R.I.P. Darwyn Cooke (1962 - 2016)

Dave and Darwyn at The Last Signing in Halifax 2010
Images courtesy of Stoo Metz and Margaret Liss

From Almost Darwyn Cooke's blog:

We regret to inform you that Darwyn lost his battle with cancer early this morning at 1:30 AM ET. We read all of your messages of support to him throughout the day yesterday. He was filled with your love and surrounded by friends and family at his home in Florida.

Donations can be made to the Canadian Cancer Society and Hero Initiative.

Please continue to respect our privacy as we go through this very difficult time.

A longer statement will come later today.

"Then we shall not be weary. Then we shall prevail." -- John F. Kennedy's New Frontier speech

Cerebus Re-Read Challenge: Cory Foster

CORY FOSTER:

Cerebus Vol 7 - Flight: 
...Flight is great because it's a terrific release after a couple years of very little Cerebus, less humor, and almost no action. The book is extremely frenetic, and it's the most edge-of-one's-seat action not only since the first volume, but in the whole series thus far. Dave's paneling becomes a huge asset again as he's able to push the action forward much more dynamically and fluidly than a lot of other artists at the time. His increasingly strong partnership with Gerhard also facilitates this, as it gives the characters something solid to work against, and a lot of depth to work within. It's a very cathartic section of the story, and I often wonder if parallels can be drawn between the enthusiasm of Cerebus' supporters and supporters of Cerebus at the time... [Read the full review here...]

CORY FOSTER:
Cerebus Vol 8 - Women: 
...Dave finally makes good on a part of the story on which he's been slowly shedding light since about 1979. Most readers probably thought to themselves many a time over the years, "what the hell is a 'Cirinist'," and somewhat fewer times, "what the hell is a 'Kevillist'." You have to hand it to Dave, he was never particularly entranced by the concept of world-building -- a valuable tool in the writer's arsenal, to be sure, but absolutely one that gets overused by sci-fi and fantasy writers to cover the fact that they don’t have much of a plot. Dave's priority was telling a story, first and foremost, with the more obscure points of Estarcion's politics being reserved for a wonderful little payoff called Women... [Read the full review here...]

CORY FOSTER'S
CEREBUS RE-READ CHALLENGE:

Cerebus Vol 1

Cerebus Vol 2: High Society

Cerebus Vol 3: Church & State I

Cerebus Vol 4: Church & State II

Cerebus Vol 5: Jaka's Story

Cerebus Vol 6: Melmoth

Cerebus Vol 7: Flight

Cerebus Vol 8: Women

Cerebus Vol 9: Reads

Cerebus Vol 10: Minds

Cerebus Vol 11: Guys

Cerebus Vol 12: Rick's Story

Cerebus Vol 13: Going Home

Cerebus Vol 14: Form & Void

Cerebus Vol 15: Latter Days

Cerebus Vol 16: The Last Day

Cerebus #0 (#51 Exodus, #112/113 Square One, #137/138 Like-A-Looks)

Cerebus World Tour Book 1995 (Swords Of Cerebus Back-Up Stories) 

The Cerebus Re-Read Challenge! How far will you get?

Send in your review links to: momentofcerebus [at] gmail [dot] com

Jeff Seiler: Gerhard & Me

JEFF SEILER:

On May 4th, Gerhard sent me an email about the Minneapolis Comic Con that was upcoming on the 6th, 7th and 8th at the Minneapolis Convention Center. I was still recovering from flying home from Panama City Beach, Florida, after my three-week vacation. Ger wanted to know if I were going to be at the ComicCon and even if not, would I like to join him and Shelley for dinner or a drink at some point.

I responded that, yes, I thought I had already registered and I would be there. I told him I would very much enjoy going out to dinner with them and on what evening would they like to do that? Ger said that they had agreed to meet up for dinner with some of the vendors that they see on the circuit because they had begged off at the last show, which I believe was Madison, Wisconsin. But, he didn't know what night. So, I said I would play it by ear. As it turned out, they wanted to go to dinner on Sunday evening, as they were all not flying out until Monday. So, Ger and Shelley and I were good to go for dinner on Friday evening.

I devised a plan based on the location of the Convention Center, which is three blocks from my residence. After the show ended at 8 p.m., we would walk to my residence building and I would show them my cat. After all, I had commissioned Ger to draw my cat last year, so he might as well meet him. My cat, Pud (as in, I tawt I taw a puddy tat), and Shel hit it off just great and Ger liked him, too.

After that, we crossed the street to the brew pub that is located diagonally across from my apartment building. We each had a Belgian beer and then we went to the SuperAmerica convenience store just down the street so that they could buy some smokes. I waited outside and they were back out in seconds. Too many people in line, Ger said -- they would wait. So, then, it was down to the corner and then one block to the restaurant, Ichiban, located directly across from the Hyatt Regency, where they were staying. Ichiban is a Japanese steakhouse, where they cook your dinner at your table. Neither Ger nor Shel had ever been to one before, so they enjoyed the show. Shel was particularly impressed. After a great meal, we repaired to the hotel bar and had a nightcap, chatting all the while. The next day, Ger told me that he had had no idea that we called it quits at 1:30 a.m.

