Miriad

Miriad #5 (1981)
Art by Dave Sim

KEVIN DAVIES:
(from the interview introduction, Miriad #5, 1981)

Dave Sim has been steadily growing in popularity as both writer, artist and comics personality since the introduction of his own character and independent comic book Cerebus The Aardvark to the comics scene in December 1977. The comic itself acquired its title through a succession of events which more than reflect the trials encountered by any publication when first making an effort to establish a publishing operation. Dave produced his first drawing of the character on request from an acquaintance, Denise Loubert (now his wife), as a logo for her intended sword and sorcery fanzine. Once completed, the book was shipped to a printer in California, with neither money nor material heard from again. But the aardvark survived!

Realising the potential which could incorporate the Cerebus character within a sword and sorcery setting, Denise offered Dave her financial support and the two struck up a partnership. With Dave acting as creator and Deni (as she refers to herself), fulfilling the role of publisher, the two set out and produced the first three issue of Cerebus as a bi-monthly experimental probe of the market, testing whether there existed enough interest to justify the continued publication of an independent magazine of this sort. The response was overwhelming and the rest, to the delight of all, is a very eventful history.

(Thanks to Eddie Khanna for the Miriad scans!)

Alan Moore's Marvelman/Miracleman

Miracleman #1 (Eclipse Comics, 1985)
By Alan Moore & Gary Leach

FOLLOWING CEREBUS:
(from 'The Controversy Over Copyrights' in Following Cerebus #3, 2005)

Alan Moore and Gary Leach created Marvelman for Warrior magazine in the UK in 1982. A modern updating of the beloved fifties series (obviously inspired by Captain Marvel), the new version became extremely popular. In 1985 Eclipse Comics began reprinting the stories in colour, also to wide acclaim. The series ended after twenty-four issues, with new stories written by Neil Gaiman. The character's name changed to Miracleman in the Eclipse editions because of complaints from Marvel Comics, thus souring Moore on ever working for Marvel. When Eclipse went bankrupt, Todd McFarlane bought the assets - which did not include publishing rights, but only tangible property. Eventually he transferred this to Gaiman, but soon afterward filed for a trademark on the name. Gaiman sued, and the controversy is still mired among the lawyers.

DAVE SIM:
(from 'Dave Sim On Parody &Copyright' in Following Cerebus #3, 2005)

...in light of what I've just said about all the ins and outs of trademark and copyright, and where I think there's a certain validity, and where I think it's all just "smoke and mirrors" make-work projects for lawyers, I find the Miracleman situation particularly disheartening. Essentially Miracleman is the changed name of Marvelman who was a very half-assed knock-off of Captain Marvel, which was published in England. The problem seems to stem from the fact that the iconic costume has great sentimental resonance for English comic book creators of Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman's generation. This was the reason Alan Moore wanted to write a revived Marvelman, and this was the reason that Neil Gaiman was pleased to be asked to follow him on the book and thrilled that he was given Alan's share of Miracleman as part of his compensation and eager to get whatever part of Miracleman Todd McFarlane acquired out of the Eclipse bankruptcy auction.

When I became aware of the situation that was brewing, I contacted Neil directly and Todd indirectly and suggested that the whole thing could be headed off at the pass by just agreeing to make Miracleman the same as Cerebus is, an unprotected trademark. It seemed very sensible to me. Neil already had all of the Miracleman negatives from Todd, so he could print his own work and Alan's in one big Miracleman trade paperback, and Todd could do Miracleman statues and hockey sweaters and baseball caps and whatever else Todd was interested in. Miracleman would be protected on the same basis Cerebus is. Anyone would be free to do a Miracleman comic book, but they would be competing with the Alan Moore / Neil Gaiman / Mark Buckingham version if they did so. I think it would be as unlikely that someone would try to do that as it is that someone would try doing a Watchman sequel if Watchmen were an unprotected trademark.

Unfortunately - unfortunately, to my way of thinking - Neil adopted the viewpoint that everything had been set in motion, and there was no turning back, rather like the troop trains at the start of World War I. He has set up the "Marvels & Miracles Foundation" to determine who actually owns Miracleman and, to me, he has thereby walked into the oldest lawyer trick going: he has asked them to research what is, at essence, an impossible question to answer and which the lawyers can, therefore, spend an unlimited number of years researching and pretending to answer at hourly billing rates that boggle the mind to contemplate. From what I understand, the research phase has already eaten up all the money Neil made off 1602, with no end in sight. It's just such a waste of currency that could've been given to a food bank or the CBLDF or anyone else beside a pack of lawyers. In my view, all Neil had to do was to put out a Complete Miracleman trade paperback and told Todd that he was free to do anything with Miracleman that Todd wanted to do, and that would have been the end of it. Miracleman would be spewing money all over the place instead of sucking it into a black hole full of lawyers. It's just really sad and really unnecessary to me.

Pádraig Ó Méalóid explores the convoluted history of Marvelman/Miracleman's ownership in an ongoing series of 'Poisoned Chalice' posts at The Beat.

Zelda Cafe

"Zelda Cafe" in Roarin' Rick's Rare Bit Fiends #1 (July 1994)

Art by Dave Sim

DAVE SIM:
(from the 100 Hour Internet Tour: Comicon, 2 Febraury 2008)

...The only published Dave Sim Dreams story is "The Zelda Cafe" in Roarin' Rick's Rare Bit Fiends #1... oddly enough a dream that I had before I knew anything about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda. Impossible but True! I have about 25 mint copies that I've been trying to figure out how to get a) Rick to sign in the presence of a CGC rep and b) get slabbed by CGC. A couple of obvious problems: I'd be willing to bet the Veitchmonster [Rick Veitch] hates the very idea of CGC slabbing and I'd be willing to bet the nearest CGC rep is probably no closer than Boston. Although I might be wrong. On both counts...

