Lebonfon Update: Binding Cerebus!

DEAN McCOY: 
(via email, Monday, 28 July 2014)
Hi Tim, Here's a few pics of Cerebus on the binding line. The job will be shipping out today.

[Sorry for the delay in getting these images posted everyone ~ Tim]

Weekly Update #25: Different Printing 'Churches'

Previously on 'A Moment Of Cerebus':

Dave Sim, working with George Peter Gatsis, has remastered the first two collected volumes of Cerebus to restore details and quality in the artwork lost over the thirty years since they were originally published (as detailed here and here). After Cerebus' original printer Preney Print closed its doors, Dave Sim moved his printing to Lebonfon in 2007 as at that time they were still capable of working with photographic negatives and making printing plates as Preney had done. And then Lebonfon switched to digital scanning and printing - a technology which struggles to faithfully reproduce Cerebus' tone without creating moire patterns (as detailed in Crisis On Infinite Pixels). Dave Sim continues to work with Lebonfon to ensure the print-quality of the new Cerebus and High Society editions (as detailed in Collections Stalled). Now read  on...

DAVE SIM:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1. CEREBUS hardcovers are not possible in the present situation.
2. Kickstarter campaign being developed to make the BEST possible reproduction of CEREBUS artwork in the CEREBUS ARCHIVE available to collectors
3. George Gatsis forwards raw CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY digital files and what he considers his Finished files to Sean Robinson
4. Imprimerie Lebonfon President Alain Roberge to visit Aardvark-Vanaheim Wednesday 9th

I'm HERE, Tim!  I'm HERE!  At least, I hope I am. We'll see what happens when I hit PUBLISH.

This was my idea, to give Tim a day off.  Type and PUBLISH instead of Type and SAVE.

First off: to Dave Kopperman and "adampasz" in their comments on last week's Update.

Believe me, if I could just snap my fingers and make it happen, I would.  But unfortunately, we have to deal with the Reality of Dave Sim and CEREBUS as constituted, much of which is hidden from us -- ALL of us.  To me, CEREBUS being self-published is of central importance.  If it isn't possible to self-publish the books, I'm inclined to just let them go out of print.  I own the material.  That's the important thing.  CONAN, to cite one intellectual property "close to home" was completely out of print for decades and then had this Surge Of Interest in the 1960s with Frank Frazetta's paperback covers.  And cruised on that for a while and then had a Surge Of Interest when the Arnold S. films came out.  And now CONAN isn't -- non-existent -- but there just isn't the Surge of Interest.  Different properties behave in different ways. They have different internal rhythms.  

No, the photocopies that I'm talking about are full-sized copies on glossy card stock of 600 dpi colour scans.  Speaking as someone who is looking at fine-line photorealism comics material through a magnifier lamp and trying to reconstruct what size the original penlines were for, you know, a living right now I'm HYPER-aware of what the best reproduction is.

That would be my pick.

In fact if anyone is inclined to download RIP KIRBY or HEART OF JULIET JONES or Al Williamson from HA.com and print them out on glossy card stock at or close to the original size and send them to me, I will give thanks for you in perpetuity.

With full-size 600 dpi copies on glossy stock, it's still pixilated, but the size of the reproduction makes it more accurate than MOST of what you are looking at in the high-priced reprint books.

I'm finalizing plans right now for the first batch of 10 -- the earliest CEREBUS pages in the Cerebus Archive -- Artist's Editions, first generation copies from the original artwork.  It'll be done through Kickstarter and -- if you're a Kickstarter pledge partner from 2012, you'll be hearing about it first.  Hopefully within the next two or three weeks.  The only thing in question is the frequency.  When do I do the "next 10"?  I'm guessing quarterly but I can't rule out bi-monthly if there's a large enough core of reader/patrons.

See, I can get confirmation of that.  Here's how many people.  Here's the level of quality that I want to have to be a Good Custodian of the Intellectual Property.

With hardcovers I can't have that.  I appreciate that you two guys will buy them, but I don't know how many people there are. And if there aren't enough then I've got ONE hardcover of the CEREBUS volume and no plausible way to do the second one.  Or the first three and no way to do the fourth one -- the situation in France, Italy and Spain right now where I signed to do reprints and all three companies are either moribund "just resting" or vanished having only done HIGH SOCIETY and CHURCH & STATE I.  When that's the Given -- rather than the "given" -- about an intellectual property, that's the Given and you deal with the Given if, like me, you're the custodian.

We Really Want CEREBUS Hardcovers To Be Viable is worlds away from CEREBUS Hardcovers Are Viable and, unfortunately, most fans and collectors don't understand the wide difference between those two things. The French, Italian and Spanish publishers Wanted CEREBUS Hardcover Translations to be viable.  And they weren't. Lesson learned.

I note that the Pinis have licensed Dark Horse to do a 722 page volume of the first ELFQUEST serial -- in a black and white popular edition.  It's the most viable thing, I think, a self-publisher can do.  X number of people can afford this.  2014, economically, is not what 1995 was.  Folks don't have a lot of walking around money.

The same as stores really only wanting to stock CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY. There's only so many dollars to go around. At least it IS CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY.

Speaking of which:  on the reproduction issues.

I got a letter from Eddie Khanna mentioning a chat that he had with his LCS (they haven't signed the petition, so I don't want to blow their "street cred" with the Zero Tolerance People by associating them with Dave Sim the evil misogynist) where a couple of their customers' book just got picked up by Diamond and they were showing the LCS two versions of the printing and the LCS liked one version and the creators liked the other.  A couple of things occur to me:

a) it illustrates how many options there are with digital printing.  More on this in a minute.  

b) if I was a creator, I'd tend to go with what the store liked. A store owner or manager looks at a work as a "surrogate customer":  "this is what folks who buy comics like".  Starting out, that's what you want your book to be: customer friendly.  This is part of my idea in wanting STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND to be available as a colour comic book.  It's the age of digital colour printing.  That's what a comic book LOOKS like.  And it's really about the only thing in the world that DOES look like that, apart from 3D movies and video games.  You shouldn't give someone an excuse to put your book back on the rack, because with dollars as scarce as they are, they are looking for an excuse.  NOT looking like what the customer expects a comic book to look like is apt to constitute an excuse.

My best guess, anyway.  Okay back to a):

With the multiplicity of ways of reproducing comics, we really have a variety of different systems of reproduction belief.  There are a BUNCH of different printing "churches".  George Gatsis belongs to one kind of printing "church".  Sean Robinson belongs to another printing "church".  Lebonfon belongs to another.  It's a natural outgrowth of anything linked to computers.  People BELIEVE in their computer and BELIEVE in their computer's solution.  Everyone else is a heretic.

George is not alone in his gray-scaling preferences.

Rick Norwood of COMICS REVUE was running Al Williamson's SECRET AGENT CORRIGAN a while back and he was definitely "grey-scaling" the strip.  Which I can understand.  There are tiny little lines you are trying to get and not lose.  Williamson's work is notorious for not reproducing.  I remember Russ Heath saying so pointedly to me on the phone.  "You lose half of the drawing".  Well, yes, but Williamson's work is a LOT more popular than Russ' work -- even though Russ' work reproduces a lot better.