All told, we did all of the above in a 1 square block area, just two blocks from the Convention Center. Gotta love downtown Minneapolis!

Earlier in the day, I opened up my satchel at Ger's table at the Con, and took out all of what I thought were all of the Following Cerebus issues on which he had worked (cover art). As it turned out, even though he was credited, there were a couple of covers on which he did not work, including the Neal Adams issue. "Oh, I thought you drew the waterfall," says I. "No, that was all Dave," says Ger.

And, then, Ger added, "Why don't you take it down to Neal's table and have him sign it?"

What!?! "Yeah, he’s right down there," Ger said, pointing to a table about three stops down the row.

Now, I swear, I had no idea that THE Neal Adams was going to be there. The Wizard World site had no mention of him, and I would have noticed it if they had had notice.

So, I waited a little bit and then told Ger that I had worked up the nerve to go get Neal's autograph on my Following Cerebus issue. I waited in line for a bit and then had my chance. That was when I saw that it was $30 dollars for an autograph. Yeah!

But, in for a penny, in for a pound. I paid my fee, he signed my book, and then I started talking with him about the interview and the experience that he and Dave Sim had shared at Niagara Falls. Neal didn't know or had forgotten that the issue was square-bound and he remarked on that. We exchanged a few comments about THE Dave Sim and that seemed to be about it. I was getting ready to go when Neal reached out his hand and said, "Let me see that for a minute."

He leafed through the Following Cerebus and found the pages on which Dave had reproduced some old Ben Casey newspaper comic strips on which Neal had worked. Neal thought for a moment and then said, "We're putting together a book of Ben Casey strips and we're always looking for original art. Do you think Dave would have any?"

I replied that I didn't know, but that I could give Dave a call. Neal said, "Would you mind?" No, no, of course not, glad to help. So, I called Dave, left a message explaining what had transpired and would Dave get back to me with a response as soon as possible.

I went back to Gerhard's table and told him about what had gone down. Ger said that he thought it was very unlikely that Dave would have any Ben Casey strips, but I said, "you never know and anyway, it’s worth a try." And, then, later, we had our evening out. It wasn't until I got home that I found that Dave had called me back and left a message shortly before the show ended earlier that day.

The gist of the message from Dave to me was, "Hi, Jeff, I think that the best thing is for me to leave a message for Neal on your phone, so when you see him tomorrow at the con, you can hand him your phone and ask him to listen." Followed, of course, by the message for Neal.

Sooooo, the next day, I waited until Neal's table didn’t have very many people to approach him. I had already told Ger about the phone message and said, "How do you think that's going to go over with Neal?" "Good luck," says Ger, giving me a look. "Yeah," I responded, "Neal seemed a little... curmudgeonly, yesterday." "Yeah, a little," says Ger.

But, doing my duty, I approached Neal. I don't know if he honestly didn't remember me from the day before or if he was pretending not to, but he was smiling. I told him that I had gotten a response from Dave. Would you mind if I step around the side of the table and explain? Nope, says he, and pulled up a chair.

I sat down next to THE Neal Adams and said, "Well, as is often the case with Dave, he made this a little difficult, but he also really delivered." Neal sort of just nodded, knowingly. So, I told Neal about the listening to the phone message part, but I added that, if he wanted, I could just transcribe the message onto paper for him, focusing on the pertinent parts. Neal seemed to think I said something about it being a burden on me and said, "Well, not if it's going to be a burden." NO, NO!, says I, "I said, 'the pertinent parts'" Oh, yeah, well, then, yeah, transcribe, if you don't mind.

So, I went back over to Ger’s table, sat down, got paper and pen from Shelley and, an hour later, had it transcribed almost word for word. I asked Ger if he wanted to read it and he said that, no, he was trying to finish the drawing in my copy of The Last Day before the end of the show that day. BTW, three of the four drawings that he did for me in my phonebooks are visible on the right side of the blog entry for the Minneapolis Comic Con at his website, GerhardArt.com.

So, I read it to Ger. He agreed that Dave really does always deliver above and beyond.

Now, bear in mind that Dave could easily just have left a message for me on my voicemail to tell Neal that, no, Dave didn't have any original art from the Ben Casey strips. End of story. But, no...

The message for and to Neal, that I transcribed, said that Dave knew of a guy, Yoram Mapzkin, wife's name Mary Ann, who lived in Woodbridge, Ontario at that time, who knew a guy in Texas who supposedly, at least at the time that Dave became aware of Yoram, has the largest collection of original Ben Casey strip art of anyone he knew of. Dave left Yoram's last phone number in the phone message to Neal. And, then, Dave went on to add that he knew that Yoram, at one time, had a week of Neal Adams dailies that Neal had done ghosting for Al Williamson on Secret Agent X-9.

