Cerebus Vol 2: High Society - Remastered

Cerebus Vol 2 (Cover Detail)
11th Printing, Remastered Edition (May 2013)
Also available as Digital Download
Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard

DAVE SIM:
(from Notes on the 11th Printing Of Cerebus Vol 2, 18 March 2013)

There were times when it seemed as if this book would never be completed. Starting last summer, Sandeep Atwal was scanning all of the original pages from HIGH SOCIETY still in the Cerebus Archive (182 of the 500) as well as using my brand new photo-negative scanner to scan the original negatives which needed to be cut apart from the "flats" they were on (8 pages per flat: that's how web-offset printing was/is done). With Kickstarter providing much-needed revenue for an audio-digital version of HIGH SOCIETY ($63K largely eaten up with expenses but paying Sandeep for a period of time to do scanning), (scanning so that he thought his brain would melt and turn to cream cheese -- pretty much the way I felt annotating all the material and performing it into a microphone, as well as spending 12 hours a day signing comic books and doing sketches).

I finally overcame what I had come to see as my paranoia about letting irreplaceable material off-site or out of secure off-site storage. "Dave, seriously, what do you think is going to happen to them a few miles down the road in Waterloo?"

On August 23rd, just after I had delivered the last of the negatives to Sandeep, I got my answer. Turns out the question wasn't rhetorical. In late afternoon, the building his apartment was in burned to the ground. He was able to get out with just his wallet and the clothes on his back. He's still just sleeping on a friend's couch and looking for work in a city where layoffs are the order of the day. We're going to do further benefit auctions for him (and thanks to all who donated on the first round!) when he has a job and a place to live, so stay tuned.

Into the breach stepped George Peter Gatsis who is known for his restoration abilities on comic art  that needs to be shot from printed copies and extent materials. Which he has been doing -- tirelessly and for no pay -- since last August. Just for the record: there are 504 comic pages in total, 182 pages of original art in the Cerebus Archive which could be and were scanned, 200 negatives (issues 41 to 50 ) were destroyed in the fire before they could be scanned, and 130 pages needed to be recreated from scratch from the best possible printed copies of the books, the Dave Sim File Copies: 20 of each, I had bagged, boarded and stored as each was printed, starting with No.1 in 1977.

Just a partial list of what George has accomplished:

• All of the lettered text on page 18 has been cleaned up, more clarity in the dark areas in the 1st, 4th and 5th panels (particularly the 5th panel) has been clarified by meticulous tweaking. Oh and now missing for 30 years, Cerebus’ 30 per cent dot screen is placed on his leg in panel 1.
• More detail in the tones has been recreated on pages 26, 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 36, 37.
• On page 39 there is new cropping on the black border and the page number has been installed in white in the black border.
• The page 49 title has been cleaned up.
• All of the pages in MIND GAME II (originally issue 28: pages 49 to 68 of this book) have been extensively worked over to have the light and dark fleck tones I used on the backgrounds cleaned up and enhanced for greater detail and clarity.
• Page 57 is also notable for the clean-up and clarity in the dark tones.
• Page 70: in the third panel there is significantly greater clarity and definition in the floor.
• Page 76 and 89: more detail in the tones in all of the panels.
• Page 104: Finally has a 30% gray tone on Cerebus  in panel 4, which has been missing from the day it was first published in the early 1980s!
• Page 109: more detail in the tones.
• Page 110: a significant improvement in the clarity in the cross-hatched pen work on the Roach's forehead in panel 4.
• Page 129: improved clarity in the "Alliance" title lettering.
• Page 149: more detail in the tones.
• Page 158: the border pattern in bottom right under Cerebus' "WIPE THAT GRIN..." balloon has been cleaned up.
• Page 173: - Although I tried to keep everything to reconstruction without defacing the original material by re-drawing it (I don't...and can't...ink or letter the way I did thirty years ago, so doing so seems, at least technically, like defacement), I actually re-lettered the "SLAM" sound effect since it was filling in because of my original inking. And it seemed like a purely technical correction. But I'm still not sure I haven't defaced the page.
• Pages 254, 255, 258 and 259 - the typed page insets have been cleaned up.
• Pages 270 to 288 - more detail brought out in the dark tones.
• Page 302 - more detail in the fine lines.
• Page 309 to 312 - the "Goat" story logo has been cleaned up, the horizontal lines and type repositioned to be consistent. The artwork has been registered to bleed correctly and match up with its facing page.
• Pages 313 and up - all the panel borders, thick line and double line (thick AND thin) have been cleaned up and closed where they were broken.
• Page 346 - panels 7 and 11 now have Cerebus' (again, missing for 30 years) 30 per cent dot screen.
• Pages 493 to 495 - the "ECHO" display lettering has more detail and definition.