Yoram M. actually gave me some of Williamson's personal CORRIGAN proof sheets. And Williamson has marked a bunch of panels where the lines didn't come up.  That's the PROOF sheets for heaven's sake! The proof sheets are better than the book reprint reproduction -- ANY book reprint -- but the best Al Williamson I have on hand are the full-size photocopies I shot of the SECRET AGENT CORRIGAN originals that Yoram had when he visited a couple of times.  SLIGHT loss of quality because they aren't on glossy stock, just 11x17 bond paper, but when I need to see HOW Williamson did something, that's the place that I go.

Among the "bitmap" adherents, we can add Lou Copeland -- who did all of the digital work on JUDENHASS and sent me a letter coming down vehemently on Sean's side.  Which, at this point, I can only count as he and Sean going to, at least roughly, the same computer "church".  I'm just trying to get what I consider the best reproduction possible in the trade paperback format.

It's not going to be a SWIFT process, to say the least:  which is one of the ideas behind making the BEST possible reproduction available through Kickstarter through Artist's Editions.  It means that I don't have to decide how to print the books because I've run out of time/money.  The Artist's Editions will finance making sure that the decisions I make are based on "best evidence":  what I see in front of me.

Okay, I'm coming to the end of my allotted "2 hours every Friday" getting people caught up here and at the Patreon.com site.

The latest word I have from George Gatsis is that he has shipped print-outs of CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY to me of his final digital files (final as far as he's concerned) and will be sending Sean the raw files and the final files.  70 gigabytes of data.  I think it would be better to send it on a thumb drive -- or thumb driveS -- and bill me for them.  Uploading and downloading that much is just going to be an imposition and a headache for Sean.  So, please, George, send Sean thumb drives.

I got a phone message from Josee at Lebonfon (Bonjour, Josee!) saying that Lebonfon president Alain Roberge will be in the K-W area next week and would I be willing to meet with him?

Bien Sur!  

So that meeting (God willing) will be taking place 10 am next Wednesday.

I'll let you know next Friday what we come up with.

Entree nous.

Help finance Dave Sim to complete 'The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond' 
by making a monthly donation at Patreon or a one-off Paypal donation.

Originally serialised within the pages of the self-published Glamourpuss #1-26 (April 2008 to July 2012), The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond is an as yet uncompleted work-in-progress in which Dave Sim investigates the history of photorealism in comics and specifically focuses on the work of comic-strip artist Alex Raymond and the circumstances of his death on 6 September 1956 at the wheel of fellow artist Stan Drake's Corvette at the age of 46.

Weekly Update #24: Ultimate Cerebus!

Previously on 'A Moment Of Cerebus':

Dave Sim, working with George Peter Gatsis, has remastered the first two collected volumes of Cerebus to restore details and quality in the artwork lost over the thirty years since they were originally published (as detailed here and here). After Cerebus' original printer Preney Print closed its doors, Dave Sim moved his printing to Lebonfon in 2007 as at that time they were still capable of working with photographic negatives and making printing plates as Preney had done. And then Lebonfon switched to digital scanning and printing - a technology which struggles to faithfully reproduce Cerebus' tone without creating moire patterns (as detailed in Crisis On Infinite Pixels). Dave Sim continues to work with Lebonfon to ensure the print-quality of the new Cerebus and High Society editions (as detailed in Collections Stalled). Now read  on...

Ultimate Cerebus (2010)
Art by Dave Sim
(Click image to enlarge)

DAVE SIM:

1. IMPRIMERIE LEBONFON:

Still waiting on a price quote from Imprimerie Lebonfon for a single signature and what the minimum number of copies they would need to print would be.

2. GEORGE & SEAN:

Had a phone message from George Gatsis that he WILL be forwarding raw digital files and his finished files to Sean but that it will take about a week to get them all assembled. MANY thanks to George -- and Sean -- for taking time out of their very busy schedules to help out on this.

3. HERITAGE AUCTIONS:

The 4 "BBC CENSORS DAVE SIM" DOCTOR WHO PRISONERS OF TIME original covers (#8, 9, 10 and 11) (well, they didn't really CENSOR me, it was work- made-for-hire, but it seems like a catchy way to headline an original art auction) have been sent to Heritage Auctions along with the "non-censored" #12 cover with all 11 DOCTORS WHO on it and the Wally Wood tribute THUNDER AGENTS #2 cover.

Watch the weekly Heritage Auctions if you're interested in getting one. I haven't done a variant cover for IDW since last April and it looks doubtful I'll be doing any more before THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND is done, so these six covers are your last chance for a 21st century Dave Sim cover until at least 2017.

4. ULTIMATE CEREBUS:

I asked Ted Adams during our phone chat a couple of weeks back if IDW would be interested in publishing ULTIMATE CEREBUS: basically the "re-telling" of the first 25 issues by other writers and artists and he was VERY enthusiastic.

My thinking is basically that the CEREBUS volume is a tough "sell" for a lot of people since I was, at best, semi-professional at the time but that there's enough Warner Brothers-style funny and well-designed (though not IMHO well-drawn) raw material there to produce 25 comic books and a trade paperback if enough top-quality writers and artists want to have a go at them.

Let me emphasize "TOP quality" writers and artists -- amazing veterans or undiscovered geniuses, I'm not fussy :) -- there's not much point in replacing my semi-pro comics with someone else's semi-pro comics -- writers and artists who are able to meet a deadline obviously preferred.

This could, potentially, become a "feed-in" volume to the self-published Aardvark-Vanaheim trades starting with HIGH SOCIETY (and a Plan B if it takes much longer to get the CEREBUS trade back in print -- basically skipping printing the CEREBUS trade and going right to printing the HIGH SOCIETY trade).

You may have noticed that anything having to do with Dave Sim and CEREBUS tends to go "lariv" on-line (that is, the opposite of viral), so I think I'm safe in saying that if any TOP quality artists and writers have a favourite among the first 25 issues (and ONLY the first 25 issues) and are interested in trying out it might be worth doing a few sample pages and sending scans or photocopies of them to Ted Adams, ULTIMATE CEREBUS, 5080 Santa Fe Street, San Diego, CA, 92109. You'll be one of the few, practically guaranteed. And if you have the "chops" a regular paying gig for the next couple of years. Not without pressure attached. I imagine long-time CEREBUS fans will be very critical.

Note that IDW doesn't accept ANY unsolicited manuscripts or submissions, but I think an exception can be made in this case because I'm the rights holder and all you would be doing is a variation of what I already did. And you'd have to get a green light from Ted before he would send something to me. If you don't hear from Ted, that would tell you, pretty much, whether you were considered a TOP quality writer and/or artist. i.e. NOT! :)

And if this goes "lariv" no harm, no foul, eh?

5. PATREON.COM:

Thanks to everyone who has been pledging monthly amounts at Patreon.com "for dave sim". We were pushing up towards $300 a month the last time I checked (last Friday). I'll be commenting there this weekend on Ted Adams' interview from a couple of weeks ago, particularly as regards his interest in getting a national PR firm to promote THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND -- with an eye to getting SDOAR onto the New York Times bestseller list where IDW's PARKER and LOCK & KEY collections have gone before and releasing the material as a series of trade paperbacks instead of as monthly comic books.

See you next week!

Dave

UPDATE:
Reaction to the ULTIMATE CEREBUS proposal:
 -  Bleeding Cool
 -  Cerebus Facebook Group
 -  Bill Sienkiewicz
 -  Roger Langridge
 -  Simon Fraser

 

Help finance Dave Sim to complete 'The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond' 
by making a monthly donation at Patreon or a one-off Paypal donation.

