Where Jaka came from?

Hi, Everybody!

Well, since Dave won't shut up about it, I bought a copy of Idyl.

I let Dave know, he responded:

I saw something, so, because I can, I asked Dave, and got a response:

I know Dave says no, but I dunno, what do you think:

Anyway, Friend to the Blog, James Windsor Banderas-Smith has a new Papa Balloon & Cactus Kickstarter. He's offering A BRAND NEW Dave Sim variant cover on this campaign. Speaking of which, Dave sent this from James:

Aardvark Splendor made it to round two. How to vote:

Voting for the HEROIC Awards has started, and it's March Madness bracket style. Yay, said no one.

H.E.R.O.I.C Awards voting instructions

Round 1 = march 15-17

Round 2 = march 18-21

Round of 32 = march 22-25

Sweet 16 = march 26-29

Elite 8 = march 30-april 2

Final 4 = april 3-5

Championship 2 = april 6-8

STEP ONE

Go here:

STEP TWO

On the home page, enter the date on the bottom left (under the trophy)

STEP THREE

Scroll down to Bracket 27 and vote for Aardvarkian Splendor.

STEP FOUR

Scroll to the very bottom of the form and click the Submit button. 

Rigamarole:

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And Pal to the Blog, Lee Thacker is the artist on a new Kickstarter for a book Dave REALLY liked.

And Sean and Living The Line have another new book on Kickstarter: Moonray: Ascension

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The AMOC TeePublic Shoppe: up to 35% off:

Your store will be up to 35% off

March 20-24.*

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

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Heritage has Dave Sim's recreation to the cover of Cerebus #17.

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The Last Day Without nothing.

   "      "     "        "  Dave's signature.

   "      "     "        "  an Old Cerebus Remarque

   "      "     "     Auction catalog for the Panoramic Remarques. 

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The Help Out Bill Messner-Loebs Go Fund Me, or buy Rodney Schroeter's book with proceeds going to Bill.

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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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Next Time: Jen finds Margaret Mitchell in Idyl?

Jeffrey Jones: Idyl / I'm Age

Idyl - I'm Age
by Jeffrey Jones
Donald M. Grant, Publisher Inc
HC $39.99 / SC $24.99
On Sale: Now!

The first book publication collecting two legendary graphic strips by the late Jeffrey Jones. Idyl ran in the pages of the National Lampoon while the later I'm Age appeared in Heavy Metal magazine. A 96 page oversized 9"x12" art book celebrating the unique vision of celebrated artist Jeffrey Jones, collecting all the pages of these graphic strips, with an introduction and an insightful afterword by award winning artist George Pratt. More details...

DAVE SIM:
(from Eight Days Of Dave: Day 7, 8 September 2013) 
One of my all-time favourite things is my over-sized Jeff Jones Idyl collection.

NEIL GAIMAN:

Idyl was my favourite thing that was a comic when I was a teenager. I didn't understand the ones I read, but I loved them anyway... Now they're collected and are as magical and elegant as they ever were.

Eight Days Of Dave - Day 7: Zootanapuss Artists Edition

DAVE SIM:

Hi Tim - I think what I'm going to do is just blather -- since this is our first time doing "after the issue" -- and leave it up to you if you want to run the whole thing all at once or dribble it out. Issue 2 of The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond took about two and a half months. I hope I get faster but I'm not counting on it.

Idyl (Dragon's Dream, 1975)
by Jeff Jones

ZOOTANAPUSS ARTISTS EDITION

The ZOOTANAPUSS ARTISTS EDITION is really me trying to come up with something I could do an Artists Edition OF. First of all, the linework. You really need something that you're going to see more in it if it's really big and the ZOOTANAPUSS pages [Glamourpuss #22-26] seemed to fit the bill. One of my all-time favourite things is my over-sized Jeff Jones IDYL collection. So, that's what I was picturing. It would be my own homage to IDYL and over-sized.

Not much more I can add to that.