And, then, Dave added on the phone message to Neal that the only other thing that Dave was aware of was that Syracuse State University, the Bird Library, has the Stan Drake papers, including a week of dailies from The Heart of Juliet Jones that Neal had ghosted for Stan Drake, in, "I'm pretty sure, like nearly 100% sure, that it was the third week of October, 1966. So, at the very least, you could contact the Bird Library at Syracuse State University and they could scan the month of October, 1966, for you. As I say, I'm pretty sure that it is the third week of October. I know Stan Drake's art and I know Neal Adams' art and I'm close to 100% sure that it’s the third week of October, 1966."

Dave closed the phone message to THE Neal Adams (on my phone!!!) by saying thanks to me for helping and wished his best to Neal's wife Marilyn and the kids, "as always."

So, on Saturday evening, a half hour before closing time, I took the transcription over to Neal and asked him if he wanted to read it. He did so, as I stood nearby. He looked up at me and softly said, "Thank you," and offered his hand to shake. I told him I was more than glad to help and that it was my pleasure. On Sunday, I went back by Neal's table, told him that it was a pleasure to meet him and that I hoped that the info I got for him would help. He told me that he was sure that it would and then said, "When the book comes out, you will have a credit."

That night, Ger and Shelley stayed in at their hotel and I went to the Wizard World after party that was held at a bar with which I am quite familiar in downtown Minneapolis. Earlier in the day, a Wizard World rep had given me a badge that was for VIP's, so I got into the private VIP area at the bar and got to sit on a leather couch that overlooked the stage area, for the second of two bands. I sat at a table on the floor for the first band, a country band that played before the official start time of the after party. Both good bands. And, I got free drinks in the VIP area for the latter part of the evening. Got home around 2 a.m., so I wasn't up 'til around noon on Sunday.

Sunday afternoon, I chilled with Ger and Shelley, got one last drawing from Ger, bought some prints. Ger was working on a sketch of Gerebus as pope and got up at one point towards the end of the day and handed it to me and said for me to ink it. So, I got to ink the loose and tight pencils of Ger (on a throwaway sketch that I didn't throw away). A couple of other artists added some of the inks, Ger finished it, and then was the dinner out with their colleagues. I was allowed to join. Nobody knew where they wanted to go, so I suggested a good seafood restaurant. There were originally eight of us, but a couple of guys really had their hearts set on BBQ, so they left.

The rest of the evening was spent telling stories. Ger set everybody up to spoof me at one point when I went to the restroom: I came back and just as I approached the table, Ger said, loudly, "So, that became Cerebus Readers in Crisis!" and everybody laughed really loudly. It turned out to be choreographed by Ger, and he hadn't told the story, so then everybody wanted the backstory. Fun evening.

So, that’s about all I remember from Wizard World Minneapolis Comic Con 2016. There is no better person with whom to hang out at a con than Ger. Trust me. And his lovely wife, Shelley, is equally nice, pleasant, and funny. It was well worth the two (count 'em, two) admissions I paid. Check out the photos at GerhardArt.com.

Gerhard's 2016 Convention Itinerary:

March 18-20: Comicon Toronto, ON

April 8-10: Wizard World Madison, WI

May 6-8: Wizard World Minneapolis, MN

June 2-6: Wizard World Philadelphia, PA

June 17-19: Wizard World Sacramento, CA

July-August: Gone Sailing Georgian Bay, ON

September 8-10: Wizard World Nashville, TN

November 4-6: Wizard World Pittsburgh, PA

Weekly Update #134: Reading Reads... Again!

One day soon, you too will be able to hold a copy of 'Reads' next to your head.

Notes for Dave's Chat with Neil

MARGARET LISS:

A few years ago I scanned all of Dave Sim's notebooks. He had filled 36 notebooks during the years he created the monthly Cerebus series, covering issues #20 to 300, plus the other side items -- like the Epic stories, posters and prints, convention speeches etc. A total of 3,281 notebook pages detailing his creative process. I never really got the time to study the notebooks when I had them. Just did a quick look, scanned them in and sent them back to Dave as soon as possible. So this regular column is a chance for me to look through those scans and highlight some of the more interesting pages.

With 138 pages scanned, it isn't surprising we've looked at Dave Sim's notebook #21 a couple times already, most recently in December 2015 with "Talking With Dave". It covers issues #197 to 211 of Cerebus.

During that time frame Dave wrote the essay "exit Sandman: MY CHAT WITH NEIL" which was published in Cerebus #209.

Dave wrote some notes for the essay on pages 93 through 96 of the notebook:

Notebook #21, page 93

Notebook #21, page 94

Notebook #21, page 95

Notebook #21, page 96

STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND Update

DAVE SIM:
Just got off the phone with Karl Stevens who had, yesterday, gotten the letter and "notes" I spent the week putting together on his first attempt at a "bridging page" in SDOAR.

