DAVE SIM:
(from Note On The 16th Printing Of Cerebus Vol 1, 14 December 2012)
This
printing marks the first time that I've directed fundamental
corrections and restorations to be made to the original material since
first producing it more than thirty years ago, a choice precipitated by
George Gatsis making me aware of flaws which resulted from the
conversion of the original photographic negatives to digital files
several years ago (itself made necessary by the worldwide computer
revolution which eliminated the possibility of continuing to print the
trade paperbacks via the traditional negative/metal plate web offset
printing form).
I have been advocating for some time that publishers of classic
comic strips should be updating each successive printing of their
collections with high quality scans from original artwork (which have
surfaced in the interim) and came to the conclusion that I needed to
"practice what I preached".
[I had tended not to because, frankly, I didn't think my earliest
artwork on Cerebus warranted it. I was an enthusiastic amateur or -- at
best -- a semi-professional and find it very hard to look at the work at
all closely. So, I've pretty much just approved each successive
printing after no more diligent checking than to make sure all the pages
are in the right order.]
George Gatsis developed the
CEREBUS PAGES IN THE WILD program to try to track down as many
original pages as still exist and to which we could gain access. A
complete list of the original pages incorporated into the 16th printing
appears following this note.
Depending on the page, the reproduction has been modified digitally
to provide for greater or lesser contrast and brightness. Page 541 is a
good example of lesser contrast where the original brush strokes in the
areas of solid black are now visible while leaving the black solid
enough to keep the effect from distracting the casual reader. Light
shadings of the original pencil -- never properly erased, a recurrent
flaw of mine -- on Sump Thing's features are likewise retained. It's
much closer in appearance to the original artwork, in other words.
Partway between greater and lesser contrast, we have the background
greys on pages 527, 529 and 530 which were produced by means of
"spatter" -- loading up a toothbrush with india ink and flick flick
flicking it over the surface after masking off all the areas that needed
to remain white -- the "poor man's airbrush". Just looking at the
exponentially higher reproduction which has resulted from the digital
scanners ability to "see" and translate these effects into 0's and 1's
and to retain them with 100% accuracy in the printing stage as compared
with the same effect on the surrounding contemporaneous pages derived
from the original photographic negatives…well, it gives you a good idea
of why we hope that more artwork still exists from that issue and can be
located at some point.
All of the digital scanning from original source materials for the
volume was performed by Alana Wilson at 1200 dpi or higher under George
Gatsis’ direction and then George himself "tweaked" each digital file
for the greatest possible coherence, to make sure all detail was brought
out as clearly as possible. A copy was then printed out for me of the
digital files so that I could offer further guidance where a page, in my
view, had gone too dark or too light.
Some limited restoration has also been performed by George. Limited
in the sense that none of the actual drawings have been in any way
modified but purely mechanical flaws have been corrected. As an example,
where holes or breaks have occurred in the 30% mechanical tone that was
used on Cerebus, and where the break doesn't appear overtop of an
actual ink line (which would necessitate recreating a 1981 ink line in
2012), neighbouring 30% dots have been digitally cloned and imported to
the area in question under high-powered magnification so they could be
matched up seamlessly.
Panel and caption borders which had broken up or faded have,
likewise, been restored by digitally "cloning" the lines that remain and
grafting them directly onto the empty areas. This has been avoided
with the word balloons which are not composed of straight lines and
which I, therefore, consider part of the artwork which can't be
successfully restored because I don't draw them that way anymore. 2012
Dave Sim can't "do" 1981 Dave Sim or "correct" 1981 Dave Sim without
superseding him, so 2012 Dave Sim is keeping his pen and ink to himself.
The Cerebus logo on page one was imported and reversed to white from
a period logo rather than trying to restore the second-generation
photographic negative shot from an already degraded photostat.
The
only other form of restoration which I have authorized (and which,
arguably, can be considered "borderline" defacement) is the restoration
of the original lettering where that has faded by "cloning" adjacent
letters and substituting them for their missing counterparts. It's at
least "borderline" defacement because the "D" that you see is not the
specific "D" that I put in place thirty-five years ago. However,
weighing in the balance the resulting improved coherence and
readability, I tend to think that there is great validity in the
"trade-off". The lettering on page 206, as an example, has been a thorn
in my side since issue 9 first came in with the page in this same
degraded form -- and which turned out to be a flaw in the negative
itself, a fact which I didn't discover until after I had already sold
the original page. The white gaps in the patterned ink hatching in the
background of each panel might be the next thing "fixed" in the 17th
printing but I haven't decided if it would constitute a lesser or
greater form of borderline defacement if the few areas that have
reproduced well are cloned and "wallpapered" or if I did fill in the
blanks by hand (the pattern is pretty basic and can't be done in a
substantially different way even by Old Geezer Dave). Or, with any luck,
that page will come
IN FROM THE WILD before the 17th printing becomes
necessary.
Many thanks to George and Alana for their tireless work on this
volume. If you own any of the original pages from the first 25 issues
which don't appear on George's list, please see his specifications which
follow the list and, if it all possible, help us to "swap out" one more
second generation copy for a first generation one.