At this point, we thought we were done when George supplied me with the following list of pages, indicating which pages were rescanned from the original comic books (the Dave Sim file copies) and which pages had been scanned from the original artwork in the Cerebus Archive.

I noticed, a couple of weeks later, that the earliest art page to be scanned was from issue 41. What had happened to the scans from issues 26 through 40 (of which there are roughly 60 pages in the Cerebus Archive)? There's no real answer to that, so at the 11th hour it was necessary to dig those pages out of off-site storage again and have them scanned, again, at 600 dpi. At the same time, George noticed that there were small hairline scratches on many of the pages scanned for volume 1. George re-inspected volume 1, fixing the problem in the films and incorporated the last 60 pages into volume 2.

The job isn't done and -- even as we let this latest/best-possible-under-the-circumstances printing go ahead -- I'll call your attention to the fact that the only original art scanned for this edition that was NOT from the Cerebus Archive are the pages that were supplied by Brian Stockton, page 20 of issue 41 and Daniel, Daniel Parker, King of the Wild Frontier, page 3 of issue 46. Thank you, Brian and Dan! I'm hoping everyone will "pitch in" and help track down as many of the pages that are out there that haven't been scanned and get them scanned for us. In many cases, this involves "de-framing" the page, getting it scanned and then re-framing it. Having had the experience of doing that with Gerhard's cover of the Regency Hotel, I have to say that the cost is really quite reasonable: $16 to have it de-framed and re-framed, and it is a large two foot by three foot piece. If you want help financing your own de-framing and scanning and re-framing, please mention it when you (hopefully) contact George with your "Cerebus Page In the Wild".

Send scans - one at a time, please - scanned at 600 dpi, RGB - to George Gasis at: tbdeinc [at] gmail [dot] com

I've also acquiesced to the universal preference for white paper instead of newsprint (so far as I know Chester Brown and I are the only two people who prefer comics on newsprint to comics on white paper). While it's not how I pictured/picture or prefer the artwork to be, sometimes you how to bow before the universal consensus. It should certainly help with some of the recreated detail and the detail laser scanned for the first time from the original negatives and artwork.

Also, if you happen to be on the internet, drop by for a visit at CerebusDownloads.com.

Thanks to everyone for their patience and help through this very trying experience, the longest period of time that HIGH SOCIETY has been out of print since the late 1980's.

Cerebus Vol 1 - Remastered

Cerebus Vol 1: Remastered 16th Edition (2014)

by Dave Sim

Restoration by George Peter Gatsis & Sean Michael Robinson

Diamond Reorder Code: STAR00070

DAVE SIM:
(from Note On The 16th Printing Of Cerebus Vol 1, 14 December 2012)

This printing marks the first time that I've directed fundamental corrections and restorations to be made to the original material since first producing it more than thirty years ago, a choice precipitated by George Gatsis making me aware of flaws which resulted from the conversion of the original photographic negatives to digital files several years ago (itself made necessary by the worldwide computer revolution which eliminated the possibility of continuing to print the trade paperbacks via the traditional negative/metal plate web offset printing form).