One of the problems, he decided, is that a) he needs better photos, better lit and b) that it's not really fair to Tony to try to get him to sit for photos, where the light needs to be adjusted, etc. etc. at his store or to drag him out to Karl and Alexis' apartment to do so.  Good point.

So, the solution Karl suggested is: is it okay to use Alexis or himself as the "store owner"?

Yes, that made a lot of sense, particularly when it came to the "costuming".  If Tony wore a plaid or striped shirt (one of the secrets of the Alex Raymond photorealist school is plaid and striped clothing because it establishes irrefutable contour pretty effortlessly) but it didn't "work" -- well, how far away is Tony's closet to look for a substitute? In the case of Alexis, shooting the photos at the apartment, her closet is right there.

I don't know how long Million-Year Picnic has been in business -- they must be coming up on the million-year mark by now -- but we will now be ret-conning a woman owner! How 2016 is that?!  Or maybe Alexis is an employee?  Anyway, we will be using the front of the store for the first two or three pages.

The other thing that we've figured out is: instead of getting Karl to do a finished page and then my critiquing that, I'm going to get him to do photocopy mock-ups of the pages and critique those, since they involve a lot less working time lost if they need to be tweaked.

Further updates as they become available.

Help finance Dave Sim to complete 'The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond' 
by donating at Patreon.com.

Originally serialised within the pages of the self-published Glamourpuss #1-26 (2008 to 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.

Impossible Thing #12

Impossible Thing To Believe Before Breakfast #12:
An airline stewardess who earned $20,000 a year at the time that she married a baseball player earning $6 million a year is entitled, in the event of a divorce, to $3 million for each year of the marriage and probably more. 

DAVE SIM:
I tend to separate these situations into "wife and mother" and "feminist" categories.

In the event that the former stewardess became a 24/7 wife to the ballplayer and mother to his children, then I think she needs to be provided for in the event of a divorce in a manner comparable to child support as I envision it: that is, child support should be a fixed amount of money that it costs to rear a child in a specific geographic jurisdiction and alimony for 24/7 wives and mothers should be a fixed amount in a specific geographic jurisdiction (i.e. more in New York City than in Smalltown, Iowa). Otherwise you put The State in the untenable situation of establishing the $ value of children.  The baseball player's children are worth $30,000 a month and the garbageman's children are worth $1,000 a month.  We DO that, as a society, but I think it's wrong.

If the stewardess kept working -- that is, she was a feminist -- then I think the roommate rule makes sense.  She can enjoy being in a more affluent context as long as it lasts and then go back to the life she had when it comes to an end. You don't pay alimony to a roommate when they move out.

I also think you need to have a "nanny rule":  if you hired people to take care of your children then you weren't a 24/7 wife and mother. You were a roommate.

To reiterate the underpinnings of all this:  I think women, generally, by nature and inclination are predisposed to be wives and mothers and I think society benefits from "the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world"and should encourage that by creating a safety net for them not enjoyed by non-wives and non-mothers and "nanny enablers".  The further we get from that, the worse society gets, I think. And we're hurtling away from that in the opposite direction.    

On Sale 29 Years Ago: Cerebus #98

Cerebus #98 (May 1987)

Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard

Alan Moore: Waking In A Boiling Rage

Alan Moore (2011)

by Frank Quitely

DAVE SIM:
(from Al Nickerson's Creaotor's Bill Of Rights Blog, 27 December 2005)

...Clearly Paul Levitz can't do enough in a corporate-obligation-to-the-Time-Warner-shareholders sense than to try and make Alan Moore happy and clearly no one has had a greater failure rate in his attempts to do so as can be seen by Heidi [MacDonald]'s interview with Alan. I really can't emphasize strongly enough that creators take a hard look at what Alan is saying and actually try to absorb it rather than just going ballistic and heading for the metaphorical hills. As he wrote in the dedication in my copy of the Graphitti Designs hardcover of Watchmen:

"If you want to picture how perfect this would have been without a DC logo anywhere, try to imagine what ‘Workingman’s Dead’ would have sounded like if Jerry Garcia had all his fingers. Best wishes, respect and admiration always Alan Moore"

