Showing posts with label Off-White House Bulletin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Off-White House Bulletin. Show all posts

Saturday, 4 July 2026

Mr. (& Mrs.) Sim Goes To Washington

Hi, Everybody!

Dave sent an Off-White House Bulletin

Since it's the Fourth of July, and Dave's discussing the '82 Tour Book, here's a selection that may OR may not make the "final cut" in his version:

Mr. (& Mrs.) Sim Go To Washington:

This is either a bad photo of the subway, a bad photo of the museum at Ford's Theatre, a bad photo of the Washington Monument, a bad photo of the Lincoln Memorial, or a bad photo of the Smithsonian. It's DEFINITELY a bad photo...


The Lincoln Memorial.

The Lincoln Memorial.

The Lincoln Memorial.

Abe's place...

I like to imagine somebody randomly finds this post, reads through it, and shouts "HOLY SHIT IT'S GRANDMA!" when they see this photo...

Dave Sim, after riding the hidden slide BEHIND the statue of Lincoln. (Sadly the slide was torn out in 1989...)

"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, GET OUT OF THE WAY PHIL!!!"





The view from the top of the Washington Monument.

Dave's CONTINUING the Please PAY For Dave Sim format, if YOU want more '82 Tour Book discussion, go HERE, and pay for "Dave Sim 82 Tour Book". But if YOU'd rather hear more stereotypical Please Hold (*shudder*) "content", go HERE and pay for "Please Hold For Dave Sim". Either way, I have to amuse myself in the Editing Suite assembling these things...
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Dave's  auctioning these:
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Friend to the Blog James Banderas-Smith has launched one for the Seventh issue of Papa Balloon and Cactus (his Ninth issue overall).

Next Time: Old Cerebus pages...
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Saturday, 30 May 2026

Off-White House Bulletin 5/28/2026

Hi, Everybody!

Well, it turns out this WASN'T an 82 Tour Book note update...

But there was a WRITTEN '82 Tour Book note:
1982 TOUR BOOK II
28 May 26
Waverly's cover.

Birdsong's mock-up of Dave's cover

I suggested moving the photo over the tour dates since they're cut off anyway, to make a more aesthetically pleasing cover... so, Birdsong's mock-up of my version of Dave's cover.

Dave Sim:
As happens a lot lately, I finished last week's 1982 TOUR BOOK entry and wondered if I was over-reacting to the women’s photos thing. And the following Monday, Tammy Burns had an article in the TORONTO STAR (see attached) where I went, No, this is exactly what I’m talking about.  It should probably be a general societal rule and it will be the rule with the 1982 TOUR BOOK that you never print a picture of a woman anywhere unless she’s 100% happy with it.  
Or, at the very least, you are guaranteeing that anytime she sees the book anywhere it will give her as Burns puts it the ick.  There is no masculine equivalent of the ick so it needs to be deferred to. Do not intentionally give a woman the ick.  

So having assured myself that I’m not over-reacting, I started building mentally from there.  So, before I get to Louise Jones let’s go back to Maggie Thompson.  What photos are onside?  That’s her decision to make.  We aren’t going to spring for full hair and make-up and a multi-hour shoot with a professional photographer, but we are willing to defer to the woman in question.  Maggie’s section will be 2 or 3 pages (I need to separate her comments on Dave and Deni into 1) Dave and Deni, 2) Dave, and 3) Deni and put them in the right spots.  She was the first interviewer to ask the are there any female aardvarks floating around? So that fits, but I’m not sure where. Me trying to answer and not answer at the same time: the groundwork having been laid for the Cirin Big Reveal two years before that wasn’t going to be Revealed for another five years.  Poses a bit of a problem because Category 1 people will know and Category 2 and 3 people won’t. 
So it makes for a best 2-out-of-3 SPOILER ALERT.

Picturing her credentials page, that goes all the way back to NEWFANGLES, the mimeo zine she did with her husband Don.  John (COMIC ART NEWS & REVIEWS) Balge was a subscriber and had a small stack of them which I ended up buying from him and (false memory?) I started subscribing myself over the last two years or so (1971? 1972?).  

That was when I thought, if you’re going to Do Maggie Thompson, you really need to Do Don Thompson (may his memory be a blessing to us) or you’re misrepresenting who she is, even though she\'92s outlived him by decades at this point and, thus, has had a decades-long solo career. And that was when I thought, Wedding photo.  

Potential problems:  
1) I’m sure there are women who consider their wedding photos private property and don’t want one of them used in a book referencing their career. 
2) I’m sure there are a lot of wedding. photos that give women the ick for whatever personal reason (outfit and hair seemed like a good idea at the time. Now? not so much). Hopefully Maggie isn’t in either of those categories. 

Offsetting that? Wedding photos are a great Category 3 thing.  Women, particularly, like wedding photos. So, if they’re flipping through a book in a bookstore, that’s going to stop most of them or slow most of them down. 

Having been aware of Don and Maggie Thompson for over half a century now, it’s also a great Category 2 thing general comics market.  What do Don and Maggie look like on their wedding day? What day was that?  You don’t make a big deal about it, you just make it part of your presentation.  Approved photo of the subject; credentials; wedding photo. 

