked unhealthy, for the current boyfriend, the ex-boyfriend, and the woman herself. 23 years past my last relationship, which is what we’re talking about right now, my view would be more along the lines of, “fornication and adultery don’t work and can’t be made to work. Pick someone and marry them, and be with them for the rest of your life, or stay away from all of them and Be Alone.” I wish I had picked the latter 38 years ago instead of 23 years ago. Gerhard? No, I have zero contact with. The most succinct way of putting it, is he decided Dave Sim was the problem, and Rose was the solution. An extension of the issue 186 societal conclusion, Dave Sim is the problem and feminism is the solution. My reaction to Gerhard’s conclusion is the same and as was the same the same as my reaction to society’s conclusion, “I don’t think that’s going to work out for you, but that’s your choice to make. Best of luck to you.” OCD environmentalism, ODC LGBDQ, critical race theory, calling parents worried about their children’s education “terrorists”, deplatforming, cancel culture, are all implications of feminism run amok. 27 years after issue 186, in my view, the situation remains the same. To go from unhealthy to healthy you first have to admit that you have a problem and you have to accurately identify the source of the problem. The source of society’s problem is feminism. We’re no closer to admitting that as a society than we were 27 years ago. As Bette Davis said in “All About Eve”, “fasten your seat-belts, we’re in for a bumpy ride.” My best guess is, 27 years in, our bumpy ride is just beginning. Thank you, MJ, if that doesn’t clear the air, I doubt that anything I might say would clear the air. So there you go!
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: One concise page. So, moving on from that one, we’ve got Steve Swenson. Hello, Steve! Steve in [as Bugs Bunny] Albaquirky. [normal voice] Albuquerque, NM. “Hiya Matt - OK, for the next PHFDS event: What was the idea behind both the Party Pack and ashcan issues from the GUYS era?” Okay, we’ll answer that part first. The idea was… that’s issue 201 to 204, and what was happening was, “Mothers & Daughters” was pretty much the longest storyline and “Guys” following it, there was no experience with a new storyline starting. Or I should correct that, there had been experience with that, but it had been four years since a new “Cerebus” storyline had begun, and everybody pretty much got caught flatfooted, including us. Everybody ordered their “Cerebus” 201s, and then ordered their “Cerebus” 202s, their 203s, and by the time that they ordered 203, 204, they had gotten 201, and were instantly sold out of 201, and “can we get more of them?” And it’s like, uhh, no, you can’t, because we only print them once, and that’s just how we have to do it on a monthly basis. We can’t be doing second printings. Although we did end up doing that with “Mothers & Daughters”, but that was with single issues, and then it was, okay, which ones do they need? Okay, then let’s reprint 151, and then we’ll reprint 152, and then 153, and put “second printings” on them. As the comic field has always been, it’s all over the map. I don’t know how retailers do the job that they do. 151, we did the second printing, and I think pretty much all of them sold. Then 152, no, they didn’t sell. [laughs] It’s like, everybody wanted “Mothers & Daughters” 1 because it’s got “1” on the cover, and nobody wanted “Mothers & Daughters” 2 because it had “2” on the cover. Although some of them did, because they just wanted to read it, and they didn’t get to the store in time to buy 151 before it was sold out, so could we print it. So, with “Guys”, it was, okay, instead of trying to accommodate those different audiences who are doing this for different reasons, we will do a separate package called “Guys Party Pack”, that I think we printed four of them. I think it was 201 to 204, and we’ll offer those after 204 has shipped, and that will allow the stores to fill in their back inventory so that people can start from the beginning. It’ll allow the #1 people to buy “Cerebus Party Pack” #1, and it’ll allow the people who only missed an issue to buy that issue, but they’ll have to buy the whole package. And as I recall, that worked fine, but came up short. That’s one of Steve’s questions, is “how many of them were there?” Boy, I couldn’t tell you. As far as I know, there were two printings because we did the one printing and sold all of them, and came up short by two or 300 copies, and then went, well, okay, we want to be as accommodating as possible here, so instead of just printing the 200 or so that we need, let’s print a thousand, and then that way everybody is all set for “Guys”. And, I think what happened was, we were able to make up part of the order from what was left over from the first printing of “Guys Party Pack”, and then we got a small reorder, and filled that one, and then we were just lousy with “Guys Party Pack”s. I would have to check the inventory level, but that’s one of those books, I’ve still got way, way too many of them, because there’s just no way to really fix the problem. There’s a sudden surge of demand, it’s very very temporary, and comes sort of late in the day, so it’s very difficult to accommodate.
Okay, that covers the Party Pack, then asking about the ashcan, “Was the ashcan only available at cons / retailor events?” My recollection might be inaccurate about this, but as I recall the ashcan was only distributed at a Diamond event in Toronto. Where Diamond actually did a separate retailer conference that they were doing at the time in Canada even though they really didn’t have a Canadian warehouse or anything like it. And my way of sort of accommodating this was, okay you tell me how many retailers are gonna be in Toronto who are going to get these retailer packs and I’ll do an ashcan of 201, because we just finished up 201. I don’t think it had all of issue 201, but I think it had 16 pages or something like it. So that’s my recollection on it, going back a few years. It wouldn’t surprise me that we sent them for the retailers for other events, but I really do think that this was the stars seem to be aligning correctly, that we’ll be starting the new storyline and finishing that first issue just before this Diamond event in Toronto, so what the heck? Phone Kim at Preney, and tell him, can you do half-sized ashcans of “Cerebus” 201, ya know, this many pages and pretty please turn it around in a hurry. It was ashcans were very fashionable at the time, so it’s like, oh okay, we had never really done an ashcan. Done some ashcans that were just my personal reference of reduced photocopies of an issue so that I had it to refer to while I was working on the next issue. But this was a mass produced ashcan, and “Does the Archive have a plethora of these in storage, or just a few, or perhaps none?” That was one of those, I didn’t even have a copy of the issue 201 ashcan, and when we went down to Recker distribution in 2015 to clear out the warehouse because they were closing the warehouse and move all of the inventory to Kitchener, one of the things was a box that had about 20 copies of the ashcan in it? And we had a bunch of people volunteering to help close the warehouse. I think about a half dozen are people just drove in because we needed a few pairs of hands, the more hands the better. And that was one of the things that in a box, just in Recker’s office on the way into the warehouse. I stopped by and [laughs] a lot of it was just a couple of days opening boxes. I wonder what’s in this one? I wonder what’s in this one? Opened that one and I went, oh! The 201 ashcan. Okay, well, now I got 20 copies of that. And then didn’t check the box again [laughs] until sometime later the next day, and the 20 copies were now three copies, so I definitely grabbed those and carried them around with me from then on. So those are the only ashcan copies that I got in the Cerebus Archive. Could’ve been 20, give your head a shake, Dave, this is a warehouse full of Cerebus fans, you can’t just leave those lying around and just be glad that there’s still three of them there. So, how many copies of the Party Pack and ashcan issues were printed, is Steve’s follow-up question? Mhm, like I say, I would have trouble ballparking the both of those for two different reasons. I don’t know how few retailers there were at the Diamond event at Toronto and I don’t know how many Party Packs we printed aside from really way too many relative to the circulation at the time. But that was one of those things, if this helps us build up circulation, which is didn’t, this is a good way to go about doing it. So, we still have a lifetime supply of “Guys Party Pack”s, so if anybody wants to send a cheque for $10 or $15, I will get Rolly to pull out a “Guys Party Pack” for them, if that’s a rarity from where you’re sitting.
