Printing Cost Blues & Auction Mania!! (Dave's Weekly Update #222)

Hi, Everybody!

Heeeeeere's Dave:

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

I haven't found any Cerebus In Hell? original art auctions on the eBays, but I'll update as more info comes in. Promise.

UPDATE: There it is!

Next time:Gee what do I got around the house I could donate for Dave to auction?

Update from Dave

Hi. Everybody!

Reading Cerebus is on a hiatus until Kevin's computer stops being such a little bitch.

So what do I got for you today?

More remembrances of my early life with Cerebus?

What? Why not?

A link from Sean R.?

Really? No?

I know, an update from Dave about the pricing on future Kickstarters?

Oh, okay then...

So I sent Dave a fax wherein I included all the comments from this week's update about future Kickstarters. And Dave responded, thusly:

I faxed him about a number of topics, Kickstarter was #3.

And now you know.

The Cerebus Archive Kickstarters started at $8 a page for ten pages. That price didn't include the cost of the notes page. Which has expanded with every new Archive. And the price has stayed the same for four years.

Well, sound off in the comments, and I'll forward them to Dave.

Next time: Wanna hear what Dave said about your wife?

The Cerebus-Ending Crisis: Can We Keep Going? - Part 14

CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6

A Portfolio of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints with Exclusive Commentary by Dave Sim

Raising Funds For The Restoration & Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel 

Kickstarter ends 10th December

HI! DAVE SIM HERE! ANNOUNCING THAT KICKSTARTER CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6 (CAN6) HAS LAUNCHED! CLICK HERE TO LINK TO IT! AND PLEASE JOIN ME HERE EVERY DAY AS I DISCUSS, WITH CEREBUS FANS, THE "CEREBUS-ENDING CRISIS" WE'VE BEEN IN SINCE JULY OF THIS YEAR:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

FOURTEENTH AND FINAL PART!

More responses to the survey question "Do you have any suggestions for future Kickstarter campaigns?".

Peter S Waterloo ON :
maybe t-shirts

Hi, Peter! There are several problems with t-shirts. One is that they're different sizes so you can't just order, say, a dozen. You have to order a dozen S, a dozen M, a dozen L and a dozen XL and a dozen XXL and then you run out of one of the sizes when you still have a half-dozen of the others left. All of your money tends to be tied up in your inventory and as soon as you sell out, you need to print more of whatever size(s).

They're also expensive. The t-shirt itself is a fixed cost and people have a mental image of what they'll pay for a t-shirt and those two prices are very close together.

The reason that CEREBUS ARCHIVE works (so far, anyway) is that we're printing copies that cost 59 cents each and selling them for 10 dollars. On the scale that CEREBUS has dwindled to, you literally need to have that size of a profit margin to have any way of keeping going. That's why I designed CEREBUS ARCHIVE the way that I did: What's the least expensive format and number of pages I can imagine that I can charge the most for?

Are there are other things like that that would work? So far, we haven't come up with anything, but if we all keep focussing on it, maybe we will.

Margaret L Buzzard's Bay, MA:
I really liked the collected letters volumes, more of those please. also, a digital / pdf of the CEREBUS ARCHIVE comics - I know I have them all, but there are many out there who would like to get them. Also, if Dave's hand is still on the mend, he doesn't need to sign my prints. I rather his hand get better for TSDoAR.

More COLLECTED LETTERS on the way, Margaret!

I appreciate your thoughtfulness in offering to have me not sign your prints, Margaret, but SIGNING isn't a problem with my right hand. It takes a while for me to find the exact right position: by making sure that the right hand is FULLY extended so that the index finger is in a straight line from my elbow and my forearm is resting on a folded up towel. But, once I'm "there" and Rollie (or whoever: it's usually Rollie) is pulling the plates off as I'm signing them, I blow through all of the plates -- roughly 3,000 signatures -- in about four hours.

We take a pen and mark where the corners of the plates go on the desk. The stack can only be "so" high, but as long as the stack goes in the same place and as long as I keep my hand in the correct alignment, everything's fine.

We don't converse, while I'm doing this: if we start talking then I lose focus on keeping the hand in a straight line and the wrist starts to tighten up: it's just four hours of pure focus in absolute quiet.

[In fact, that part is getting better. It used to be -- CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER FOUR -- that I could do about 10 or 12 signatures and then there would be a "hiccup" in the wrist where the signature would land about a quarter of an inch to the left of where it was supposed to and I had to "roll" the forearm about a quarter of an inch to the right when I could feel it was about to happen. That didn't happen signing CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER FIVE a couple of weeks ago.]

It's one of the few things I CAN do without having any impact on the wrist. It's all fingers and thumb, there's no wrist involved. I get a stiff neck on my left side because maintaining a FULLY extended right hand/arm at right angles to my torso and keeping it there, the stress has to go somewhere and it's my neck. But it's very gratifying that there is at least ONE USEFUL THING I can do with my right hand and it's sign my name. As many as you want. All day and all night.

It's the reason that I don't have much confidence in medical science for this: people don't hear what it is that I'm saying when I explain it to them, so I've stopped trying to explain it. "We treat HOCKEY PLAYERS who make MILLIONS OF DOLLARS!" Yes, but what hockey players use THEIR wrists for is like a monkey wrench and what I used to use MY wrist for was like a Stradivarius. You can't repair a Stradivarius as if you were fixing a monkey wrench. Which is, I'm afraid, what they were talking about doing.

Signatures are zero problem. Ask me to pull open the waxed paper inside of a box of cereal and THERE there's a problem or to open a cardboard box and THERE there's a problem because it's ALL wrist. Or ask me to draw something which requires the interaction of wrist and fingers and thumb -- and ALL drawing requires the interaction of wrist and fingers and thumb -- and it just doesn't work. The line doesn't go down where I want it to go down because all I'm aware of is the wrist and that it isn't doing what the fingers and thumb need it to do. You can't draw if all you're aware of is your wrist.

Jan E Malmo SWEDEN:
Get that IDW Cerebus covers volume out sometime SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON

It finally arrived at the end of October, Jan. Hope you managed to find a copy!

The Cerebus-Ending Crisis: Can We Keep Going? - Part 13

CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6

A Portfolio of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints with Exclusive Commentary by Dave Sim

Raising Funds For The Restoration & Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel 

Kickstarter ends 10th December

HI! DAVE SIM HERE! ANNOUNCING THAT KICKSTARTER CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6 (CAN6) HAS LAUNCHED! CLICK HERE TO LINK TO IT! AND PLEASE JOIN ME HERE EVERY DAY AS I DISCUSS, WITH CEREBUS FANS, THE "CEREBUS-ENDING CRISIS" WE'VE BEEN IN SINCE JULY OF THIS YEAR:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART THIRTEEN OF FOURTEEN

More responses to the survey question "Do you have any suggestions for future Kickstarter campaigns?".

Thomas B West Monroe LA :
When done with the regular CEREBUS ARCHIVES, maybe an Archive with some of the CEREBUS JAM material and/or the "Young Cerebus" stuff from Epic Comics would be nice.

That's one of the problems with the CEREBUS ARCHIVE PORTFOLIO Project is that there's no "done" to it. It's going to take roughly three years -- IF we can hit five of them a year, which is a Big If -- to "cycle through" the trade paperbacks once: ten pages each. The smallest trades are 250 pages. I'll be long dead -- and so will you -- before we get even halfway through CEREBUS in toto.

It's a recurring conversation we have around here. Sandeep suggests interrupting the sequence at some point to do an "all-covers" CEREBUS ARCHIVE Portfolio. But, I don't think we want to do that. "Go for what you know". This is working and there's no way of telling if an "all-covers" Portfolio would work. And if it doesn't work, we might not get a chance to "switch back". WHICH covers? How many covers?