Note Alan didn't write anything along the lines of "Just imagine how much money this book brings into my bank account every year, double it and you're not even close. Much loov, Alan Moore". Although I'm reasonably sure that that would have been accurate as well. I mean, linking this to Colleen Doran's comments -- which are very succinct and very closely reasoned on the subject of work-made-for-hire, its pluses and minuses versus creator ownership and control -- I think she misses the point that she owns A Distant Soil and that that makes a lot of difference in areas where neither she nor I have the experience that Alan does where, as he says to Heidi: "it's whether I'm waking up at four in the morning in a boiling rage or not, and there is no amount of money that can compensate for that." I mean this is a nutcracker for Alan Moore wannabe's. Do you seriously believe that the writer of Watchmen and V for Vendetta is just, you know, being needlessly cranky and belligerent about his relationship with DC? That he needs to take a hard look at his bank account and realize that DC's Moolah is the best thing that ever happened to him and to take a downer or smoke a spliff and, you know, chill? I don't wake up at four in the morning in a boiling rage and I don't think Colleen Doran wakes up at four in the morning in a boiling rage either and I suspect that it's for the exact reason that we own a vast amount of our own work. Alan feels as if some of his fingers are missing and I wish more creators would pay attention to that. I have no idea where the balance point is -- I have virtually all of my own metaphorical fingers -- the work-made-for-hire stuff that I've done wouldn't fill a large business envelope and the Cerebus originals that we own, Gerhard informs me, would reach three storeys in height if they were in one pile -- and Colleen has most of her metaphorical fingers and (pretty clearly) all the ones that really matter to her -- but clearly there's a balance that's not just wanted, but needed. Neither man nor woman lives by work-made-for-hire alone. There came a memorable point in the 1980s where Frank Miller suddenly realized he had been working in comics for (however many) years and all that he owned was one story that he had done in Bizarre Adventures or some such. One five or seven-page story out of the hundreds of pages he had drawn that were largely financing the comic-book field (and which have since founded a Hollywood blockbuster or two). The result, for Frank, was the need to create his own comic book: Sin City...

...It was Alan who sold ABC to Jim Lee. ABC could have been Alan's Sin City but not after he sold it to somebody. As soon as you sell it somebody it's behind bars and all you can do is go and visit it wherever it's imprisoned and work on it with your hands thrust through the bars or leave it to someone else to do so. But, I think I'm safe in saying that that is a leading cause of waking up at four in the morning in a boiling rage. Presumably Frank Miller has those sorts of experiences with Dark Knight Returns and DK2 and presumably he doesn’t with Sin City and 300 and the other things he owns. If you have to go ballistic over my saying that, at least please take it with you when you run for the metaphorical hills and think about it!...

Congratulations to BAFTA Winner, Lenny Henry!

Lenny Henry, with Dave Sim in 1998

("I Was Lenny Henry's 40th Birthday Present")

 

British comedian, actor and writer Lenny Henry was awarded the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Special Award in recognition of his "outstanding creative contribution to television" at the British Academy Television Awards on 8 May 2016. Congratulations Lenny!

The Essential Wrapped In Plastic

The Essential Wrapped In Plastic (2016)

by John Thorne

JOHN THORNE:
(from The Essential Wrapped In Plastic, 2016)

In 2005, Craig Miller and I published our final issue of Wrapped In Plastic magazine. For over thirteen years and seventy-five issues, we studied and wrote about the television series, Twin Peaks, and its prequel film, Fire Walk With Me. Producing Wrapped In Plastic was a rewarding and memorable chapter in our lives; over the years we interviewed Twin Peaks co-creators, David Lynch and Mark Frost, as well as dozens of other people associated with the show -- from actors and writers, to musicians and cinematographers. We wrote about all aspects of the series: the history of its production, its cultural impact, and its rich thematic content. We made some great discoveries along the way and brought a keen critical eye to a television series that was -- and is -- unlike any other...

...This book exists because of Craig Miller. Wrapped In Plastic exists because of Craig Miller. He was the driving force behind the publication: He did the layout, handle the orders and mailing, administered the printing and distribution. He was the foundation of the magazine.

Craig approached me in 1991 about producing a Twin Peaks magazine. (He was adamant that it would be a magazine and not a "fanzine".) He had known about my fervor for Twin Peaks, and wanted me to join him in making a publication (I soon proposed the name, Wrapped In Plastic, and it stuck). That was the beginning of a strong, productive and special friendship.

Craig and I shared the editing tasks for each issue and we conducted interviews together. We both wrote extensively for the magazine, often trading off "the big essays" every-other-issue or so. I happened to be the author of much of the material regarding Twin Peaks and Fire Walk With Me; Craig often wrote about David Lynch's other films, and subjects about which he was passionate (Mark Frost, Stanley Kubrick, Peter Weir, The X-Files). We edited each other's work, polishing the writing and adding our own bits. Craig always kept us on schedule, firmly but gently reminding me of deadlines. He was the perfect co-editor, smart, committed, and thorough. The look, feel, and longevity of the magazine were due to Craig's tireless effort. Because of Craig's diligence, a new issue of Wrapped In Plastic was published every two months for over ten years.

Craig loved television, film, comics and science fiction. I shared his passion. He and I would talk endlessly of these things we treasured. Phone calls between us would last hours as we discussed a scene in Twin Peaks, or analysed an issue of Cerebus, or examined the themes of Blade Runner, or poured over the writings of David Foster Wallace. I'd end these conversations feeling exhausted -- and invigorated.

Craig passed away on November 7, 2012. His was a devastating loss -- for family, friends, and for the Twin Peaks community. Craig's vast knowledge and insight were gone. In describing the death of her father, the musician Laurie Anderson said, "It was like a library had burned down." That was what Craig's death was like. That huge mind -- that endless curiosity -- was no more. The world became a smaller place. 