Matt: I was gonna suggest, if you have so many that you don’t know what to do with, how about you charge $50 American, and they can get guaranteed genuine signed by Dave Sim with a remarked Cerebus drunken bubble drawn next to the signature.
Dave: [laughs] It’s a theory! It’s a theory. We’ll start it as a Swordfish item, just all you people who are actual Cerebus Swordfishes and are interested in a “Guys Party Pack”, just send me a postcard or a letter. If you got a CAN number or anything like that, we’ve already got your address. Just write “Swordfish, ‘Guys Party Pack’, thanks Dave” and we’ll send one out to you.
Matt: [laughs] Okay, I was just trying to get A and V a little bit of money!
Dave: Well, I appreciate that, but this is Please Hold for Dave Sim, this is pretty exclusive a 10 or 15 Swordfish people, I don’t think it’s gonna happen, Matt.
Matt: It always happens when we think it won’t happen. [laughs]
Dave: Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. Everybody will have forgotten by next time, so maybe in December we’ll do the rare “Guys Party Pack” offer. $50 for a “Guys Party Pack”, with Dave Sim signing it and writing the word “drunk” over his signature.
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: Uhh, “Little Orphan Aardvark Secret Society member “Toenail” (AKA Jen DiGiacomo)”. Uhh, how many Little Orphan Aardvark Secret Society members are there? Do you know offhand?
Matt: Uhh… I wanna say 10, but I haven’t mailed a couple of them out yet because those people are getting them gratis cause they’re inner circle.
Dave: Okay.
Matt: Paid, I think seven?
Dave: Seven? Okay.
Matt: Dion Turner’s getting one because he cracked the code without a decoder wheel.
Dave: That’s impressive! [laughs]
Matt: His Secret Society name is gonna be Teevee after Mike Teevee from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”, who cracked the code with… well, it’s the “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” remake movie, in that movie, Mike Teevee cracks the code on how to get a golden ticket and he doesn’t just to eat the chocolate, he did it just to crack the code.
Dave: It’s a practical enigma, he said enigmatically.
Matt: [laughs]
Dave: Okay, over to Jen, here. We’re gonna come back to the Little Orphan Aardvark Secret Society and the decoder wheel in a few moments. “It's showtime, folks! I include two fanzine covers by Messrs. Sim that I stumbled across whilst searching the interwebs for Simian ephemera. Hmmm, that's not right. Simesque? Simist? Never mind.” I think was one of those things God decided He was gonna fix way, way before I got born. “To keep people from doing that, let’s make sure he’s a Sim, so nobody will use Simian as the association.” “The illustrations date from 1982 and 1986, and are both related to Edgar Rice Burroughs. The latter is Aardvarks of Mars, and an impressive representation of incorporating one's own creation into another fandom. The former seems to be a straight up Tarzan sketch with ne'er an aardvark in sight. I am curious if there is any backstory here -- or if two overzealous fans (Bill Ross and Michael Conran respectively) merely published convention sketches without Dave's knowledge.” That seems a likely possibility. I’m looking at the Aardvarks of Mars and for 1986 that’s definitely looking like a high-end convention sketch. It’s not really complicated, but it’s not really altogether simple either. So it would strike me that it’s a… one of those conventions where I would have a set list, and somebody said, “can you do something related to John Carter of Mars?” and it’s like, haven’t had one of those before! Okay, how much are you in for? And it looks like he probably said either $50 or $75 for 1986, because I can tell by looking at it I did take some time with it, and the Aardvarks of Mars is closer to an actual logo than would be on a $25 sketch where I would have just handwritten “Aardvarks of Mars”. What are those things called in John Carter of Mars? The ones with four arms?
Matt: Uhh, I should know this!
Dave: I should know this, too! That was bothering me all day, I’m going, Dave you have other things to look up, you can’t be trying to figure out, okay, were they Thoats or Thunks?
Matt: Yeah! That sounds right. Tar Tarkas is the character’s name. And they’re known as Green Martians.
Dave: Yeah. Yeah, see, now it’s gonna bug you too.
Matt: Now I’m gonna get up, walk three feet, grab my copy of “Princess of Mars” off the bookshelf…
Dave: [laughs] While I fill in the dead air here. They were all over the place. It was one of the things that really appealed to me when I was whatever age I was when I read John Carter of Mars and I remember Jim Ivy did a magazine that was actually a fanzine but also a newsstand magazine, called “Monsters and Heroes”. I think the first issue of that I actually found on a newsstand in Kitchener, and I still can’t believe that that happened. There was actually an article on John Carter of Mars where somebody drew whatever they were called, and I had never seen one of them actually drawn, and went, wow, that’s really impressive! So, that would be one of the things figuring into my putting more time into this drawing that whatever those things are called, this was my first try at drawing one of them, and doing Cerebus as one of them.
Have you found whatever the…?
Matt: It’s not in the table of contents. [laughs]
Dave: Thoats. Thoats, or…
Matt: Thark. T-H-A-R-K.