I like the format that we have because it means that I'm "getting somewhere" even if it's just ten pages at a time. "There. I'll never have to look at or talk about the first ten pages of JAKA'S STORY again!" That counts for a lot with me.

If I was going to experiment, it would be with THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND once I have Carson's bridging material and the first 20 pages are "carved in stone".

But (central point to this) we have no idea where "saturation" is for Dave Sim ARTIST'S EDITIONS Portfolios.

Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.

Al R Halfmoon NY :
Bonus Prints - Cerebus Statue - Phone Book Cover posters

Hi, Al! All these are covered earlier in this series. 1) Maybe later and probably just one 2) a vinyl figure is the only thing being work on and 3) not possible with the fixed size of the CEREBUS ARCHIVE Portfolio mailer.

Thanks for your input, though, and for being a "regular" here on AMOC.

Shaun P Hove UNITED KINGDOM:
cerebus plushies

James S Midland Park NJ:
The Cerebus Plush. :-D

This would really hinge on someone being enthusiastic enough to DO -- design, manufacture and ship -- plush toys because the CEREBUS market is so small, you'd really have to service the demand one at a time.

Way back when Sally Hitchens did the first one, I could see up close what a headache it was: non-stop stitching little ears and little arms and little legs and a white eyeball and eyes onto the thing.

It has a certain "nesting" quality to it that appeals to some women and that appealed to Sally -- making little, CUTE things for people. But, seriously: how many hours can you push a curved needle through thick faux fur before those cute little "arms" and "legs" become, self-evidently, just WAY TOO Labour-Intensive a repetitive action for what people are willing to pay and how CUTE the finished product is going to be starts slipping down your personal hit parade?

I mean, if you know anyone who is interested and they want to send me a CEREBUS plush and tell me what it would cost to make them, I'll be happy to see if I can make the numbers work. Probably by saying that Aardvark-Vanaheim will forego its royalty. But that definitely moves it out of Top priority because there's virtually no profit margin.

THANKS FOR JOINING US! MY DISCUSSION OF THE "CEREBUS- ENDING CRISIS" CONTINUES TOMORROW ON A MOMENT OF CEREBUS:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

CONCLUDES TOMORROW!

The Cerebus-Ending Crisis: Can We Keep Going? - Part 12

CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6

A Portfolio of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints with Exclusive Commentary by Dave Sim

Raising Funds For The Restoration & Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel 

Kickstarter ends 10th December

HI! DAVE SIM HERE! ANNOUNCING THAT KICKSTARTER CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6 (CAN6) HAS LAUNCHED! CLICK HERE TO LINK TO IT! AND PLEASE JOIN ME HERE EVERY DAY AS I DISCUSS, WITH CEREBUS FANS, THE "CEREBUS-ENDING CRISIS" WE'VE BEEN IN SINCE JULY OF THIS YEAR:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART TWELVE OF FOURTEEN

More responses to the survey question "Do you have any suggestions for future Kickstarter campaigns?".

ORDERING BOOKS

Erik B J Honolulu HI:
I really liked the option of additional prints. I would like to know if adding the option to purchase whichever book is being reprinted is possible.

Hi, Erik! I'm afraid not. At least for the foreseeable future, Aardvark-Vanaheim isn't in the business of selling CEREBUS trades directly to fans. 1) It's just too labour-intensive and costly for the $$ return (by the time that we charge you what it costs to package a book and mail it to you, the cost is prohibitive compared with you going to your LCS and asking them to order you a copy); 2) it would require expanding the warehousing side of the business (our storage costs TRIPLED when the warehouse in Leamington closed and we moved the books up here. It's taken a whole year to get the storage costs down to DOUBLE what they were in 2015).

It also runs afoul of the "bare bones" approach. It's taken six Kickstarters to get to the core of How To Do This, but a central element is: whatever we offer has to fit in the shipping box designed to hold One Portfolio. The shipping box is the primary "given". A book won't fit in there with the One Portfolio, therefore it isn't "doable".

Wish I had better news for you!

WRITER NOTES

John O Austin TX:
Writer notes? Include a paragraph or two about the panel/art that only KS backers will get?

I intended to do NOTES about the writing, John, but, the way the NOTES have evolved on the CEREBUS ARCHIVE Portfolios I know what it is I have to talk about as soon as I look at one of the pages. Sometimes it's about the writing. Sometimes it's about what was going on at the time (the CHURCH & STATE II Notes HAD to be about the stay at the Gainesville Hilton), sometimes it's about how I told the story. Sometimes it's about Gerhard's backgrounds. I don't know until I get there and then that's what it consists of. If I committed to "writer notes" and then looked at the page and had nothing to say about the writing of it...

…there's too much "sitting and staring" associated with the NOTES as it is as I get "sucked back" to whatever year it was! Thanks for the suggestion, though.

Eric B Muncie IN:
I really liked the access to the notebooks.

Glad to hear it, Eric! More on the way, this time (as you can see!)

 Marc L HATFIELD UNITED KINGDOM:
a reprint of THE ANIMATED CEREBUS Portfolio & diamondback cards.

Anthony K Welland ON:
Reprint the Diamondback Card set

Carl H Mendon MA:
Make the unsigned bookplates available

Jay O Boise ID:
The Spawn print

Having lost $16,000 on THE ANIMATED CEREBUS Portfolio back in the early 1980s (when you could still buy most of a house for that much money), I'm really gun-shy about going anywhere near it in terms of printing. There is a restored version of it in digital form that Lou Copeland, my production guy on JUDENHASS, did. 45 plates is just way too many plates to deal with comfortably in pretty much any form.

We do have some Diamondback decks available. We tried incorporating them into Kickstarter, but they were just too small to ship with the CEREBUS ARCHIVE Portfolio without getting damaged (likewise the unsigned bookplates, Carl, and the SPAWN Print, Jay). I keep trying to think of a way around that: like putting them in a plastic bag and then taping the bag shut and taping the bag to the bag holding the Portfolio. But, there you get into "labour intensive" again as well as the unlikelihood that everyone is going to want a Diamondback deck as part of their Pledge. Also, removing the tape from the plastic bag holding the Portfolio is apt to make the plastic bag "pucker" which you'll then have to live with. I don't think anyone would want that.

I'm definitely open to anyone's brainstorm on how to get around the problem of small items rattling around loose in the mailer.

THANKS FOR JOINING US! MY DISCUSSION OF THE "CEREBUS- ENDING CRISIS" CONTINUES TOMORROW ON A MOMENT OF CEREBUS:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART THIRTEEN

The Cerebus-Ending Crisis: Can We Keep Going? - Part 11

CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6

A Portfolio of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints with Exclusive Commentary by Dave Sim

Raising Funds For The Restoration & Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel 

Kickstarter ends 10th December

HI! DAVE SIM HERE! ANNOUNCING THAT KICKSTARTER CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6 (CAN6) HAS LAUNCHED! CLICK HERE TO LINK TO IT! AND PLEASE JOIN ME HERE EVERY DAY AS I DISCUSS, WITH CEREBUS FANS, THE "CEREBUS-ENDING CRISIS" WE'VE BEEN IN SINCE JULY OF THIS YEAR:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART ELEVEN OF FOURTEEN

More responses to the survey question "Do you have any suggestions for future Kickstarter campaigns?". Hot Topic #3 was definitely original artwork/sketches:

ORIGINAL ARTWORK

Kent K Saskatoon SK:
Obviously original art or drawings from Dave Sim is the best (but understandable if it can't be included)

David B Corning NY:
I would love the opportunity for some Cerebus original art!

