Happy Anniversary! The Big 4-0 (Dave's Weekly Update #218)

Hi, Everybody!

Heeeeeere's Dave:

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Cerebus' 40th at Hyperallergic

Hi, Everybody!

So your pal and mine, Sean Robinson, sent a big ol' batch of links to momentofcerebus@gmail.com, And I'm gonna be running them as I want.

Like today!

Now everybody say, "Thanks Sean!" and enjoy:

The review does not go well...

Cerebus' 40th Anniversary at Hyperallergic

Cerebus the Aardvark turns 40 years old this month. He is not among the ranks of widely known comic book characters like Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, or any other superhero you can think of. He doesn’t even have the mainstream crossover appeal of characters from successful non-superhero comics like the works of Alan Moore, The Sandman, or Saga. Yet his namesake series is as important to the medium of comics as those of any characters from the former category, and the characters from the latter would not exist without him. The influence of Cerebus runs deep through comic book art, business, and fandom, though it’s mainly dedicated fans of the medium who are familiar with it, and relatively few of them have actually read it.

It's an overview/postmortem  of the series. I assume aimed at readers unfamiliar with it. It's not the worst, though I do find numerous passages troublesome:

• "A devoted marijuana and LSD user for many years, Sim sought to stretch comics storytelling to its breaking point, and then past it." The first part is technically true, though I believe a tad misleading, and unnecessary. 

•  "Writing in general is not Sim’s strength. His idea of parodying the iconic fantasy character Elric is having him talk and act like Foghorn Leghorn. His dialog is often blandly functional, too easily taken over by expositional speeches and exchanges. And there is, quite frankly, not enough story to fill 300 issues, with many pointless diversions and episodes that can’t even justify themselves as entertaining." Oy. Writing is not Dave's strength? Yet McFarlane tapped him for the Spawn guest writers gig because Dave was considered one of the best in the industry. The Elrod complaint I'd grant, if not for Dave having no familiarity with Elric (I believe Dave says so in one of the Cerebus Archive portfolio commentaries. But I'm too lazy to go look. What? I'm a busy guy...) so his parody isn't "on" because he doesn't know what Elric "sounds" like. And the last complaint about there not being enough story for 300 issues? Uh...what? Dave had/has said that Cerebus is the story of a life. "Pointless diversions," pretty sums up a couple years of my life.

I dunno. Your results may vary, but for a guy familiar enough with the series/character/creator to run a blog devoted to it/him/him, I find it just insulting enough to dismiss.

But everybody thank Sean for the link anyway. "Thanks Sean!"

Next time: Pictures of Supermodels? Pictures of supermodels...

The time has come, the Walrus: review of Cerebus

Hi, Everybody!

So your pal and mine, Sean Robinson, sent a big ol' batch of links to momentofcerebus@gmail.com, And I'm gonna be running them as I want.

Like today!

Now everybody say, "Thanks Sean!" and enjoy:

ACTUALLY, Glen sent this link first...but we won't quibble.

https://thewalrus.ca/canadas-cantankerous-aardvark/

It's a "fun" little review of Cerebus. (I mostly like the series of Cerebus/Dave Sim/Gerhard links in the article. (Although I question this: "Issue 186—as notorious a number to Sim’s fans as 237 is to Stephen King’s—horrified the comic world." Um...237 is from the Kubrick film. It's room 217 in the novel. And I don''t know any King fan who is haunted by it.))

Anyway, Blurb time!:

In december 1977, the first issue of Cerebus, a comic about an aardvark barbarian, appeared in black and white. Written and illustrated by Dave Sim, a cartoonist who lives in Kitchener, Ontario, Cerebus would persist for nearly three decades, expiring in the twenty-first century. At its peak, back when comics had pesky material needs such as ink and distribution, Sim’s book enjoyed a print run of 36,000—a feat for a self-published series.

So, everybody say, "Thanks Glen! and Sean, we guess..."

Thanks Guys!!!

Image courtesy CerebusDownloads, most images from the series come our way from CerebusDownloads

Next time: Shark Tank secrets to getting rich FAST!!!