Dave: Thank you! They’re Tharks! [laughs] Tharks for the memories. Okay, moving onto the next cover, that one the signature definitely looks like the 1982 tour. I don’t know how long I did that signature, but it seems to be idiosyncratic to the 1982 tour where I didn’t put a box around Dave Sim, I did this sort of rounded box. And that one, I think somebody came up and said, “can you do me a Tarzan?” and I went, you mean Cerebus as Tarzan? And they went, “no, Tarzan. You do me a Tarzan.” And it’s like I thought, well, okay, it’s not as if I don’t know what Tarzan looks like, and definitely, looking at the picture, I was having a flashback to Neal Adams Tarzan covers, which was, in 1982, would probably have been the last major rerelease of the Tarzan books. They would do that every once in a while, rerelease all the Tarzan books and get Frazetta to do all the Tarzan covers. Those sold really good. I think Neal was hot enough whatever year that that was that they went, “well, we’ll get Neal Adams to do all the Tarzan covers” and I think he did like the first eight or 10 or however many there were. And it’s like, yeah, well, a sketch is a sketch is a sketch, I don’t really have to worry about getting Tarzan right. I know exactly the Tarzan in my mind, this will give me an excuse to do a Neal Adams riff that isn’t Moon Roach and again, it looks like this for 1982, mhm, probably looking at a $25, $30 sketch for that. So… and then in those cases, having printed a number of people’s artwork, Jeff Jones, Hal Foster in “Now and Then Times” without permission just had the original available through Harry Kremer, this was always a karma thing. Anything that I did as a convention sketch, if you think it’s good enough to put on the front of your fanzine, or if you think it’s good enough to just stick on a back page in your fanzine, you would know that better than I would. Probably would’ve been better if they’d used the Tarzan illustration a little larger and cut it into the collector part of the logo. But not having done that, it’s one of those, hey Jen, if you’re looking for a place to will those to in your will, the Cerebus Archive would be delighted to have those. If I ever got copies, I don’t remember ever getting copies, and that’s one of those things that when you do as much drawing over as many years as I do, this stuff is gonna come out of the woodwork eventually. And here it is, so, I appreciate you letting me have a look at these. Those are the to-the-best-of-my-recollection recollection that I can give you.
And we’ve got another, “Little Orphan Aardvark Secret Society member “Zipper” (AKA Easton PA’s very own Michael R.) opens a can of worms with: Hi Matt! Love the decoder wheel (it's not a book mark). I wish I got more of them to play with the other kids. LOL!” Maybe you could send Michael R a couple of more decoder wheels. He and the folks in Easton, PA can have them, have fun with them. “Hi Dave! I noticed something with Gary Borarski's Jack Grimm's Halloween Kickstarter. I believe you had promised Gary a cover for Jack Grimm if he had reached a threshold with his book. And you did!” Uh, yeah, that was actually a thing through Alfonso, where, because most of these guys printer through Alfonso, it’s like, who has the most issues out right now? And it was the “Auroraman” guy who had the most number of issues, so I did a cover for “Auroraman”, and then Gary, having gotten wind of this, really busted his own hump to an amazing degree to get enough issues out to overtake “Auroraman” and called in his chit on “when do I get my cover?” “I'm guessing that unbeknownst to you that Gary asked Gerhard to color what you had drawn. I'm guessing, again, Gerhard had decided to put his spin on it and create a new background as if both of you had collaborated on the piece and get the "team" back together one more time to benefit Gary's Jack Grimm's Kickstarter EVEN more. Is the reason that you asked Gary to take your name off the collaboration because no one asked you if this would be OK? Michael R.” And then you write, “I mean, that’s basically what happened, I can just send “Zipper” a private message with the hoopala, and we can keep “The McQuarry Famly’s derty lenen” from “pooblek” consumption…” Let’s see, that was another one of those where I went, if I start answering that one, that’s gonna go sprawling all over the place, or is in danger of sprawling all over the place, so let’s try and de-sprawl that one. Okay, here it is, here’s another one, let’s write it all out.
I don’t wish anyone ill. Not Deni, not Gerhard, no one. But in my mid-60s it’s very difficult to stay focused on everything I need to stay focused on; prayer, fasting, reading scripture aloud, making enough money to keep the doors open and the lights on at Aardvark-Vanaheim, finishing “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” before I die, and keeping up with everything going on with “Cerebus in Hell?”, all of it on the fly. I will add that I got the front lawn covered with $18,000 worth of roofing material. $18,000 Canadian, but still. And that’s another one of those on the fly things. And I really find anything that isn’t one of those things to be beside the point. I don’t have internet access primarily for that reason. AMoC, if I had access to it, would distract me from work and everything else my life is made up of. I will interrupt at this point to say, you are very very good about that, considering you are the temporary gatekeeper for AMoC. There are very very few occasions when you faxed me stuff that I really didn’t need to see this. If I needed to see things like this, I would have internet access, but I don’t, so that I don’t have these things distracting me. Getting back to it, the only place that I can see Gerhard fitting into any of those contexts is, “money to keep the doors open and the lights on”. If anyone wants to pay me to draw a four inch or a five inch tall Cerebus, let’s say the exact size is arbitrary, but, you know, around there, on whatever size a sheet of watercolour paper, and then Rolly to deliver it to Gerhard, or mail it to Gerhard, and that if anyone is willing to pay me, say, $600, and then pay Gerhard whatever Gerhard wants to charge to fill the rest of the sheet with a background and watercolouring, I’m fine with that. Just Cerebus, no Jaka, Lord Julius, the Roach, etc. And Gerhard is welcome to do whatever Gerhard wants to do that someone will pay him to do. But I really don’t want to hear about it if it involves my work. As you said, “I just thought that you’d think it was neat.” Gerhard, and Gerhard’s work aren’t in that category for me. I would have no interest in seeing what Gerhard did with my four inch, or five inch tall Cerebus, just the $600 that I would get paid to do it, and the fact that it would make a Cerebus fan happy. Thank you for your phone message, Michael. I’m glad you liked your #26 sketchbook cover as much as you did. I realize $600 was a big spend for you and Grace. It was a strange thing when I was doing it, that it was the only one with Cerebus’ vest. Why am I putting a vest on this one? And then, I rippled a bit. I think what happened there was, Michael, you sent me a mental zeitgeist message about wanting Cerebus the Pope before you actually email/fax relayed me the request, which came in after I had the number 26 done, and asked what I was doing. [laughs] And then it’s like, I drew a blank. What’s that purple scarf that he wears, that the Pope wears? What do you call that when a priest wears one of those, or a minister wears one of those, or the Pope wears one of those? It’s not a scarf.
Matt: Vestment.
Dave: It’s a what?
Matt: Vestments.
Dave: Vestments! No, no no. Vestments is the tunic. I already looked that one up.
Matt: Oh, um, then I don’t know!
Dave: [laugh] Okay! So, we might make that our secret decoder question, or part of the secret decoder question. I’m gonna leave all of that up to you, but you have to answer these questions. “What are these four-armed things in John Carter of Mars called? What is that scarf that Cerebus wears as the Pope called?” We’ll think of a couple of more trivia questions there. So, getting back to Michael R, no, I haven’t gotten your letter, he says in the phone message that he had an interesting story where the $600 for the sketchbook cover came from, and did I get the letter yet. And no, I haven’t gotten the letter yet, but I’m looking forward to it now. Michael R is another one of those guys, if you don’t hear from him, even David Birdsong, I always tell him, anytime I don’t hear from David Birdsong for a while, the next time I hear from him, it’s gonna be a really interesting story. This one was when he discovered the nest full of yellowjackets and got stung like 60 times. So, anyway, that’s the bottom line on that one. There’s answer, Michael, to your Gerhard question, and a special thank you for really going out on a limb. Like I say, I know $600 is a big spend for him and Grace on something like that, and just really really glad he was pleased with it and not going, “why was I the only guy that got a vest?”