Louis Riel

Louis Riel (Drawn & Quartely, 2000)
Art by Chester Brown

DAVE SIM:
(from the 'Getting Riel' discussion with Chester Brown, Cerebus #295, October 2003)

I remember talking to Seth at the Now & Then Books anniversary party, enthusing about how [Chester Brown's new book, Louis Riel] was coming along and saying, you know, this could be sold in huge quantities in schools, libraries, universities and Seth saying to me in his characteristic dry-as-dust fashion, "Yeah, if everyone can just keep their pants on, it could be a real breakout, mainstream success." And I laughed, because it was such a Seth thing to say. His belief that you're this inherently contrary, inherently perverse being who will actively undermine his own chance at success by exposing a character's penis just for the sake of it. And then I mentioned the comment to you the next time you and I and Joe [Matt] and Seth were at Sushi on Bloor. And Seth was stricken. Absolutely stricken! He slumped over, grabbing his forehead. Seth! What! What is it, man? And Seth said that everyone had taken a vow of silence (practically) not saying a word to you and that, being Chester Brown, now you would have to expose someones penis because someone had mentioned what a bad idea it would be. And to me, this is nonsense! And the handling of the swearing scene, to me, exemplifies what nonsense that is. Eights pages of swearing and vile racial epithets, louder and louder and worse and worse. And how does Chet handle it? X's! You show him saying, "Imprisoned by a bunch of XXXXX XXXX XXXXX" (and indicate in a footnote that "these X's indicate racist comments and profanity.") which is fairly innocuous, followed by"I'm not scared of your XXXXX XXX guards!" You sort of go over the "PG" line with "They're too busy XXXX XXXXXXX each other to bother shooting me!" I mean, anyone can and will mentally fill in those particular XX's and I can picture any number of school librarians getting their noses out of joint over something like that. But then, you retreat back across the line to safety with "Riel, you XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX." And that's it for any recognisable word. Over four pages of mostly XXXXXXX. Not even a X@#$%&. Now me, I would have gotten to that part and thought, hm What insults would he be letting fly with? And I'd lean into it. When Cerebus was trying to improve to please God, I'd letter "no swearing" over a swear-word - indicating his own self-censorship - but most of the time, if its called for, I'll just use "fuck" or "shit" where I think its needed. Or even worse as far as most people, I think, would be concerned in this day and age, I'll use "faggy" or something like that which is probably a closer analogy to the "racist comments" you edged around. But it seems obvious to me that anyone who is being that careful is hardly a born provocateur.

Digital High Society: Reviews

All 25 issues of High Society (Cerebus #26-50) are available to download right now at CerebusDownloads.com. Here's what people are saying about it:

ED BRUBAKER:

Looking at the trailer they released for the Digital High Society, it looks like it’s going to be quite a package. Like the "Artists Edition" version of a digital comic. And say whatever you want about Sim and Cerebus after a certain point, but High Society is a great work of art. It's one that’s very unique to both comics and its era, and I wonder how some of the parodies will come across to any new readers or younger readers.

GAIL SIMONE:
...The issues Dave is making available digitally, to my mind, constitute a masterwork of comics. They are so good, there are only a handful of North American comics that can compete with them. When I was a kid, for a long time, I could only afford one comic a month, and that comic was Cerebus. The story being reprinted, High Society, is possibly my favorite single comics story ever... if someone were to ask me what comics to study to learn meaningful sequential storytelling, Cerebus would likely be in the top two or three choices I would recommend.

COMIC LIST:
No comic collection is complete without these classic stories and soon they will be available at the tap of a finger! Today marks the return of all things Cerebus to the pantheon of the comic book elite.

TERMINAL DRIFT:
The extras are exhaustive and amazing. It is clear that the DVD extras concept is what they are going for here and there is most everything you could have ever hoped to see, turning a 20 page comic into a 60+ page digital DL for .99 cents. Every page, letter, note, sketchbook or notebook page even business correspondence is included. Some of it is just an odd curiosity, but most of it is really interesting, and out of print since the original issues or never seen at all. Having completely forgotten the experience of reading the individual issues years ago (I now have all the phone books and sold my originals ages ago) this was all an unexpected treat.

MULTIVERSITY COMICS:
It’s quite staggering, really, going from a phonebook that has been worn down by the years to a digital version, because you forget that at one point these pages were supposed to be black and white (see: below), not blackish hues and mustard yellow... It’s akin to seeing an older film get an HD Blu-ray re-release through something like the Criterion Collection, and while not all older films inherently need to be given shiny new coats so you can see the actor’s wrinkles (there is a certain charm there), having these versions of “Cerebus” that are accessible and crisp in terms of quality is – if nothing else – a rather great talking point for the pro-digital. And while some remastered comics enhance various aspects throughout the process, it’s nice to see such a clear version of this comic exist that is ostensibly unaltered, giving us all of Sim’s work as it was originally produced – just, you know, on a screen.

COMICS BULLETIN:
May of 2013 marks thirty years since “High Society” came to a close. The Cerebus “phonebooks” remain in print and Comixology has begun releasing each issue of “High Society” as a ninety-nine cent download. Cerebus possesses such a handmade, analog quality that the fact it is available as binary code feels (almost) like an anathema. Time and technology wait for no man or aardvark, I suppose.

DECONSTRUCTING COMICS:
Rereading High Society again for this podcast - the last time I read it would have been like 10 years ago - it blew me away all over again. Absolutely. You're definitely coming into an artists work that is already very strong. Not as good as its going to get, but pretty darned good.

PROGRESSIVE RUIN:
...you pay about a buck, and you get a download (in a variety of formats) of a full issue of Cerebus from what is arguably the best and most reader-friendly segment of the series, “High Society.” Includes big ol’ scans of the art, all the ads and letters pages/text pieces, plus sketches and production work and much more. Also, you get a bit of video business, where Cerebus creator Dave Sim reads through the entire issue for you, doing voices for all the characters, and there’s music and sound effects, too. Oddly compelling, certainly fun, and I think I’m totally down with having Uncle Dave read me a Cerebus story once a week.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY:

...the series still represents an unprecedented triumph in self-publishing and is one of the earliest examples of independent publishing success, planting the seeds for the current wave of creator-owned independent and self-published comics... Asked about his hopes for Cerebus' revival and its new publishing ventures, Sim was hopeful and blunt: "the same as everyone else’s in the Internet age: that somehow it goes viral." If Digital High Society in its various forms is successful, other Cerebus books are likely to follow, bringing Sim closer to his goal of digitizing the entire series. For that the author still has a long and uncertain way to go, but as he says, "Anything’s possible."