Originally serialised within the pages of the self-published Glamourpuss #1-26 (April 2008 to July 2012), The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond is an as yet uncompleted work-in-progress in which Dave Sim investigates the history of photorealism in comics and specifically focuses on the work of comic-strip artist Alex Raymond and the circumstances of his death on 6 September 1956 at the wheel of fellow artist Stan Drake's Corvette at the age of 46.

Weekly Update #23: Supplement

Previously on 'A Moment Of Cerebus':

Dave Sim, working with George Peter Gatsis, has remastered the first two collected volumes of Cerebus to restore details and quality in the artwork lost over the thirty years since they were originally published (as detailed here and here). After Cerebus' original printer Preney Print closed its doors, Dave Sim moved his printing to Lebonfon in 2007 as at that time they were still capable of working with photographic negatives and making printing plates as Preney had done. And then Lebonfon switched to digital scanning and printing - a technology which struggles to faithfully reproduce Cerebus' tone without creating moire patterns (as detailed in Crisis On Infinite Pixels). Dave Sim continues to work with Lebonfon to ensure the print-quality of the new Cerebus and High Society editions (as detailed in Collections Stalled). Now read  on...

DAVE SIM:

A bit of a light week in terms of comments, so I'm going to "shoot from the hip" and address the issues raised:

Stephen Benson:

Actually, I'm going in the other direction.  A few weeks back I got up in the morning and checked the phone for messages and the phone was as dead as a doornail.  And I thought, "Well, okay -- that means that I'm just down to regular mail to communicate."  I mean, I ran that around my brain a few times to make sure that was what I was thinking but, yes, that was what I was thinking.

Then I left the house and a Bell Canada guy was repairing the -- pedestal, he called it.  Yes, he said, if you're on this side of the street, your phone will be dead until I get this repaired.  Snowplow had winged it.

I might get fax capability again at some point, but I'm really having trouble making a case for it. "WHY do I want people to be able to communicate with me INSTANTLY?"  We originally got a fax machine (three fax machines ago) back in 1990 but that was more because Mirage Studios had one (our first test fax -- still in the chronological Archive -- was a picture of Kevin) and Karen McKiel was angling to be one of Kevin's many "girlfriends".

The only real need for receiving faxes is orders from Diamond and that can be handled by mail at the pace that the books are selling these days.

As I say, I suspect I'll get a new fax/photocopier/scanner combo but it's going to require a trip out to Radio Shack way, way, way, way out past the Conestoga Mall even to make sure I'm getting the one I want.  And a trip to Radio Shack just isn't on my radar right now.  Getting STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND pages done is.

Damian T. Lloyd:

Thanks for your comments.  Much appreciated.

Jeff Seiler:

Yes, that's going to be the problem most of the time.  The guy or lady who answers the phone is very seldom the guy or lady who does the ordering.

But I think if you talked to the guy who does the ordering, he probably wouldn't have an answer either because the business isn't really set up for feedback.

A store would know if they ordered a book that people weren't buying because the printing sucked, but the odds are unless Diamond told them it was returnable (and Diamond would only tell them it was returnable if Diamond could return it, is my guess) then they would just be eating the loss and hoping that some people wouldn't be as concerned about the printing "sucking" and buy the remaining copies or the returned copy.

So we're pretty much on our own here.  Speaking of which:

Sean Michael Robinson:

Well, personally, I've pretty much decided that "proofs" are a waste of time since Lebonfon has already nailed it:  proofs don't look like finished printing anymore and that's the new normal in comics and printing generally.  So, what I'm attempting to do is to find a compromise between doing proofs and printing 3,000 500 page books "just to see what they look like" (which is basically what we did with the "unbound" copies).

I'm not expecting Lebonfon to print the sample "mixed" signature as if it was a proof.  I'm going to pay the printing bill on it and assume that Lebonfon will give it their best shot since whether or not they continue as the CEREBUS printer is going to be riding on the outcome.  You're going to look at it, George is going to look at it, I'm going to look at it and x number of CEREBUS fans are going to look at it -- and possibly one or more other printers are going to look at it (Gemstone relayed word through Matt, my Diamond rep, that they're not in a position to print the books but they are willing to help us out by giving me contact info for THEIR printer and help facilitate that).

And, yes, you're right -- there's a certain amount of trouble involved in getting the press fired up and printing enough copies to be sure that the printing is of the best quality.  That's why I'm asking them to set a print run:  here's how many copies we need to print of a signature to guarantee that we're giving you the best quality possible.  500? 1,000? 2,000?  That's their call.  Obviously, I'd like to get a "lower than usual" price quote because the only reason I'm doing this is because it is now a "given" that proofs don't look like finished printing, so I need to see finished printing of bit-mapped and non-bit-mapped problem pages to see if you're right or George is right.  i.e. either the problem is that the pages need to be tweaked and bit-mapped (your position) or the problem is that Lebonfon is just not doing good enough printing (George's position).

I hope George will send you the raw scans and what he considers finished scans for one of the signatures in HIGH SOCIETY.  But... I get into all that in this week's Update.

I'm not trying to upset anyone although pretty clearly a number of people are upset. I'm just trying to find a reasonable, sensible way to more forward with this.

Help finance Dave Sim to complete 'The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond' 
by making a monthly donation at Patreon or a one-off Paypal donation.

Originally serialised within the pages of the self-published Glamourpuss #1-26 (April 2008 to July 2012), The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond is an as yet uncompleted work-in-progress in which Dave Sim investigates the history of photorealism in comics and specifically focuses on the work of comic-strip artist Alex Raymond and the circumstances of his death on 6 September 1956 at the wheel of fellow artist Stan Drake's Corvette at the age of 46.

Weekly Update #23: The End Of The Trade Paperbacks

Previously on 'A Moment Of Cerebus':

Dave Sim, working with George Peter Gatsis, has remastered the first two collected volumes of Cerebus to restore details and quality in the artwork lost over the thirty years since they were originally published (as detailed here and here). After Cerebus' original printer Preney Print closed its doors, Dave Sim moved his printing to Lebonfon in 2007 as at that time they were still capable of working with photographic negatives and making printing plates as Preney had done. And then Lebonfon switched to digital scanning and printing - a technology which struggles to faithfully reproduce Cerebus' tone without creating moire patterns (as detailed in Crisis On Infinite Pixels). Dave Sim continues to work with Lebonfon to ensure the print-quality of the new Cerebus and High Society editions (as detailed in Collections Stalled). Now read  on...

DAVE SIM:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1. George Gatsis and Sean Robinson to produce "mixed" signature: 16 pages bitmapped, 16 pages not bitmapped.
2. Lebonfon to provide quote for printing single signature / minimum number of copies possible (via Canada Post regular mail: no rush).
3. Extended process, while unavoidable, is a drain on Aardvark-Vanaheim finances and there is "red line" up ahead where I'll have to choose to print EITHER CEREBUS or HIGH SOCIETY.
4. There may come a point where I just let the trade paperbacks go out of print until printing processes improve and, instead, just do full-sized photocopies 600 dpi of the original art in the Cerebus Archive as stop-gap "Artist's Editions".
5. Thanks to Ted Adams for his interview at my Patreon page. I'm hoping we can make this a regular feature every time I turn in an issue of THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND.
6. George Gatsis is finishing high resolution versions or HIGH SOCIETY AUDIO DIGITAL for IDW and will move on, as he is able to find the time, to posting all 16 trade paperbacks at CerebusDownloads.com.
7. I only read the comments posted to the most recent WEEKLY UPDATE, so if you have something to contribute, please add your comments to the most recent WEEKLY UPDATE even though you are commenting on content from a previous WEEKLY UPDATE.