Matt: [laughs] Getting back, really quickly, that sending you stuff that you’re not interested in, there’s three reasons for that. One is, when I fax stuff, I always say, is this the beginning of the toner cartridge or the end of the toner cartridge, cause if it’s the beginning I don’t want to waste it, and if it’s the end I’m afraid that nothing’s gonna come through.
Dave: [laughs] Well, it’ll still retain it in the machine until I get the toner.
Matt: But the mentality there is very much a, I’m not sending this digitally where I can email all day, every day and it doesn’t matter, and it’s all electronic. This is physical media where, at a certain point, there’s no paper, there’s no ink, and we have to wait to get it, so is this really important?
Dave: Grandpa’s actually getting better about that now. It’s like, I used to tell Rolly I just put the last one in, so could you get me another one? And then I realized, no, with this whole supply line thing and sometimes Walmart has them and sometimes Walmart doesn’t, sometimes he’s got to order them online. I’ll tell Rolly when I put in the second last one, and Rolly is now in the habit of, anytime I ask him for one of them, he picks up two. So we’re all getting used to each other around this thing.
Matt: Well, the other reason is, when I do fax, it’s, okay let’s keep this short and sweet because 15 page faxes are okay, but 5 page faxes are ideal.
Dave: Yes, especially if they’re all just pictures and stuff, with little captions on them.
Matt: Yes, it’s big enough that Dave can see it, small enough that it doesn’t take up more than a page.
Dave: Right.
Matt: If I can get two to a page, aw man, that’s like Christmas.
Dave: [laughs] And it’s a need to know thing. It’s like, you have a pretty good instinct about, “yeah whatever Dave’s answer is to this, I’m hoping it’s just two lines or a paragraph”, and it’ll fill up a day on A Moment of Cerebus and make your burden a little lighter as well.
Matt: The problem with that, is that invariably something happens and all of a sudden I have five days worth of faxes. I’m like, nope, they’re all going up at once.
Dave: [laughs] Right, right.
Matt: I just did a post, and the title was, “I don’t want to run 11 pages of faxes from Dave, but I have to.”
Dave: Well, yeah, that’s one of those things too, where it’s like, well okay, I think this is interesting enough that I think A Moment of Cerebus people will be interested in it. It’ll fill up a day for Matt. But I never know how you’re doing with, ya know, okay, sometimes you need them and sometimes you’re up to your eyeballs in posts.
Matt: Well, what happened is, right before the end of October, Paula had to do her schedule online for work, basically of what patients she’s gonna go and see, and then she had to do the schedules for three other nurses, filling holes cause they’re understaffed…
Dave: Yike!
Matt: And she warned me, “when I’m home, I need the computer”, I’m like, ehh, I’m just gonna skip the blog today, and if anyone complains it’s not gonna matter. So, a bunch of faxes came in on Tuesday, and then they came in on a Wednesday, and Wednesday’s Hobbs’ post so I don’t have to worry about it, and Thursday is Margaret or the aardvark short sword and flames, so by the time Saturday rolls around it’s like, I have 11 pages of faxes. Oh well!
Dave: There you go.
Matt: It’s going to be a long post, but it’s gonna be worth cause it’s gonna be about the Russian Cerebus possible hardcover, trade paperback.
Dave: Yes, the A Moment of Cerebus viewers’ cup runneth over. And I can’t think that that’s totally a bad thing, although it is a sort of counter-intuitive internet thing. What are you doing posting 11 pages of anything? This is too long; didn’t view.
Matt: There was one day where I was doing updates on, I think it was “Spawn” 10, “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” the Carson & Sean version, Hobbs had his Kickstarter, and there was an update for that. There was five or six other things where, okay, and I got to the very end, I’m like, oh yeah! A Moment of Cerebus. I just put one of the “Cerebus in Hell?” images of just Cerebus, and I’m like, that counts!
Dave: There you go. Yep! Yep. Well, you’re the arbitrator of that. If you say it’s a post, it’s a post.
Matt: I always joke that the readership continually goes, “I miss Tim.”
Dave: [laughs] Okay, I think we’re, okay, we’re coming up on the end here. Yes, Dion Turner, the enigma guy who cracked the code. TeeVee. “Question for Dave (if I’ve made the cut off time, or roll it over to next month if not).” No, you made it, Dion. “Cerebus losing his ear in Reads. Was this injury something that you knew was coming or was it not until you were laying out the fight that you thought he was going to need a reminder of this for the rest of his life?…. and was it always specifically going to be his ear?” Um, definitely… I would say, the decision was made very very close to all of the stuff going down on the page on line with I wanted this to be the most blood soaked fight scene in the history of comics, which, at least to that point it was. [laughs] I’m sure we have competition since then. And one of the things would’ve been, okay if you really want that to stick, have a permanent injury of some kind. Otherwise it’s just, as soon as you wash all the blood off, there’s really not much there, so okay, it looked a lot worse than it is. I wanted it to be at least as bad as it looked, so that was… “was it always specifically going to be his ear?” No, again, it would’ve been, well this is gonna take a certain amount of guts to mutilate your own character, and to do it in such a way that he’s gonna have that from then on. I mean, from that point in the storyline, which was, ya know, 100 issues to go. Are you sure you want to do this? We’re not gonna do a Marvel Comics, and then the Cosmic Cube came from galaxy whatever and poof, Cerebus’ ear grew back. Hey wow, ultra cool. And it was also, okay, from now on, you’re always gonna have to remember which ear it is. You can’t suddenly have a two-eared Cerebus, this is something that you’re gonna have to concentrate on. And it was, yes, this is something that I want to do. I would have had, well, ya know, to the point where that happened in the fight, I had that long to go, am I going to do this, am I not going to do this? And by the time I got there, yes, I’m definitely going to do this. This is not something where I would go, mhmm, no, nice idea, but let’s try and make sure that we always keep Cerebus in one piece.
Matt: It was vaguely foreshadowed in “Flight” when the Pigt statue reassembled and then the ear falls off.