Is it a TMI bridge too far in Maggie’s case to add Til death us do part and add Don’s birth and death dates?  It isn’t if we say it isn’t.  If it was S.O.P. in publishing it would make most non-fiction books more interesting for women, I think.  The same as the formal structure for obituaries always concludes with survived by and probably tells you more about the person than the obituary does.  Were they married?  Were they married for life? How many kids did they have?  You can almost feel the exasperation in the New York Times Service when they hit the multiple marriage guy.  
Which brings us to Louise Jones Simonson and the attached scans from the WARREN COMPANION and page 46 prototype photo of her in her office in 1982. I picture it as a weird digression in between the Deni Section and the Dave Section. She bought my only Warren story, Shadow of the Axe in 1975, so this is 7 years later. 
 
Birdsong "cleaned" up the photo.






One of the big disappointments with my tour diary is how little I documented actual conversations. It’s understandable because at the end of a tour day you really just want to vedge and watch TV and then crash. There are these pictures of me with Denny O’Neil and Louise in her office. What did we talk about? Did I remind her that she bought my script?  It would have been better to jot down scraps of conversation with attribution and write The Tour Diary when we got home. One of the few scraps of conversation I do remember vividly was Howard Chaykin at dinner talking about AMERICAN FLAGG in its initial 12-issue run and distilling it to The future is the same as the present only later and more so.  The quote and one of the photos of me with Howard and a quote from me remarking on the fact that it’s the most vivid quotable quote from the Tour that has stuck with me for 44 years.  AMERICAN FLAGG if nothing else anticipated video streaming and the Internet long before either existed.

Anyway, Louise in her office was 7 years after Shadow of the Axe and 3 years before the NEW MUTANTS No.21  story Slumber Party drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz where she’s a character in the book.  It’s a brilliant two-page spread Bill signed to someone in 2013 so it still exists, but the reproduction is just grisly. Everything darkened down so you can see that Bill whited out Louise’s hair multiple times trying to capture her hairstyle and had a couple of tries at her teeth and lips before he nailed it.  Make that Nailed It. If it was reproduced properly in would be a jaw-dropper. Can it be found online in non-murky form? 


That’s Diana Schutz I believe in the background on page 3 next to the Michael Jackson poster. Which is a very good likeness for the size.  And another link to the 82 TOUR BOOK as a contributor.  

What was interesting was when I applied my new Wedding Photo Rule to Louise, my first response was that this was another til Death Us Do Part couple: Louise and Walt Simonson.  They’ve been together since 1974 so we have to assume that Til Death....applies.  Actually, I don’t know how long they’ve been married 
but it is part of the mythos that Louise started dating Simonson and working at Warren the same month that Nixon resigned.  
So the marriage anniversary is unknown by me but is, presumably, available online somewhere.  But that was Louise’s second marriage. Her first marriage had taken place in 1966 to Jeff Jones and was (like mine and Deni’s) the opposite of til Death Us Do Part, lasting only a few years. 

But, on the potential plus side x 2 of our Ven diagram a definite Category 2: two wedding photos each with a very high profile comics personality (Jeff Jones and Walt Simonson) in each, the first with an end date and the second a presumptive Til Death which (I would suggest) also gives Louise Jones Category 3 Cred. A woman browsing DENI & DAVE SIM in a bookstore, if they landed on the two wedding photos page would be intrigued.  Again, we’re not making a big deal about the wedding photo angle to the book, just presenting it as lived experience.  If you’re documenting a woman this is a visual fact which is of particular interest to women.  Was/is she married? Who did she marry? When did she marry? How long did the marriage last?
Re-reading Jon B. Cooke’s interview with Louise in the WARREN COMPANION I had completely forgotten the professional metaphorical High Drama traffic accident involving Jim Warren, Louise, Walt and Archie Goodwin and centering on Walt’s napkin sketch of the CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND Mother Ship and how that ran afoul of Hollywood Non-Disclosure, causing Louise to temporarily quit Warren in protest.  Linking it to the Comics/Hollywood axis which I’m making my theme of the rebranded/restructured 1982 TOUR BOOK.  Although I’m picturing a pretty even balance of words and images for DENI & DAVE SIM, it’s worth seeing if Jon B. Cooke, Louise and Walt would be willing to sign off on us printing the entire transcript of Walt’s recounting of it on pages 170 to 172.  
Which I’m getting Rolly to scan and e-mail to AMOC for discussion purposes illustrated with original art scans of the relevant CE3K pages from Walt’s adaptation for Marvel Comics.  An example of my thesis Here There Be Monsters on the Comics/Hollywood map.   

Okay, that may be the last that you hear from me on the \'9282 TOUR BOOK until JULY depending on how this month\'92s PLEASE HOLD vs. \'9282 TOUR fundraiser turns out.

 Next Time: Cerebus.
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Saturday, 9 May 2026

In October of '82, I was three, and didn't Hold nothin'!