1. "MIXED" SIGNATURE:

One of the major problems is that I'm not a big fan of digital printing and this tends to run afoul of my duties as THE custodian of the Cerebus Intellectual Property (a major element of which is "best reproduction possible") since -- whatever solution is arrived at -- in the early 21st century -- is going to involve digital printing. "Best reproduction possible" in my case becomes a problem because it depends on whether you're asking my opinion as the artist of the work or as the publisher of the work. My standards as an artist are much higher than my standards as a publisher.

The latter standards involve: "is this printing good enough for the average consumer?" Particularly in an age where most people have never seen anything besides digital printing, the erosion of visual standards are pretty much a given.

The former standards involve: "if someone becomes enamoured of my 1980s drawing style and wants to refer to it while developing their own style, is this printing good enough to give them what they're looking for?"

If I was to go looking for Eddie Campbell's work as reference -- say his style at the time he was doing THE DANCE OF LIFEY DEATH (which I did do for Alec's appearance in GUYS) -- I would go to the 1990's version that wasn't printed digitally, not the one in THE YEARS HAVE PANTS which was printed digitally.

Even though, on balance, more of the artwork has been recovered in producing the Omnibus collection, if I was looking to see how Eddie did something, I would just look for the "best reproduction possible" -- a page from THE DANCE OF LIFEY DEATH that was reproduced accurately using an upright camera, photographic negatives and printing plates.

Anything digital -- particularly extremely fine lines which are a staple of Eddie Campbell's drawing style -- is going to be like looking at the work through a sheet of gauze.

I'm still giving George the benefit of the doubt that what he has accomplished is "best DIGITAL reproduction possible" on CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY with his restorations. George, as can be seen from his last comment last week that I read, is also holding to this view:

Nothing needs to be done to his digital scans in his view.

I thought we were past that point and he had agreed that Sean should do the bitmapping necessary but evidently we're not.

2. LEBONFON QUOTE:

So, I think the logical next step -- after getting a quote from Imprimerie Lebonfon for a single signature (which I still haven't got -- but with more prep work left to do, that isn't a MAJOR problem) -- is for half of the signature to be George's original digital files and half digital files bitmapped by Sean.

If there's no major difference, then George has won his point (that the problem is and was Lebonfon's printing). If there is a major difference, Sean will have won his point (and Aardvark-Vanaheim will have to reprint all of the printing done thus far).

I suspect my reaction is going to be: it's like looking at the pages through two different kinds of gauze and "which is the lesser of two digital evils?" But, having seen THE YEARS HAVE PANTS and having compared it to the original printings of the same material, I at least have an idea of what is possible in terms of shooting my work through layers of gauze.

One major variable will be: What do George and Sean have to say about the signature? That is, with their own experience in printing, has Imprimerie Lebonfon just done a bad job? If that is the case, then we have to go to another printer (or, very possibly, printers) and get the same signature printed and then compare that signature to the one in question.

A second major variable will be: can I see which pages are George's and which pages are Sean's and do I have a preference? So, I'm suggesting that I not be notified as to who did which pages in the "mixed" signature. If I can't tell the difference then I think George will have won his point. If I can tell the difference and think that Sean's pages are better, then I think Sean will have won his point.

3. DRAIN ON COMPANY FINANCES:

My best guess is that -- combined with day-to-day expenses -- this will soon drain the company bank account down to the point where I can't afford to print both books anymore with Cash on Hand and will have to choose: CEREBUS or HIGH SOCIETY.

Probably CEREBUS.

It's the comic-book field and you always want to have #1 available wherever there is a #1 involved. And then hope that enough money comes in on CEREBUS over the course of a one-to-three year period to then print HIGH SOCIETY.

(this obliquely answers one suggestion that was made which was that the first priority was to keep all 16 trades in print. No. The first priority is to recognise the Reality of the comic-book field relative to CEREBUS which is: the stores, generally, are only willing to stock the first two books, so those are the two books to which I need to devote a disproportionate amount of focus and attention even though I think they're far from my best work: as a publisher, what the market thinks is my best work is far more important than what I think is my best work)

Since HIGH SOCIETY is the book with the most problem pages, it makes sense that the "mixed" signature would be from HS even though CEREBUS will be the first book printed.

I'm also, in my view, obligated to pay Imprimerie Lebonfon for some percentage of the work they've done so far, depending on how bad it proves to be. If it's as bad as George says it is -- VERY bad -- then a smaller percentage. If it's pretty well standard for digital printing -- that is, digital printing is, by nature, VERY bad and can't be made any better -- then a higher percentage.

I certainly can't rule out going back to Imprimerie Lebonfon if we do go to another printer and get a sample signature printed and it's of the same roughly VERY bad quality: because at that point the choice is between paying for VERY bad printing that is half done and VERY bad printing starting from scratch.

4. THE END OF THE TRADE PAPERBACKS:

My ARTISTIC inclination at this point is to do one more printing of CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY to allow Diamond to "cover" their substantial inventory of the other books and then let the books go out of print until EITHER digital printing becomes less "gauze-like" OR someone revives a boutique printing industry that uses upright cameras, photographic negatives and printing plates and then go with that, raising the cover price of both books to cover what would, undoubtedly, be substantially larger printing bills.

AND... (and I think this is probably in the foreseeable future)... produce full-sized digital photocopies on glossy paper of the original artwork for CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY that exists in the Cerebus Archive and sell those as "quick and dirty" Artists Editions through Aardvark-Vanaheim. They couldn't be reproduced from themselves without a loss of quality -- they would just be photocopies -- but they would "cover" the "artistic reference" problem. If someone buys a set of the photocopies because they want to refer to my early 1980s inking style, this would allow them to do so.

My PUBLISHER inclination is to minimize the "gauze problem" to the extent possible, accept that ALL that can be done is to minimize it, and find a printer who can produce a consistent "product" which doesn't worsen the "gauze problem" generally or only on specific signatures. This is going to cost thousands of dollars and take a great deal of time.

5. TED ADAMS INTERVIEW:

I haven't read Ted Adams' interview over at my Patreon page but I'm looking forward to it. As part of my "open governance" model for Aardvark-Vanaheim, I asked him to fill everyone in on what he said to me on the phone and -- depending on Ted's schedule -- hope we can make this a regular event each time I finish an issue of THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND. I've been working since March 10th on the two-page splash that introduces Part Three: "In His Wake".

Many thanks to everyone who has donated a monthly amount at Patreon.com "for dave sim"! The last time I looked it was up to $260 which is closing in on being able to pay the Aardvark-Vanaheim electric bill - $360 a month. If you live in Ontario, you're aware that Ontario Hydro is becoming one of the most expensive power-generating jurisdictions in the world.

6. DIGITAL CEREBUS PROGRESS:

The last I heard from George he was closing in on the end of producing high resolution digital files for IDW of HIGH SOCIETY AUDIO DIGITAL so -- depending on when he does get them done -- IDW's AUDIO DIGITAL version in gift box with booklet -- will probably be the earliest version of HIGH SOCIETY to come back into the comics market.