Dave: Yeah, that’s… I would like to claim that, but I don’t think that’s what happened. I think that’s one of those, there’s my conscious mind and my unconscious mind and my super conscious mind, and very possibly my super conscious mind went, “hey this would be pretty cool, cause I know what’s happening however many issues from now, but Dave doesn’t, so we’ll do this.” As far as I know, that’s what the situation was. ”Given in Minds ‘Creator Dave’ also gives him an eye operation I was wondering if there was ever a potential that it was going to be the one injury - loss of an eye. I suspect not given the story that ‘Creator Dave’ shares on the procedure.” Yeah, the eye was never going to be that kind of an injury. The point was going to be that, particularly for Cerebus who has no idea about modern ophthalmology and how you treat these things, it was, this is a really really horrific thing to have happen, but it wasn’t that big a deal. And particularly the injection that he got first, it’s like, okay you can’t even pretend that this hurts, or “hurts”. Having gone through the procedure, yeah, it’s no fun having a needle go in close to your eye, but from then on, it was just absolutely no sensation. Although I had a bandage over top of it, the bandage was really not necessary after even an hour or so. That’s just self-pitying histrionics on Cerebus’ part that as long as you’ve got this bandage over his eye, he can talk about this horrific thing that happened to him. He’s Cerebus the hero.
“If so, then (to paraphrase an often asked question) “Why an ear?”. Tying it to historical characters we have Van Gogh, but He did that to himself and the voices in Cerebus’ head that cause him to self-harm don’t show up until later in Guys and Rick’s Story - so there is a connection/reflection/echo of Van Gogh there, even with the cart before the horse (or ear before the voices, as it were).” Uhh, yes. Definitely I thought of Van Gogh through that whole situation. I have a residual curiosity that if anybody would like to fax Dave Sim something whatever is the definitive Van Gogh biography, I’m not even enough of a fan to know whether there is such a thing or which one it is, I would be very interested in reading that part. Because I do remember reading something about that, that no he didn’t cut off his ear, he cut off the earlobe or a part of his ear. And, do you know anything about this? It was for a dancer at Les Folies-Bergère or a prostitute or someone where… talk about excessive engagement concerning that you are and will one day be Van Gogh, this is a really, really strange thing to do. I was wondering how much information is there on it, are there…
Matt: I believe that he actually only cut off the earlobe, he didn’t cut off the whole ear.
Dave: Right.
Matt: But I also know, there’s an episode of “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman” where there’s a collector who has, I think, it might have been Luthor or somebody else, but it’s a rich collector who has Van Gogh’s other better self portrait and it’s one of the famous self portraits only it’s an ear on a chair. [laughs]
Dave: [laughs] Okay, well. That’s semi-helpful.
Matt: I do believe it was just the earlobe. I know it was to impress somebody, but that’s where it’s one of those, the story is it’s “Rashomon” depending on who you ask and what source you find.
Dave: Right.
Matt: I mean, I’m sure that there’s, I know there’s a number of biographies of him, but I’m curious as to which one of them would be, which one is the best sourcing and which one is the biography that was written based off the biography that was written based on the biography that was written, yadda yadda yadda. To the point where it’s like, he painted sunflowers is the only thing that you can believe out of the book.
Dave: Right. Right. I mean, did he refer to it in any of the letters to his brother? Because I know that the correspondence between those two is really the primary source material, ya know, straight from the horse’s mouth. Yes, this is a letter where he wrote where he said he did this and how much of it… I mean.That’s one of those things, the legend is gonna start cropping up practically in the first half hour and never really calm down from there. How much is this covered? Because it is, [laughs] like you say, most of us only know, “well I know that he painted sunflowers and I know he cut off his ear, and he never sold a painting in his life.”
Matt: No, no, he sold one, possibly two.
Dave: Okay. See, even the “he didn’t sell a painting” is apocryphal. So, it is one of those…
Matt: The only reason I know this is I looked it up because I’ve sold three paintings and that’s one more than Van Gogh!
Dave: [laughs] How to go, Matt! [laughs] Take that, Vincent! [laughs] Okay, yeah see, this is one of the reasons that I don’t have the internet. It’s like, I’ve got, ya know, can I even dream of getting “Strange Death of Alex Raymond” done before I die? Sitting there mulling it over and then going, Van Gogh’s ear, let’s just type that in and see what comes up. And its like, it would probably be 50, 60 pages of stuff. And it’s like, Grandpa there’s other things for you to be interested in. But, yeah, if there’s any… I would certainly be interested in reading a chapter. Ya know, 10 pages or something like that. Just to put my mind at rest and go, “okay, this is all that we really know about this.”
And then Dion goes on, “The only other ear story I can think of is Jesus reattaching a guard’s ear at Gethsemane after one of his disciples went a bit sword happy.” Yeah, that was one of those, well as soon as I read that, I went, well okay, I know what the Johannine Jesus situation is. Peter, in John’s Gospel, is the one that draws his sword and cuts off the right ear of one of the chief priests’ slaves. And I went, okay, there’s analogues of this in the Synoptic Gospels, let’s check those. Two of them mention that one of Jesus’ disciples did this. Pulled out a sword and cut the ear of a slave of the chief priest, and one of the accounts has, it says, “cut off his little ear”, and it’s like, mhmm, okay, I don’t know what that is. Which, ya know, it explains why the Christian fathers didn’t translate that part. “Let’s just leave off the ‘little’ and let’s just make it an ear.” Why does it say “little ear”? And it’s only in Luke’s Gospel that he heals the ear, and that’s one of those, well okay, did he cause a new ear to grow, or did he reattach the ear? Because those are two different things, and like Dion, I’m pretty sure almost all the Christian gospel translations of Luke say that he reattached the ear. Well, no, if it says he healed the ear, that doesn’t mean he reattached it. That means he healed it, and there are two different ways to heal it, reattaching it, and causing a new one to grow. So, that one of those interesting things, particularly the fact that, like I say, in John’s Gospel, Peter’s the one that cuts off the ear, and in the other Matthew and Mark, it’s only a disciple and doesn’t specify who it is. Because, course, I’m the guy that thinks that they’re two different Jesus, so I haven’t been able to figure out whether the trial of Synoptic Jesus came first, or the trial of the Johannine Jesus came first, and then everybody, when they scattered from one of them, they went to the other one, as far as I can determine. So that essentially, Judas turned them both in. That’s, to me, what the Johannine Jesus is saying, “what you are doing do more quickly”, and none of the disciples knew, “well, what he does he mean when he says to Judas, ‘what you are doing do more quickly’?” I think Judas’ plan was to turn them in one at a time. It’s like if he turns in the Synoptic Jesus and he passes muster with the high priest in the Sanhedrin as the Mashiach, then that settles the issue, we don’t have to worry about it. If they say “this is a false Mashiach” and they execute him, or imprison him, then that means that, okay, the Johannine Jesus could still be it. “Let’s turn him in.” And I think the Johannine Jesus was being told what was going on, and was going, “no, we want both of these. You being captured and the Synoptic Jesus being captured happened simultaneously or as close to simultaneously as possible and that’s why you said to Judas, ‘what you’re doing, do more quickly’.”