Happy anniversary Cerebus!

Hi, Everybody!

So back in 2012, I got the idea to do a Jam tribute for the thirty-fifth anniversary of Cerebus.

It...

It did NOT go well.

I got three images, and one of them was mine.

But hey, 2017 was the fortieth anniversary of Cerebus.

So here's the "Completed" Jam:

It was a callback to Cerebus VS Iguana VS Beer #1, which I'll get to eventually in the "Cerebus in Matt's life" series

Here's the individual contributions:

The Cerebus film project's own Oliver Simonsen's Captain Zap and A-1

E. Ann Bardawill's Sketch for Dave Sim aka David Slim aka DVS

And my two idiots, Iguana and Beer with a dead aadvark

So there you go.

Happy Varkaversary (good gravy that's a terrible term...)!

Next time: I dunno...the cards I sent Dave for his birthday?

STAAAARRR WAAAAARRRSS, nothing but STAAAARRR WAAAAARRRSS, please don't let these STAAAARRR WAAAAARRRSS go awwwwaaaaaaayyyyyy....

Hi, Everybody!

Are you ready for Star Wars:The Last Jedi? I'M ready for Star Wars: The Last Jedi! I bet EVERYBODY is ready for Star Wars:The Last Jedi. Because EVERYBODY loves Star Wars!

Well...ALMOST everybody:

WILDCARDa: What's your take on the Star Wars saga?

DAVE: I went to see Episode Three a week or so ago, not having seen any of the films since the second one. I sort of wondered to myself about that. Why didn't I go and see any of the other ones? As soon as Yoda came on the screen I remembered. A Muppet with Fozzie Bear's voice. It just blew the whole thing out of the water for me. I had forgotten the skewed syntax to his sentences as an alien motif but I'm sure I found it as sincerely irritating twenty-five years ago as I did this time. It's Fozzie Bear. How do you expect me to take a muppet who sounds like Fozzie Bear seriously as a Grand Master Poobah type. It was silly. Ger lasted one more movie and then had the same reaction, he informs me, to teddy-bears saving the universe.

That's Dave from the Cerebus Yahoo group's Cerebus Re-Read Q&A (specifically the one from "Reads".)

The Vark Wars print (blatantly stolen from Jeff Tundis' cerebustheaardvark.com site. I'd sue, really, I would. It's...just...so...BLATANT!)

And, from Dave's Blog & Mail #155 (February, 13th, 2007) (Which I can't find over on http://davesim.blogspot.com/ ...):

It's certainly interesting doing these commissioned pieces. I mean, on the one hand it makes me feel like a much older artist than the fifty year-old that I am. Commissions are sort of an Legendary Veteran kind of thing, but then being the Pariah King of Comics puts you in various contexts that you might otherwise not be in. Producer of Commissioned Work being one of them (although I've yet to tie it in with my discussions with Chester about prostitution). The interesting part is that I end up drawing things that I would never in a million years choose to draw on my own. It's no big secret that I am definitely not in the Star Wars fan category. I had gone to see the first film when it came out and loved it (more vicariously through Gene Day who L*O*V*E*D IT) and then went to see the second film when it came out and, well, that was it for me. I went to see the last instalment when that came out a couple of summers ago, part of me wondering, "How did I get so easily put off by these things? Wasn't there enough Gene Day Juice in the first one to keep me coming out to see every one of the films the day it was released?" The answer came at some point in that final instalment when Yoda showed up on the screen. Oh, right. Fozzy Bear. Frank Oz doing his Fozzy Bear voice with that strange syntax. That was what had done it all right. My willing suspension of disbelief went from willing to unwilling the moment I was being asked to accept a Muppet with Fozzy Bear's voice as a Jedi Master. Mm. Sorry. No can do.

No offence to all the Star Wars fans who are legion in the ranks of the Cerebus Yahoos, but that was it.

