From the A/V Family Photo Album: Labor Day Weekend 1996 AND Some Cerebus History!

Hi, Everybody!

So in this month's Please Hold For Dave Sim (see yesterday) ((scroll down)) (((keep going until you see me say "Hi, Everybody!" again...))) Dodger brought up Susan Alston's Dave Sim's Last Girlfriend book (which as far as I can see has never actually been published...). You know it:

Classy...

Well that's the one version of the cover, there's another one:

That photo looked familiar, so I ran through the A/V Family Photo Album:

That's not it...

There it is!

But, hey! There's more:

Far be it from me to argue with Granpaw, but this photo is dated THE SAME DAY as the two above. I don't think this is what Dave thinks it is...

And this one is the day BEFORE the last one...

So, there ya go. "Cerebus" history. (Okay, okay. FINE! I'll give you some REAL Cerebus History...)

See?

Click for bigger.

Okay, more "Moments" than you can shake a baby at.

Youse welcome...

__________________________

Like the logo? I stole it...

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Friend to the Blog, James Bing-Bong-Shama-Lama-Ding-Dong Smith has a new Papa Balloon and Cactus Comic on the Kickstarter.

And, coming in February, The 1982 Tour Book (click the link to be notified on launch).
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The Help Out Bill Messner-Loebs Go Fund Me, or buy Rodney Schroeter's book with proceeds going to Bill. OR(!) you could buy Bill's book with the Dave backcover. I have discovered links:
Wanderland (Paperback)
Wanderland (Hardcover for the guys who get "hard" for hardcovers...)
Wanderland (Paperback but slightly more expensive...I dunno why...)
The site offers UK shipping, so PRESUMEABLY it's printed and shipped there(?).
And Journey Complete:
Hardcover
Paperback
And if you wanna see how the book looks in Real Time...

Over on the Facebookees, Mike Jones shared that Dave has a five SEVEN page Strange Death of Alex Raymond story in YEET Presents #68. Mike Jones still has 30 copies of the second printing available, ya gotta back them on Patreon to get it.
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Larry Shell could use a hand to keep his house.
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Dave also wanted me to post this:

Lots of little words, click for bigger.

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The AMOC TeePublic Shoppe

Up to 35% off January 11-18 and January 28-February 1.*

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

Speaking of Merch, if you want a strange near-antique, shoot an email to momentofcerebus@gmail.com, and I'll tell ya where to send the $20USD I want for these. No shipping charge in the States or Canada. Everybody else add $10USD for shipping. I'll send 'em anywhere the postman is willing to go...

Back and front.

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You can get all 16 volumes of Cerebus, many of them Remastered for $99CANADIAN at CerebusDownloads.com (More if you want the Remastered Cerebus Guide to Self-Publishing...)

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Heritage has:

• The original art to Cerebus: the Six Deadly Sins Cover, Avarice, and Gluttony? Why doesn't Dave have this? (Coming soon)
• Cerebus #81 page 11 (coming soon)
• Cerebus #81 page 12 (coming soon)

And ComicLink (remember ComicLink? Seiler brought us ComicLink. R.I.P Jeff.) has:

• Cerebus #39, page 8 (coming in February)

Thanks to Steve for sending the links. 

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Oliver' Simonsen's Cerebus movie: The Absurd, Surreal, Metaphysical, and Fractured Destiny of Cerebus the Aardvark it's currently available on "Plex", "Xumo", "Vimeo On Demand", "Tubi". If you're in Brazil..., "Mometu", "Nuclear Home Video".

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Next Time: Mondays. But maybe I'll skip the transcripts since we JUST held for Dave...

Please Hold For Dave Sim 1/2026

Hi, Everybody!

It's that damn time again:

Audio for the people who DON'T think Spotify is fuckin' garbage (you poor bastards...):

#FuckSpotify

Video for the people who understand how this thing is supposed to work:

Part 0: I "cut 'em off at the pass", and Dave gets indelicate...

Problems viewing this video? Watch directly on YouTube...

Part 1: Dave discusses the latest Tales From the Wedding Present annual he got from Lee Thacker

Problems viewing this video? Watch directly on YouTube...

Part 2: Will Gray wanted Dave's thoughts on a Ernest Hemingway photo and the caption posted with it

 

Problems viewing this video? Watch directly on YouTube...