So, let’s see where that brings us to… “In Minds both Cirin and Cerebus get healed (probably more to prevent blood loss and passing out…” [laughs] And also, not having to draw all of the blood all over him for another however many pages. “which would’ve made a boring comic”, and like I say, not only have to draw all that blood all over Cerebus for however many more issues, but how do you get a facial expression to show through all of that blood? “but Cerebus is never restored/made whole. Which I expect ‘Creator Dave’ could have done. I’m not sure if this was on your mind at the time as we’re still a bit before Rick’s Story, but your research into the Bible may have been underway?” Would have been underway but, no I didn’t make the connection between Cerebus losing his ear and the chief priest slave losing his ear in all four Gospels, but described differently with the different perpetrators.”What we do get in Minds (and what I think the real point of the ear is) is the discussion between Cerebus and his Creator where Cerebus demonstrates time and again that he. just. doesn’t. listen. It’s the most simple view of it and that’s probably what makes it right. He gets another prompt early in Guys where he dreams his other ear is cut off, yes there is a story point there where he’s telling lies about Bear and becoming ridiculously drunk to the point where he has no recollection or control - but once again I think it’s ‘Creator Dave’ telling him, “You’re still not listening”, which in the end takes him all the way back to Sand Hills Creek, a season too late.” Yes, astutely put. I think that was part of the enactment in the Bible, was reinforcing the fact that this was the culpability of, not only the chief priest and not only the Sanhedrin, and everybody in proximity was, you’re not listening. If you want to determine if this is the Mashiach, you have to listen to what he is saying. And they weren’t prepared to do that. In John’s Gospel, when he does finally get to Caiaphas, the high priest, it’s just a complete rubber stamp. We don’t even hear or see what happens, it’s just they brought him in, “yeah, fine, take him over to Pilate.” And it’s like, you’re the chief priest of the Jews and you don’t even want to hear what the Mashiach might have to say to you? Talk about cutting off your ear. “Hope you’re both doing well, I always enjoy the ‘please holds’” Well, thank you, Dion. Be sure to say hi to Rebecca for me. And thank you for the very elaborate question, there.
Matt: The thing with the eye in “Minds” and the ear in “Reads”, whatever significance to the story those injuries have is completely ruined in “Guys” when Mick asks either Harrison or George “why do you suppose there’s only one eye and one ear?” “Maybe he only saw one tit!”
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: Which, but of course, there’s a subtle, if that were true, because Cerebus is a hermaphrodite and the Cirinists wouldn’t necessarily punish a woman as harshly as a man, that would be why one ear and one eye.
Dave: That never occurred to me, but that’s a good one.
Matt: It just occurred to me now. I’m like, well, wait a minute. Cirinist law, they’re not as harsh with the women as they are with the men, because mothers or potential mothers have more rights than men.
Dave: Resonating nicely with Rick only getting one of his thumbs broken.
Matt: Exactly! Cause he’s a girly boy.
Dave: There you go. But…
Matt: It’s like you have this amazingly fantastic, detailed schizophrenia induced world that to everyone else, it’s just a comic, it doesn’t matter, but does it? [laughs]
Dave: [laughs] Oh yeah, this is, we’re both sort of like standing there looking at what we just described and going, “how ‘bout that? Is that actually in there or are we just both schizophrenic in the same way?”
Matt: On Twitter, somebody shared the image of Norman Rockwell’s “Shuffleton’s Barbershop” and made mention of, “hey look! These are actual comics!” And they asked Erik Larsen, cause Erik Larsen has an encyclopedic knowledge of comics that’s very very deep, and they asked, “do you know what covers these are?” Cause I follow him on Twitter, I saw it, I’m like, oh! Dave Sim and I figured this out 10 years ago, or more!
Dave: [laughs] Did you know where to find it?
Matt: Oh yeah, I went back in my email cause that was, the Norman Rockwell thing, and afterward we were posting about to the Cerebus Yahoo group and I have all those emails cause I’m a digital hoarder.
Dave: Right.
Matt: And I found where I talked about it and then John L had talked about it, and John was the one that found the original covers to share with everybody.
Dave: Right.
Matt: So I posted it all on Twitter and everybody was like, and it was one of those, Erik Larsen found the “Donald Duck”, and I’m like, oh yeah, the other two are “Gabby Hayes Western” and “Crime Does Not Pay” and somebody went, “well the logo doesn’t look like Crime”, I’m like, yeah, I know, we discovered that somebody at the Saturday Evening Post covered up the logos.
Dave: Right. Right. So, was there a lot of “hey, round of applause for the Cerebus people”?
Matt: Um, like four or five people. Cause anybody that commented on it, I commented with the same basic information but said a different way of, just getting this out there. Like, this was settled a while ago. The Norman Rockwell Museum has it on file, hey at this particular show these guys figured this out. So there was a little bit of applause, but not a lot.
Dave: Not a lot. Well, it’s the internet. They’re just looking for somebody to string up from the nearest tree. So they’re minds are always on that. Pretty cool seeing the aardvark here, we’re at end with ”Johnny Scrabbles wants to know if you have Conan #14 (The Coming of Elric).” Yes I do! It’s definitely a reading copy, but it was well-read when I was trying to figure out to do BWS. “I suspect if you DID own it, you sold it when you moved out.” [laughs] It wasn’t in good enough shape to sell, Matt, so there you go.
Matt: So, Johnny Scrabbles asked this on Facebook, and John Christianson who is a retailer, I think from Texas…
Dave: Yep!
Matt: …Asked about, he wonders what all you have in your comic collection. And then he posted an image of his run of the Barry Windsor Smith Conan books going, “does anybody else think these are necessary for ‘Cerebus’ completeists?”
Dave: [laughs] I hope not! Everybody will go bankrupt!
Matt: Well, a couple guys commented, going, “well yeah, if you’re truly obsessive!” [laughs]
Dave: [laughs] Okay.
Matt: I think Jeff Seiler owned most of those books.
Dave: Did he?
Matt: When he was telling me what he was leaving me, he said he had two long boxes, and two short boxes, and he’s got a “Savage Sword of Conan” #1. I think, the way he made it sound it was in like 9.8 condition and possibly was slabbed.
Dave: Hmm. How ‘bout that. Mine are well-thumbed, my issue 1 and issue 2 because of “Red Nails”. They’ve definitely got extra miles on them.
Matt: I’m assuming they kind of look like the stack of “Morpheus the Dream King” that Cerebus was reading at Mr McGuirksky’s house?