Joe G Saugus MA:
Some way of getting sketches or original art as rewards would be great.

Andreas K Berlin GERMANY:
I would have like to pledge extra for a Jaka headsketch or drawing

Adrian D Niddrie VIC AUSTRALIA:
I would love to see sketches avaliable again if/when Dave is able to do them again. Otherwise, I'd like to see an option for one higher quality print (Lithograph/Giclee or similar) maybe once or twice a year at a higher price ($50 to $100).

Murray R Brooklin ON:
Sim commissions (when his hand allows him to draw again!)

John W Mechanicsburg PA:
Keep it up and keep it simple. A top tier that allows you to select an original art page from the subject phonebook would be amazing.

The situation is that the right wrist is "not good". I'm still hopeful that by resting it, somewhere up ahead, I'll be able to do SOME of the artwork on STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND while letting Karl Stevens and Carson Grubaugh do most of the heavy lifting. In this case, "somewhere up ahead" is measured in YEARS and I have no idea HOW MANY years. I'm about four years into the research/writing side and I'd be surprised if I'm much past the halfway point. So, even at the most optimistic it will be 2021 or 2022 before I can even EXPERIMENT with drawing again. If I AM able to draw, that's where I'm going to be doing ALL of my drawing.

In practical terms? Dave Sim the CEREBUS Artist is dead. Which means however many CEREBUS pages and drawings exist, it is now a finite amount.

Which means, as the sole custodian of the Cerebus Archive -- to whatever extent I would have considered selling artwork before February 2015 -- I have no intention of letting ANY part of my finite "stake" in CEREBUS original artwork go. If I do, it will be because Aardvark-Vanaheim was no longer viable as a business, in which case I would just trickle the artwork out through Heritage Auctions for the sake of simplicity.

Bottom line: no Dave Sim or CEREBUS artwork is going to be made publicly available except through Heritage Auctions.

Hot Topic #4 was definitely hardcovers:

HARDCOVERS

Bill R Uniontown OH:
Hardcover S/N Limited Edition of the CAN book!

Tom P Ridgewood NJ:
Hardcover books. :) I think they will do better than expected.

Florian S Weil am Rhein GERMANY:
Cerebus Hardcover with good paper. Notebooks and Letters as printed books.

Jim M Seminole FL:
Glamorpuss Hard Cover Collection

Just on a whim, I contacted our Retailer Patron, Tim F, and asked him what he would be willing to pay for colour CEREBUS ARCHIVE-style copies of all the pages from GUYS and MINDS (his two favourite books) in the Cerebus Archive bound as hardcovers and he came back with an offer of $20,000 US. So, that's the Gold Standard right now when it comes to hardcovers. The downside is that I can't really offer the same thing to anyone else for substantially less without "ripping Tim F off".

This is definitely a TOP priority because $20K pays a lot of bills. Our printer who does the CEREBUS ARCHIVE Portfolios is in touch with Tim F and will be offering him a spectrum of paper choices suited to his own preferences as an Artists Editions collector. We'll also fine-tune the exposure/greyness to suit his personal preferences. Anyone else with deep pockets like that, feel free to contact us about your own personalized, custom-tailored hardcovers.

In terms of general hardcovers being made available of my work, there's a post for July 6, 2016 here on AMOC that covers all of the questions I would have for anyone who was proposing to do hardcovers of any of the CEREBUS trades. I've memorized the date because it's a recurring question, so I covered all of the concerns that I would have -- and explained why -- all in one semi-lengthy post. And I haven't heard back from anyone I've referred to that post. Nor do I expect to. It would be nice if CEREBUS was popular enough to be reprinted in hardcover, but it isn't. We're just about (I hope) big enough to keep going on the "bare bones" basis I've outlined. Hardcovers really aren't in the "bare bones" category, unfortunately!

But, if you read the July 6, 2016 posting and can see something there that I'm missing, I'm always happy to be proven wrong!

THANKS FOR JOINING US! MY DISCUSSION OF THE "CEREBUS- ENDING CRISIS" CONTINUES TOMORROW ON A MOMENT OF CEREBUS:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART TWELVE

The Cerebus-Ending Crisis: Can We Keep Going? - Part 10

CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6

A Portfolio of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints with Exclusive Commentary by Dave Sim

Raising Funds For The Restoration & Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel 

Kickstarter ends 10th December

HI! DAVE SIM HERE! ANNOUNCING THAT KICKSTARTER CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6 (CAN6) HAS LAUNCHED! CLICK HERE TO LINK TO IT! AND PLEASE JOIN ME HERE EVERY DAY AS I DISCUSS, WITH CEREBUS FANS, THE "CEREBUS-ENDING CRISIS" WE'VE BEEN IN SINCE JULY OF THIS YEAR:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART TEN OF FOURTEEN

More responses to the survey question "Do you have any suggestions for future Kickstarter campaigns?":

Alan S UNITED KINGDOM:
Better plan of stretch goals/bonus prints.

We're definitely working on having a better plan of our stretch goals -- having the digital rewards as stretch goals REALLY didn't work and sincere apologies to everyone who thought they got "burned" on that -- and bonus prints, Alan. And Step One in that is keeping everything 100% simple for the next two or three Kickstarters before we attempt anything else. We have to learn to walk before we try running.

BONUS PRINT KICKSTARTER

Stephen L Newark DE:
Since the bonus prints have been retired, perhaps a "bonus print only" Kickstarter, so I can obtain some of the ones I missed and had hoped to get with future KS campaigns.

Jennifer D New York NY:
It would be nice to be able to get the handful of prints I wasn't able to get last time

Sandeep and I are definitely having a lot of conversations about how to deal with the situation. As I indicated to Alan (above) having "bare bones" as the TOP priority lets out having anything to do with the Bonus Prints for the foreseeable future. However:

I guess my biggest question for ALL of the Pledge Partners would be: how much of a problem is this?

1) are there Bonus Prints that you would have purchased if we had continued to make them available?
2) How many Bonus Prints are you "missing"?
3) Which ones are they?
4) Would you be willing to pay a premium price -- say $25-$40 each -- for the ones you're "missing"?

The reason that I pose it that way, Stephen and Jennifer, is that it would involve a substantial amount of labour and -- because of the microscopic quantities involved -- really drive up the production costs. At the same time, I can understand that it's a major "loose end" to the Bonus Prints program for…a lot?…some?…many?…most? Just you two? Pledge partners. And if there's a way to "wrap it up" that benefits both sides of the partnership and can be instituted with a minimum amount of fuss, we'll see what we can do.

The Bonus Prints were definitely Hot Topic #1 this time around:

BONUS PRINTS

Morten E NORWAY:
Can we include cover prints in the rewards?

John C Lake Charles LA:
I LOVE the Bonus Prints, and hope to see more of them in the future.

Cerdic G London UNITED KINGDOM:
Would like to see the bonus prints again some time!

MICHAEL HUNT Chicago IL:
I really do like the bonus prints but their absence won't keep me from continuing to support future CAs.

Simon C H UNITED KINGDOM:
Please reintroduce bonus prints if possible. Thanks

David R Margate UNITED KINGDOM:
Bonus Prints! Even if it's only a few per CAN

Richard P Coldfield UNITED KINGDOM:
If you reinstate the bonus prints I would like to see some selected colour covers of individual issues.

John D Overland Park KS:
I would love to see more bonus prints... Maybe, considering the possible complications of continuing them, just the option of 2 or 3 per campaign. I love the cover art. It would be neat to see a cover available each time, possibly one from the time period of the particular campaign?

Andrew L North Chelmsford MA:
The Return of the Bonus Print!

Lee T Birmingham UNITED KINGDOM:
Bring back the bonus prints!