But Craig's work lives on -- in the pages of Wrapped In Plastic, Spectrum Magazine and Following Cerebus. And his work lives on the pathways to Twin Peaks. I can never thank him enough...

Between 2004 and 2011, Craig Miller and John Thorne co-published 12 issues of Following Cerebus. You can read Dave Sim's tribute to Craig Miller here.

Jeff Seiler: Reading Reads

Cerebus Vol 9: Reads (1995)
by Dave Sim & Gerhard
Remastered Edition In Progress!

JEFF SEILER:

Dave asked me a while back to document the long, strange trip that has been the proofreading of READS. What he actually said on the voicemail was, "Hi, Jeff! Hope you’re having fun on your vacation in Florida. I was going to suggest that you get your friend to take a photo of you at the computer while you're proofreading READS. And, then, you could post it at A Moment Of Cerebus, along with a write-up explaining all of the complications that you've encountered and how you've fixed them so that, hopefully, we won't encounter those again, as we move forward." Or, something to that effect.

As I am ever the diligent servant, here we go:

The project started back in late 2015, when Dave asked me to proofread the book. He first said that he thought I could get a cheap copy of it online, because he presumed that I would mark up the pages in the book with red ink, as I did with the first 66 pages of the COLLECTED LETTERS VOLUME 1, was back in the stone age. No, no, I told him, I'm going to need to write this out by hand.

Thus, I did. On a yellow legal pad. I made four columns: Page, paragraph, line number, and correction. I wrote it all out with the suggested corrections and with appropriate notes, when necessary. And then, after some couple of weeks of doing that, I sent the entirety of it to Dave by FedEx.

A few days later, I received a voicemail from Dave saying that he and Sandeep Atwal (who was to make the corrections in the original text) had decided that they needed a typewritten version of the corrections. So, I did a spreadsheet, in the same format, and sent it directly to Sandeep.

A while after that, I received word that we still had not hit the mark. So, Sandeep found a Microsoft Word program that he could use to scan the entire text of READS, presumably from the printed copy, and then email it to me, so that I could open the file and edit the file, in text.

Now, here’s where it got complicated. Last year, because the $250 price tag was too nice to pass up, I bought a Google ChromeBook laptop computer. I like it for a good, long while, until I found that it would not let me edit in the file that Sandeep had sent to me. I could view the file all day long but, whenever I tried to edit, I was told by Google that the file was “not supported for editing”.

I tried everything I could think of to get it to work (here is probably where I should tell you that I am not exactly computer literate), but I couldn’t get it to work. I mean, I spent time just sitting in my chair, thinking about what I could do, and I had "ah-hah!" moments, all to no avail.

But, I was just a week away from my scheduled trip to Florida, so I emailed my friend, Nate, and asked if he had Word on his computer. Sure do!

So, problem fixed. Fly to Florida, making sure I have a copy of READS with me. Sandeep had already sent me photo files of my handwritten corrections...oh, yeah, that was another thing. Dave and Sandeep had decided that sending me my corrections back...wait, let’s back up a bit. When I sent the corrections, I was already (laughs to self) behind on my schedule and I went to the FedEx store and asked how much did it cost to make copies. Twenty cents per page. I was looking a very large number of pages of corrections, so I said, eh, no.

So, when Dave and Sandeep decided that I needed to enter the corrections directly into the text file, they also decided that the $35 or $40CAN FedEx cost could be saved by having Sandeep scan my corrections and email them to me. Easy-peasy. But...

When I got the scanned files and tried to print them out (they were scanned two pages to a scan, side-by-side), the printout of my email would only print the left side of the photo. Meaning, I could look at page 1, page 3, page 5, etc. in a printout, but not the even-numbered pages.

I kid you not. But, have I mentioned that I am less computer-literate than is Dave?

At that point, I decided that I was just going to have to proofread the whole thing again, in text, which made sense, since I had been instructed to... um... proofread in text.

But, then, my friend’s computer would not let me edit in text. If you’re not familiar with how that works (if you are, skip down), you get a file sent to you and you open it and click on Edit (at the top of the first page of the file, not in the bar at the top of the screen), and you’re supposed to be able to insert corrections into the file. But, I couldn't. Long story short (yeah, I see you IT guys rolling your eyes), I finally found the one clicky thingy that would let me get into the file and edit. "Override." To me, anyway, it was not easily found.

And, away we went. Smooth sailing. Cruising along... until I got about halfway in. It was then, and only then, that I noticed that the formatting of the file was different from the formatting of the original phonebook.

READS, as it is constituted, has no paragraph indentations. Also, there are double spaces between paragraphs, whether or not there is a little curly-cue between the paragraphs (which I could not replicate, nor did Sandeep's Word scanning program).

The scanned file had five-space indentations at the beginning of every paragraph and no double spaces between paragraphs. So, having just woken up to that fact about halfway in, I spent the better part of three or four hours going back and backspacing and double-spacing all of the work I had previously done, in text. And, when I looked closely at the difference between a line or paragraph that I had reformatted and a line or paragraph, as it was scanned in, I noticed that the scanned versions was just slightly off, where the indentation of a paragraph ended. If the corrected version was at X spot, then the scanned version was about half a letter to the right of that.