Part 3: Dave got a Christmas card from David L. Russell

Problems viewing this video? Watch directly on YouTube...

Part 4: Dave discusses Christoph McNeill's 2010 Bill Sienkiewicz commission of Cerebus

Problems viewing this video? Watch directly on YouTube...

Part 5: MJ Sewall has a question about Dave and...rulers?

Problems viewing this video? Watch directly on YouTube...

Part 6: Larry Wooten has a question about a con sketch he acquired

Problems viewing this video? Watch directly on YouTube...

Part 7: MJ Sewall has a question about Denis Kitchen's involvement in Susan Alston's Dave Sim's Last Girlfriend. And I remind Everybody about my "relationship" with Denis Kitchen

Problems viewing this video? Watch directly on YouTube...

Part 8: April Cooper (AKA Creative Fey) has questions

Problems viewing this video? Watch directly on YouTube...

__________________________

Like the logo? I stole it...

____________________
Friend to the Blog, James Bing-Bong-Shama-Lama-Ding-Dong Smith has a new Papa Balloon and Cactus Comic on the Kickstarter.

And, coming in February, The 1982 Tour Book (click the link to be notified on launch).
______________
The Help Out Bill Messner-Loebs Go Fund Me, or buy Rodney Schroeter's book with proceeds going to Bill. OR(!) you could buy Bill's book with the Dave backcover. I have discovered links:
Wanderland (Paperback)
Wanderland (Hardcover for the guys who get "hard" for hardcovers...)
Wanderland (Paperback but slightly more expensive...I dunno why...)
The site offers UK shipping, so PRESUMEABLY it's printed and shipped there(?).
And Journey Complete:
Hardcover
Paperback
And if you wanna see how the book looks in Real Time...

Over on the Facebookees, Mike Jones shared that Dave has a five SEVEN page Strange Death of Alex Raymond story in YEET Presents #68. Mike Jones still has 30 copies of the second printing available, ya gotta back them on Patreon to get it.
____________
Larry Shell could use a hand to keep his house.
____________
Dave also wanted me to post this:

Lots of little words, click for bigger.

______________

The AMOC TeePublic Shoppe

Up to 35% off January 11-18 and January 28-February 1.*

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

Speaking of Merch, if you want a strange near-antique, shoot an email to momentofcerebus@gmail.com, and I'll tell ya where to send the $20USD I want for these. No shipping charge in the States or Canada. Everybody else add $10USD for shipping. I'll send 'em anywhere the postman is willing to go...

Back and front.

______________

You can get all 16 volumes of Cerebus, many of them Remastered for $99CANADIAN at CerebusDownloads.com (More if you want the Remastered Cerebus Guide to Self-Publishing...)

_______________

Heritage has:

• The original art to Cerebus: the Six Deadly Sins Cover, Avarice, and Gluttony? Why doesn't Dave have this? (Coming soon)
• Cerebus #81 page 11 (coming soon)
• Cerebus #81 page 12 (coming soon)

And ComicLink (remember ComicLink? Seiler brought us ComicLink. R.I.P Jeff.) has:

• Cerebus #39, page 8 (coming in February)

Thanks to Steve for sending the links. 

_______________

Oliver' Simonsen's Cerebus movie: The Absurd, Surreal, Metaphysical, and Fractured Destiny of Cerebus the Aardvark it's currently available on "Plex", "Xumo", "Vimeo On Demand", "Tubi". If you're in Brazil..., "Mometu", "Nuclear Home Video".

_______________

Next Time: I might dip into the AV Family Photo Album...

Susan Alston: CBLDF Podcast

COMIC BOOK LEGAL DEFENSE FUND: 
(Podcast #10, 17 February 2015)

In this episode, CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein talks to former CBLDF Executive Director Susan Alston about the early days of the Fund! Topics discussed include: Mike Diana, Paul Mavrides, social media, the Supreme Court, and much more.