I have been advocating for some time that publishers of classic comic strips should be updating each successive printing of their collections with high quality scans from original artwork (which have surfaced in the interim) and came to the conclusion that I needed to "practice what I preached".

[I had tended not to because, frankly, I didn't think my earliest artwork on Cerebus warranted it. I was an enthusiastic amateur or -- at best -- a semi-professional and find it very hard to look at the work at all closely. So, I've pretty much just approved each successive printing after no more diligent checking than to make sure all the pages are in the right order.]

George Gatsis developed the CEREBUS PAGES IN THE WILD program to try to track down as many original pages as still exist and to which we could gain access. A complete list of the original pages incorporated into the 16th printing appears following this note.

Depending on the page, the reproduction has been modified digitally to provide for greater or lesser contrast and brightness. Page 541 is a good example of lesser contrast where the original brush strokes in the areas of solid black are now visible while leaving the black solid enough to keep the effect from distracting the casual reader. Light shadings of the original pencil -- never properly erased, a recurrent flaw of mine -- on Sump Thing's features are likewise retained. It's much closer in appearance to the original artwork, in other words.

Partway between greater and lesser contrast, we have the background greys on pages 527, 529 and 530 which were produced by means of "spatter" -- loading up a toothbrush with india ink and flick flick flicking it over the surface after masking off all the areas that needed to remain white -- the "poor man's airbrush". Just looking at the exponentially higher reproduction which has resulted from the digital scanners ability to "see" and translate these effects into 0's and 1's and to retain them with 100% accuracy in the printing stage as compared with the same effect on the surrounding contemporaneous pages derived from the original photographic negatives…well, it gives you a good idea of why we hope that more artwork still exists from that issue and can be located at some point.

All of the digital scanning from original source materials for the volume was performed by Alana Wilson at 1200 dpi or higher under George Gatsis’ direction and then George himself "tweaked" each digital file for the greatest possible coherence, to make sure all detail was brought out as clearly as possible. A copy was then printed out for me of the digital files so that I could offer further guidance where a page, in my view, had gone too dark or too light.

Some limited restoration has also been performed by George. Limited in the sense that none of the actual drawings have been in any way modified but purely mechanical flaws have been corrected. As an example, where holes or breaks have occurred in the 30% mechanical tone that was used on Cerebus, and where the break doesn't appear overtop of an actual ink line (which would necessitate recreating a 1981 ink line in 2012), neighbouring 30% dots have been digitally cloned and imported to the area in question under high-powered magnification so they could be matched up seamlessly.

Panel and caption borders which had broken up or faded have, likewise, been restored by digitally "cloning" the lines that remain and grafting them directly onto the empty areas.  This has been avoided with the word balloons which are not composed of straight lines and which I, therefore, consider part of the artwork which can't be successfully restored because I don't draw them that way anymore. 2012 Dave Sim can't "do" 1981 Dave Sim or "correct" 1981 Dave Sim without superseding him, so 2012 Dave Sim is keeping his pen and ink to himself.

The Cerebus logo on page one was imported and reversed to white from a period logo rather than trying to restore the second-generation photographic negative shot from an already degraded photostat. 

The only other form of restoration which I have authorized (and which, arguably, can be considered "borderline" defacement) is the restoration of the original lettering where that has faded by "cloning" adjacent letters and substituting them for their missing counterparts. It's at least "borderline" defacement because the "D" that you see is not the specific "D" that I put in place thirty-five years ago. However, weighing in the balance the resulting improved coherence and readability, I tend to think that there is great validity in the "trade-off". The lettering on page 206, as an example, has been a thorn in my side since issue 9 first came in with the page in this same degraded form -- and which turned out to be a flaw in the negative itself, a fact which I didn't discover until after I had already sold the original page. The white gaps in the patterned ink hatching in the background of each panel might be the next thing "fixed" in the 17th printing but I haven't decided if it would constitute a lesser or greater form of borderline defacement if the few areas that have reproduced well are cloned and "wallpapered" or if I did fill in the blanks by hand (the pattern is pretty basic and can't be done in a substantially different way even by Old Geezer Dave). Or, with any luck, that page will come IN FROM THE WILD before the 17th printing becomes necessary.