I've also supplied George with a price breakdown of the "bootleg the bootleggers" versions of the 16 trades for CerebusDownloads.com, substantially below the cover prices of the actual trade paperbacks -- topping out at $100 or so if you buy all 16 trades. This is going to take some time and George is still hard at work on his movie, so expect that this will be "phased in" as George gets each book prepped.

7. WEEKLY UPDATE COMMENTS:

Because of time constraints -- with no revenue coming in from CEREBUS as an intellectual property -- I can only justify putting in an hour or two every Friday on my "open governance" model which keeps me from going back any further than the most recent WEEKLY UPDATE to review comments and questions. So if you are "catching up" on the WEEKLY UPDATES and you want to call my attention to something, the best solution is to post your comment or question after the most recent WEEKLY UPDATE and refer to any earlier subject matter when you do so (i.e. "Back in the January 14 'Weekly Update' you said...")

As you can see it's taking way too much time and way too much space to examine all of the nuances of the restoration of CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY but, hopefully, we're coming to the end of that conversation (while just at the beginning of implementation) and I'll soon be able to address more long-term concerns and policy directions for Aardvark-Vanaheim.

See you next Friday!

Dave

Help finance Dave Sim to complete 'The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond' 
by making a monthly donation at Patreon or a one-off Paypal donation.

Originally serialised within the pages of the self-published Glamourpuss #1-26 (April 2008 to July 2012), The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond is an as yet uncompleted work-in-progress in which Dave Sim investigates the history of photorealism in comics and specifically focuses on the work of comic-strip artist Alex Raymond and the circumstances of his death on 6 September 1956 at the wheel of fellow artist Stan Drake's Corvette at the age of 46.

Weekly Update #22: Crisis On Infinite Cerebus Trade Paperbacks

Previously on 'A Moment Of Cerebus':

Dave Sim, working with George Peter Gatsis, has remastered the first two collected volumes of Cerebus to restore details and quality in the artwork lost over the thirty years since they were originally published (as detailed here and here). After Cerebus' original printer Preney Print closed its doors, Dave Sim moved his printing to Lebonfon in 2007 as at that time they were still capable of working with photographic negatives and making printing plates as Preney had done. And then Lebonfon switched to digital scanning and printing - a technology which struggles to faithfully reproduce Cerebus' tone without creating moire patterns (as detailed in Crisis On Infinite Pixels). Dave Sim continues to work with Lebonfon to ensure the print-quality of the new Cerebus and High Society editions (as detailed in Collections Stalled). Now read  on...

DAVE SIM:

Still getting used to this new format for "open governance" of Aardvark-Vanaheim Inc.

I've decided what I need to do is to download the comments from the previous week and then think about them for the following week before replying. The present structure leads to the typical "shoot from the hip" Internet response which, in my view, tends to lead nowhere good. I'll always come up with a more rational response given another week to mull things over.

So this is being written with only Monsieur Roberge's Midweek Update in front of me.

And a belated BIENVENUE! to you from all of us, Monsieur Roberge!

I'll leave the technical response to Monsieur Roberge's Midweek Update -- which is outside my area of expertise -- to George and Sean, and instead attempt to sketch in a roadmap of the "way forward" and then invite the input of all of the stakeholders:

So far as I know we are still working toward getting a single signature reprinted composed of George's extensive restoration work with Sean's final tweaks where Sean thinks they are needed. So we still need Imprimerie Lebonfon's quote for a "best price" on that single signature as well as an indication of what the minimum number of copies is that they need to print to make it worth their while doing. Once we are at that point, we are looking at having a lot of copies of that single signature.

So it seems sensible, at that point...

(and I hasten to point out that this is all purely hypothetical: the "default" option if -- and only if -- the signature doesn't meet with my and George and Sean's unanimous approval)

...for me to mail copies of that signature, along with George and Sean's finished digital files, to various printers who are already working with Diamond Comic Distributors (that is, comic art printers), including a Hong Kong printer I had contacted a few years ago and whose quote, while competitive, wasn't, back then, sufficiently lower for me to reconsider my multi-year working relationship with Imprimerie Lebonfon and (through Ted Adams) IDW's South Korean printer and asking ALL of them for a quote on printing CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY and asking ALL of them to critique the printing on the sample signature.

Basically: can they do a better job than this and what will they charge Aardvark-Vanaheim to do it? This is far from flawless as approaches go -- the person you're going to be in contact with at any printer is going to be a company salesmen and company salesman tend to have "auto-settings": "Yes, they can do this" even when they can't. But I'm hopeful that HOW they express that assurance and WHAT critique they present will "pass muster" with George and Sean: i.e. THESE people know what they're talking about!

There's a Plan B and Plan C that comes after that, but, let's see about crawling before we try walking, n'est ce pas?

Even the most conservative "ballpark figure" I have in mind for getting the one-off signature printed is going to be a lot of money in these "cash-strapped" days (I'm assuming that 99% of the people reading this -- like myself -- would classify themselves as "cash-strapped" here in 2014).

So what I'm picturing is getting Imprimerie Lebonfon to ship a quantity of the signatures here to the house where I'll use them as a basis tor a "bare bones" Kickstarter campaign by signing and numbering them -- and personalizing them -- for the primary stakeholders -- the CEREBUS fans and readers interested in helping -- as pledge items: the number of copies signed and numbered being limited to the number of pledge partners after the campaign has concluded. I'm guessing a hundred or so at most (as I say, these are cash-strapped times) (if I'm underestimating the demand and potential support, let me assure everyone that ANY additional funds raised will ONLY be used to finance the successive next steps on the way to getting both books back into print)

At the very least it seems like a way of ensuring that everyone who has been following this CRISIS ON INFINITE CEREBUS TRADE PAPERBACKS for the last couple of years has a chance to get a rare artifact from this extended process and to see -- firsthand -- what we're talking about as we discuss the "ins and outs" of the reprinted signature...

...and possibly (God willing) to own a copy of the "finish line" in this lengthy process: The Last Spike in the HIGH SOCIETY railroad!

In conclusion, let me also state that my "one-time" print run option for Diamond to do an interim printing of CEREBUS and/or HIGH SOCIETY through Gemstone Publishing stands.

As Monsieur Roberge alluded to in his letter, there was a roughly 15% shortfall of CEREBUS trades in inventory when Imprimerie Lebonfon decided, last year, to no longer store inventory on their premises and after Diamond agreed to acquire all of the CEREBUS trade paperbacks stored at Imprimerie Lebonfon with the proviso that they be able to pay for them over 8 quarterly instalments (more on this in future Updates):

This definitely made -- and makes -- Diamond the Primary Stakeholder in CEREBUS trades (after Aardvark-Vanaheim).

And -- obviously -- both Diamond and I THOUGHT that they would have copies of CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY to sell alongside their considerable investment -- and vote of confidence in my and Gerhard's work, which is deeply appreciated -- in these (I reiterate) "cash-strapped" times back in July or August.

So, this many months later, it only makes sense to give Diamond an "override" option if at any point they decide that they NEED CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY back in print in a narrower time frame than we seem to be looking at at this moment.