Matthew Barber Edinburgh UNITED KINGDOM:
I know they are hard work but I do like the bonus prints.

This isn't really the BEST time to be discussing the Bonus Prints -- with "bare bones" as our Top priority for the foreseeable future -- but our best thinking at the moment is that if we DID do the Bonus Prints at some point, it would have to be a mandatory, rather than optional, part of the package.

As an example that we explored: What if we made four of the MELMOTH covers the stretch goals? If we hit the $$ thresholds, you could order this cover and that cover -- as John D says, just 2 or 3 per campaign.

The problem is, for someone who can BARELY AFFORD the Portfolio as is, suddenly finding out that they're "on the hook" for 2 or 3 covers they don't particularly want -- or not enough to pay another 20 or 30 dollars on top of what they're already paying… Well, that's isn't going to fly. Likewise someone who just wants ONE of the covers. As soon as you introduce any element of "have it your way" into the equation, you IMMEDIATELY make both the execution and the ordering more difficult.

Which runs afoul of Hot Topic #2 -- people DEFINITELY liked the all-around simpler structure with CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER FIVE!:

KEEP IT SIMPLE!

Chris S Saint Cloud MN:
Keep it simple. Even this one is too complex.

Giorgio S High Wycombe UNITED KINGDOM:
No - you are doing great! I like the simplicity of this one.

Travis P Vestal NY:
I do like the bonus prints, but let's see what happens with this campaign! Otherwise, I dunno. Man, this was an easy survey!

Chris D Chicago IL:
I appreciated the simpler number of options and the digital rewards.

Scott L Gunnison CO:
No. I do like the simpler process this time.

Ari K Tampere FINLAND:
Keep it simple

William H Patterson CA:
This was better, more simplified. Keep it as simple as possible I feel.

If this was CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER EIGHT (let's say), and we were past the "bare bones" phase, I think we would start with the simplest form of Bonus Print possible: One. "The price has gone up by [fill in the blank] but in addition to the first ten pages of MELMOTH in the CEREBUS ARCHIVE, you're also getting a print of CEREBUS COVER No. ??". And then we would make that a Survey question: 1) would you prefer we go back to "bare bones" 2) does one Bonus Cover still fit your budget? and 3) do you want us to "double down" and do two Bonus Covers next time?

Just letting you know where we're headed well ahead of time.

THANKS FOR JOINING US! MY DISCUSSION OF THE "CEREBUS-ENDING CRISIS" CONTINUES NEXT WEEK ON A MOMENT OF CEREBUS:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART ELEVEN

The Cerebus-Ending Crisis: Can We Keep Going? - Part 9

CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6

A Portfolio of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints with Exclusive Commentary by Dave Sim

Raising Funds For The Restoration & Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel 

Kickstarter ends 10th December

HI! DAVE SIM HERE! ANNOUNCING THAT KICKSTARTER CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6 (CAN6) HAS LAUNCHED! CLICK HERE TO LINK TO IT! AND PLEASE JOIN ME HERE EVERY DAY AS I DISCUSS, WITH CEREBUS FANS, THE "CEREBUS-ENDING CRISIS" WE'VE BEEN IN SINCE JULY OF THIS YEAR:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART NINE OF FOURTEEN

More responses to the survey question "Do you have any suggestions for future Kickstarter campaigns?":

Robert R Van Nuys C:
Digital or print collection of all the CEREBUS ARCHIVE comic books. Thank you!

Nolan R Los Angeles CA:
A digital collection of CEREBUS ARCHIVE comicbook (all the Dave pre-Cerebus stuff)

I'm still wrestling with how to treat the CEREBUS ARCHIVE comic books. It seems to me that there are three problems: 1) the people who weren't able to order the last few issues before ComiXpress went out of business and, consequently, want to get copies of those individual comic books 2) the people who are interested, but came late and want a trade paperback collecting all of the material and 3) people who are interested in the material but aren't going to be willing to pay a premium price for individual comic books or a trade paperback but would be happy with a digital version so they can at least SEE the pre-history of CEREBUS.

I suspect that the three solutions are 1) individual comic books through the KA-BLAM print-on-demand comics site and 2) a trade paperback collection through the KA BLAM print-on-demand comics site and 3) a digital version at cerebusdownloads.com.

The problem is preparation time. If we were guaranteed that there would be a substantial revenue stream then we could justify investing in the prep time getting all of the material ready as a TOP priority. The track record wasn't good (as in, miserable) with ComiXpress so that puts this one on the "back burner". Only so many hours in the day, only so many days in the week.

TOP priority goes to things that will generate immediate, large cash returns to feed the insatiable maw of the CEREBUS scanning, restoration and preservation work.

Mikael S Stockholm:
Posters with some of the covers would be nice.

Hi, Mikael! Posters in terms of "bigger than 11x17" and "we print them and ship them to you" are out of the question because of the EXTREMELY SMALL VOLUMES we're dealing with. We attempted to deal with the problem with THE CEREBUS OVERSIZED PROJECT which allows CEREBUS fans to download high-rez oversized images and get their own posters done -- as big as you want!

Some people liked it, but it pretty much flatlined after the first week or so. Which, again, moves it out of the TOP priority category and (in this case) to "no incentive to revisit it": it's just more trouble than it's worth.

There are SOME covers available there so I hope you can find at least one that you want and get a poster of it printed, Mikael!

Had the project been successful we could have added to it, but, as I say, it flatlined.

As long as everything is kept to the 11x17 size and every Kickstarter package is the same, we can turn enough of a profit to keep the doors open and the lights on. Even keeping the structure "bare bones" simple, as we did this time, the $30,000 pledged drops to $27,000 after Amazon takes their cut and out of that we have roughly $10,000 in shipping and printing costs and $2,000 in labour costs. So, if we can do one of them every three months that means revenue of $5,000 a month. That's GOOD MONEY for an individual person but not-so-good for a business. A business "gross" always looks good. It's when you compare it to the "net" that you realize almost all business revenues come in and go right back out in expenses.

We're going to stay at "bare bones" until we make sure that we can hit the "three months" mark and that as many of our Pledge Partners can afford to keep up. Both open questions right now. But, as you'll see, a cover Bonus Print is a tentative option somewhere out in the future.

THANKS FOR JOINING US! MY DISCUSSION OF THE "CEREBUS- ENDING CRISIS" CONTINUES TOMORROW ON A MOMENT OF CEREBUS:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART TEN

The Cerebus-Ending Crisis: Can We Keep Going? - Part 8

CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6

A Portfolio of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints with Exclusive Commentary by Dave Sim

Raising Funds For The Restoration & Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel 

Kickstarter ends 10th December

HI! DAVE SIM HERE! ANNOUNCING THAT KICKSTARTER CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6 (CAN6) HAS LAUNCHED! CLICK HERE TO LINK TO IT! AND PLEASE JOIN ME HERE EVERY DAY AS I DISCUSS, WITH CEREBUS FANS, THE "CEREBUS-ENDING CRISIS" WE'VE BEEN IN SINCE JULY OF THIS YEAR:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART EIGHT OF FOURTEEN

In answer to our survey question "Do you have any suggestions for future Kickstarter campaigns?" ErikV of the Netherlands wrote:

No, but as an aside: I contacted you earlier and asked you to ship my portfolio expedited since I still have a credit of CDN $ 60.00

Sincere apologies, Erik, but this is one of the things that we're not going to be able to do with the CEREBUS ARCHIVE Project "going forward". The only way that we can make this project work is to have uniform packages and uniform shipping. Each variation in the package and each variation in the method of shipping slows the whole process down for everyone.