So it was interesting going to get reference at the library for the piece. There was a picture book that was just tailor-made for my purposes, Star Wars The Visual Dictionary (D.K. Publishing Inc.). Big display publicity shot of Harrison Ford from the first movie looking as if George Lucas is somewhere off-camera explaining to him exactly how to pose as Flash Gordon as drawn by Al Williamson. This was one of those "luck of the draw" things for John H. that he was asking for a Star Wars commission and that Al Williamson had drawn the original Star Wars newspaper strip. I would get a chance to do my best Al Williamson impression on the page and John was pretty much guaranteed to get a much nicer drawing as a result as I tried to impress my inner Al Williamson.

I had already warned John over the phone that Cerebus as Han Solo was going to pose some difficulties since Han Solo is a distinctly vertical figure. The more vertical a character is, visually, the more difficult it is to compress him to Cerebus size. The leg holster was a good example. It was either going to be too large if I drew the blaster accurately, taking up most if not all of Cerebus' leg, or it would look like a toy if I drew it to Cerebus scale. The Flash Gordon jackboots are a big part of the look and there was no way to do them on the shape of Cerebus' leg. The best I could manage was shiny leggings. John expressed confidence in whatever solutions I came up with. "At least he has the same vest," he said hopefully. Han Solo had a Cerebus vest? Sure enough when I got the book out—cut differently but definitely a black vest.

Anyway, this serendipitous publicity shot of Harrison Ford looking exactly like an Al Williamson Flash Gordon pushed me in an entirely different direction. I just HAD to use the whole thing and traced it off in short order manufacturing my rationalization as I went. What if Cerebus is using the legs as stilts? That way I could draw the legs and boots as much like Al Williamson as I wanted and it would look kind of funny to have Cerebus' own legs bulging up Harrison Ford's svelte waistline. I even decided to include Harrison Ford's hair as if someone had taken extraordinary pains to make this aardvark character look as much like the actor as possible. I tightened up the figure in pencil on tracing paper and got out a sheet of 11 x 17 S-172 artboard to figure out how much space he was going to take up.

That was when I noticed that the book had a nice Star Wars logo in gold against a white backdrop, which meant that I could trace it off without even shooting a photocopy. It only took a few minutes to change Star Wars to Vark Wars. Then it was time for Jaka as Princess Leia. I tried the traditional all-white robe and the hairstyle that looked like two cheese Danish stuck on either side of her head from the first movie. It just didn't work for me somehow. It was hard to tell why. The basic answer is that the outfit is pretty much featureless—a nun's habit is more distinctive!—and it was pretty much tailored to Carrie Fisher's body type which is very different from Jaka's body type. I could trace off the publicity photo in the book, but pretty much everything would have to be redrawn anyway including the posture of the figure. What a strange outfit. Did they cast Carrie Fisher before they designed the costume? These are the sorts of questions you find yourself asking yourself when you're hip-deep in a strange commission and mentally analyzing the physical components. Under what other circumstances would Dave Sim find himself asking himself if Carrie Fisher or her costume came first in the first Star Wars movie?

On the facing page was a smaller shot of Carrie Fisher dressed as Jabba the Hutt's slave girl. It certainly seemed more suited to Jaka with her dancer costumes (and I suspect if your average Star Wars fan was to choose a favourite Princess Leia outfit the slave girl outfit would be the one) (I wonder how many slave girl publicity stills Carrie Fisher sells versus the other publicity stills at show signings these days?). This raised even more layers of speculation that I had no idea I had inside of me. How did George Lucas talk Carrie Fisher into the slave girl thing? I mean, that was pretty far along in the series and presumably Carrie Fisher was still thinking and hoping that this Star Wars gig might be a stepping stone to other roles in "major motion pictures". "Barely there" costumes are not exactly something with which actresses with hard-won screen cred are known to willingly associate. Did he just blindside her with the script? Throw it onto her front steps in the middle of the night? PRINCESS LEIA DRESSED AS SLAVE GIRL ENTERS FROM RIGHT OF SCENE. When did she first get a good look at the costume? Did she call George Lucas up screaming? Can you even do that to George Lucas or did everyone have a "Whatever George wants George gets" clause in their contract? That might explain my favourite Harrison Ford quote where he said that George Lucas should be tied to a chair and forced to read his own dialogue out loud.