(any publisher/printer combination capable or producing the OVERSTREET PRICE GUIDE on an annual basis can, unquestionably, in my mind produce serviceable one-time print runs of CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY)

Had any comics retailers chosen to participate here, I'd request that Diamond consult with those retailers on this hypothetical "Gemstone Printing". But, since our stakeholder "meetings" to this point have consisted only of CEREBUS fans and readers, Aardvark-Vanaheim, Diamond Comic Distributors, Imprimerie Lebonfon, George and Sean I'd leave questions of quality control on these hypothetical "Gemstone Printings" up to Gemstone's own in-house experts.

And I'd leave any compensation from Diamond/Gemstone to Aardvark-Vanaheim up to them, taking into account a) how long they've had to carry a substantial inventory "unsupported" by CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY b) how long their "gut instinct" tells them the CRISIS ON INFINITE CEREBUS TRADE PAPERBACKS is going to take.

I'm on page 2 of issue 5 of THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND.

I'll mention -- as an aside -- that I hope things work out here with Imprimerie Lebonfon and I can, therefore, "pitch" Ted Adams on letting Imprimerie Lebonfon bid on being the printer of STRANGE DEATH: a Canadian printer for a comic book written and drawn by a Canadian. It's not as if the printing quality on glamourpuss doesn't speak for itself and I can't imagine my American readers would object to moving the work hours from South Korea back here to North America.

See you next Friday!

Help finance Dave Sim to complete 'The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond' 
by making a monthly donation at Patreon or a one-off Paypal donation.

Originally serialised within the pages of the self-published Glamourpuss #1-26 (April 2008 to July 2012), The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond is an as yet uncompleted work-in-progress in which Dave Sim investigates the history of photorealism in comics and specifically focuses on the work of comic-strip artist Alex Raymond and the circumstances of his death on 6 September 1956 at the wheel of fellow artist Stan Drake's Corvette at the age of 46.

Mid-Week Update #21(b): Lebonfon Responds!

Previously on 'A Moment Of Cerebus':

Dave Sim, working with George Peter Gatsis, has remastered the first two collected volumes of Cerebus to restore details and quality in the artwork lost over the thirty years since they were originally published (as detailed here and here). After Cerebus' original printer Preney Print closed its doors, Dave Sim moved his printing to Lebonfon in 2007 as at that time they were still capable of working with photographic negatives and making printing plates as Preney had done. And then Lebonfon switched to digital scanning and printing - a technology which struggles to faithfully reproduce Cerebus' tone without creating moire patterns (as detailed in Crisis On Infinite Pixels). Dave Sim continues to work with Lebonfon to ensure the print-quality of the new Cerebus and High Society editions (as detailed in Collections Stalled). Now read  on...

Help finance Dave Sim to complete 'The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond' 
by making a monthly donation at Patreon or a one-off Paypal donation.

Originally serialised within the pages of the self-published Glamourpuss #1-26 (April 2008 to July 2012), The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond is an as yet uncompleted work-in-progress in which Dave Sim investigates the history of photorealism in comics and specifically focuses on the work of comic-strip artist Alex Raymond and the circumstances of his death on 6 September 1956 at the wheel of fellow artist Stan Drake's Corvette at the age of 46.

Weekly Update #20: A Solution For Diamond?

Previously on 'A Moment Of Cerebus':

Dave Sim, working with George Peter Gatsis, has remastered the first two collected volumes of Cerebus to restore details and quality in the artwork lost over the thirty years since they were originally published (as detailed here and here). After Cerebus' original printer Preney Print closed its doors, Dave Sim moved his printing to Lebonfon in 2007 as at that time they were still capable of working with photographic negatives and making printing plates as Preney had done. And then Lebonfon switched to digital scanning and printing - a technology which struggles to faithfully reproduce Cerebus' tone without creating moire patterns (as detailed in Crisis On Infinite Pixels). Dave Sim continues to work with Lebonfon to ensure the print-quality of the new Cerebus and High Society editions (as detailed in Collections Stalled). Now read on...

Glamourpuss #14 (July 2010)
Art by Dave Sim

DAVE SIM:

Okay, it looks as if George and Sean have their work cut out for them.  Still no word from Lebonfon on  a) the price for a single signature and  b) what they can do to keep me and Diamond from having to pay 95% of the cost of getting the printing to look like the proofs.

Thanks to Barry D. again. Patreon.com is definitely the kind of thing that I'm looking for since it took me two and a half months to do STRANGE DEATH No.4 and that issue had a good ten pages from glamourpuss that I only had to add comic panels and transition backgrounds to.  No.5 is going to have to be all new so that should tell me how fast or slow I actually am.

Let me try and give you a bit more of an overview of where everything stands now, thanks to a phone message from Brendan (no last name). He wanted to know where everything stands on:

THE GUIDE TO SELF-PUBLISHING

That was an example of a book that everyone told me was a sure seller because copies of the original were going for $50 on eBay and it turned out not to be the case (a sure seller I mean).  Sold a few hundred copies and then zip. I think that's the category that I'm in: stores have limited display space so they special order anything that isn't CEREBUS or HIGH SOCIETY.  That requires Large Printing Bills for books that then trickle out over the course of years.  I really should have stuck with my original plan: telling people that the GSP was designed to help young cartoonists, not as a cash cow, so if they can find the text online, download the text.  No problem by me.

THE IDW CEREBUS COVERS BOOKS

The COVERS books are under Special Projects at IDW which is Scott Dunbier's beat.  That covers a lot of territory, primarily (I'm guessing) the Artists Editions which are one of those "success attracts success" deals.  The more of them come out, the more Prime Comic Art becomes available and then Scott has to prioritize.  I'm not egomaniac enough to think the CEREBUS COVERS are going to be very high up on the immediate list even two years ago when we agreed to do them, let alone now.  They've also reprinted the Walt Simonson THOR edition which means there's a new category:  perpetual sellers.  Again, I don't think CEREBUS COVERS are on that list.  If you can sell another batch of Simonson THORs just by relisting them, you really need to do that.  Also, I think Scott is determined to get ALL the covers and that's one of those things that only patience is going to lead to.  And -- from MY standpoint -- and for all I know from IDW's standpoint -- I'm better off working on THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND which is already going to take years to do.  Three or four years to produce a year and a half's worth of monthly comic books. Stopping STRANGE DEATH to write commentaries on 300 covers -- how much time is that going to add to the wait time?  Rhetorical question.  None of us knows.

CEREBUS ARCHIVE COLLECTION

Well, that's one of those: is this another GUIDE TO SELF-PUBLISHING where people SAY it will sell and it DOES sell but not in sufficient numbers to make it worthwhile?  The other problem is that it pretty much...you know...drops off a cliff. Here's my history as a freelancer leading up to the creation of Cerebus.  Almost got to the creation of Cerebus. All I'm going to hear is "Are you ever going to finish CEREBUS ARCHIVE?" Well, probably not.  I'm glad I got as far as I did but even as a print-on-demand title it sold really badly.  There just isn't a large enough audience interested in How CEREBUS Came To Be.  For my own purposes, I think it helped in an area I was concerned about: putting my version of the history on record.  For people concerned about that.  To the best of my recollection, this is how it happened, these are the important elements and how they interacted. There are a number of different versions out there, obviously. Steve Peters suggested putting the issues up on KA-BLAM, the "other" print-on-demand outfit. It sounds good, but almost ALL of these things are in the "if you can just wave a magic wand and it happens", well, fine, but even the simplest thing takes time. I'd be more inclined to look into Barry's suggestion of Patreon because it's a "bottom line" thing. Here: you've got patrons who have committed for $80 a month. That's $80 you can bank on.