That having been said, I would like to apologize for what has become for you an unconscionable good "year-plus" carry-over in your $60 overpayment and I'd like to offer you, as compensation, to either make your copy of CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER SIX complementary or offering you a complementary copy (#/??? to be determined) in addition to your regular #7.

This dovetails with another decision that we've made:

We're going to try to come closer to "print to order" from now on. We printed 300 of CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER FIVE but we're going to print 250 of CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER SIX, making it the rarest Aardvark-Vanaheim publication (even including the CEREBUS No. 201 ashcan edition) outside of the original Fan Club Newsletters. It's time to build in the rarity that the people who have stuck with us this long are entitled to, I think.

Let me say that I was VERY pleased that the number of Survey answers to the question: "Do you have any suggestions for future Kickstarters?" was about half made up of people who just said "No" or "No. Just keep them coming." Particularly since this was not only our first try at running one of these but also because of the drastic change with dropping the Bonus Prints.

Robert L Austin TX and Stephen L of Vancouver BC also responded to the survey question "Do you have any suggestions for future Kickstarter campaigns?"and asked about Cerebus Figurines:

Have you ever considered figurines or 3D renderings of Cerebus?

George Peter Gatsis is presently working on a Second Draft of a CEREBUS Vinyl Figure that (theoretically, anyway) I should be able to add to with modelling clay to try and make it look more like Cerebus. It's a very elaborate process which we've taken as far as we can from 2-dimensional drawings I did for him (way back when when I could draw) and which now needs to be "finessed" so that every aspect of the character is accurate.

The unknown variables are "how many people are interested in buying one?" "How much are they willing to pay?" and "How much are the 'all-in' costs?" which might make even limited mass production of a figure prohibitive.

In which case, we will probably auction on eBay however-many-prototypes it takes us to get a 100% accurate Cerebus as individual art objects in a photo-box signed and authenticated by me.

Watch AMOC for Updates!

THANKS FOR JOINING US! MY DISCUSSION OF THE "CEREBUS- ENDING CRISIS" CONTINUES TOMORROW ON A MOMENT OF CEREBUS:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART NINE

The Cerebus-Ending Crisis: Can We Keep Going? - Part 7

CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6

A Portfolio of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints with Exclusive Commentary by Dave Sim

Raising Funds For The Restoration & Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel 

Kickstarter ends 10th December

HI! DAVE SIM HERE! ANNOUNCING THAT KICKSTARTER CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6 (CAN6) HAS LAUNCHED! CLICK HERE TO LINK TO IT! AND PLEASE JOIN ME HERE EVERY DAY AS I DISCUSS, WITH CEREBUS FANS, THE "CEREBUS-ENDING CRISIS" WE'VE BEEN IN SINCE JULY OF THIS YEAR:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART SEVEN OF FOURTEEN

The plain answer to: Okay, so why NOT stay in bed 24/7 apart from prayer times and eating?

It was CEREBUS that got me here, which means it's CEREBUS fans who got me here and I'm definitely not unmindful of that. Quite the contrary. It's a lifelong debt I'll never be able to repay. I look at CEREBUS, personally, in that sense, as a metaphorical booster rocket that I shed in 2004. It got me out here to where I am. But, now, personally, I don't need it anymore.

I would, however, I think, be doing a disservice to the hardcore CEREBUS fans if I treated the intellectual property that way: CEREBUS as a species of detritus in my life. So that's a big part of Where We Are: me trying to be supportive of CEREBUS and of CEREBUS fans, of CEREBUS as an intellectual property and of the CEREBUS ARCHIVE on an on-going basis for those people for whom CEREBUS is important while avoiding letting CEREBUS drag me back into a life I managed to escape OR letting CEREBUS bankrupt me trying to keep it on life-support.

We're steadily plodding in the direction, I hope, of CEREBUS fans taking over the basic maintenance involved. A time where I'll be less the hands-on 24/7 President of Aardvark-Vanaheim...

[Which is the present Reality as constituted: President of Aardvark-Vanaheim as the bottom-line description of my physical context in that, as far as I'm concerned, I don't have any personal possessions. Everything of a physically-incarnated nature associated with me belongs TO Aardvark-Vanaheim and IN the Off-White House in perpetuity.]

[It would be nice if -- ten years from now when I'm 70 or fifteen years from now when I'm 75 -- I could just walk away and get a room somewhere with a bed and a chair and a lamp and a mini-fridge and a washroom, one or two changes of clothes and a prayer robe where I could just sleep and read and pray and fast and listen to the Qur'an 24/7. Confident that the Off-White House exists -- that I've done everything possible to preserve CEREBUS for present and future CEREBUS fans and that everything is in there and secure, scanned and restored -- but, to finally be able to say goodbye to the CEREBUS "booster rocket", and to remove myself physically from that context.]

...than CEREBUS' Former First Custodian who finally waved goodbye:

"Everything is in place. Hope some of you get a chance to visit the Off-White House and see everything but I've crossed all the t's I intend to cross and dotted all the i's I intend to dot."

So, that's what I'm working towards. There's a LOT that needs to be done before I can get there and the odds are not good that I will ever get there. But, not being a feminist in the devouring context of the worldwide Feminist Theocracy there aren't any viable lifestyle options alternative to this one, that I can see (and I've examined all possibilities pretty thoroughly) so I might as well -- WE might as well -- persevere in the only avenue open to us as long as we're able to do so.

A lengthy answer, but I hope -- Greg G of Los Angeles CA -- one that clarifies the extent of my personal engagement with CEREBUS. Where that begins and ends in 2016 and for the foreseeable future. I'll get -- WE'll get -- as far as we get with the CEREBUS ARCHIVE Portfolio Project, 10 pages at a time. In order. And that's as far as we're going to get.

Less lengthy Q&A's with our Pledge Partners tomorrow:

THANKS FOR JOINING US! MY DISCUSSION OF THE "CEREBUS- ENDING CRISIS" CONTINUES TOMORROW ON A MOMENT OF CEREBUS:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART EIGHT

The Cerebus-Ending Crisis: Can We Keep Going? - Part 6

CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6

A Portfolio of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints with Exclusive Commentary by Dave Sim

Raising Funds For The Restoration & Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel 

Kickstarter ends 10th December

HI! DAVE SIM HERE! ANNOUNCING THAT KICKSTARTER CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6 (CAN6) HAS LAUNCHED! CLICK HERE TO LINK TO IT! AND PLEASE JOIN ME HERE EVERY DAY AS I DISCUSS, WITH CEREBUS FANS, THE "CEREBUS-ENDING CRISIS" WE'VE BEEN IN SINCE JULY OF THIS YEAR:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART SIX OF FOURTEEN

That all having been said:

There is no tangible, material reward for the 26 years that I put in on CEREBUS. Mostly because I'm definitely not a tangible, material-reward kind of guy:

I've been spending a lot of time sleeping lately which is something that happens this time every year: just before the clocks are turned back. It results from my choosing to adhere to Muslim prayer times (three of them, anyway: pre-dawn, sunset and night prayer) AND try to have a regular year-round routine/rut. Basically sleep for a few hours, wake up, perform my ritual ablutions, pray, eat breakfast and then go back to bed for a few hours. Short answer: This time of year, it doesn't work. I'm trying to go back to sleep at 7:30 in the morning, which means I sleep until 9:30 and wake up exhausted, still needing two hours sleep: which takes me pretty much up to my noon prayer time. Which I stumble through and then want another couple of hours sleep which takes me up to my 3 pm prayer time. For a period of three weeks or so, my internal sleep rhythms are seriously "off" as a result and I switch over, internally, to sleeping pretty close to 24/7. As soon as the clocks go back by an hour the condition is alleviated. Even by the Winter Solstice, the "time nutcracker" isn't as bad as it is here in the last week in October and first week in November.