Hi, Everybody!
Dave has things on Heritage. These are FROM the Cerebus Archive, and Dave (eventually) gets ALL the money (minus the fees and whatnot. Plus he won't believe it until the money crosses his hand... *NOT* my first "Dave waiting to be paid" rodeo...):
Cerebus #239 19 pages of Original Art Ended. Sold for $26,000 ($32,500 with buyer's premium...)

Dave sent things: 
The Cerebus the Aardvark #1 (and Spawn #10) en Español had an Art Show...down in Mexico:

And Dave's 70th Birthday Spectacular is off to a good start:

A really good start:

An Update-ish on the newest CAN/CiH? Kickstarter :

And then since you guys would rather I relive the repressed memories of my childhood...:

And we're doing the "pay for Play" again for next month. If we're doing Please Hold next month Dave is giving Everybody! an option: He'll either work on Please Hold for May June, or his notes on the '82 Tour Book. YOU can decide which he does by donating at CerebusDownloads. There are two buttons, if you want Please Hold, donate with the button labeled as such. If you want the '82 Tour Book, donate with the button labeled that. And if you want both, donate to both. (Dave never said what he'd do if there was a tie...) If you have a question, send it in to momentofcerebus@gmail.com AND throw a couple of bucks Dave's way by clicking the "Please Hold For Dave Sim" button. Or else it's MORE '82 for you...
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Friend to the Blog, Steve Peters has a new Comicverse issue on Kickstarter, with a variant cover from OTHER Friend to the Blog, James Banderas-Smith.

Next Time: Cerebus! This is supposed to be A Moment of CEREBUS damnit!
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Sunday, 26 April 2026

"Caaaannn you feeeeelllll the HYPE toooniiiigght?" Cerebus Archive portfolio Number 13 launches TO-Morrow!

Hi, Everybody!

Launching TOMORROW, 
(but you can click the link and get an email telling you it's Live so you're backer Number One and therefore the bestest Cerebus fan EVER! Not like those scum Manly Matt Dow (hey wait a minute...), or Margaret Liss (HEY!), no, you're Cerebus Fandom is purer and truer and better!) CAN13 and Cerebus in Jail! and The Pun Issuer Kickstarter

CAN13 consists of the first 10 pages of Cerebus #232 (including page one, the title page which has NEVER been reprinted)


   

   









Obviously, click for biggerness...


Also on offer are the two NEW Cerebus in Hell? Issues:
                            

Cerebus in Jail? and The Pun Issuer.

AND, Issues two and three of The Ninja High School Crossover
     

And as BONUS Prints, you can get pages 11-20 of Issue #232:
     
    


































And, there's Backing Board covers from the last campaign (CAN12) and this one.

And if you missed out last time, there's gonna be a second printing of Issue #1 of the Ninja High School crossover:

  

And because Michael R. asked...:

There's all sorts of other fun stuff in the works, and you'll be able to see it all tomorrow.

Go ahead and join the queue and you'll know as soon as this baby launches...
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Dave has things on Heritage. These are FROM the Cerebus Archive, and Dave (eventually) gets ALL the money (minus the fees and whatnot. Plus he won't believe it until the money crosses his hand... *NOT* my first "Dave waiting to be paid" rodeo...):


Also Kickstartering:
Living the Line's next Kickstarter has ended. There is an option for late backers, so if you were waiting for the last minute, you messed up, better click over there and hope you can get in...
And I was asked: "Scott Palochik & Dreamscape Publishing has the 4th issue of MARCVS live on Kickstarter now. If you could kindly put it up on the Rigamole, it would be greatly appreciated."
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And JUST IN TIME for the next year's fundraising push, I FINALLY got around to making Pud's Tavern Merch:

Yup, it's time for me to find a Sponsor for my kid's High School Dance Team. They placed fifth at State last season (the team has made it to State the last six years), and are gonna make a go of it again.

One of the problems (it's a girls High School Dance team, there are many...) this year, is that they're getting a new Athletic Director for the school district, which means the "niggardly sum"


that the team gets to pay for everything might go "bye-bye" like *that*. So, they're really pushing the fundraising this year.

As long time readers/viewers/visitors to AMOC may recall, last year I, and a merry band of Aardvark lovin' malcontents, got a logo for Pud's Tavern:

 onto the Team's banners, t-shirts, and whatnot.

Well, I'ma try to do it again. But this year the deal is slightly different:
Each dancer's family is expected to bring in at least $200 in sponsorships, but if I can raise $300, they'll announce Pud's Tavern as a Sponsor at all halftime performances when the girls dance. And the logo will be bigger on everything.
Bigger is, as we all know, BETTER!

If you wanna help (and I hope you do,) shoot an email to momentofcerebus@gmail.com, and we'll work it out. Everyone who kicks in will receive a special A Moment Of Cerebus item that has the AMOC Logo on it. (I will tell you more if you chip in...) Also, if you chip in, you get a vote on if "Buggid" goes on there, or Pud's Ale Mug.

Thank you for your attention in this matter...

Next Time: Mondays!
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