Dave: Yes, good example. Good example. [laughs] And for maybe a higher intention purpose that I can’t keep these in mint if I’m gonna be referring to them correctly.
Okay, coming in for the final glide pattern, “Mikhail Bocharov posted on the FaceItBooks:” “Fun Fact: In the animated series about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003), there was a episode-adaptation of the plot of the eighth TMNT issue (about Cerebus). The character was cut out, the story was rewritten a little, but such an Easter egg flashed through.” And then you say, “That’s the Aardvark I mentioned last month. In the episode, the Turtles and Renet” or is it Renee? “fall out of a portal, the aardvark looks at them, looks away and snorts derisively. Aaron Wood commented on the post: ‘Would have been a great opportunity for an action figure’ Which is where I really should ask if you want me to contact NECA”, what is NECA? What does that stand for?
Matt: Uhh, NECA. It’s the name of the company. They make toys, I’m trying to remember, I think they do statues and stuff too. But right now, they’re doing… it’s essentially remastered action figures from the 90s, so it’s the little toys from the late 80s/ early 90s, but they’re about 7 inches tall with more articulation, better looking accessories, but it’s the toy you had as a kid the way you would’ve wanted it as a kid, is how they kind of sell them.
Dave: Right.
Matt: And they just teamed up with Stan Sakai and now they’re doing “Usagi Yojimbo”.
Dave: Okay.
Matt: They announced that and somebody on Twitter was like, “hey, what about Cerebus?” And I’m like, well I can ask Dave!
Dave: Uh, yeah, you’re welcome to go ahead with that. I didn’t want to get to a point where I was signing a contract on it, which was what scuttled it with Pete Laird way back when. But, if they’re interested in doing a Cerebus as he appeared in TMNT #8, that would really be a completely different thing. That would be… it was in TMNT #8 and they would be licensing this from Viacom, right?
Matt: Yeah. That would be the way that, I believe, they would have to get Viacom to sign off on it as well. I know they have to get you to sign off.
Dave: Yeah, I mean, it would be one of those, “I’ve never sued anybody before and I certainly wouldn’t start with you guys” kinda thing. It would probably be worth an email trying to explain to them why you’re authorized to be contacting them about this. Just make up a title about yourself.
Matt: Oh, I already have a title. If I contact them as Ron Essler, I’m the Senior Executive Assistant in Charge of Zuckerberg-based Social Media.
Dave: Okay! [laughs] Alright! Ron’s really coming up in the world.
Matt: Oh, no, Ron also has a job with SHIELD in the Marvel Universe doing differential cartography, and when I posted that, cause I found a website where you can make badges for SHIELD, and it gives you what department you are in, and you can fill it in, so I filled in differential cartography and somebody went, “what does that mean?” I’m like, mapping alternate universes.
Dave: There ya go.
Matt: Cause if I were in the Marvel Universe, that’s the kinda job I’d want.
Dave: You go, Ron!
Matt: The thing about contacting NECA, and I just saw a quote from John Carpenter where he asked about all the sequels to “Halloween”. Cause, they’re not necessarily the best movies and it’s very formulaic and “why do they keep making these things?” and he’s like, “Here’s how it works. I’m sitting in my chair in the living room, they say on TV, ‘hey, we’re doing another ‘Halloween’ sequel’, I stick out my hand, and a check appears.”
Dave: [laughs] I’ll take that! That’s my kind of business. So NECA is just, it’s just NECA? It doesn’t stand for anything? [laughs]
Matt: Uh, it might…
Dave: Let me rephrase that. N.E.C.A. doesn’t stand for anything?
Matt: It might, but I’d have to look into it, but I will reach out, I will go to their website and contact them and basically explain, Dave’s not on the internet, but anything you got to tell Dave, anything Dave’s got to tell you I can tell you. I can be the middle man. But the short answer is, there is an interest in the Cerebus TMNT figure, if you guy want to do it, we can make it happen, but it involves Dave sitting in his living room, reaching out his hand and getting a check.
Dave: [laughs] And George Peter Gatsis. It’s like, I’ve got his Cerebus figure here. I would be happy to, at the very least, email them photos of it, and part of their work is already done that way. But you would have to cross Sahib George Gatsis’ palm with silver Sahib.
Matt: I kinda figured it was, yeah you’re not gonna say no, but at the same it’s getting’ a hold of somebody, getting them to realize I’m not just some random kook from the internet, I’m actually the random kook who knows the real world kook that you guys want to talk to.
Dave: Right. You’re the Ron Essler!
Matt: Well, I would send it from the A Moment of Cerebus email, so it would be “Manly” Matt Dow. I would make sure that they know as I’m up and up as I can get for a guy who runs a blog about a comic that ended in 2004.
Dave: Well, it’s… shouldn’t it be “Manly” Matthew Dow?
Matt: [sigh] Yeah…
Dave: [laughs] You wanna use your full name with these corporate types, just to keep them on their toes.
Matt: Well, I figure if I put “Manly” maybe they’ll get confused and think I’m Stan Lee, and then they’ll…
Dave: [laughs]
Matt: They’ll be like, “hey, we can get Spider-Man!” I can get you a spider, it might not be a man. Might be a little shorter with more arms.
Dave: Something like that. Essler “The Man”.
Matt: Next thing you know, either you’re gonna be going, “hey, we want to do a Spider-Vark figure” and you’re like, “hey, you want to talk to Jim Shooter’s lawyers, go ahead.”
Dave: There you go, there you. Okay, I’m gonna run along Matt, but before I go, I had Rolly pull out one of the Cerebus the sketchbook watercolours before he sent the rest of them to Heritage Auctions. This is #10, sequentially #13, and it’s sitting right here in front of me, and somebody is going to get that at A Moment of Cerebus when they figure out all of the clues and a bunch of stuff on the decoder wheel, and that will tell them what day it is that they have to be the first person to post the word “Swordfish”. Closest to that time that “Manly” Matthew Dow, [sighs], will set and I will personalize it to them if they want it, and just leave it the way it is if they want it, and it will go directly to them, completely free of charge!
Matt: So wait, I gotta come up with this contest? [laughs]
Dave: Yes. You have plenty of time. You just…
Matt: Well, it’s, I’m thinking already I’m gonna make it, it’s gonna have to be, not necessarily hard, but labor intensive enough that Michael R isn’t a shoe-in.
Dave: [laughs] That’s the challenge! That’s the challenge. And find a way to include other people too. You can have, I dunno, playoffs. Playoffs where you get a wildcard spot, coming down to the wire. Is the wildcard guy actually gonna go to the finals? Keep everybody in contention, and make sure that it’s something that completely, completely creates obsessive compulsive disorder viewership of A Moment of Cerebus, because the Cerebus the sketchbook is on the line, and you have to be on your toes and you have to be on A Moment of Cerebus practically 24/7, because you’re not, Michael R will be.