[I read somewhere that this was the idea behind George W. Bush getting Congress to enact legislation to move Daylight Savings Time ahead by a couple of weeks sometime after 9/11: someone told him that it would really "EFF UP" the Muslims in North America with their prayer times. Not sure if that's true but, if it was: GOOD CALL, Mr. President!!] :)

[I remember looking at my mother lying in her hospital bed in 2003 and thinking, "That looks so nice. Just... LIE THERE... all day." And I remember telling a neighbour of mine about that when I was visiting her mother (a fellow monotheist: RARE in this neighbourhood) in the hospital and then adding, "And then when I was in hospital for my emergency bowel surgery..." and she interrupted and said, "It wasn't as nice as it looked." And I had to laugh and say, "No, it WAS. It was EXACTLY as nice as I thought it would be." Infinitely preferable to getting up and doing anything. I mean, I'm not a feminist and I'm not a materialist. I don't drink or do drugs or have sex or smoke or party or socialize or watch TV or movies or read books for entertainment or listen to music. I can't draw any more. It took a good ten years for me to DISCONNECT from everything I had stuck myself to in our society. We have a very STICKY flypaper-kind-of-society. I mean, from what I can see, Netflix alone...]

[...So, it stands to reason that my concept of a rewarding life is lying in bed 24/7 listening to my recording of the Qur'an in the original Arabic, recited by Sheikh Al-Minshawi. Sometimes sleeping, sometimes just lying there with my eyes closed. Reciting my prayer in my head. I'd be very happy to do that for the rest of my life, just setting the alarm for my prayer times and eating twice a day.]

[Punchline: knowing that, it's very difficult, particularly at this time of year, for me to justify doing anything else. WHY am I forcing myself to get up and do CEREBUS and CEREBUS IN HELL? and STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND stuff? Why not just disconnect completely, do "bare bones" maintenance, use up the last of my RRSPs and the entire line of credit on my life insurance, then cash in the life insurance itself, then sell the artwork through Heritage Auctions, then sell the Off-White House and then just become homeless at 95 or whatever age I would be by then.]

[Or trust that, by being as close to zero-maintenance as modern man can make himself, I can just be tucked into a corner somewhere in some retirement home with my English (J.M. Rodwell's translation) Qur'an, my 1611 King James Bible, my Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Christian Gospels and my above-mentioned Arabic recording of the Qur'an and some ear buds so the sound doesn't bother anyone.]

[Wake me up when it looks like I'm dying so I don't, you know, sleep through it!]

Tomorrow: Okay, so why NOT do that?

THANKS FOR JOINING US! MY DISCUSSION OF THE "CEREBUS-ENDING CRISIS" CONTINUES TOMORROW ON A MOMENT OF CEREBUS: 

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART SEVEN

The Cerebus-Ending Crisis: Can We Keep Going? - Part 5

CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6

A Portfolio of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints with Exclusive Commentary by Dave Sim

Raising Funds For The Restoration & Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel 

Kickstarter ends 10th December

HI! DAVE SIM HERE! ANNOUNCING THAT KICKSTARTER CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6 (CAN6) HAS LAUNCHED! CLICK HERE TO LINK TO IT! AND PLEASE JOIN ME HERE EVERY DAY AS I DISCUSS, WITH CEREBUS FANS, THE "CEREBUS-ENDING CRISIS" WE'VE BEEN IN SINCE JULY OF THIS YEAR:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART FIVE OF FOURTEEN

In answer to our Kickstarter Survey Question "Do you have any suggestions for future Cerebus Kickstarter campaigns?" Greg G of Los Angeles, California wrote:

Second suggestion is to break these campaigns out of the Cerebus fan echo chamber. Something like a Cerebus Archive - endorsed anthology of criticism, not unlike the Eric Hoffman book. And it should be real criticism, and Dave should have the opportunity to respond to it. Bring in heavyweight literary and comics critics and maybe the premiums could include signed copies by some / all of them, or a video of some of them reviewing their thoughts with Dave, or something like that. Serves dual purpose of widening reach of Cerebus dialogue and raising the bar on Cerebus as literature.

I have a line of credit on my life insurance policy and some RRSPs. That's all that kept this whole operation going in July of this year. We had sufficient revenues to get through August, September and half of October and now we're back living off the line of credit and the RRSPs, which WERE (and, what's left of them, ARE) there on the theory that they would pay for nursing care (which I am likely to need because we're all going to need it some day).

We're going to try and do a Kickstarter every two months, so a lot depends on how many of the 200 CEREBUS fans that are left can afford to keep up with that.

We lost 40 Pledge Partners between CAN4 and CAN5 and then got 20 new ones, so who knows? Maybe there IS some kind of "churn" happening that might actually "kickstart" something.

It's still a "net loss" of 20 people, though.

So, the trajectory is still pretty much straight down.

But, Greg, you and 200 people like you are, so far, managing to keep that trajectory from just being a total freefall into oblivion. As long as you keep doing your part, I'll keep doing my part.

And, best of luck to anyone who wants to make a try at breaking CEREBUS out of that downward trajectory or Greg's CEREBUS Fan Echo Chamber. I'm always more than happy to be proven wrong!

THANKS FOR JOINING US! MY DISCUSSION OF THE "CEREBUS-ENDING CRISIS" CONTINUES NEXT WEEK ON A MOMENT OF CEREBUS:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART SIX

The Cerebus-Ending Crisis: Can We Keep Going? - Part 4

CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6

A Portfolio of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints with Exclusive Commentary by Dave Sim

Raising Funds For The Restoration & Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel 

Kickstarter ends 10th December

HI! DAVE SIM HERE! ANNOUNCING THAT KICKSTARTER CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6 (CAN6) HAS LAUNCHED! CLICK HERE TO LINK TO IT! AND PLEASE JOIN ME HERE EVERY DAY AS I DISCUSS, WITH CEREBUS FANS, THE "CEREBUS-ENDING CRISIS" WE'VE BEEN IN SINCE JULY OF THIS YEAR:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART FOUR OF FOURTEEN

In answer to our Kickstarter Survey Question "Do you have any suggestions for future Cerebus Kickstarter campaigns?" Greg G of Los Angeles, California wrote:

Second suggestion is to break these campaigns out of the Cerebus fan echo chamber. Something like a Cerebus Archive - endorsed anthology of criticism, not unlike the Eric Hoffman book. And it should be real criticism, and Dave should have the opportunity to respond to it. Bring in heavyweight literary and comics critics and maybe the premiums could include signed copies by some / all of them, or a video of some of them reviewing their thoughts with Dave, or something like that. Serves dual purpose of widening reach of Cerebus dialogue and raising the bar on Cerebus as literature.

Personally, I find Eric Hoffman's book unreadable, although I sincerely appreciate that his heart was in the right place and am sincerely humbled by the fact that he devoted a disproportionately large amount of his valuable time to it relative to any personal benefit he could possibly have derived or derive from it.

That having been said, I didn't get past half of his introduction or flipping through to random pages -- because it read to me as "We, the good and right-thinking feminists of the CEREBUS fan community, are here to indict Dave Sim for thinking the wrong way and to make sure everyone knows that we think the right way -- the way feminists think. And to explain why -- even though we know Dave Sim and his book are wicked and evil -- there are still parts of it that we like. And to try to understand how Dave Sim became wicked and evil and recommend ways for him to become good and nice, like us!"

With all due respect, we've got Eric's book filling that need. It definitely fills an ideological niche in the overall CEREBUS context. If you or anyone else wants to find MORE and OTHER literary heavyweights and comics critics to craft another book occupying the ideological strata that (obviously) interests you a great deal -- here's why feminism is right, here's why Dave Sim is wrong, here's why I still like CEREBUS in spite of that -- I can't see anyone stopping you. I'm certainly not stopping you.