Susan Alston was Dave Sim's last girlfriend. She was the CBLDF's first Executive Director (1993-1997) and former board member (1997-1999), and is currently a development, marketing, and communications professional based in western Massachusetts, USA. Alston began her career as Assistant Director of Marketing at Bank of Boston, then as Director of Administration at Tundra Publishing, owned by Kevin Eastman. In 1993, Tundra merged into Kitchen Sink Press, whereupon Denis Kitchen offered her a part-time position overseeing CBLDF administration. Shortly thereafter, with the onset of the Mike Diana case and a large donation from Dave Sim, the position was moved to fulltime. After leaving CBLDF in 1999, Alston took her interest in fundraising, marketing, and communications and honed them at positions with Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, VNA HealthCare, and Center for Human Development. In 2012, Alston earned her Master’s degree in Strategic Fundraising and Philanthropy from Bay Path College. Alston rejoined the CBLDF in 2013 serving on its newly formed Advisory Board together with Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Jim Lee, Matt Groening, Mike Richardson, Chip Kidd, Louise Nemchoff and Frenchy Lunning.

Dave Sim: "Avoyd Fornication"

Cerebus #275 (February 2002)
Art by Dave Sim, photo by Ken Sim

DAVE SIM:
(by fax, 29 December 2013)
Hi Tim!

Here's a first! I've never written anything for A MOMENT OF CEREBUS as part of my Sabbath observance. I'm doing so now because I read Susan's commentary of being "dumped" by me in favour of God. (Google image-heavy issues of STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND photo reference are, by forcing me into the coffee shop, perhaps, going to prove a boon to my contributing here).

I don't think "dumped" is an accurate way of looking at it: it was more that, as I became more familiar with Judaism, Christianity and Islam, I recognised that there's a reason that adultery is considered a comparable offence to murder or theft in the Ten Words (or the Ten Commandments as Christians refer to them).

Which, for me, casts a whole new light on my own choices: which choices had been, to that point, "fornication followed by adultery" (I was having an affair that Deni knew about and accepted and occasionally participated in at the time we were married and for about a year after) then followed by fornication (which -- depending on how you interpret Matthew 5:32, 19:3-12, Mark 10:2-12 and Luke 16:18 -- establishes a co-equivalence between divorce and remarriage AS adultery; and which I infer casts an unfavourable light upon post marriage fornication) (the Synoptic Jesus attributing the Bill of Divorcement in Judaism -- Deuteronomy 24:1 -- as "toward the hardheartedness of you he wrote to you the commandment this" seems to me to point quite sharply in that direction). You'll notice that I had Cerebus wrestling with this in the course of RICK'S STORY relative to what he was doing with Joanne. Is fornication just as bad as adultery?

I'm not God, so I don't have a specific "one size fits all" answer for that (I'm not sure that God Himself does: I think that's one of the manifold "Metaphysics of the Universe" spiritual questions that the universe itself was created to answer in excruciating detail over untold millenia and across a nearly infinite number of planets), but, examining myself, it came down to "innermost motivation" insofar as I was able to determine what that was.

I had realised while married to Deni -- pretty early on -- that marriage just wasn't for me: I was not, by nature, a husband. But my atheistic response to that (being a devout atheist at the time) was to get divorced and then "play the field" with what I saw as -- and what proved to be -- a kind of in-built immunity to marriage. Good for me (as I saw it at the time). Not Good for me in an Ethical sense as I became familiar with Scripture.

It seemed to me that there needed to be an "either-or" -- I either needed to be a husband and father or, having determined that that wasn't who I was (which I had definitely determined to be the case as early as 1979), I needed to be completely celibate. There was absolutely no Good that could come of saying "I'm going to adopt the protective coloration of a potential husband -- I'll be a good boyfriend -- but inwardly, I know that this relationship is only going to be temporary."

The General Good and General  Welfare of Society (it seemed to me, as I first examined the question in the late 1990s, and still seems to me) is better served if women are only being courted by potential husbands and potential fathers and fellows like me (or, rather fellows as I was prior to that) stay off the relationship "chessboard" completely. Particularly since women are deciding entirely on their own with whom they are getting involved and to what extent (as opposed to their beaux needing to ask permission of their fathers to become engaged as was the case until the latter half of the last century).