So, I had to backspace and, when I did so, it didn't backspace space-by-space, five spaces. No, one click and it was back at the left margin. So, I had to backspace each paragraph right back to the end of the previous paragraph and then hit RETURN and double-space to start the new paragraph in the correct format.

On April 13th, I had just seven pages to go, having stopped the night before because I was so tired. I woke up on April 14th and my friend’s computer was frozen. I could not even open up Word. He was at work and, so, I just sat and watched baseball all day. Yay, MLB Network! He came home and found a way to get it going but, then, we had dinner plans.

So, on the 15th, I finished the last seven pages and then prepared to email the finished file to Sandeep. I sent an email addressed to Dave and Sandeep and then attached the file to the email. As is my wont, I cc-ed myself and then opened up the attachment, to check it...

Take your right hand, open up your palm, and apply it liberally to your forehead. Repeatedly.

I had clicked on the "Reads Text" file and sent it to Sandeep, only to find that it was the original file that he had sent to me.

The uncorrected file.

So, I tried again, but in a draft email. Same thing. And, then I found that it wasn't exactly the same file, uncorrected, that Sandeep had sent to me, but the file, as it was as of April 13th. With seven uncorrected pages at the end.

SO.

I went back into the file that I had corrected and checked that it was the COMPLETELY corrected file. And then, I rename it, went to my email, clicked on ATTACH, and added it to the email to Dave and Sandeep (via Sandeep's email address since, you know, Dave doesn't {ahem} do email) and cc-ed myself. And, then, I looked myself up and clicked on the attachment and...

BOB'S YER UNCLE!!!

But, then, I still had to send the corrected file to Sean Michael Robinson, and I did, only to be told by him that it didn’t look corrected. I looked at what I had sent to him, and it looked corrected to me. I mentioned to Sean that I did not correct Dave's original Canadian spelling in many spots (but did so in others) and that that may have been what had thrown Sean off.

But, I went back and checked what I had sent to Sean and, sure enough, that last section of the book was not (this is where I started using the term) corrected correctly. So, there was another two days of correcting the corrected corrections. By this time, I was up to around April 22nd or so and then I had a weekend event to attend that would eat up of my time, all weekend.

On Monday, since I had already found out that I wouldn't fly home until Friday, the 29th, I worked on correcting the corrected corrections. As expected, that took two days of my on-vacation time allotted for working. Sent the final file off to Sean, who, in the interim had faxed Dave about what was going on. Dave had faxed a reply, which Sean had forwarded to me, that basically said that corrected files not staying corrected was a common thing and that it was just going to have to take a little while longer.

Also, in the interim, I wrote this. And then, having sent the corrected file that actually "stuck" (cross your fingers), I headed home. Today, Saturday the 30th, my birthday, I went to FedEx, printed out a hard copy of the 143-page file for Dave (and one for me) and stuffed it in an envelope and sent it off, to arrive at Dave's door on Tuesday, May 2nd.

All of you out there who are reading this and thinking, "What the heck?!?", or some variation thereof, just keep in mind that I am less computer-literate than is Dave Sim. That's saying something.

But, please bear in mind that I am a consummate proofreader. Just ask my friend, Nate, with whom I shared a nice vacation in Florida. One evening, he asked me, very politely, not to correct his syntax anymore.

Oh, and, Dave? It's "farther" for distance and "further" for everything else, including concepts.

There you go, folks. Next time, less glitches, God willing. 

[Jeff did mention he had taken some photos to accompany this article... but unfortunately he couldn't work out how to email them to me to post here! -- Tim W.]

Weekly Update #133: Reading Reads

A quick update on the restoration of 'Reads' and the Great Cerebus Giveaway.

Gerhard At 'Wizard World Minneapolis' This Weekend!

Gerhard's 2016 Convention Itinerary:

March 18-20: Comicon Toronto, ON

April 8-10: Wizard World Madison, WI

May 6-8: Wizard World Minneapolis, MN

June 2-6: Wizard World Philadelphia, PA

June 17-19: Wizard World Sacramento, CA

July-August: Gone Sailing Georgian Bay, ON

September 8-10: Wizard World Nashville, TN

November 4-6: Wizard World Pittsburgh, PA

An Edge In His Voice So Sharp He Could Plotz

MARGARET LISS:

A few years ago I scanned all of Dave Sim's notebooks. He had filled 36 notebooks during the years he created the monthly Cerebus series, covering issues #20 to 300, plus the other side items -- like the Epic stories, posters and prints, convention speeches etc. A total of 3,281 notebook pages detailing his creative process. I never really got the time to study the notebooks when I had them. Just did a quick look, scanned them in and sent them back to Dave as soon as possible. So this regular column is a chance for me to look through those scans and highlight some of the more interesting pages.