[I do think that you're ignoring the nature of the feminism which prides itself on keeping as far away -- ideologically, contextually and physically -- from Dave Sim and CEREBUS as possible. For 99% of them, even acknowledging my or CEREBUS' existence -- except as something beneath their notice and/or contempt -- is "beyond the pale". Once they've "gotten the memo" -- and everyone (besides me, I mean) has, I think, "gotten the memo" long ago -- their participation in, with or about anything that includes CEREBUS is just out of the question.]

You're welcome to contact Sean and Sandeep and they'll provide you with high-resolution images to illustrate why Dave Sim is wrong about everything. All you have to do is tell them WHICH images you think best prove yours or anyone else's feminist theses. I've never challenged anyone for reproducing my work for any reason. I know I don't get much credit for that, but I think it's a good example of my being a strong and enduring advocate of freedom of expression. And I'm sure TimW will be happy to promote ANY anti-Dave Sim or semi-anti-Dave Sim book here on A Moment of Cerebus by running excerpts and soliciting outside opinions.

I would qualify that with two "buts":

But #1: All literary heavyweights and comics critics are members in good standing of the Feminist Theocracy. If they weren't they would have been marginalized to a point of non-existence and/or expunged from society in general and the "right-thinking" comic-book field by now. That is, I think you're just talking about another part of the -- I won't say "Echo Chamber", I'll say "CEREBUS Context". Hardcore CEREBUS fans are the only people who will buy a book with essays about CEREBUS. I'm pretty sure feminists won't. It's a core point with them: Don't buy or support anything having to do with CEREBUS. Buy and support only those things that "toe the feminist party-line".

The only THEORETICAL way to create popularity about CEREBUS is to be enthusiastic about it and actively go to comics discussions sites and be vocal about holding the opinion that CEREBUS is a work of Literature -- up with the best of the best comic books -- and something every comics fan should own and read. Period. Not damning with faint praise like "While I realize that Dave Sim and CEREBUS are only suitable as objects for my contempt, there are still a few things, despite myself, that I like about them…" In practical terms, however, I don't think 200 can be heard "over" The Rest of Humankind "vocalizing" the Feminist Theocracy.

Which leads me to:

But #2: I think you're going to run into the same problem Eric did. If you say anything favourable about Dave Sim or CEREBUS -- to the Feminist Theocracy -- that just means you've indicted yourself as a co-conspirator, one of Dave Sim's "useful idiots", and made yourself a deserving object of their malice. "Why are you defending this terrible, evil person and his terrible, evil comic book?" These are not subtle, nuanced people. It's "0" or "1" with them. You are either a good person -- a person who is like them, a feminist -- or an evil person -- a person who isn't like them, not a feminist.

I don't THINK we can keep CEREBUS ARCHIVE or CEREBUS going much further, based on the available evidence.

THANKS FOR JOINING US! MY DISCUSSION OF THE "CEREBUS-ENDING CRISIS" CONTINUES TOMORROW ON A MOMENT OF CEREBUS:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART FIVE

The Cerebus-Ending Crisis: Can We Keep Going? - Part 3

CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6

A Portfolio of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints with Exclusive Commentary by Dave Sim

Raising Funds For The Restoration & Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel 

Kickstarter ends 10th December

HI! DAVE SIM HERE! ANNOUNCING THAT KICKSTARTER CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6 (CAN6) HAS LAUNCHED! CLICK HERE TO LINK TO IT! AND PLEASE JOIN ME HERE EVERY DAY AS I DISCUSS, WITH CEREBUS FANS, THE "CEREBUS-ENDING CRISIS" WE'VE BEEN IN SINCE JULY OF THIS YEAR:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART THREE OF FOURTEEN

In answer to our Kickstarter Survey Question "Do you have any suggestions for future Cerebus Kickstarter campaigns?" Greg G of Los Angeles, California wrote:

Second suggestion is to break these campaigns out of the Cerebus fan echo chamber. Something like a CEREBUS ARCHIVE-endorsed anthology of criticism, not unlike the Eric Hoffman book [CEREBUS THE BARBARIAN MESSIAH edited by Eric Hoffman, McFarland and Co., Jefferson, North Carolina, 2012. ISBN 978-0-7864-6889-8] And it should be real criticism, and Dave should have the opportunity to respond to it. Bring in heavyweight literary and comics critics and maybe the premiums could include signed copies by some/all of them, or a video of some of them reviewing their thoughts with Dave, or something like that. Serves dual purpose of widening reach of Cerebus dialogue and raising the bar on Cerebus as literature.

2) I don't think it's possible to break CEREBUS out of the (your term) "CEREBUS Fan Echo Chamber". Everyone -- except 200 people -- are not likely to respond in any way but unfavourably to my suggesting that I and my work are deserving of anything other than the malice and contempt and universal dismissal that they've elicited for the last two-decades-plus. The evidence suggests that that's "baked in" to the collective societal choices we've made (or, as I see it, the collective societal misapprehensions to which everyone besides me has chosen to subscribe).

BTW, I respectfully submit that I don't agree with the premise of a "CEREBUS Fan Echo Chamber". It seems to me that the term itself is prejudicial in compelling the inference that the few remaining CEREBUS fans should be self-conscious about BEING CEREBUS fans and to convince them that there's something inherently wrong with them being CEREBUS fans. No one wants to be part of an Echo Chamber or to think themselves part of an Echo Chamber. So, I hope no one reading this takes your characterization to heart and decides to "jump ship" because of the way you've chosen to portray them.

We can't really afford to lose too many more supporters.

I see the remaining 200 fans as GENUINELY OPEN-MINDED people who are interested in what I have to say even though they completely disagree with pretty much everything that I say. That is, that they always have and always will disagree with everything that I say, but they're still CEREBUS fans and Dave Sim fans because of the quality of my work. 200 people is what we've got and I think it's only sensible to presuppose that that's ALL we're ever GOING to have. The likelihood is that the audience can only contract from there. A Feminist Theocracy is always going to be less open-minded than any other societal construct short of totalitarian communism.

We've (I think, self-evidently) arrived at a point where everyone -- besides me -- views Reality as being interchangeable with feminism. Everyone besides me has decided there's only One Right Way To Think About Feminism. I've made clear my views about feminism with The Impossible Things To Believe Before Breakfast. I reiterated them just last year with Erik (Hello, Erik!). I'm the only one, evidently, who thinks that way. I don't really see where a dialogue on feminism between Dave Sim and…well, anyone…would of any practical use -- or genuine interest at this late date.

Bottom line: to paraphrase the homosexual credo of the last century: "I'm here. I'm not a feminist. Get used to it."

THANKS FOR JOINING US! MY DISCUSSION OF THE "CEREBUS- ENDING CRISIS" CONTINUES TOMORROW ON A MOMENT OF CEREBUS:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART FOUR OF FOURTEEN

The Cerebus-Ending Crisis: Can We Keep Going? - Part 2

CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6

A Portfolio of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints with Exclusive Commentary by Dave Sim

Raising Funds For The Restoration & Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel 

Kickstarter ends 10th December

HI! DAVE SIM HERE! ANNOUNCING THAT KICKSTARTER CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6 (CAN6) HAS LAUNCHED! CLICK HERE TO LINK TO IT! AND PLEASE JOIN ME HERE EVERY DAY AS I DISCUSS, WITH CEREBUS FANS, THE "CEREBUS-ENDING CRISIS" WE'VE BEEN IN SINCE JULY OF THIS YEAR:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART TWO OF FOURTEEN

In answer to our Kickstarter Survey Question "Do you have any suggestions for future Cerebus Kickstarter campaigns?" Greg G of Los Angeles, California wrote:

I have two: 1) for the portfolios, for God's sake let Dave choose the ten pages he most wants to talk about for each book, rather than going with the ten earliest. Ten earliest makes zero sense.