Many thanks to George and Alana for their tireless work on this volume. If you own any of the original pages from the first 25 issues which don't appear on George's list, please see his specifications which follow the list and, if it all possible, help us to "swap out" one more second generation copy for a first generation one.

IDW Covers: The Colonized #4

The Colonized #4 (IDW, July 2013)
Art by Dave Sim

DAVE SIM:

Meanwhile back at Chris Ryall's January 17th fax:

The Colonized #4, where all the s--t blows up. A couple humans (handlebar mustache guy from that first crop of pages, and the black guy in the cabdriver hat) and a couple aliens completely surrounded by zombies (humans and even sheep and chickens, if you felt so inclined) or some variation thereof.

So I took him at his word. All the s--t blows up. I started with the logo, actually redrawing it from my own rough and crashing the word "ZOMBIES" into it (I figured what the heck, we aren't going to need it after this issue, right?)  Inked a few of the stars in "THE" going nova. And coincidentally, I had just picked up a DC SHOWCASE volume with Russ Heath army stories in them (HAUNTED TANK -- well worth picking up) and lots of cool Russ Heath explosions. So I did a couple of those.

And then I thought, "Whoa. Wait a minute, what if Chris was speaking metaphorically about all the s--t blows up?"

Hm. And then I figured, well, in that case he'll learn to be more literal when telling me what I'm supposed to do, I guess. And we'll have another fine example of crazy Dave Sim.

Mentally in Neal Adams mode, I thought, "I wonder if Neal ever shot a scene between the femur and the ulna?" (I think that's what those bones are called). If he didn't, well, let me be the first. I got too far along before I realized the perspective was way to high to get a good zombie sheep or zombie chicken in there. D'OH!).

I started to have fun with tattoos again (carry-over from the DREDD cover). Is it just me, or is there something inherently funny in an arm being devoured so you don't know what the guy was "Born to..."?  And you sure can't ASK him.Well, you could but I wouldn't recommend it. "Pardon me, can you tell me what you were 'born to..." YLLLGGKHH!"

Same with the toddler. Cute t-shirt, but I wouldn't recommend a "Big Hug". I also thought he'd have a Heavy Metal Band Tour shirt (the guy with the tattoos, not the toddler: I don't think a Heavy Metal band called "Big Hug" would go very far). What's a good name for a Heavy Metal band?  How about AXE FIGHT?  Works for me.  

The further into the background I got, the more I needed to use the magnifying glass and a brand new Hunt 102 to ink the tiny little figures. The whole cover was a little too...grey when I was done, so I inked the evergreen trees all the way down to the stone ridge. That seemed to help snap everything forward. I'm trying not to overdo it. There IS going to be colour to help the different effects.

IDW has very good colourists. Uh. Colorists, I mean.

I've been very fortunate.

IDW Covers: Judge Dredd Year One #4

Judge Dredd Year One #4 (IDW, July 2013)
Art by Dave Sim

DAVE SIM:

Chris Ryall was on his way to Angouleme and realized I was doing my covers the first week of the month so he faxed me January 17 that DREDD YEAR ONE #4 was on my list for the beginning of February "although I still need to get story details on that one."  It's interesting to me so far at the beginning of the process of creating an issue. Virtually nothing exists: the covers are the first finished pieces.

A week later, he had heard from the writer, Matt Smith, whom he had asked specifically for an issue description and cover idea (for me!).