Distribution

Cerebus #37 (April 1982)
Art by Dave Sim

DAVE SIM:
(from page 52, The Cerebus Guide To Self-Publishing, 2010 Revised Edition)

Had I been able to make a living doing Cerebus on my own web site, would I have bothered to try and get distributors to carry it? Autonomy was a key element in my developing the self-publishing model that I did. Phil Seuling, the pioneer Direct Market distributor, was quite a character and, in a personal sense, I'm glad that I got to know him reasonably well (I got the blustery character of Filgate in High Society from him, if nothing else). However, in a business sense, in the late 1970s, I definitely saw him as a fly in my autonomy ointment. One way or another, Phil's personal quirks and preferences and sensitivities had to be taken into account. Why? Because there was no other option in 1977. If you got on Phil's bad side, there went half your market. I would definitely have weighed that in the balance, at the time, if I could have had my own web site instead of going through the distributors.

That doesn't mean it would have been a right decision.

There is a "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" dynamic: to what is going on right now, at least potentially. Stores with declining sales in the economic downturn mentally jettisoning marginal indy books, Diamond literally jettisoning marginal indy books. I don't think it’s completely outside the realm of likelihood that there are self-publishing cartoonists who are likewise, jettisoning the idea of selling their work through stores on the other side of the equation.

Cerebus #37 (April 1982)
Art by Dave Sim

It Could Have Been...

Judenhass (2008)
Art by Dave Sim

STEPHEN HOLLAND:
(from Comics International #207, 2008)

Literally translated as "Jew Hatred", Judenhass' release coincides with the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. On the dedicated website, Sim writes, “I decided some time ago that the term Anti-Semitism… is completely inadequate to the abhorrent cultural phenomenon which it attempts to describe… It seemed to me that the term [Judenhass] served to distil the ancient problem to its essence, and in such a way as to hopefully allow other non-Jews (like myself) to see the problem “unlaundered” and through fresh eyes. Europe and various other jurisdictions aren’t experiencing a sudden upsurge in “Anti-Semitism”. What they are experiencing is an upsurge in Judenhass.”

The pages depicting the Holocaust or Shoah – the bleak barracks of Auschwitz in their full, freezing horror, and the gaunt faces of their skeletal occupants crammed onto stacks of hard, wooden racks – are accompanied by a calm, considered explanation of why Sim believes that every creative person should consider embarking on such a work, particularly those who aren’t Jewish:

““Lest we forget”… “Never again”… are fine and noble-sounding sentiments which have attached themselves to the historical remembrance of what was done to these innocent individuals and millions of others like them. But it seems to me that the words are largely meaningless if (as has been the case to now) in movies, in books, in plays and in documents of the historical record they are expressions largely if not exclusively being enunciated by Jews. If there is a chance of systemic Jew Hatred being eliminated from our society, it can’t just be Jews who speak out against it.”

Some things bear repeating, because some things do not bear being repeated.

He also points out that but for “geographical happenstance” the comicbook field “created, developed and built primarily by Jews, painstakingly, one comicbook at a time” could have lost Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Joe Shuster, Jerry Siegel, Will Eisner, Bob Kane, Max Gaines or Sheldon Mayer.

That’s precisely what Joe Kubert set out to explore in Yossel, published in 2003. Joe moved to America with his Jewish parents and sister when he was only a couple of months old, despite them being rebuffed earlier when his mother was pregnant. In Yossel, Joe puts himself in the place of a boy who hadn’t left Poland before its Nazi occupation. What follows is forced evacuation, incarceration, starvation and a systematic deprivation of comforts, communication, heating and clothes – a freezing endurance test without either hope or respite – and then it gets worse.

Kubert was one of the select few sent early copies of Judenhass and who have lined up to praise it, including Jean Shuster Peavy (Joe Shuster’s sister) and Marv Wolfman. Neil Gaiman wrote: “Judenhass is an astonishing piece of work. Painful and real and unflinching. I don't remember the last comic I read that made me cry, but this did." Indeed visitors to the Judenhass website should be warned, if only for parental guidance, that the animated introduction with its haunting soundtrack and terrible, echoing cracks of gunfire is as profoundly harrowing as the on-site preview.

The website also acts as a compendium to the comic, providing background research, some shockingly Anti-Semitic screeds from unexpected sources, and essays on the production process. In one of those Sim talks about the effect his detailed portraiture had on himself:

"At least temporarily I was able to individualize the victims for myself, personally, to differentiate each one as much as possible back into the individual he or she had been before the catastrophe of the Shoah had overtaken him or her."

"My people did this. That is, all of these individual Jews, all of these individual human beings, none of them very old, most in the prime of life came to the state in which I was capturing their likenesses through the actions of the non-Jews like myself. To set myself the task of capturing likenesses and expressions meant that I couldn't look away or see the Shoah through distanced overview, impersonally. How could I? Each death had been experienced personally, each death had been individual, each death had ended in a final eloquent...and horrific... expression. The only thing to me more horrific than those final expressions was the all-too-human urge to look away."

"How dare I? How dare any of us?"

Stephen Holland is the co-founder (with Mark Simpson) of one the UK's leading comic stores - Page 45.

Pussy-Whipped

Cerebus #213 (December 1996)
Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard

DAVE SIM:
(from a reply to a letter from cartoonist Seth, Aardvark Comment, Cerebus #193, April 1995)