 Where was I dredging all this stuff up from?

Were there negotiations about how much skin would be showing? Or was the outfit just presented as a fait accompli? I mean, it's a very good costume, based solidly in the Alex Raymond/Dale Arden mode (I assume it was one of the things on George Lucas' mental checklist) but with all of the high-end Hollywood costume artistry brought to bear. "Here's Alex Raymond/Dale Arden and here's Carrie Fisher's body type. Now, how do we do work them both in?" Pretty flawlessly, I would say. In the publicity shot she certainly doesn't look very happy (which I suppose could be just "in character" for a slave girl). Looks like she had to work out pretty hard to get that toned. How old was she at that time? Early thirties? No love handles, no pot belly. She did a great job.

As I say, it's bizarre what goes through your mind when you actually work on something like this. In the same vein, it was an unexpectedly happy nostalgia jolt to have John Williams' Star Wars soundtrack running through my head for days on end. Took me right back to 1978-79 when that was what you listened to most mornings at Gene Day's studio in Gananoque. "What'll it be? John Williams' Star Wars soundtrack or John Williams' Superman soundtrack?" It certainly made writing and drawing comic books seem incredibly heroic at the time. 

I really have to give George Lucas credit as a thorough-going storyteller, assuming that all of the detailed information included in this book came from him personally. I mean, I'm probably just outside the loop, but I had no idea that that broken red racing stripe on the side of Han Solo's pants is a "Corellian blood stripe" or that his belt is equipped with a Droid caller and blaster power cell. Or that the blaster consists of a scope, enhanced blast delivery circuits, power pack release lever, low power pulse warning, power pack, cooling unit, final stage collimator (with "puree" setting?) and flash suppressor. Or that it's officially a DL-44 pistol. I think I managed to get them all on there, although I'll frankly admit that the proportions are probably off by quite a bit. 

Anyway, I did a quick Jaka as Jabba the Hutt slave girl drawing on tracing paper and then reduced it a bit on the photocopier so she didn't look TOO much larger than Han Solo (although I did want her to look larger—this is, after all, Cerebus and Jaka), turned over the photocopy on the light table to trace off onto another piece of tracing paper… 

…and the next day promptly fell ill for nearly a month.

Next time: "I bent my Wookie..." 

Cerebus Anniversary-- Forty Years of a Cantankerous Aardvark

Sean Michael Robinson:

Greetings!

I wanted to use this week's post to bring some attention to a so-far-unheralded milestone in the world of comics. This month is the fortieth anniversary of Cerebus #1, first published (according to the cover date, anyway!) in December of 1977.

So as of yet, no one's thrown Cerebus a party. No one's baked him a cake. But to celebrate in a smaller, less icing-involved way, over the next few weeks we'll take a look at a few excepts from the essay I wrote for the newly-restored 17th printing of Cerebus Volume One, released January 2017. If you enjoy the excerpt, or really, even if you don't, I'd recommend picking up a copy of the printing, which is remarkably better than any of the preceding printings. (Easily identified by the increased cover price, and the giant REMASTERED EDITION banner on the top!)

***

Taken as a whole, the 6,000 page Cerebus the Aardvark is one of the richest, most confounding, most complex, most multi-layered, most singular works of visual narrative art of the last century. 

This from a comic that began as both tribute to and parody of  Barry Windsor-Smith’s Conan; a comic born of the twin forces of fanzine culture and the economic opportunities of the comic industry as it transitioned from newsstand distribution to the direct market. It is simultaneously a tribute to artistic development and craft borne of dedication and focus, to complexity, to serialization and public development, to the limitless possibilities of genre-free work; a work of great narrative accomplishment hand-in-hand with asesthetic achievement.      

It’s also funny as hell.

The current linguistic climate of accumulating hyperbole has made it difficult to describe the scope of achievement of Cerebus the Aardvark in terms that haven’t long since worn out their welcome. Incredible, as in, difficult to credit, unbelievable. Awesome, as in, inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear. In an earlier time, words that might be equally appropriate to the description of a birth, a cathedral, or a sink hole.