Having been a Bad Boy I can vouch for the fact that the Bad Boy has a disproportionate appeal for many, if not most, women. For some he gives them permission to engage in or endorse their own bad behaviour (not being "AS Bad" as him, she can see herself as being Good while sill being bad), for some he's a "challenge" (she wants to be the one who tames him), for some he's the female equivalent of professional sports (who among the women he's sleeping with is in "first place"? Who is on a winning streak? Who is on a losing streak? Where am I in the "standings"?), for some he's a status symbol equivalent to what the trophy wife is for men: "Look what I'VE got! Eat your heart out!"

But, in the context of the General Good and General Welfare of Society, he's basically a societal vandal: despoiling (or, if you prefer, "despoiling") other men's daughters, sisters, nieces, cousins, aunts, etc. and constituting a distraction and a detriment to the orderly course of the female life well and truly lived. And not just in the course of the relationship, but in the carry-over emotional damage he causes to the individual female psyche. By being emotionally untrustworthy, he damages her ability to trust (in a foundational sense, since most women are emotion-based beings).

This is particularly important, I think, when you consider that science is just now discovering that there are far more serious consequences to female health than have been hitherto been suspected which result from delaying pregnancy, motherhood and lactation much past the mid-twenties. WAY too many women are wasting WAY too many good years -- their own very narrow individual window of individual opportunity -- they can ill afford to waste "dallying" with a Bad Boy -- or Bad Boys -- and/or recovering from the emotional ill effects of such relationships. To the extent that it was once possible for a Bad Boy to say, "Hey, nobody put a gun to her head" and chalking it up to a learning experience for her, that becomes less possible by the day. Fully engaging a female romantically so that she is unable to contemplate an alternative when you are just "playing around" is at least co-equivalent to putting a gun to her head -- or, more aptly, and more gruesomely, to her breasts and to her internal organs -- in terms of the potential long-term damage to her physical health.

So I would suggest it would be more accurate to say that in February 1998 I chose to repent of my fornication and adultery, having recognised that that's ALL my romantic relationships had been or could be when it came to my innermost motivations. A repentance meant giving it up and thereby (hopefully) atoning for it (I'm of the "Don't Continually Apologise And Whinge To God About It: IMPROVE" school of theology).

Summing up my like to the best of my abilities, in my own eyes: I was a completely unrepentant fornicator and adulterer from December 1976 to December 1996 when I began reading The Bible and a hypocritically repentant fornicator and adulterer from December 1996 to February 1998 -- I knew it was wrong but I was still doing it -- when I "dumped" Susan. A total of 21 years and three months.

And I will have been celibate for 16 years in February. If the basis is "time served" (it's always, I think worth remembering that it's God's timetable, not ours, which matters) then, by August of 2013, I had atoned for all of my post marriage fornications and -- God willing -- by May of 2019 I will have atoned for my pre-marriage fornications with Deni and my adulterous liaison of 1978-1979.

"Was I Dumped For God?"

Susan Alston (2013)
Photo by John Suchocki

SUSAN ALSTON:
(from a comment posted to The One About Dave Sim by Heidi MacDonald, February 2008)

Well done Heidi! You have captured the essence of the external Dave Sim. I have to say though, as Dave Sim's last known girlfriend, that this was not the rhetoric/speak/persona he used in my presence in the almost five intimate years that I spent with him (1994-1999). He was a very contemporary thinking and emancipated guy. Yes, he had feminists issues, not unlike the anti-male rhetoric from us in the 80s, (and yes he had mother/sister/girlfriend/wife issues from his past) - but a true misogynist - not in my opinion. We discussed such things at great lengths - but I could never keep up with him on any subject - he is a brilliant well-read person, and would obsess about certain subjects for weeks at a time, reading everything he could find about whatever he wanted to know about. 

He supported my efforts as the Executive Director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, oftentimes coaching me for media interviews or writing my ‘stump speeches’ for convention appearances etc. He adored my little dog, Smutty Nose, and pampered her like a baby! He was a very romantic guy too; he would call me on the phone and sing me Frank Sinatra songs. Sometimes he 'cooked' for me! He was very fair about equally dividing time between his home and mine (500 miles apart). Sometime we would decide to connect at Cons. 

His oratory did change after he started reading the King James' version of the bible. But not at the beginning. At first he would read me passages in complete jest, his inflections and emphasis on certain words and phrases (taken out of the intended context) would have laughing so hard I had to wipe back my tears! Then, suddenly, he stopped reading to me from the bible, even though I asked him to. The bible traveled with him everywhere after that, never far from his eyes. We broke up within a year or so from the start of his relationship with the bible, when his love affair with god began. Was I dumped for god? 