GLAMOURPUSS COLLECTION

Same as the above but with the added problem of getting it confused with THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND before STRANGE DEATH even comes out.  "Oh, yeah. I bought that collection. I thought it was supposed to be a comic book.  What a drag".  The story is ALWAYS going to garbled. ALWAYS.  That having been said, when Lebonfon decided that would no longer store books for publishers, I had to figure out what to do with 6,000 copies of glamourpuss (and NO No.5's. D'OH!!).  What I decided to do was to have them shipped to Waterloo and then sign them all so IDW could use them to promote THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND.  They're all signed and they're sitting there while I look into packaging them here in town.  Which isn't working, I've come to the conclusion in the last few days.  So, soon the whole skid full of books is off to IDW to be... packaged... in some way. THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND: ORIGINS or something like that.  But that's not a top priority right now with me just having finished issue No.4. That's something -- HOW to package them and HOW best to use them to promote THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND maybe a year or six months before No.1 ships -- we will be brainstorming about when I have, like issue 11 or 12 (God willing) done, two years from now?  Three years from now?

THE CEREBUS MISCELLANY BOOK

Same deal as above.  You're talking about a five-figure amount to print it.  You're talking about how do I compensate the people I did jam stories with? Or do I? My view is that they can reprint their own work if they want, but Creator's Rights is usually interpreted as:  cut me a cheque if you use my work.  With JUDENHASS and THE GUIDE TO SELF-PUBLISHING it was a one-time sale.  If someone wants to offer to pay me back for the five-figure printing bill if it turns out to only sell once, but, hey the world doesn't work that way. "Gee, Dave, I thought the CEREBUS MISCELLANY BOOK was a guaranteed goldmine.  Oh, well."  I can't really afford even any potential "Oh, well's" at this point, I'm afraid.

Frankly, my biggest concern right now is the amount of money Diamond has tied up in CEREBUS inventory that isn't moving because the whole process of getting CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY back into print has dragged on for two years with no end NECESSARILY in sight.  I mean, how long is it going to take for George and Sean to have a finished signature or finished book between them? As long as it takes to do it properly.  Then we still have to work out how Imprimerie Lebonfon fits into this.  Are they going to insist on an additional 50% on the printing bill?  What happens if we look at the printed signature and don't like it?

With that in mind, I've floated a trial balloon with Diamond: suggesting that if we get to the finished signature stage and we don't like the quality that Diamond consider doing a run of CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY through Gemstone Publishing, Steve Geppi's publishing arm that does mostly the OVERSTREET PRICE GUIDE.  Basically, doing a version of CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY that they can live with that matches the trade paperbacks as they are now.  A one-time deal -- the Gemstone versions -- just to get copies of the books back in circulation while we keep negotiating with Imprimerie Lebonfon through 2014, 2015, 2016, however long it takes.

I'm not prioritizing the suggestion. I just made it to my Diamond rep instead of to his boss... or his boss's boss.  It takes weeks for any suggestion to make its way to the person it needs to get to in an operation the size of Diamond.  But, I have to look at "Do I see this logjam coming to an end in the foreseeable future?"  Well, I'm trying to stay optimistic but I thought this would all be worked out before Bill Schanes retired as Diamond's VP of Purchasing -- and that was last April.

It's really none of my business as to how "antsy" Diamond might be getting about this.  That's an internal Diamond question.  But I see it as my job to offer a potential shortcut later this year if we get to later this year and nothing is happening.  Diamond can compensate me whatever they want for the Gemstone editions of CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY.  The idea isn't to line my own pockets, the idea is to treat Diamond as the major stakeholder they are.

Matt Demory, my Diamond rep said his Aardvark-Vanaheim file is... bulging.  I have no doubt. All of my faxes and proof copies on CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY are stacked in the corner of the office and the stack is a good foot and a half high.

I wish there was an easy way out of this and, as always, anyone who sees anything I don't see or has a sudden VISION or an answer in a dream  :)  Please, post it here.

Okay, see you all next Friday.

Help finance Dave Sim to complete 'The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond' 
by making a monthly donation at Patreon or a one-off Paypal donation.

Originally serialised within the pages of the self-published Glamourpuss #1-26 (April 2008 to July 2012), The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond is an as yet uncompleted work-in-progress in which Dave Sim investigates the history of photorealism in comics and specifically focuses on the work of comic-strip artist Alex Raymond and the circumstances of his death on 6 September 1956 at the wheel of fellow artist Stan Drake's Corvette at the age of 46.

Weekly Update #19: 'Cerebus' & 'High Society' Reprinting

Previously on 'A Moment Of Cerebus':

Dave Sim, working with George Peter Gatsis, has remastered the first two collected volumes of Cerebus to restore details and quality in the artwork lost over the thirty years since they were originally published (as detailed here and here). After Cerebus' original printer Preney Print closed its doors, Dave Sim moved his printing to Lebonfon in 2007 as at that time they were still capable of working with photographic negatives and making printing plates as Preney had done. And then Lebonfon switched to digital scanning and printing - a technology which struggles to faithfully reproduce Cerebus' tone without creating moire patterns (as detailed in Crisis On Infinite Pixels). Dave Sim continues to work with Lebonfon to ensure the print-quality of the new Cerebus and High Society editions (as detailed in Collections Stalled). Now read on...

Cerebus Vol 1 & Cerebus Vol 2: High Society
Cover art by Dave Sim & Gerhard

DAVE SIM:

Checking in.

Working on page 22, the last page of THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND No.4.  Still have to do the Notes section in the back, production notes for Chris Ryall and colouring notes for Jay Fotos.  But...very close.  Which brings up a key point -- I started the issue December 14 and I'm close to finishing it February 21.  Which would lead your average person to say, "Okay, so it takes you two months to do an issue."  Well, no.  Even if I was done today it would be two months and one week.  "Well, whatever."  Well, no NOT whatever :).  Over 18 issues, if I say I'm going to get them done in two months and it takes two months and a week, that adds FOUR MONTHS to the length of time it takes to do them.  If that isn't factored in, the result would likely be 16 issues coming out on a monthly schedule and -- just as you were waiting for the Big Payoff -- suddenly you'd have to wait FOUR MONTHS for No.17.

Just sayin'.

This -- the Weekly Updates -- I think, is proving to be a successful experiment in Complete Transparency in running a business. Since I'm not a Computer Person or an Internet Person, I'm always thinking "What genuine use could you have for the Internet?"

It seems to me this is it, potentially.  Everyone gets to read my "mail" before I do, so we all know what it is that I'm talking about when I come in to the coffee shop to weigh in.

Big plus (to me):  genuinely interested readers and fans know exactly what's going on so anytime anyone wants to disparage Dave Sim as "crazy" and "evil" and wonder aloud what I'm doing right now, they can tell them. "Just go to A MOMENT OF CEREBUS and read the Weekly Updates. That will tell you all you want to know."  