Okay. Pussy-whipped. Now there's a can of worms for you. It's a subject very much on the minds of the women I talk with (I know it comes as an enormous shock to you, Seth, that women do, indeed, talk with me). Being pussy-whipped is a lot more the fault of men than it is of women. What a number of women have woken up to is that their boyfriends and husbands never disagree with them. Since they know that I will give my honest opinion if they ask me for it, the topic has become a recurring theme in recent years although the implicit tone accompanying it has shifted. For a vast majority of women the issue is a basic one: 'if he lets me push him around, it's his fault.' Most of them test the boundaries of what they can get away with (particularly the young ones, who are new at the game) much as they did with their fathers when they were growing up. Of course this falls into the category of 'you can get what you want and still not be very happy'. They know (most of them - some, I'll grant you, don't even suspect) when they are making unreasonable demands, intentionally slapping a guy in the face (metaphorically or in actuality). Pussy-whipped guys have basically adapted the traditional female role for their own: peace at any price, roll with the punches (metaphorically or in actuality), be understanding, be submissive, be whatever you have to be to keep the relationship intact. This does not work over any extended period of time. One of the highest accolades a woman can bestow upon a man is 'he's a real challenge'. The male world has become very unchallenging for women. Strong people admire strength and deplore weakness. The mistake that pussy-whipped men make is in thinking that strength involves 'slapping her around' or 'being macho'. that's not the kind of strength that I'm talking about; strength involves standing your ground in an argument, holding on to a contrary opinion if you believe in that opinion, setting boundaries to your own behaviour which are reasonable to you and having inviolable lines drawn in the sand of behaviour you will accept in a girlfriend or lover. One of the easiest of the glib defences of the pussy-whipped male is that 'it really doesn't make a difference to me'. Whatever makes her happy makes me happy. If this is the centrepiece of your thinking when it comes to making mutual decisions in a relationship, you have already taken the first step on the road to dissolution. If she makes all the choices, great and small, of what the two of you do or don't do, you really are little more than a housepet. If it REALLY doesn't make a difference to whether the two of you do 'a' or 'b', it's a good policy to make sure that at least half the time you are the one to make the arbitrary choice... and make it stick. If she says 'do you want to do x or y' and you say 'x' and she says 'let's do y' and you say 'whatever you want, it really doesn't matter to me', you have failed a very simple test. Someone who evinces no outward sign of having free will is an impossible person to respect. If a woman doesn't respect you, she doesn't love you. You might be a comfortable companion at that point, a whipping boy, a house pet or a surrogate son, but you are clearly not a lover in the female sense of the word. Women, whether consciously or unconsciously, are looking for a long-term scenario - 'commitment' is a camouflage for the actual goal: finding someone who remains interesting to them, who is his own person and who is aware enough to know when his psychic territory is being infiltrated or devoured. There is no greater status for women among their peers than to have a long-term relationship with a guy who - even after months or years - still has his own opinions, has his own house in order, who controls himself and stands his ground without abusing her mentally or physically. One of the commonest complaints of pussy-whipped males (or, even more deplorable, males who ASPIRE to being pussy-whipped) is that the best women pine after men who are uncaring, unfaithful and brutal. See, those guys are the longed-for 'challenge'. Implicit in this is the obvious tendency to excess. There are 'challenges' and there are 'impossibles'. Since it has become rarer and rarer for women to find men who will set any limits or boundaries on behaviour they will tolerate, who might well stand their ground and disagree even on the most cursory level, a man (as opposed to a male) is going to look pretty attractive. He passes all the tests when it comes to resisting her manipulations, and so earns her respect and interest. In the interests of achieving one of the 'impossibles' (so to speak), she becomes penis-whipped - setting no limits on the boundaries of behaviour she will tolerate.

Seth , I have no idea what your life situation is like, so I can't comment on whether I think you have been co-opted or if you are pussy-whipped. I certainly don't think that all men have been co-opted or are pussy-whipped but, from my own experience, most are. We return to percentages. From the vantage point of what I would view as pussy-whipped males, the world is moving gradually in the direction of balanced relationships between men and women where gender becomes meaningless; boy-friends with many feminine traits, girlfriends with many masculine traits; the more feminine traits a male has the better a male he is, the more masculine traits a female has the better a female she is. This philosophy enters the whirlpool at the centre where traits are no longer described as masculine or feminine - we're all just people, indistinguishable from one another and some manner of paradise beckons at the end of the road.

I think that view is full of shit.

Cerebus #213 (December 1996)
Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard

Cerebus #1 - Rebooted!

Cerebus #1 Rebooted (2011)

Art by Kevin Mellon

COMICS ALLIANCE:

The warrior aardvark of legend returns in an all-new series that catapults Cerebus into a dark, dystopian future to face the most terrifying enemy he has ever known: The Voids. A parasitic race of creatures driven only by base emotions of fear and hunger, the Voids have infiltrated the city at nearly every level, binding men of power and influence to their vampiric will. Can Cerebus stop the Voids before they consume every man in Iestopolis with their unspeakable hunger, or will they continue their rampage unopposed until the very last Male Light goes out?

Sim on Ditko

Amazing Adult Fantasy #7 (Marvel Comics, December 1961)
Art by Steve Ditko

DAVE SIM:

(from a review of Amazing Adult Fantasy #7, Blake Bell's Blog, 15 May 2012)

This batch of five stories, all from the same issue (sporting one of the greatest pre-super-hero Ditko covers in Marvel’s history – even the colouring is great!) interested me because they’re all in the same category as “There It Is Again!”

All are scripted by Stan Lee and it’s as if he cracked the Ditko code and figured out the exact overall story tone that was required to get a Ditko Iconic job. I suspect there’s a story behind all of these ending up in the same issue.

Looking on the bright side, I can envision Stan Lee, as I say, cracking the Ditko code and writing four High Iconic Ditko stories to appear in the same issue. Looking through a more jaundiced lens, Stan Lee had no idea what was going on and over a period of time just ended up with four High Iconic jobs and decided What the hey! And put them all in the same issue. The job numbers that appear on the splash pages aren’t completely sequential (V-391, V-392, V-393, V-395, V-396) but pretty close. It might be something as simple as a deadline crunch and Ditko picked out the five scripts that he thought he could draw the fastest.

If we assume (as I do) that solo Steve Ditko is the REAL Steve Ditko, I suspect these stories gave him his first taste of iconic story-telling and told him this was where his creative heart was and where he needed to go when he opted for a smaller audience and complete creative freedom.

“Why Won’t They Believe Me?” actually delivers the goods. Good build-up, good red herring on the second to last page and good actual twist ending. “The Last Man on Earth”, nah, “Witch Hunt”, nah, “Journey’s End” yeah.

I’ve just spent the last half hour flipping through all of them, admiring the artwork, the composition, the story-telling, the pin-stripe suits. If you’re a major league Ditko fan, you couldn’t go wrong bidding on a reading copy of AMAZING ADULT FANTASY #7 on eBay.

Dave Sim reviews 1950s and 1960s Steve Ditko comics at Blake Bell's Blog, and you can read more Steve Ditko comics for yourself in the Blake Bell edited Steve Ditko Archives series published by Fantagraphics Books (Vol 4 due in May 2013!).

DitkoMania

DitkoMania #77 (2009)
Art by Dave Sim

BLAKE BELL:
(from Blake Bell's Blog, 6 May 2012)

...Dave Sim [read his] review of my 2008 Ditko bio/art book, Strange & Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko... in a phone conversation that was one of the most emotional comic-related moments in my memory.

I had hit upon Cerebus in 1987, just after issue 105 (of 300) and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Easily moved to my favourite current comic, easily moved Dave into that trinity alongside Ditko and Everett.

Dump me on a desert island with nothing other than Ditko's run on Spider-Man, and Cerebus #11 to #136, and I'd be entertained for life.