"Year One no 4 info - the future of Mega-City One is in the balance as insurrection builds, psicopathic juves rampage the streets and Justice Department is struggling to contain the unrest. Only Dredd can stop the Four Mothers of the Apocalypse from spreading their malign influence and destroying the 22nd century metropolis.  As for covers...for Dave, something along the lines of a broken Judge badge being stamped underfoot, incorporated into the logo...?"

So that was what I started with on the top line. The badge part was pretty easy. I just took a photocopy of the logo badge and cut it into three parts and then traced those off. The bootprint was a bit more of a problem. No matter what I did, it looked like snow. Sort of like Canada in January (February, March and now April). No matter what you do, it looks like snow. That was when I got the idea to hatch the contours of the letters. It STILL looks like snow, but I'm sure the colourist will be able to help with that.

On the rest of the cover, I decided to just do the juves rampaging the streets. Briefly considered finding online images of the Vancouver Stanley Cup riots and then thought, no, this seems like a good time to practice my tiny, little figures. Which you really need to know how to do to even pretend to be a photorealistic comics guy. I was giving myself passing marks on the guy in the "N" with his arm in the "O". I worked backwards from bottom to top and I think they got better as I went along. "That's it. That's as deep into the page as it's possible to go."

Then I asked to see the two Neal Adams BEN CASEY dailies they had in the Heritage Auction I was at February 22nd.

Not even close.  Two tiny little faces in one panel that were easily four or five MILES deeper into the page than I've ever gone.

Oh well.  I still got paid. And thank you, IDW.

Eddie Khanna: "Researching A Graphic Novel By Mistake"

Help finance Dave Sim to complete 'The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond' 
by making a monthly donation at Patreon.

Originally serialised within the pages of the self-published Glamourpuss #1-26 (April 2008 to July 2012), The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond is an as yet uncompleted work-in-progress in which Dave Sim investigates the history of photorealism in comics and specifically focuses on the work of comic-strip artist Alex Raymond and the circumstances of his death on 6 September 1956 at the wheel of fellow artist Stan Drake's Corvette at the age of 46.

Dave Sim has often mentioned how grateful he has been for the research assistance provided by Eddie Khanna in writing The Strange Death of Alex Raymond, so I thought I'd track Eddie down and ask him just how he landed his role of unofficial "research assistant" on the project. I then forwarded Eddie's reply below to Dave, who then kindly added some thoughts of his own by way of annotating Eddie's original text. Got all that? Now read on...

Glamourpuss #26 (July 2012)
Art by Dave Sim

EDDIE KHANNA:
(from an email, 6 April 2013)

I knew (and still don't, relative to a lot of people) NOTHING about photo-realism, Alex Raymond, Stan Drake, Leonard Starr, etc. It's only because of glamourpuss and the way Dave has presented the material that I've started to get interested in it a lot more. I'm of that age group and demographic that comes from and grew up reading traditional super-hero comics in the late 70s - 80s, and was drawn to those Neal Adams /John Byrne / Jim Aparo / George Perez / Brian Bolland / Dave Gibbons / Bob Layton / Dave Lloyd / Bill Sienkiewicz / Art Adams et al styles (Kirby was a bit before my time). It's only once Dave started talking about all of this in glamourpuss and based on what I've come across that I've learned that pretty much all those guys who's stuff I grew up loving and looking at were on some level influenced by Raymond, Drake, Starr, etc. (just looking at Starr's work is really enjoyable and reminds me of Brian Bolland's work). And I was really impressed with Drake's art, but after seeing Raymond's Rip Kirby line and design work, I'm just blown away (considering he did it with a brush!).

[DAVE SIM: That's one of those lessons you have to take away from an unmitigated commercial and critical disaster like glamourpuss. It forged a connection between me and Eddie Khanna and -- win, lose or draw -- THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND would be a dramatically lesser work without his contributions. I may have had only ONE really ardent glamourpuss fan, but that ONE fan made the glass WAY more than half full.]