Cerebus, in toto, is truly an awesome work, unlike any other in the history of fiction. This is in part because of, not despite of, the work’s more modest beginnings, including the volume you now hold in your hand.

Entirely original, entirely self-published, Cerebus ran for twenty-six years, over 300 mostly monthly issues comprised of more than 6,000 pages of comics, the original artwork of which, if stacked perfectly flat, would reach a height of more than 31 feet. The physical scale of the accomplishment aside, the series is a treasure-trove of visual technique, of narrative diversity, and is unprecedented for the frequency of genre-flipping and continually violated expectations. What starts as a sword and sorcery pastiche quickly evolves into adventure, social criticism, and wicked, cutting parody. And that’s just the first slice.

When people ask me, “Do you ever hit a writer’s block?” it seems like a very odd question, because the history of comics is an immense line that snakes around in very bizarre directions, with the word “super-heroes” written on it, and aside from that snake there’s nothing but empty territory... If I were writing a novel it would be difficult, trying to think of a theme that hasn’t been done before, an attitude that hasn’t been done before. But if you take everything that’s been covered in novels and movies and television and lay it over the top of the themes that have been dealt with in comics, there’s nothing but open space. 

 — Dave Sim, in interview with Kim Thompson (1982)

It’s difficult to divorce the genesis of the book from the culture that spawned it. 

Since the creation of the format in the late 1930s, comics had been a vehicle for the supernatural, for violence, and for pulpy adventure stories. They were distributed almost entirely through newsstands, drug stores, and candy stores, and sold by distributors on a returnable basis. When the new monthly issues arrived, the left-over copies were pulped to make way for the new, their covers ripped off and returned as proof of their destruction. The economic pressures of such a system, and the explosion of material crowding the stands, meant that only the most sensational prevailed, and any success was soon imitated by rival houses. But 1954’s Seduction of the Innocent, psychologist Frederick Wertham’s largely fictional expose into the supposed effects of comic book exposure on delinquent youth, changed all of that. Mounting public pressure on the industry led in short order to the formation of the “Comics Code Authority,” a self-regulating organization similar to the Hayes Code of the film industry, that laid out specific rules that must be followed in order for a comic book to be distributed on newsstands. The result was immediate—the elimination of virtually all of the horror, science fiction and crime comic books that had up until that time proliferated and flourished. The superhero was ascendant, laying claim to almost every slice of the ever-shrinking pie. 

In the 1960’s counter-culture comic books made some inroads against that bulwark with an alternative distribution system that targeted mainly head shops. But the erratic publication schedule of these titles, combined with the erratic nature of the shops themselves, weren’t supportive enough for long-term success. 

That would have to wait for the so-called “direct” market.

The late 1960s and early 70s saw the emergence of fan culture in North America. Science fiction conventions, in one form or another, had existed since the late 1930s, but comic conventions didn’t begin appearing until the mid 1960s. But these gatherings were self-generating, and brought with them social connections that persisted in the form of fanzines (a portmanteau of fan and magazine). Popular comic books spawned their own fanzines, which could feature reviews, interviews, pin-ups by fans or aspiring artists, pin-ups by pros or semi-pros, in-depth critical disquisitions, public arguments with the editors of other fanzines... 

The direct market emerged from these two opposing forces—the burgeoning culture of fandom and the continuing malaise of the newsprint-distribution model. Phil Seuling, comic book enthusiast, comic convention organizer, and would-be distributor, worked out deals with the major publishers to purchase their books, which his Sea Gate Distribution would then re-sell to the new comic enthusiast stores. These purchases were made with up-front money and were sold on a non-refundable basis, but these downsides were offset by steeper discounts and more reliable delivery and tailored smaller orders. It wouldn’t be long before other benefits would become clear, changes that would affect the way that the comics themselves were read and produced.

Enter Young Dave Sim. 

