Dave sends me stuff, and I get the weirdest stuff FOR Dave...

Hi, Everybody!

Dave has been flooding my email...

First up, from Rolly:

Hi Matt,

J.TOONS! just send me this (below). You can add his message and link to the website when you do an update, that would be great.

"Cerebus cameo.......
......in this week's Fun Facts for Fans of Fiction cartoon:
https://www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/fun-facts-for-fans-of-fiction/normalman-fun-facts/viewer?title_no=777984&episode_no=214&readingLanguageCode=en "

- from J.TOONS!

Thanks,
Rolly

Normally (heh.) I'd post the image, but I can't just save the image, so just click the link and give them your social security number (I kid, I kid. It's free and without banner ads...)

Then I got:

I had gotten a message from Mr. Robinson, and did respond that Dave doesn't have a phone. But it sounds like Jeff rented (I mean if you pay for something that's going back eventually, is it really yours?) this page:

OR, possibly this one:

Either way, I'm sure Dave would like it back.

Then I got this FOR DAVE at the AMOC email:

Hi Dave,

I'm a journalist with New York Magazine. I'm working on a book about
Neil Gaiman. It's an expansion of this article I wrote last year:
https://archive.is/20250113132911/https://www.vulture.com/article/neil-gaiman-allegations-controversy-amanda-palmer-sandman-madoc.html

The book will delve into the history of his fandom, as well as comics
history more broadly, and I've been reading some of your writing about
Neil over the years. Would you be up for a phone call?

I'd be happy to tell you more about the book over the phone, or answer
any questions you might have. Thanks for considering.

All my best,
Lila

And I responded thusly:

Hi Lila,

I'm not Dave Sim, I'm Manly Matt Dow, Interim Editor of A Moment of Cerebus.

Dave no longer has a phone or Fax Machine. His assistant does have an email set up in Dave's name, but mostly it's for sending stuff to people on Dave's behalf, but Dave is vehemently OFF-line. (I know, I know "How does someone exist without a phone or being online?" quite happily apparently, according to what he's communicated with me...)

While I can't speak for Dave, when the stories about Neil Gaiman came out last year, Dave still had a phone, and we were still doing a once-a-month interview (that I'd turn into a podcast/youtube video series) wherein Dave would answer questions from fans. I titled it Please Hold For Dave Sim. Anyway, the subject of the allegations against Neil came up, and Dave said (I'm paraphrasing here) that he would only answer questions based on court transcripts after they were generated. And that anything else was just trading in salacious gossip. So, with that in mind, I think Dave would probably decline. BUT, as I say, I can't speak for Dave.

I'll certainly pass your message along, but as Dave doesn't have a phone, we've discontinued doing Please Hold For Dave Sim as a live recording. Instead I send Dave a PDF that gets printed out, and then Dave does an audio recording that gets sent to me wherein I edit it into the videos/podcast. BUT, Dave's currently working on a book about his and his ex-wife's 1982 Tour of comic book stores across the United States. So he's only recording audio for whichever project gets the most money donated to it through a website where people can purchase digital copies of Dave's Cerebus work. If the '82 Tour gets more money (which it has the past few months), Dave records his notes for that. If Please Hold For Dave Sim gets more money (which it hasn't since March) then Dave will record audio for that. So, if you want Dave's answer, you might wanna go here, and donate some money for Please Hold For Dave Sim (it's a pay-for-play kinda deal. I have to edit whatever Dave sends either way, so it's not really a big deal for me...)

Your BEST bet would be to send Dave something at:
Dave Sim
C/O Aardvark-Vanaheim Inc.
PO Box 1674, Station C,
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, N2G 4R2

If you include an email address, he'll probably respond via his assistant, or if you mention contacting me first, he might have me pass it along to you.

Sorry for any of the inevitable confusion, but inevitable confusion is increasingly becoming my stock in trade...

Attached is a photo of Dave with Neil from their first meeting in the UK in 1986

And Dave with Neil and Colleen Doran, Jeff Smith, and Martin Wagner (I believe) at a Diamond retailer conference in the early 90s

And an unused image I made up for a blogpost about the whole Neil thing that I abandoned back when the accusations first surfaced. It's an image of Neil drawn by Dave for a lithograph donated to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. (I added the title, and the blurb from the cover of the Incredible Hulk #1.)