As to how I got involved with researching Strange Death of Alex Raymond, well, it began, as most things do, innocently and simple enough. I wrote a letter to Dave about an issue of glamourpuss (#18, "What if Cerebus had lived in the age of Madmen") saying that I found his oh-so clever connection between the front fashion parody part of glamourpuss with what he had been documenting about Raymond's September 6 1956 crash in the back; basically that I realized he had put Elizabeth Taylor in the book (and this was just before she died) because September 1956 was the same month she was immortalized on Hollywood's walk of fame at Grauman's Chinese Theater. Dave wrote back (I'm paraphrasing) saying, actually he HADN'T known that, that he was very pleasantly surprised, and he wouldn't mind taking a look at anything else I found, especially as he had some similar interesting connections himself coming up in the narrative.

[DAVE SIM: No, I hadn't known that. And it was the first, but certainly not the last, time that I wondered if I should include something that someone else had come up with. Which quickly turned into "should I make Eddie the co-author on this?" NOT doing so would seem like being one of those sleazy professors who takes credit for a student's research just because he said "Can you look up some things for me?" And I was also wondering if this was expanding my own context which was already having "midriff, muffin-top issues". I've still got the picture which has Taylor's handprints and she's actually written "Giant" in the cement -- the movie they were promoting. Which seemed to add a whole other layer of meaning.]

Glamourpuss #26 (July 2012)
Art by Dave Sim

It was like Wayne Gretzky sending back a personalized reply saying, "Hey thanks kid. I really liked that hockey stick you sent me and will probably use it in my next game. Any chance you can get your hands on some more?"

I think you can understand when I say that, in my world, that if you find yourself in a situation being able to help someone like that, you don't even have to stop and think about it. You just do it. From that point on it's been a matter of me trying to get whatever information I could and finding all these amazing, interesting connections (or what I THINK might be interesting or helpful) that I've been sending to him. I originally thought he would use it in the letters page of glamourpuss, and wrote them as such. Pretty quickly after some of the items I had sent him, he arranged to do a dialogue with me in the back of glamourpuss, including the Grace Kelly stuff we discussed there (like Michael Jordan asking if I wanted to shoot some hoops and play some one-on-one). Synchronistically, there "just happened" to be a Grace Kelly biography on the television in the background at the time when he first called me to set it up. When I exclaimed this to him, he just laughed as if it was the most natural thing, and didn't seem surprised at all.

[DAVE SIM: "as if it was the most natural thing" - Well, it WAS! The same day I walked past the front window of SECOND LOOK BOOKS here in town and there was an oversized Grace Kelly biography in the window. "No, I'm not THAT interested ...yet...but thanks!" And, no I didn't end up needing it. I found a bio at the library with everything I need in it. One of those "I need more than Wikipedia will give me" but "I don't need to build my own library on this person".]

And since then it's just been me sending him things from there on and hoping that what I turn up aligns or helps with what he's finding and trying to say with regards to Strange Death. It's not like he's really asked me to go this deep into it, and a lot of times I've found myself thinking the following sentences; "What if I was to look into and send him this? Well the worst that could happen is that he'll throw it away or tell me to stop." And each time I've started looking at something prefaced with that thought, it's turned up some of the most incredible, amazing, mindblowing things, which I would never have learned to look for or see without having read things like Cerebus. So far it's been one helluva ride (pun intended), with some pretty unnerving moments, even though I think it's grown well beyond what his original intention was when he first planned on serializing it in glamourpuss. I've been pretty much drowning him in research (and remember, this is in addition to the all the research that he's been doing on his own), and Arlen Schumer has been sending him stuff too. There's been a few things he's asked me specifically to try and dig up as well, which have surprised the heck out of me (like the original version of Hamlet. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I heard that one).

[DAVE SIM: Yeah, that was an example of following a rabbit hole all the way down and in. Oftentimes I don't know if I'm just satisfying my own curiosity (i.e. wasting valuable writing and drawing time reading books). I mean, where DOES this end up? And in this case it ended up at HAMLET. And that turned out to be the Largest Point in a lot of ways.