And Dave was the 1980s equivalent of Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols: a legit, street-cred, no-nonsense rock star/shepherd. He was the Jack Kirby equivalent of his generation; the "Godfather" of the indie movement, influencing and inspiring too many creators to count. That all changed when Dave let his point of view on gender relations all hang out in Cerebus #186.

I bring this up because the consequences of that POV informed my 2008 phone conversation with him. Dave didn't look fondly upon the Deni Loubert/Dave Sim chapter of my first book, I Have To Live With This Guy!, from 2002. Still, two subsequent meetings had buried the hatchet. That led to various exchanges including what was this whirlwind of a conversation re: Ditko.

Dave felt (correctly so) that Ditko had been consistently belittled, insulted and relegated for his Randian viewpoints mainly because the whole world just wanted Ditko to roll over, do Spider-Man and Dr. Strange again, and have his blood sucked for where "all the bodies are buried" at Marvel.

This 2008 conversation started well. Hey, when one of your heroes says about your book, "I think that Strange and Stranger is probably the best book of its kind that I’ve read," it's tough not to feel a sense of accomplishment. But as the reading of the review unfurled, and Sim clearly was empathizing with the arc of Ditko's career that had been deeply informed by the expression of his philosophical viewpoint, the tone began to change, and my momentary sense of joy sank with each passing word out of Dave's mouth.

When Dave finished reading the review, there was a prolonged silence. Ever been caught in the ocean's undertow, spun upside down? Was I offended? No, not really. Had my balloon burst? Maybe a little, but it certainly gave me pause to think and re-examine my motives based on this new perspective (especially when delivered in such a heart-felt manner).

It was the follow-up that I won't forget. Dave elaborated on how he felt Ditko had been treated by fans, the press, and the industry, and it became increasingly clear that he was talking about himself too. A wave of sadness came over me as Dave became choked up, especially while relating my "tip of the cap" to him in the Acknowledgments section.

I had put in there that my admiration was unending for Cerebus #11 to #136, in a similar fashion to Ditko's Spider-Man run, and he questioned if that was not read as a back-handed complement - similar to how Ditko views people who like his corporate comics vs. that from his own independent mind. I stood up for myself on this point, saying that my love for that part of Cerebus was an objective fact and that it was unfair to categorize my comment as a negative commentary on his personal beliefs that came out in full force in issue #186. Just as I had criticized Ditko's later work for being too didactic, for letting the message overwhelm the story, I believed the same had happened with Cerebus to the extent that my enjoyment, while never stopping me from buying the book to #300, did decrease in a comparative sense. I also opined to Dave that I don't think Ditko would appreciate people buy his Objectivist-heavy work just to support him because "he was Ditko". An acquaintance of Ditko once told me that Ditko had said he'd rather read a review of someone who hated his work than someone licking his boots, and I think that stuck with Dave as an appropriate counterpoint to his argument offered in the review.

I must have been channeling the Holy Spirit because I think the way that I conveyed myself broke through his defenses, in terms of sobering him up to the fact that he was being judged solely on the merits of his work, and not on his socio-political beliefs, and that this was rare for him in the past 10 years. It was clear to me that this had taken a toll on him: going from likely the most "he's my guy" figure in alternative comics to pariah/outsider.

I think we left the conversation with a better understanding of the other person's point of view. What else can you ask for? We've had some interactions since, but none for awhile and I wish I had the time to sit down and re-read Cerebus from start to finish for the first time in a decade. My other "dream book" to write would be Dave Sim and The Rise of the Independents just because I'd get to read those books again and bask in the glow of that era where everything seemed possible if you were an indie creator. We were going to triumph en masse over Goliath. Sim proved you could make it all on your own: a complete artistic vision, and business model, from start to finish, no interference in that vision from anyone (including a dwindling fan base). That's why comics are #1 for me. Can any other medium allow a creator the ability to get their vision across in such an unfiltered manner, from concept to consumer...?

Full details of how to purchase Steve Ditko books can be found at Ditko.Blogspot.com. Strange & Stranger by Blake Bell was published by Fanatagraphics Books in 2008. The Ditkomania fanzine has just published its 90th issue and is essential reading for all Steve Ditko fans.

The Norman Rockwell Exhibition (2007)

LitGraphic: The World Of The Graphic Novel

Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, MA

10 November 2007 to 26 May 2008

LitGraphic: The World of the Graphic Novel examines the development of sequential art through its practitioners. Their work continues to suggest new ways of seeing: wordless narratives by 1920s woodcut artist Lynd Ward and modern-day commentator Peter Kuper; revolutionary underground comix by R. Crumb and humorous, personal Girl Stories' by Lauren Weinstein; the visual thrill of works by Mad Magazine co-creator Harvey Kurtzman and Breathtaker co-creator Marc Hempel; and the pioneering art of Will Eisner (Contract with God), Dave Sim (Cerebus), and Terry Moore (Strangers in Paradise). The exhibition features original book pages and studies, sketchbooks, and videotaped interviews with graphic novelists.

DAVE SIM:
(from The Blog & Mail, 22 June 2007)

Here's a little bright light in the Pariah King Darkness that showed up late in March. The Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA (which has me humming James Taylor's "Sweet Baby James" all day whenever I read it even though I'm not sure if the line is "From StockRIDGE to Boston" or "StockBRIDGE to Boston"). Naturally, being the Pariah King of Comics I smelled a trap when they asked for the loan of High Society and Church & State Vol. 1. Usually in that case it's a set-up. I'm supposed to get all excited that someone wants to exhibit my artwork and then I find out that they just wanted copies of the books to flesh out an "Other Graphic Novels You Might Enjoy" part of the show while the actual artwork that's exhibited is the usual Fantagraphics suspects. So, I basically gave them the Comic Shop Locator number and suggested they find a store in their area who can order the books for them. Then intentionally forgot all about it.

Well, no, they did want to exhibit artwork and they actually wanted to exhibit a fair number of pieces... It is extremely gratifying, given that Norman Rockwell was the Pariah King of Painters most of his adult life, looked down on and sneered at as a magazine illustrator by the likes of Jackson Pollock. Fortunately he had a few years there where people with a lick of common sense could see the difference and actually began to treat him with the respect he deserved all along and, of course, today the ranks of those who look down on Norman Rockwell are probably as thin (but no less vocal) as they've ever been.

Gives a Pariah King hope, it does.