I am not defending him; he did disappear into his own void for days at a time, and came out elated and refreshed. We agreed not to communicate when his hair started to grow and he began to snarl. I used to track them on my calendar, every 30-45 days, like a menstrual period! I am not sure what he did there, perhaps became his evil twin Viktor Davis. Is he bi-polar, a schizophrenic? Maybe. I'll reveal more when I publish my own book, Dave Sim’s Last Girlfriend - coming soon...

Susan Alston, the CBLDF's first Executive Director (1993-1997) and former board member (1997-1999), is a development, marketing, and communications professional based in western Massachusetts, USA. Alston began her career as Assistant Director of Marketing at Bank of Boston, then as Director of Administration at Tundra Publishing, owned by Kevin Eastman. In 1993, Tundra merged into Kitchen Sink Press, whereupon Denis Kitchen offered her a part-time position overseeing CBLDF administration. Shortly thereafter, with the onset of the Mike Diana case and a large donation from Dave Sim, the position was moved to fulltime. After leaving CBLDF in 1999, Alston took her interest in fundraising, marketing, and communications and honed them at positions with Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, VNA HealthCare, and Center for Human Development. In 2012, Alston earned her Master’s degree in Strategic Fundraising and Philanthropy from Bay Path College. Alston rejoined the CBLDF in 2013 serving on its newly formed Advisory Board together with Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Jim Lee, Matt Groening, Mike Richardson, Chip Kidd, Louise Nemchoff and Frenchy Lunning.

Dave Sim's Last Girlfriend

Dave Sim's Last Girfriend:
The Collected Letters & Faxes Of Dave Sim & Susan Alston
(Simon & Schuster, April 2016)

DAVE SIM:
(from a letter to Susan Alston dated 19 March 2004, reprinted in 'Dave Sim's Collected Letters 2004')

You certainly don't need any permission to print your own views on what you remember of myself or Cerebus, nor am I any kind of stickler for keeping my correspondence or personal memorabilia private. I would caution you against such a course of action only because Cerebus isn't really that kind of thing. I'm reminded of the memoir of Adele Morales of her marriage to Norman Mailer (which cost me an exorbitant sum when I found it in Chapters). I knew going in that it was probably not going to contain anything interesting, merely the salacious and the mundane and in that I wasn't disappointed. A good example was dinner with Edmund Wilson. Having just excerpted his F. Scott Fitzgerald parody from Discordant Encounters in the annotations to Going Home, I was on the edge of my seat to see what he and Mailer would discuss. All Adele remembered was that Wilson had a piece of food lodged in one of his teeth throughout the dinner and that that had repelled her. And that was all she had to say about Edmund Wilson. "Serves me right," I thought, remembering the sixty dollars or so the hardcover volume had cost me. "Serves me bloody well right."

...if you have something to add to any discussion of the creative side of the book or if you remember any of the conversations that I had with [Steve] Bissette or with [Rick] Veitch about various aspects of the comic-book medium or with Larry [Marder] about the business, that would be useful in its own way... But, as I recall, the start of those discussions was usually when you decided it was time to go to bed.

As well as being Dave Sim's last girlfriend, Susan Alston served as executive director of the Comic Book Legal Defence Fund.

New Book Announcement: Dave Sim's Last Girlfriend

Dave Sim's Last Girlfriend
by Dave Sim & Susan Alston
Simon & Schuster
$16.99

Publishing Date:
On or around 7 August 2012

Book Description:

No figure in comics has been as polarizing as Dave Sim. His long-running series, Cerebus the Aardvark, is seen as one of the singular accomplishments in the history of the form. He has been a champion of self-publishing and of creator rights. But his unorthodox world views on religion and feminism, oft-espoused within the pages of his comics, are seen as regressive by many and have alienated a large swath of his audience. In these pages, you'll see direct reproductions of the faxes and letters exchanged between Dave and his last and final girlfriend. From the sweet, tender moments to the painful throes of breaking up, these unfiltered, unedited letters will give you a seat on the roller coaster this couple rode right off the tracks.

More details at Bleeding Cool.