Oh, THAT's what all this is about.

And then the Heritage Auction at the Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion turned out to be just down the block in NYC from where HAMLET enacted itself in the mid-1960s. And then there was an article in the NATIONAL POST last Saturday about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor coming to Toronto to try out their version of HAMLET there before opening in New York. And staying at the King Edward Hotel. Where the Beatles stayed when they played Toronto a few weeks later. I'm thinking of doing annotations in the back of the monthly STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND title called TMI. And maybe doing an online SERIOUSLY TMI to supplement that. I mean, I have to bear in mind that the comics audience who didn't even know I DID glamourpuss are going to buy the first issue expecting, you know, a cool car accident. And if they don't get it sales are going to be in the toilet before you know it. A problem I'm always working on mentally.]

Glamourpuss #26 (July 2012)
Art by Dave Sim

I guess the sound byte explanation is that it's like that line from the movie Withnail and I: "We've gone on holiday by mistake." Except it's more like "We've begun researching a graphic novel by mistake." And what I'm bringing to the table is a fan's innate ability to say, "Hey Dave. Umm, what about this?"

[DAVE SIM: "We've begun researching a graphic novel by mistake." That's a very good way of putting it! I started glamourpuss as an enjoyable brainless lark -- absolutely NO research, just what I have to say about photorealism off the top of my head. I wanted to draw pretty girls and that's ALL this is about. I paid my dues when it comes to heavily researched material, no one was particularly interested, so let's just have FUN for a change! Originally I was going to cover the car accident in two issues -- AT MOST. So? So fashion and fashion models turn out to be completely non-viable in the comic-book field. And here I am with 300 pages of graphic novel that's only halfway? A quarter of the way? done. Probably years of work ahead of me. Drawing two middle-aged men. Reminds me of the: "Know how to make God laugh? Tell Him your plans." D'OH!!! Well, I get to draw Katharine Hepburn, Grace Kelly, etc. etc.

I've got Eddie's cover letter for the latest ten-pound package of photocopies sitting right here. He photocopied SHADOWED COCKTAILS: THE PLAYS OF PHILIP BARRY "which contains within it a chapter on how Barry's plays relate to Katharine Hepburn." Hepburn really called attention to herself (actually two other people did) in Margaret Mitchell's COLLECTED GONE WITH THE WIND LETTERS. That one started as a rabbit hole and me thinking I was just satisfying my own curiosity. Turned out to be the Missing link between Margaret Mitchell and Grace Kelly. Barry wrote THE PHILADELPHIA STORY for Hepburn which was remade as HIGH SOCIETY (no relation, but be sure to pick up the 30th anniversary gold foil logo signed and numbered edition when it becomes available in May. Tell your store NOW!) with Grace Kelly when she was engaged to Prince Rainier (and which should have been called THE REAL PHILADELPHIA STORY). I tried to find out more about Barry on Wikipedia and the pickings were thin. So, had I been inclined, I would have said, "Eddie, can you find me something on Barry? Something with him discussing Hepburn?" No, Dave. Leave it alone. So what does Eddie send me without my having to say anything? "Hey, Dave, the producer in Barry's THE ANIMAL KINGDOM is named Hal Foster." Of COURSE he is. Why WOULDN'T he be?

And then he sends a romance story from 1955 from YOUNG BRIDES. One of those, 'Oh, Eddie, you COULDN'T make this stuff up. NO ONE could make this stuff up.' "Hey, Dave, is it just me or does this refer directly to Margaret Mitchell's anecdote in A DYNAMO GOING TO WASTE?" Well, if it doesn't, I don't know what does.

Eddie and I will be happy to do this on an on-going basis at A Moment Of Cerebus if Tim is willing. He can post a DANGER! LONG-WINDED CANADIANS warning and everyone can skip that day (or three days or week or...)