DERIK A BADMAN:

...The back wall of the exhibit was covered with perhaps a dozen (maybe less) pages from Sim and Gerhard’s Cerebus. A huge cover to the first Church & State collection, a number of pages from Jaka’s Story, and a couple pages from later books. Gerhard’s backgrounds are extremely impressive at this size, and I was interested to see how Sim had gridded out the guidelines for his lettering (horizontal and vertical lines, that’s not conventional I don’t think). I also noticed that the wavy panel borders used throughout Jaka’s Story were some kind of pasted on screentone-like substance. Looks like it was put on after the inking, which explains the perfect edge on those panels.

RICK MARSHALL:

...Several pieces of work from Cerebus creator Dave Sim also found their way into the gallery, including selections from Jaka’s Story, Church & State Vol. 1 and Form & Void. The page that really caught my eye was a spread from Jaka’s Story that featured an almost entirely white winter scene, with a bundled-up child being led away from a solitary, snow-covered bench and playground horse by her equally bundled-up guardian. Neither character’s face could be seen beneath the scarves and jackets, and the field of white in the background dominated the spread and gave the environment a desolate feel.

THE MORNING CALL:

...There are other seminal works on the development of the graphic novel. One of the best examples is the collaborative work of Canadians Dave Sim and Gerhard. Sim's comic character Cerebus - a corruption of Cerberus, the mythical hound from hell - began in 1977 as one of the first self-published independent comics. It was originally written and illustrated by Sim for the first few years, but he eventually teamed with Gerhard, whose background art became one of the hallmarks of the series. Cerebus' success led to a slew of independent comics in the 1980s and was one of the first running comics to be collected into the modern graphic novel format. On display are panels from Jaka's Story, one of the series many story arcs. The exacting detail in the work - ink on board - as well as the great use of black, white and gray half-tones gives the work a stand-alone, cinematic quality.

BRIAN FIES:

Meeting Artists: Dave Sim, Peter Kuper, Howard Cruse, Marc Hempel, and Mark Wheatley all had work in the exhibit and attended the opening. I spent a few minutes and had good conversations with each, during which we said nice things about each other. Dave was great, and Peter and I turned out to have a mutual friend in Editor Charlie (not as big a coincidence as it may seem; Charlie knows everybody). Even artists much cooler, better, and more experienced than I admitted that showing their work in the Norman Rockwell Museum was something of a career highlight, which made me feel a bit less like a freshman at the senior prom.

TERRY MOORE:

...I walked back to the main building and met up with the official NR archivist, whose name I can’t recall because it was told to me in a room full of shiny things Rockwell. He led Dave Sim and myself down to the archives and allowed us to look through a few of the hundreds of boxes of Rockwell papers, reference photos and letters. The entire collection is being cataloged and transfered to digital format, a massive undertaking. I saw some wonderful things in there and, as an artist, I can only tell you it was inspiring to get a behind the scenes peek at the man and his methods. We all swapped Rockwell stories, but the archivist had the best stories of all.

CEREBUS FAN GIRL:

...Dave [Sim], Lenny and Jeff T were downstairs with a museum employee and someone that looked like Terry Moore (and yes, later I found out it was Terry). The employee showed us around the Norman Rockwell Museum’s archives, where they host all of his fan mail, articles, magazines with his covers, etc. He stated the pictures had all been digitalized and put into a database, and the originals were in a freezer for storage. Later when I was talking to the museum curator she stated that they wanted to get the database online so others could view them also.

1977 to 2004: "You Think About That"

Cerebus #1 (December 1977), Cerebus #300 (March 2004)

STEPHEN HOLLAND (PAGE 45):
(from a review of Cerebus #300, 2004)

1977 to 2004. You think about that. And then you tell me that this single story written and drawn by one man and his virtuoso landscape artist - month in, month out, with a beginning, a middle and an end - consistently entertaining, provocative and beautiful to behold... You tell me that this is not just a significant achievement, but the very fucking pinnacle of a relatively infant medium, which will be virtually impossible to surpass.

Go on. You sit there and have the temerity, the impertinence, and the self-incriminating illiteracy to find me one other contender to that throne.

The fact that any other letterer could possibly win an Eisner in any given year, shows how vacuous and bankrupt those awards are.

There are approximately six other creators who could give Dave Sim a run for his money in terms of inspiration, innovation, intelligence and storytelling capability combined: Los Bros Hernandez, Chris Ware, Jim Woodring, Eddie Campbell, and - if he could draw - Alan Moore. There are hundreds of others whom I admire wholeheartedly, but few of them come close to those air-thin heights, and not one of those aforementioned creators has accomplished a quarter of what Dave Sim has achieved in the awesome, demanding, infuriating, and wit-ridden epic that is Cerebus.

That the man has contributed an equal and unparalleled measure to this industry is irrelevant to be sure.

But the fact that Dave Sim is not universally regarded as the very finest comicbook creator to this point in time, is a crime of unbelievable, culpable and fundamentally ungrateful ignorance.

If, you know, you're asking.

Stephen Holland co-founded (with Mark Simpson) one of the finest comic stores in the UK - Page 45.

Reply To Roberta Gregory

'Reply To Roberta Gregory' in Following Cerebus #10 (2007)

Art by Dave Sim

The Divine & The Infernal

Storyteller #1-9 (Dark Horse, 1996-1997)
by Barry Windsor-Smith

 DAVE SIM:
(from Following Cerebus #11, 2007)

...the title of BWS's series Storyteller is so unfortunate. It suggests that BWS is the same as, say, Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore, making things up but not getting attached to any of them. That's why I asked Neil about magic and included the discussion in issue 186. "There's something there." There. Not here. Neil can come up with realities that beggar the imagination, but they're lies. Well, yes, they can be. They can choose to plumb their imaginations and indiscriminately just SAY STUFF for the sake of saying stuff and getting paid for it and have people getting off on their writing. But, to think that BWS is in the same category is to completely blur the distinction between a lie and the truth. BWS only draws and writes what he knows to be true, as he experienced it. But the grail is always Absolute Truth. For Neil and Alan, all stories are true.

It's my addition to the mix to suggest that that's exactly the difference between the Divine and the Infernal. BWS and I may be completely wrong in what we infer, but we infer from experience, and we are concerned both with our experience of reality and Reality and with attempting to communicate it as accurately as possible within our limited  human means even if that means we are seen as the lowest form of human life: lunatics.