Until the next, I remain:

Manly Matt Dow

Interim Editor
A Moment of Cerebus

We'll see how THAT plays out...

Next Time: Mondays!

Katherine Collins Gets Back In The Saddle

Neil The Horse creator, Katherine Collins (formerly Arn Saba)

Quill & Quire, May 2017

QUILL & QUIRE:
(from Katherine Collins Gets Back In The Saddle by Conan Tobias, Quill & Quire, May 2017)

...Black-and-white independent comic books began to grow in popularity in the late ’70s and early ’80s, as titles like Wendy and Richard Pini’s Elfquest, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Dave Sim’s Cerebus found a welcoming audience though the burgeoning direct comic-shop market. Sim, based in Kitchener, Ontario, was a fan of Neil the Horse. "It was a very odd strip," Sim told me recently. "It was definitely far more in the charming category than the funny category, though it had its moments there, too." When Sim and Deni Loubert, his then wife and business partner, decided to expand their press, Aardvark-Vanaheim, beyond publishing Cerebus, they contacted Saba, and in 1983 the first issue of Neil the Horse Comics and Stories appeared on stands.

Sim and Loubert's mandate was complete creative control for their artists. "We had a huge discussion about what he wanted to do," said Loubert, who remains close friends with Collins today. "We’d never really done something like this. Cerebus kind of grew organically. So we talked at length." Saba settled on a format reminiscent of the Rupert Bear children’s annuals he had loved. Every issue of Neil the Horse was a grab bag of newspaper strip reprints, lightly illustrated prose pieces, a letters page answered by Saba in character, and paper dolls with accompanying outfits for Poupée, drawn by Barb Rausch, who had been a popular “reader-contributor” of fashion designs to Katy Keene, Bill Woggon’s teen-model series published by Archie Comics in the 1950s and ’60s. Rausch and Dave Roman, an artist and jack-of-all-trades, assisted Saba with much of the plotting and pencilling work, allowing him to follow Walt Disney’s model of stepping back to oversee others as they worked on his creations.

The Collected Neil The Horse (Conundrum Press, May 2017)

Saba did not set out to make comic books, but they were the format that allowed him to perfect his creation. Neil, Soapy, and Poupée’s new adventures were non-linear and surreal. Many took place in their home base of Bananaburg, but the characters also could find themselves sailing to New France with no explanation, and none needed. The more grounded Neil stories featured settings that seemed timeless, with only occasional present-day flourishes: in one story, Poupée wears Olivia Newton-John–style workout gear; in another, Neil breakdances with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

Characters in the Neil comic – which often featured the tagline “Making the World Safe for Musical Comedy” – broke out into song and dance even more frequently than they had in Saba’s newspaper strip. The book’s most uncommon feature was the sheet music for original songs Saba wrote as a soundtrack to the new Neil stories in each issue. A two-issue tribute to Fred Astaire featured not only several new songs, but extensive dance numbers between the Hollywood icon and Poupée, which Saba slavishly choreographed by printing out stills of Astaire in motion on a thermal printer attached to his VCR.

Sim and Loubert’s personal relationship ended in 1983, and Aardvark-Vanaheim’s assets eventually were split between them. Sim retained Cerebus and Loubert took all the remaining titles, including Neil, and formed a new company, Regenade Press. Neil’s numbers were strong – between 6,000 and 10,000 copies per issue, according to Loubert – but by the end of the decade, the black-and-white market was suffering from rampant speculation, and Renegade folded in 1989. The final issue of Neil the Horse debuted the animation-friendly characterizations Saba had been working on. Neil remained largely unchanged. Soapy gained fingers and the ability to walk upright, while Mam’selle lost some of her over-the-top sex appeal. Several production companies, including Toronto’s Nelvana, optioned the animated Neil over the next several years, but ultimately all passed on turning it into a series. After Saba’s ill-fated meeting in San Francisco, all avenues were exhausted, and Neil was never seen again... [Read the complete article here.]