Okay, Eddie and I will shut up now.]

Happy 54th Birthday, Gerhard!

Go visit Gerhard Art and Gerhard's Blog!

Cover Tributes #4

Original: Batman #100 (1956), Superman #100 (1955)

Tribute: Cerebus #100 (July 1987) by Dave Sim

(Click Image To Enlarge)

DAVE SIM:
(from Cerebus Wiki)

Getting to issue #100 was more of a big deal to me. It seemed completely impossible. That's why I did the same motif that DC used for Superman #100 in 1954 or '55 and Batman #100 in 1956 - a composite of the covers of issues one, twenty-five, fifty, and seventy-five.

Cover Tributes #3

Original: Detective Comics #472 (September 1977) by Marshall Rogers

Tribute: Cerebus #22 (November 1980) by Dave Sim

(Click Image To Enlarge)

(Thanks to I Love Comic Covers) 

Cover Tributes #2

Original: Armour #1 (1985) by Neal Adams

Tribute: Anything Goes #3 (1987) by Neal Adams

(Click Image To Enlarge)

(Thanks to I Love Comic Covers)

Cover Tributes #1

Original: Nick Fury, Agent Of SHEILD #3 (August 1968) by Jim Steranko

Tribute: Cerebus #2 (February 1978) by Dave Sim

(Click Image To Enlarge)

(Thanks to I Love Comic Covers)

The Lost Sim 'Road Bit'

Unpublished 'Road Bit' Dream Comic (1996)
Art by Dave Sim

RICK VEITCH:
(from Rick Veitch's Blog, 12 September 2008)

Found this cool unpublished Dave Sim ROAD BIT in one of my old sketchbooks. From the title, he seems to be hedging on whether its a real dream or not. This would have been done right in the middle of the SPIRITS OF INDEPENDENCE tour. I'm wondering why we didn't try the free beer idea!

Rick Veitch is a comic writer/artist best known for his creator-owned work on Brat Pack, Heartburst, The One and Can't Get No, as well as his work on corporate comics including Greyshirt, Supreme and Swamp Thing. Between 1994 and 1996 he self-published 21 issues of dream-inspired comics in Roarin' Rick's Rare Bit Fiends (a reference to Winsor McCay's Dream of the Rarebit Fiend), the first 20 issues of which were collected in three paperback volumes via his King Hell imprint. Rick Veitch had a cameo in the Cerebus story arc Guys as "Roaring Rick" where Cerebus is dreaming, and Roaring Rick appears to him and gives a surreal monologue on the nature of dreams and lucid dreaming.

Sim's Road Bit

'Sim's Road Bit' in Rare Bit Fiends #3 (September 1994)
Art by Dave Sim

RICK VEITCH:
(from Roarin' Rick's Rare Bit Fiends #3, September 1994)

When I travel away from home I carry a small black sketchbook to make a visual record of my dreams in. This serves to keep me focused on my work, even on the fly, and comes in handy when someone invariably walks up and says "I had the WEIRDEST dream last night!". I hand 'em the Road Bits sketchbook and tell 'em to put it down on paper. Some get right into it immediately and accept the challenge, others wait until they are back in the relative safety of their studios to come through...

Rick Veitch is a comic writer/artist best known for his creator-owned work on Brat Pack, Heartburst, The One and Can't Get No, as well as his work on corporate comics including Greyshirt, Supreme and Swamp Thing. Between 1994 and 1996 he self-published 21 issues of dream-inspired comics in Roarin' Rick's Rare Bit Fiends (a reference to Winsor McCay's Dream of the Rarebit Fiend), the first 20 issues of which were collected in three paperback volumes via his King Hell imprint. Rick Veitch had a cameo in the Cerebus story arc Guys as "Roaring Rick" where Cerebus is dreaming, and Roaring Rick appears to him and gives a surreal monologue on the nature of dreams and lucid dreaming. 

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