If Neil or Alan got a really good idea for a jolly great story that would shake the reading population to their booties and have them wrapped around the block to buy it at Barnes and Noble, that would be an inherently good thing. Write it! What could be better? Whereas BWS and I choose to destroy our professional reputations by communicating the truth as closely as we can convey it. I knew that Latter Days and Rick's Story and The Last Day weren't going to be big box office. Exactly the opposite was the likely result. But it was more important to tell the Truest Story I Knew and possibly destroy the franchise in which I had invested a quarter of a century than to just try and find the biggest box office idea I could come up with and graft that on to what I had so far, To just SAY STUFF and hope that The Last Day would hit number one on the New York Times Best Seller List.

On the contrary, being number one on the New York Times Best Seller List is far more likely to mean that you are a liar, because an attractive lie is always going to be more popular than a hard truth.

Barry Windsor-Smith's OPUS

OPUS Vol I & II (Fantagraphics Books, 1999-2000)
By Barry Windsor-Smith

DAVE SIM:
(from Following Cerebus #11, 2007)

...I can't think of any lifelong body of such unreservedly brilliant work that has exacted quite so obvious and terrible a psychic toll on its creator. All the sacrifice of blood and spirit and sweat and the frankly-admitted-to tears, the defence of self in a moment of weakness ("I can't go on. I am only human") that in turn becomes a lifelong indictment of self ("only human") and what-might-have-been's.

Like every other artist who bought a copy, I have a Get Out Of Jail Free card. I'm free to detach myself from the human toll documented on nearly every page and just make use of the inspiration of the rendering, the colour choices, the composition, the variations, the detail, the mixing and matching of media. It's a Feast and an entirely Moveable one. Page after page after page after page. Even when I try to focus on the narration the illustration are impossible to ignore. What was it Oscar Wilde said? "To cure the soul with the senses, and the senses with the soul." Nonsense advice and a recipe for a precipitous fall from grace. Still I can enjoy Picture of Dorian Gray for its own sake - The End - and never have to endure or revisit or contemplate the two years of hard labour that it directly led to.

And BWS toils on, framing and attempting to answer the questions he perceives as having been directly posed to him more than thirty years before, paying exorbitant tolls when exorbitant tolls are called for, persevering, gravitating to themes, reworking ideas that existed on a higher plateau in their BWS rough pencil stage than most of us - including Jack Kirby - could ever have hoped to aspire to on our best day... or week ... or month. The first Artemis and Apollo was quantum levels beyond our grasp and our limited abilities and each successive version only dwarfs that first one. What he considers to be "dashed off" colour sketches, most artists of my generation would be pleased to consider a finished cover painting.

And still he aspires. Of all the people who passed through the halls of Marvel Comics in the legendary 1960s, he above everyone else warrants that epithet which doubles as the Latin motto of the state of New York:

Excelsior. Ever Upward.

Barry Windsor-Smith's OPUS is a series of deluxe, hard-cover volumes presenting a fascinating selection of classic, rarely seen, and previously unpublished art by BWS. Integral to this rich retrospective of drawings, paintings, and graphic storytelling work from throughout Windsor-Smith's career are autobiographical texts, titled Time Rise, which explore the ideas and anecdotes behind the art and far beyond, offering intriguing insights into the remarkable experiences of one of comics' and graphic arts' most acclaimed creators.

Trading Eggshells With Zulli

Cerebus #175 (October 1993)
Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard

DAVE SIM:
(from Dave Sim Collected Letters 2004, page 559)

Actually this was an entirely fictitious nature that I romanticized to an unnatural degree of subtlety and comprehension of metaphor that you would never find in a woman as attractive as Jaka. It was a kind of submissiveness and a gesture of friendship from a patron to an artist, her way of saying the Zulli had been more important to her then just "hired help". Because of the formality implied by the social gulf between them, that's very difficult to communicate. So what she was indicating was that his picture had been instrumental in helping her break out of her shell that she had been in. The fact that she imitates his wallpaper design in an obviously amateurish way on the eggshell expresses to him that she is aware that she could never have come close to having created the picture that he did and exactly how wide the disparity is between the two of them in that way and that she freely acknowledges that, thus putting herself irrefutably on a much lower plan than himself in a way that would be impossible in her privileged world and doing so with a token that can always remind him of those two facts. He helped her to break out of her shell and she will always be beneath him on the creativity scale. "Here, this represents me, when compared to the way your picture represents you. I can't even get one part of the wallpaper right." And then Zulli responds by sending her an amateurishly hand-carved ebony box whose lid doesn't fit properly, his message being: We're all amateurs at most things. I can tell that it was no easier for you to produce the wallpaper pattern on the egg than it was for me to produce it on the side of a box and, as you can see, the results are comparable. I'm no more a carpenter than you are a painter, so let's both have a keepsake to remind us of those humbling facts. In fact, I want you to have half of the egg. You worked too hard on it to give it up entirely.

To complete the story, she should have sent him back the lid to the box, inverted, and lined with one of her own best silk handkerchiefs to hold his half of the eggshell, so that in both instances the eggshell half would be free, instead of enclosed.

Cerebus #193 (April 1995)
Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard 

Thirty Cameras

Backcover Photo, Cerebus #178 (January 1994)
Photo by Tim Young, Fantastic Store, London

DAVE SIM:
(from an interview with Sandeep Atwal, Filler, 1996)

...[At] the end of tour party in the UK in '86 I guess. We finished off in a pub around the corner from a store in London and a lot of people have cameras and at one point, Ger and I moved to the same part of the room and all of a sudden there's this whole ring of people with cameras, and there's just this white light - flash-flash-flash-flash-flash. I never have to experience that again, now I know what it's like when you're surrounded by thirty cameras all going off at the same time, and you're sitting in the middle of the white light...

IDW Covers: The Colonized #3

The Colonised #3 (IDW, June 2013)
Cover art by Dave Sim

DAVE SIM:

I think this was the next cover that I did.  What Chris wanted was the train that Drew Moss had put in issue #1 which -- in issue #3 is full of aliens and running out of control and running over and into a bunch of zombies (I gotta tell you, I really can't wait to actually READ this story).  I couldn't find the page with the train on it, but I did have the original photo-reference file which had a trolley car.  Was that what Chris was referring to?  And then he got me the missing page from #1 and sure enough it was there.  And Drew had done it so that it looked like the trolley car photo reference but ALSO like a regular train.  Which was pretty funky.  The problem being that Drew is a much funkier artist than I am, so I'm trying to make it look Drew Moss Funky and it's coming out Dave Sim What The Hell is That Supposed To Be?