In a larger sense this is the reason that I stopped answering the ‘Why an Aardvark’ question some time ago. Each thread of the actual, fully interwoven answer is deserving of lengthy explication. Taking it down to “sound byte” level makes me uncomfortable and reduces many large contributions and contributors to bit players — Gene Day and T. Casey Brennan foremost on that list.   
...
I have no memory of drawing the first picture of the aardvark mascot. I was doing so much freelance work (both commissioned and on spec) that the work I did for my girlfriend’s magazine was more of a hobby, an afterthought to the day’s work. I only did the one version (“A Boy and His Aardvark” was still fresh in my mind, so I don’t think I even referred to the little picture in the dictionary): a cartoon barbarian aardvark (in keeping with the fantasy theme intended for the magazine). I probably knocked it out in about twenty minutes with an extra thirty seconds for the tone.
As the first issue started to come together, it was Deni who realized that the fanzine’s title, Cerebus, was misspelled. The three-headed dog who guarded Hades in Greek mythology was Cerberus. ‘Not to worry,’ I said, somewhat less than eager to reletter the logo and figure out how to squeeze in an extra letter and transpose two others, We’ll just say that Cerebus is the name of the cartoon aardvark mascot.’
The fanzine was never published. The originals and a cheque for (I believe) $175 were sent to an address in California of a Deep Discount quick printer. The magazine and the money vanished without a trace.

— Dave Sim, “Why an Aardvark?” (1996)

Born May 17th 1956, Sim was an early comics enthusiast. A self-taught writer/artist, and almost-native of Kitchener, Ontario, he dropped out of high school at seventeen to pursue his interests, and spent the next few years contributing interviews, editorials, pin-ups, stories, and artwork to a bewildering variety of fanzines both local and remote, using each acceptance as a foothold to the next. He found a second home and an outlet for some of his creativity at Kitchener’s Now & Then Books, which started as a second-hand book store in 1971 and, under the sole ownership of co-founder Harry Kremer, soon became one of the first direct market comic stores in North America. Kremer was willing to finance small-press fanzine publications, such as Now & Then Times (1972, 1973), by Dave Sim and John Balge, and later, Oktoberfest (1976), a vehicle for Sim and his near-peer mentor Gene Day, whose own career continued to develop ahead of Sim’s. It was also Now & Then’s Kremer who eventually gave Sim the final push into what turned into his life work, by financing the first issue of Cerebus by purchasing five hundred copies of the initial print-run, sight unseen. 

The origins of Red Sophia, who first appeared in issue #3 (April 1978), give some insight into the difficulty involved in sorting out the origins of any one element of a work so filled with pastiche and appropriation. Red Sophia, a buxom chain-mail-bikini-clad warrior princess, is a broad (ahem) parody of Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith’s Red Sonja, adapted from Robert E. Howard’s Red Sonya of Rogatino (an otherwise unrelated red-haired Polish/Ukranian gunslinger) and placed into Marvel Comics’ ongoing Conan the Barbarian with issue #23 (1973). Red Sonja, whose troubling origins involve her own brutal rape, and a plea for revenge, granted by a goddess who insists she have sex only with men who can defeat her in combat, became the leading edge of a wave of “fierce and beautiful” female warriors, and was a popular fixture in the glut of sword and sorcery comics, fanzines, and conventions. Frank Thorne’s depiction of the character in Marvel Feature became the definitive version, and it’s this version that Sim appears to be parodying. A good indication?  Thorne’s likeness, and his comic convention persona as “The Wizard,” appear to be one and the same with Sonja’s father Henrot. (Coincidentally, July of 1978 would be the last appearance of future Elfquest artist/”direct” market star Wendy Pini as Red Sonja in Thorne’s “Sonja Show” convention piece, only months after the Cerebus parody appeared.)

The kind of clubhouse mentality infuses the early issues of the book. Deni Loubert, soon to be Deni Sim, acted as publisher and wrote a brief editorial at the lead of every issue. Brother-in-law Michael Loubert assisted Sim in the early world-building, designing the “Aardvarkian Age” map that appeared in the book from issues 3 to 10, and also penning a column by the same name that appeared on and off in the back of the first few issues. Certain characters bear names that are anagrams or anagramed amalgams of the names of Sim’s acquaintances. On a few occasions, names were inked into the curly-cue lines of a vest or a segment of background hatching. 

[...]

more next week...