Katherine Collins will be inducted into the 2017 Giants of the North, Canadian Cartooning Hall of Fame at this year’s Doug Wright Awards and Conundrum Press are releasing "The Collected Neil The Horse" in May 2017.

Speaking of Petunia Con...

"Petunia Con '84" print

Art by Dave Sim

(Click image to enlare)

DAVE SIM:
(from an AMOC Comment, 16 March 2017)
Coincidentally (?)

a) I just sent Conan Tobias [at Taddle Creek] two pictures from the Aardvark-Vanaheim panel -- featuring Bill Loebs, me, Deni, Arn Saba, Jim Valentino and Joshua Quagmire -- at the Real World (?) PETUNIACON '84 in Oakland California (since they were two of the only four photos of Arn Saba that I had for his article on Arn Saba/Katherine Collins for QUILL & QUIRE)...

b) researching LOVE & AARDVARKS #1 in Todd Hignite's JAIME HERNANDEZ book, I just noticed in a period photo of Los Bros. that Mario is wearing a Petuniacon t-shirt (it was the first convention Los Bros. attended: Jaime's was definitely the first mohawk I had ever seen in my hotel suite). It was also Gerhard's first convention.

*I* don't even have a Petuniacon t-shirt!

Los Bros Hernandez: Jaime, Mario & Gilbert (1984)
Photo by Carol Kovinick Hernandez

c) a caption for another photo in the book mentions that I had organized PETUNIACON. Which isn't true. Faye Desmond organized PETUNIACON at the beginning until the Bay Area Comics & Comix retail chain crew got wind of the fact that the only guests were going to be Indy creators and recognized a disaster in the making and jumped in and lined up Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz as guests to prevent the disaster from taking place. I did drawings for the program book, t-shirt and poster but that was the extent of my hands-on participation. Apart from holding the above-mentioned Killer Party in my suite. And insisting that I needed to have a suite large enough for a Killer Party as part of my attendance.

The Collected Neil The Horse

The Collected Neil The Horse
by Katherine Collins with an introduction by Trina Robbins
Conundrum Press
300 pages, b/w, softcover, $25 
In shops: May 2017

Originally published by Aardvark-Vanaheim and Renegade Press, Neil The Horse ran for 15 issues in the 1980s. With its tagline, "Making the World Safe for Musical Comedy" it is the world's only musical comic book. It is a totally original hybrid influenced more by Carl Barks and Fred Astaire than by the underground comics of the time. Originally produced under the name Arn Saba, Neil's creator transitioned to Katherine Collins after the last issue. Neil and his friends Soapy and Mam'selle Poupée are a struggling song-and-dance act. Neil is a happy-go-lucky horse with a mania for bananas. Mam'selle Poupée is a romantic and lovelorn living doll from France, whose wooden body is jointed with hinges. With red circles on her cheeks, curly blonde hair, and large bust, Poupée appears to be a cross between Raggedy Ann and Dolly Parton. Soapy is a street-wise and cynical (with a heart of gold) orange alley cat, a cigar smoker and a drinker, who serves as the brains of the operation. Their magical and absurd adventures take them to outer space, the past, and the future in a mix of slapstick, romance and show business. The book includes brand-new commentary by Collins, rare art, sheet music to accompany the stories, and reprints of early syndicated newspaper strips.

"Delighted at your continuing Neil The Horse efforts... and I'm particularly enthusiastic about your continuing probe of the medium. I welcome you as a fellow explorer." ~ Will Eisner

"Neil has a sense of magic to it that is in no way syrupy or cutesy. It should be read by every man, woman, and child in the English-speaking world." ~ Jackie Estrada

"...Influenced by classic funny animal cartoons and covers resembling 1930s art deco designs, the series appears an anomaly. Saba's premise was something both old and new: the musical comedy. Saba had a vaudevillian approach, changing the format of his comics several times within each issue. This variety act included the comic strip, comic book stories, illustrated stories, originally composed sheet music, crossword puzzles, and more. It appeared like a modern version of early twentieth-century hardbound children's annuals that employed such a variety of techniques rarely seen in comics." ~ Dave Kiersh, Indy Magazine

Happy 68th Birthday Katherine Collins!

Neil The Horse #1 by Katherine Collins

(Aardvark-Vanaheim, February 1983)