So, I decided to do the cover in stages -- let's just leave the trolley car/train aside and mull it over, why don't we? -- first roughing in the zombies in the foreground with an already established vanishing point and horizon line.  One of the things that made a difference with this cover was, by this time, I had seen the colouring for the cover of THE COLONIZED #1 and I had gone, "Oh, okay. There ARE computer colour effects that DO work.  You can 'fuzz out' the light on the tractor beam to enhance the effect."  So I was less concerned with establishing the texture of the light with pen lines.  Not 100% sure but reasoning with myself that I could do a really dark foreground and a lighter middle ground when I got there and the colourist would Get It right away. So, I inked the foreground very dark -- near silhouettes -- and even incorporating the lines of the vanishing point into the inking on the figure on the left.

I like the fact that zombies are stupid.  But I thought just getting mowed down by the train was pushing the limits of stupidity even for zombies and I thought they should be armed. But zombie-stupid armed. Like, they'll stop this train with a tire iron or a brick (and then knock the guy's eye out winding up with the brick: You GO, Zombie Lady!).

Doing the backgrounds on these covers has definitely given me a greater appreciation for what Gerhard did all those years.  I mean, you really have to visualize the entire interior of the train.  Where the floor goes, where the driver's seat is, how far back it needs to go to fit a human being in there, where the door would be, where the seats go, how high up they go, where the windows start.  And then most of it -- once you draw the aliens -- just isn't there.  Fifteen minutes tight-pencilling the seats on the left side of the car (your left) and all that shows is a couple of pen lines between two of the aliens.  And you KNOW no one is going to look at the finished cover and go, "Wow do those TRAIN SEATS ever look AUTHENTIC!"

The problem with strict adherence to horizon line and vanishing point is that it does tend to make motion -- train-out-of-control "The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3" extreme motion -- kind of sedate no matter what you do.  The rest of the cover was supposed to enhance the motion effect on the Tire Iron Zombie (soon to be a spin-off series from IDW!) and I'm not sure that it does even though I inked all of the middle ground grays with pen-lines following the lines going into the vanishing point.

I started wondering if there was a good way to "strobe" the light coming from inside the car or on the large headlight on the front -- duplicating it smaller and smaller back to the vanishing point.  Basically doing what Krigstein did with the subway train in "Master Race" but doing it with colouring.

That's something you'd have to talk to the colourist about.  How difficult would this be to do?  I'm not crazy about vanishing points myself and now I'm going to get the colourist doing algebra?  "Let me see. If the train is receding in size roughly 8% for every quarter inch of distance from the foreground of the train, then that would mean the headlight would be strobing backwards at an 8% reduction per quarter inch or 12% reduction for every 3/5ths of an inch. Assuming you want three strobes vanishing into each other, hmm."

Poor colourist.  So I was thinking of Poor Colourist when I drew the alien in the top section of the cover with the brick coming straight at him, reflected in the glass and surrounded by refracted light.

THINK FAST! Pardon? SMACK!!

Ooops. Too late.  As you can see by the primary image.

Jeez. And he was such a GOOD colourist, too!

Sorry, Bud. Next?

IDW Covers: Judge Dredd Year One #3

Judge Dredd Year One #3 (IDW, June 2013)
Cover art by Dave Sim

DAVE SIM:

I had a brainstorm -- while I was working on David Philpott's "Church & State Wall" commission a couple of years ago -- of getting an oval picture mat cut for myself at the framing place at the Frederick Street Mall and then using it as a template to create the outline for an oval commission.  A way of breaking up the wall which was composed of square and rectangular pieces.  So, it's just sitting there and every once in a while I think: I really should USE that for something, again.  And I just happened to think of that while I was standing at the light table with the JUDGE DREDD YEAR ONE full cover logo lettering, thinking: what can I do here that would be interesting?  And the mat was sitting behind the pad of tracing paper. And I thought, oh how about an oval inset?  I can do the full sized lettering outside and then reduced lettering inside.  And then I thought, wow, it would be great if I had different-sized ovals.  And I thought, well, why not just reduce the oval on the photocopier?  And then reduce the lettering by the same amount?

So that was what I did, tracing off the successive ovals and then the successive lettering and then transferring them and then inking them.  And by the time I had the effect created, I had room for just this little dinky figure of Judge Dredd in the lower right.  It looked cool, but I had this vision of Chris Ryall saying, "Uh, Dave, we're paying you to DRAW a cover with SOME lettering, not LETTER a cover with SOME drawing."  And then cutting my rate to whatever he would figure they were paying for lettering (if 90% of the lettering today wasn't done on computer).  Oh, well.

Trying for an "All-Out Neal" (if you have to ask "Neal who?" go to your room) cover I hit it lucky with the figure, starting with Dredd's left arm. It looked like a Neal arm from the git-go, all the way down to the semi-clenched curled-in fingers and thumb. So then all I had to do was to stick a Neal-like figure in behind it and then Not Screw It Up in the inking. A Not Screw It Up cover is always more satisfying to work on than a How Can I Save This? cover.

Where I really slowed down was on the background.  I had a background roughed in but it was just a rough sketch that I was trying to rough in and then tighten up.  And, as Gerhard can tell you, backgrounds don't WORK like that. You don't do it roughly and tighten it up like you do a figure. You need to start with the horizon line and a vanishing point and a ruler and put all the straight lines in and then draw the background within that context.  Duh.  A duh I never managed to get past.  I know ROUGHLY where the vanishing point is.  So I worked for a couple of hours with my rough vanishing point.  And then finally erased everything, put in my vanishing point and horizon line and straight lines and I was off to the races.  The intact MegaCity One in the outside ovals and the MegaCity One in ruins in the inside oval. VERY Neal, I thought. "Carmine? I've got your STRANGE ADVENTURES cover done."  

And when I got my fax from Chris he was VERY happy with it, remarking that it looked like a lot of work but that the fans would appreciate that. Not a word about cutting my pay rate.

So I'm tempted now to just letter my covers and leave dinky little spaces for the characters.

And only do bizarre other-worldly backgrounds where there are multiple vanishing points and only vague non-ruler ink lines.

Uh, not really.  What I'm learning to do is to put way more time in on the vanishing point and the horizon line at the outset.  But I am -- as Gerhard can tell you -- a VERY SLOW learner.

Most of this one was inked with a magnifying glass and a brand new Hunt 102 pen nib and diluted black ink.  I've really got to get one of those magnifier jeweller's lamps for the drawing board.