Doing stuff with IDW is a lot like having your work in the Heritage Auction catalogue.  It's very intimidating. "The HELL you're doing a Frank Frazetta EC Artists Edition -- do MINE first!" And Scott Dunbier is finding more stuff all the time and is being offered more stuff because it's the Top of the Pyramid. So, it's the same as the CEREBUS COVERS books. Scott will get to you when he gets to you. There are dozens if not hundreds of projects that would take precedence. That's Dave the dispassionate comic-art fan. I get to be the guy that did the 6,000-page graphic novel. What of the 6,000 pages would have a place in the line-up?  I really don't know. How many pages is it? I mean, they're not doing BONE, they're doing "The Great Cow Race" which is...150 pages? What IS "The Great Cow Race" in CEREBUS? According to ME, or according to MOST people? The lineup has got to be getting longer every day, so ZOOTANAPUSS was really, What would I like to see of mine that size? And it's the IDYL analogy. I'll take a place 75 or 100 people back and say, "Well, okay, I'll get my ZOOTANAPUSS oversized collection when I'm in my 60s or 70s." I can't even look at what else they're doing. "Under my coffee table" books already take up as much of the space under my coffee table as I can afford. They'll send me whatever I want.  Well,  don't tell me what you're doing and I won't be tempted because I'm out of space. The Wally Wood book needs it's own room practically. Scott was proofing the MAD book when he was up here, so I inherited IDW's MAD proofs. I got Scott and Ted to sign it. Weighs about 20 pounds. Where am I going to PUT this?

I'm saving all my space for SECRET AGENT X-9 by Williamson and RIP KIRBY by Prentice for as long as IDW keep doing them.

Jeffrey Catherine Jones: Better Things

Glamourpuss #5 (January 2009)
Art by Dave Sim

DAVE SIM:
('The Influence Of The Studio' - from an interview in UK fanzine FA #115, 1990)
Jeff Jones, because of his ability to take Hal Foster to the next level. Hal Foster was a definite primary influence at the time of the Idyl strips. But his ability, as opposed to Wrightson who shores up the whole page - there's depth and substance and layers that go in - Jeffrey Jones in his strip work has huge areas of black, huge areas of white and anything that's rendered in detail is in the tiniest, finest line imaginable. To take that feeling and combine it with the pleasing warmth that Wrightson has, and try to filter that as well.

Jeffrey Catherine Jones (1944-2011) was the artist best known for the comic Idyl. From 1975 to 1979 she shared workspace in Manhattan's Chelsea district, with Bernie Wrightson, Barry Windsor-Smith, and Michael William Kaluta, collectively named The Studio. The film project Better Things: The Life & Choices Of Jeffrey Catherine Jones is in need of your support. Donate now at Indiegogo for your copy of the DVD and Art Book.

The Influence Of The Studio

The Studio (Dragon Dreams, 1979)
by Berni Wrightson, Jeffrey Jones, Michael Kaluta & Barry Windsor-Smith

DAVE SIM:
(from an interview in UK fanzine FA #115, 1990)

Barry Windsor-Smith for the sense of... everything has to work at a number of levels. When you're doing a story it has to say something that is the story, that's interesting in and of itself; that it has to say something about me, to me, strictly for my benefit; it has to say something about the comics environment that I'm in; it has to say something about the city I live in, about being, like being in Germany at the time of the Roman Empire, being an adjunct to the American Empire; and say something about civilisation, where it is. To Barry, anything that didn't do that was an exercise in futility, or just a display of sheer drawing ability or whatever. That's as pointless to me as it is to him.

Berni Wrightson, for the depth of the page. With Wrightson at his best, you can't maintain in your mind that there is no depth. You can't look at that page and say that it's all drawn on the surface, because it just goes too far into the page. There's black and there's white and there's dark grey in Berni's work, the whole page holds up, the relationship of black and white creates a warm feeling inside you. I'm not as able to do that but if I can maintain that pleasing, warm quality that I'm driving at, it becomes sort-of pleasing and luke-warm, which is still up from where it would be if I wasn't keeping that kind of value in mind.

Jeff Jones, because of his ability to take Hal Foster to the next level. Hal Foster was a definite primary influence at the time of the Idyll strips. But his ability, as opposed to Wrightson who shores up the whole page - there's depth and substance and layers that go in - Jeffrey Jones in his strip work has huge areas of black, huge areas of white and anything that's rendered in detail is in the tiniest, finest line imaginable. To take that feeling and combine it with the pleasing warmth that Wrightson has, and try to filter that as well.

Mike Kaluta for the sheer love of drawing, the sheer love of rendering something, and the fun part, the very human part of drawing, is the Mile Kaluta element. Also the ability to compose what is essentially a flattened perspective - five elements placed playing card style, four elements in the corners and one in the middle, and to make it exciting. Mike Kaluta more than anyone else can take the blandest possible angle to shoot something from and make it exciting. There's very little artistic trickery to Mike Kaluta's work.

The Studio (circa 1979): Berni Wrightson, Jeffrey Jones, Michael Kaluta & Barry Windsor-Smith