Matt: [laughs] Okay,.
Dave: Okay, I’m gonna go, Matt!
Matt: Alright!
Dave: Have a goodnight.
Matt: Have a good night, Dave! Bye.
Dave: Talk to ya next month. Buh-bye.
[phone clicks]
Matt: [sighs] Okay, people. We’re not starting the contest now. But we do have a message from Little Orphan Aardvark herself. So, for all the members of the Little Orphan Aardvark Secret Society, and if you wanna get in, remember, there’s three ways to get in. #1, send 50 ovaltine proofs of purchase along with $8 shipping and handling. He still doesn’t know about that. #2, you can buy copies of the Coronavirus books from me, just send an email to momentofcerebus@gmail.com, saying that you want the Coronavirus books, and it’s $4 a book plus probably more for shipping, they keep changing that, and we’ll iron out those details later. The third way is to send an email to momentofcerebus@gmail.com saying that you want a Little Orphan Aardvark Secret Society official decoder bookmark, which isn’t really a bookmark because it’s six and a half inches wide, but it’s $5 for one of those, and once I get the money I mail it out. I hand create each one, carefully cutting the circles out and taking precise measurements to put the hole through the middle so that they aren’t completely screwed up, and if you have a screwed up one, congratulations, that’s from before I remembered that I owned a ruler.
Anyway, Aardvark’s important message for you, the members of the Secret Society, get ready, pen and paper, write it down, cause I’ll probably put it online and you’ll just take a screen shot and Dion will just hack it because he’s a genius. But set your decoder wheels to A=Copyright. The important message that Aardvark’s counting on you to decode, as soon as you possibly can, because this is time sensitive, is: heart, e, copyright, uhh is that o or zero? Ehh, we’ll say 0. It’s either o or 0 , you’ll figure it out. Infinity, diamond, I. Space. Heart, infinity, Aries, copyright, 2, V, 3, G. Space. V, skull & crossbones, diamond, Q, 4. Space. S, skull & crossbones, 2, I, E, 4. Space. 4, skull & crossbones. Space. 3, E, 4. Space. 9, skull & crossbones, 5, 2. Space. A, heart, skull & crossbones, A, spade, 3. Space. D, copyright, A, spade. Space. Skull & crossbones, diamond, E. Space. M, skull & crossbones, 5, 2. Space. Skull & crossbones, diamond. Space. 3, 5, diamond, V, copyright, 9, Pisces. Space. T, N, excuse me, let’s start that word over. T, 9, skull & crossbones, 5, 2. Space. A, E, heart, heart. Space. [grunts] O or 0, man, I gotta get a better font for that. O or 0, M, skull & crossbones, diamond, E. Space. 7, infinity, heart, heart. Space. 0, 2, skull & crossbones, D, copyright, D, heart, 9. Space. A, M, copyright, diamond, I, E. Space. Infinity, 4, 3, E, heart, S, Pisces, Pisces, Pisces, L. Space. 8, skull & crossbones, 8, skull & crossbones. Space. Heart, infinity, 4, 4, heart, E. Space. Skull & crossbones, 2, 0, M, copyright, diamond. Space. Copyright, copyright, 2, V, 6, copyright, 2, spade.
Let me just double check my little wheelie here. Hey, what do ya know. Yeah, all of those O’s are actually 0’s, there is no O on the code. Hmm. Wow, I’m pretty smart. I sure figured that out. Alright, so that was your message from Little Orphan Aardvark. Decode as fast as possible and send your response to mouseskull… no, it’s not mouseskull… momentofcerebus@gmail.com, and it’ll count as one point towards whatever contest we come up for for 10/13 Aardvark Sword & Flames, and if you’re not a member of the Little Orphan Ann… Aardvark Secret Society, and want to become a member, remember, you can send 50 ovaltine proofs of purchase to Dave along with $8. He has no idea about that. Or email momentofcerebus@gmail.com and say “I want into the Secret Society, please please, how do I get in?” and then you Paypal me the money, and then I eventually remember to send the package, and the postman finally brings it, after weeks and weeks of waiting. Ya know, the joke was six to eight weeks for delivery and now sadly, it’s probably gonna be six to eight weeks for delivery. Um, thank you to everyone who listened to Please Hold for Dave Sim for November 2021. I hope you had a good time, and if you didn’t, by the time you get this point, you’re probably not gonna listen to this point to hear me say thank you for listening, you probably gonna have stopped hours ago and commented on the YouTube video or the blog post when this goes up, that I suck, I’m fat, and what else does the anonymous [inaudible] hate say? Ah, I can’t repeat it in polite society. Last one out, turn out the lights. Don’t take any wooden nickels. And whatever you do, please please please, don’t piss upwind.
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The Kickstarter for the '82 Tour Book is in "prelaunch" status. Click here to be notified when it goes live.
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AND, Robert Jeschonek is back with Volume 2 of Legends of Indie Comics - Words Only. Dave was in Volume 1, and he's got another all star line-up for this one.
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Here for Canadians.
Here for USAians.
Friend to the Blog Steve Peters is back with the next Tails of Sparky, #6, the next in the "Seasons of Sparky" series. Why you care (besides that Steve's a pal and does good comics...) is that he has a LIMITED number of
Tails of Sparkybus #6 Signed Variant
Signed by Dave Sim (Dave Sim 2025) on a tipped-in plate. It will also be signed by Steve Peters and numbered, and features a 6-page collaboration with Sim that will only appear in the variant.
It's limited to TWENTY-FIVE Steve says there are THIRTY-TWO, but he hasn't released them all yet, copies (So if you want one, maybe don't wait...)
Steve also has copies of Dave's variant covers to the two previous issues, so you can get the set if you missed out.
He's also got the Sparkybus prints Dave did that I had printed up.
You can't say I didn't warn ya!
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Tim Gagne sent in:
Crownfundr for Nick Crane
Already net its goal but pretty cheap for a collection that finishes the story all these years later -
https://crowdfundr.com/nickcraine?ref=cr_3EI341_ab_18OUE1
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:
And if you wanna see how the book looks in Real Time...
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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.
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Up to 35% off October something.*
*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:
- slabbed comics.
Thanks to Steve for sending the link.
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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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Here's a thing:
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| Click for bigger. |
Here for USAians.
1 comment:
I received my Kickstarter package today and am pleasantly impressed!! Everything was packed perfectly and looks GREAT!!!! Possibly the best KS that ive ever participated in! I appreciate everyone who helped to make this campaign successful and i look forward to the next project
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