It doesn't make a difference, Greg, is what I'm saying: I can look at ANY part of MELMOTH... or WOMEN... or RICK'S STORY... or any of the 6,000 pages and that's what I'm going to think. And ALL I'm going to think. And all I HAVE thought since 2003 when I finished it. To reiterate from yesterday:

"This is really sad: that something as sincerely intended and the product of a lot of metaphorical blood and literal sweat (though, admittedly, no tears) like CEREBUS is viewed this way. But this is the way it's viewed. As an object suitable only for the malice and knee-jerk dismissal which is so characteristic of feminism."

As I recently said to a neighbour when she found out I was "famous" -- or, as she put it (from her intonation): Famous -- "I'm not famous, I'm notorious." "Monstrous" would come nearer the mark, but I'll let "notorious" understate the case.

I keep going as long as there are enough people to keep the CEREBUS intellectual property alive. I do so because I have a sense of obligation both to the Literary and Artistic thing that I intended to create...

[that I, as objectively as I can view it, think I DID create -- and that I infer from your kind comment about CEREBUS being literature that YOU think I did create -- and that I think would be ACKNOWLEDGED as what I DID create -- in any society other than one such as we inhabit: overwhelmed and consumed by malice for anything that isn't feminism]

…and to the handful of people -- 200 or so -- who don't, unquestioningly, share in the otherwise universally-malicious feminist viewpoint.

In that regard, my commenting on the FIRST ten pages of each of the trade paperbacks, to me, makes perfect sense:

"I might as well do this in as orderly and 'logic-of-the-next-step' a manner as possible since I have absolutely no connection, personally, to the material itself at this point."

The completed CEREBUS is, for me, a 6,000-page, 26-year, on-going nightmare. With these CEREBUS ARCHIVE Portfolios, I now have the necessity of re-experiencing each part of that nightmare and dredging up all of the bad memories associated with each year between 1977 and 2004 -- by examining the artwork that I produced then -- and saying "Okay, here's what I was thinking. Here's what I was attempting to do. Here's where it fits. Here is my best recollection associated with this material and the creation of it".

It was extremely difficult, arduous but gratifying work to put the whole thing together and, since 1994, extremely difficult, arduous work to keep the whole operation from being completely torn apart. I DO remember creating CEREBUS and, as long as it's possible to do so, I'll commit those memories to paper for those interested and willing to finance my doing so.

I'm glad that you're one of those people, Greg.

I just want you to know that this isn't, for me, a day at the beach! :)

Tomorrow: Greg's second suggestion!

THANKS FOR JOINING US! MY DISCUSSION OF THE "CEREBUS-ENDING CRISIS" CONTINUES TOMORROW ON A MOMENT OF CEREBUS. 

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART THREE OF FOURTEEN

The Cerebus-Ending Crisis: Can We Keep Going? - Part 1

CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6

A Portfolio of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints with Exclusive Commentary by Dave Sim

Raising Funds For The Restoration & Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel 

Kickstarter ends 10th December

HI! DAVE SIM HERE! ANNOUNCING THAT KICKSTARTER CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 6 (CAN6) HAS LAUNCHED! CLICK HERE TO LINK TO IT! AND PLEASE JOIN ME HERE EVERY DAY AS I DISCUSS, WITH CEREBUS FANS, THE "CEREBUS-ENDING CRISIS" WE'VE BEEN IN SINCE JULY OF THIS YEAR:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART ONE OF FOURTEEN

In answer to our Kickstarter Survey Question "Do you have any suggestions for future Cerebus Kickstarter campaigns?" Greg G of Los Angeles, California wrote:

I have two: 1) for the portfolios, for God's sake let Dave choose the ten pages he most wants to talk about for each book, rather than going with the ten earliest. Ten earliest makes zero sense...

1) Thank you, Greg, for this opportunity to clarify the situation with my commenting on the first ten pages of each trade paperback -- a comment/concern you had in common with John M. of Olathe KS, Russel D. of Naperville IL and Barry D. of Portland OR (and thanks to all four of you for your continuing financial support as Pledge Partners!) -- and how that affects and pertains to the more generally imminent "CEREBUS-Ending Crisis" we're in and have been in since July of this year.

[Essentially, in July we got to the same point we had gotten to in July 2012 when I decided that it just wasn't possible to keep going. Just before the first Kickstarter, which then made it APPEAR to be possible to keep going and which continues to APPEAR to make it possible to keep going. APPEARANCES can, however, be deceiving as I had to inject $40,000 of my own money into the company just to pay the bills and get us out of July. Which was something that I had resolved not to do in 2012. I was willing to keep Aardvark-Vanaheim going as long as there were sufficient AARDVARK-VANAHEIM revenues to do so. That $40,000 plus revenues from Diamond and the $27,000 from the CAN5 Kickstarter got us through August, September and half of October, when again, I've had to pay bills from a "line of credit" I have on my life insurance: the money that is supposed to pay for nursing care if I a) live that long and b) need it and c) finance Aardvark-Vanaheim when I'm dead ]

I apologize in advance for how much space and time it's going to take to reply to your suggestion.

First, I'm afraid I don't "want" -- in the sense of "have a desire" -- to talk about any of the pages. Or CEREBUS itself for that matter. When I look at CEREBUS I just see this really unfortunate... let me go out on a limb, here: masterwork... that Gerhard and I created at the exact wrong moment in human history: the onset of the feminist steamroller.

I can't -- nor would I want to if I could -- separate CEREBUS from its context. CEREBUS was, as you suggest, created as a work that aspired to the stature of Literature (in your point 2) which I'll be getting to in the coming days).

I appreciate VERY MUCH your recognizing that.

Like any work of intended Literature it was created to reflect and comment upon the world I was born into. Unfortunately, it also reflected and commented upon the world that was thrust upon me at the age of 14 and the world I inhabited for the 26-year history of its creation: the dawning years of the Feminist Theocracy steamroller.

That intention was -- and is -- one thing.

The other thing is that I created CEREBUS as an aspiration towards Truth. And if I couldn't attain to Truth (and, really, who could besides God?) as my attempt to attain to Reality. One aspect of that Reality is, I'm pretty sure, inescapable: that my honest reaction when I'm writing the NOTES for a CEREBUS ARCHIVE Portfolio or when I'm responding to people's comments here on A Moment of Cerebus or answering your suggestion (and thank you for taking the time to make it) or, in fact, when I see anything having to do with CEREBUS or think about CEREBUS anywhere or under any circumstances is:

"This is really sad: that something as sincerely intended and the product of a lot of metaphorical blood and literal sweat (though, admittedly, no tears) like CEREBUS is viewed this way. But this is the way it's viewed. As an object suitable only for the malice and knee-jerk dismissal which is so characteristic of feminism."

That is, the SITUATION seems to me to be sad. It doesn't make ME sad, because it's all I've really experienced for so long that I don't really remember my life being otherwise. But it seems to me societally sad, bespeaking the erosion of society from a structure based on multi-faceted discussion -- the bear-pit of contending philosophies -- to an imposed, totalitarian, unidimensional feminist fantasy.

THANKS FOR JOINING US! MY DISCUSSION OF THE "CEREBUS- ENDING CRISIS" CONTINUES TOMORROW ON A MOMENT OF CEREBUS:

CAN WE KEEP GOING? THE TMI ANSWER!

PART TWO OF FOURTEEN