I think George and Sean are making REAL progress in their discussions. Too technical for me in its particulars, but where it does intersect with my own areas of expertise:

1)  I'm very aware of the differences between, say, IDW's Artists Editions and 100% accurate reproduction of the INTENT of the artwork.  i.e. Wally Wood didn't intend for you to see where he pasted up a correction or whited out and patch of brush work. Scott Dunbier makes interesting choices some places, opting to "go dark" a lot of times to pick up more of the paste-up/white out Reality of the original artwork.

Sandeep, by contrast, definitely did the bitmap conversion on glamourpuss.

My personal preference is for the latter.

[and for glossy paper -- I think the best reproduction so far -- apart from glamourpuss :) -- is the Barry Windsor-Smith RED NAILS book which is on glossy paper. IDW prefers trying to match to the texture of the paper to the Strathmore art paper most guys used. But, that's apples and oranges to me. Guys didn't draw on glossy paper because it wouldn't take pencil very well, erase well, or hold up to man-handling. If the pencils just magically appeared on the page and could be inked without any further erasing, slick paper would be more precise. They were using fibrous art paper because it worked with pencil AND eraser AND ink and (often) tone. I did a revised Inside Front Cover for #3 on Strathmore paper and pasted it up on my usual 172 Illustration Board.  I think I know why those guys liked the 3-ply Strathmore with kid finish so much :)]

This will be an interesting situation when each issue of THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND is (God willing) finally published as a black-and-white version and a colour version.  My inclination would be to do the glamourpuss bitmap conversion method and cover up white-outs and paste-ups and things in the black-and-white version.  But I'm doing it through IDW -- which has definitely showed a preference for the paste-up/white out Reality method.  It should be something that Ted Adams, Chris Ryall and Scott Dunbier are happy with and fits in with their way of viewing comic art. It's THEIR money that's making it possible.

There are many things that George has picked up in his restorations (MANY things) --

[as an example, a trail of smoke from a candle being lit in #7 -- it was done in white paint and the white paint wasn't thick enough to make a definite trail. I never really got the hang of how to mix white paint so it was thick enough to be picked up by the camera but not so thick that you have to roll in between your fingers and stick it down by hand (just kidding).]

-- that I don't know if they would survive the conversion to bitmap.  That's where I can't adjudicate the discussion.  I would definitely opt for losing the pencil lines where they are being picked up where that doesn't compromise any linework that has been missing to now.  I agree with Sean, it takes the reader out of the story -- particularly the guidelines for the lettering -- and the CEREBUS trades are, first and foremost, "popular editions". They're meant to be read. And where you err, you have to err on the side of "literary/visual" anywhere where you would be interfering with the READING experience. As long as you don't lose tiny lines that the "visual/literary" reader is entitled to. ALL THE WAY into the page and balancing between those two things -- I'd tend to leave it up to the guy doing the heavy lifting.

Photocopied panels, I'm in complete agreement. Kim Preney finally had to explain to me that photocopies only LOOK accurate and clean. They're actually formed by the toner powder adhering magnetically to the charged area. So the "thin line" is actually closer to a pattern formed by iron filings on a piece of paper over a magnet. When you shoot that with a camera, you're going to be shooting that "flare" of iron filings that aren't readily visible... and get a fuzzy image. Where that happens -- like Weisshaupt taking a drink early in CHURCH & STATE -- I'd suggest scanning the first panel which is the original and then matching the placement where the photocopies are)

Way, way, way off in the future -- if anyone is still interested in CEREBUS -- someone is going to face the choice of scanning Gerhard's original artwork for the bags of gold backgrounds (which are still in The Cerebus Archive) in CHURCH & STATE and digitally substitute them for the bags of gold photocopies on the original artwork, matching area to area.

How DEDICATED are you to restoration of INTENT?  I sure wouldn't want to do it.

Watery ink, I'm still dealing with on a daily basis. I'm doing the thinnest lines I've ever done on the STRANGE DEATH pages and there does come a point where -- through evaporation -- the pen nib just won't do fine enough lines because the ink is too thick. This is particularly true when the pen nib is brand new (my solution to not being able to Master the Gillott 290 pen nib -- a brand new Hunt 102 is the same fineness of line but it requires changing nibs VERY frequently) and I'm trying to copy, say, Ray Burns lettering on a RIP KIRBY panel that is maybe 1/20th the size that HE lettered it at. So, I dilute the ink -- actually using distilled water which keeps mineral impurities out of the mix -- but then have to wonder:  is IDW going to be able to pick this up? First of all on the black and white and second of all on the colour version? Which is a persuasive argument for their Reality Original method. You'll pick up a light brown letter that's supposed to be black that you're apt to lose when you're making everything Either Black or White.

Following on from the "heavy lifting" on CEREBUS restoration: Possible solution:  George provides Sean with his finished digital files and Sean goes through them looking for instances where reproduction choices are, in his view, interfering with the reading experience.  Then, the discussion could move over here with Sean saying:  "Okay, here's what can be done.  If I adjust the reproduction to lose the pencil lines on this page, THESE lines are going to fade.  THIS is the tipping point.  Here's "-1" "-2" "0" "+1" "+2".  What say you, CEREBUS fans?"

Or CEREBUS fan -- since there will probably only be one person still reading at that point. :)

But, that to me would be the hidden benefit to running a Completely Transparent Business:  the person who has the level of interest to stick with the discussion right to the end, IT GETS TO BE THEIR CALL!  COOLNESS!

I'm sort of kidding I sort of think.

Travis P.:  Thanks for your comments.  I don't want to make too much of a point of it, but I infer that anyone who hasn't signed the "I Don't Believe Dave Sim Is a Misogynist" petition thinks I'm a misogynist and -- to me, compelled inference --  doesn't want the immaculate purity of their Feminist reality trodden upon by me. Particularly including requests for things like assistance, advice or comped books. It's all guesswork which is why I asked Margaret to start the petition. When Rob Walton signed and Chester Brown didn't, at that point I knew that there was NO WAY I could ever guess who thought I was a misogynist and who didn't.  Same reason I wouldn't contact Colleen Doran or Eddie Campbell.  You don't want to make a mistake in those cases. Or, I don't, anyway.

Speaking of which, the Petition has 20 EXTRA NAMES since, like two weeks ago.  WHAAAAT??!!

The best jump we ever had in the last  six years was when Oliver's significant other Carma Chan decided she was, single-handedly, going to get the 2,000 signatures. Which I knew she wouldn't. But I think she got something like 12 in the space of a month or so. Which was INCREDIBLE!

Not sure what's going on.

Okay, still waiting for a response from Lebonfon both here -- Monsieur Auberge pere ou fils (turns out that the General Manager is the son of the President: very reassuring that Lebonfon is a family operation: so it's not as if internal communication is going to be a problem) or Patrick or Josee -- and also a quote as to what they are going to charge to do a test signature of George and Sean's (at the moment theoretical) final fixes.

They're probably just mulling over what George and Sean are talking about.

Also looking forward to seeing THE YEARS HAVE PANTS and the first two volumes of the A DISTANT SOIL restorations when Eddie Khanna sends them to me.

See you all next week!

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Originally serialised within the pages of the self-published Glamourpuss #1-26 (April 2008 to July 2012), The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond is an as yet uncompleted work-in-progress in which Dave Sim investigates the history of photorealism in comics and specifically focuses on the work of comic-strip artist Alex Raymond and the circumstances of his death on 6 September 1956 at the wheel of fellow artist Stan Drake's Corvette at the age of 46.