We've looked at Dave Sim's notebook #7 a couple times before, most recently in November 2015 in "Out With The In Crowd". Notebook #7 covers Cerebus issues 87 to 95 with 115 pages scanned.

On page 34 Dave has a list of things relating Cerebus to the comic book market with regards to why he wanted to create the phonebooks and sell them through Aardvark-Vanaheim.

Notebook #7, page 34

#1 being "To see my first full novel under one cover in print in case I got hit by a bus tomorrow" and #2 being "to make enough money off one project so I could tell DC I wasn't interested in selling all rights to Cerebus for $100,000."

Then on page 35 he sounds more like he is writing an editorial why Aardvark-Vanaheim is selling the phonebook directly instead of going through distributors.

 Notebook #7, page 35

CAN4 BONUS PRINTS SIGNED!

DAVE SIM:
Good news!  Rollie came by yesterday morning around 10 am and by 11:30 am, I had signed Bonus Print #32 [Jacob Moore], #33 [SWORDS vol.4 cover], #35 ["On The Stairs"], #36 [CEREBUS No.301 Christmas card], #37 [CEREBUS No.1 the Eccentric Cover], #38 [New York Comicon '79 program book inside back cover], #39 [CEREBUS No.1 cover 1977 -- 112 of those!], #40 [CEREBUS No.5 cover], #41 ["The Name of the Game is Diamondback" SWORDS vol.1 page over Marshall Rogers' layouts.

As you may have noticed that list doesn't include BP #34.  There is, evidently, a layout problem with the piece that Sean is "investigating".

I had a fax this morning from John Funk telling me that he's revised the schedule and Rollie will be bringing over the remaining Bonus Prints "in the next 2-3 days".

So, we are definitely at a "mid-May" at the absolute earliest for these to begin shipping -- and some "serious coin" for John Funk when it comes to financial penalties.

Sincere apologies as this drags past the "six-month" waiting point.  Whatever we're doing with CAN5 it's definitely going to be structured MUCH differently!

Impossible Thing #11

Impossible Thing To Believe Before Breakfast #11:

Only in a society which maintains a level of 95% of alimony and child support being paid by men to women can men and women be considered as equals. 

DAVE SIM:
Hi Erick!  The 2+2=4 on this one, for me, is that if we lived in a society with actual Gender Equality, no one would pay alimony to anyone.  In the same sense that if you have a roommate and they decide to move out, you don't go to court to figure out who should pay what to whom.  You go your way, I go my way, goodbye. Period.

You can't make the genders equal in these areas.  Men pay alimony to women disproportionately because most women are less well equipped to provide for themselves than are men.  The easiest way to disprove that thesis is by eliminating alimony.  If the Genders were Equal, alimony would be an insult. "How dare you imply that I can't provide for myself!" The genders aren't equal which is why alimony exists and involves such astronomical sums of money going from "male" to "female".

Child support is a different thing: each jurisdiction needs, I think, to have a legal fixed cost established of what is needed to rear a child and that needs to be paid.  But, it needs to be a FIXED cost, otherwise you're enabling a class system that establishes that Child A gets $30,000 a month and Child B gets $4,000 a month.  "This is how much it costs to rear a child". That's how much gets paid.

The exception, to me, would be alimony paid to wives and mothers.  If she was your wife and the mother of your children and that was WHO she was and WHAT she did, 24/7, then, yes, alimony needs to be paid and in a sufficient amount to maintain the life that she had, even if it impoverishes the divorcing husband and father.  Whatever flexibility you attached to that would, I think, have to be considerably (considerably!) less flexible based on the wife and mother's age.  The older she is, the less likely she is going to be able to provide for herself and the less likely she is to remarry.  So, yes, in that case alimony should, in my opinion, be "for life".

Jaka's Story Restoration Begins...

Sean Michael Robinson:

Greetings friends and Cerebus Restoration patrons,

I've been quiet on the blog front because of amount of things I'm currently trying to juggle, namely, getting the last pieces of Reads in place so we can move forward printing it with Marquis, and using all other spare time to try to finish Cerebus Volume One, while planning the next step forward.

The next step forward? It just so happens that the next book chronologically also happens to be the book with the lowest inventory—Jaka's Story. (It also happens to be one of my three favorite individual Cerebus volumes, along with Church & State II and Going Home.)

For those reasons and a few others, it's the perfect subject for the series I discussed in the last restoration update—a series of how-to articles that detail the step-by-step process we're using to put together one of these books, from selecting a scanner to working with a printer. It'll include evaluations of a bunch of the most commonly available scanners, sample Photoshop scripts for different tasks, possibly even some video and sample files to work with. Although Jaka's Story will not be anywhere near as work-intensive for me given the condition of the materials, it should provide a good overview for people who have to do this kind of production work themselves, and a good repository for the information I've picked up over the past two years.

But hey, it's all promises until the first installment arrives, right? So I'll be on my way now and get on that!

Restoration Update:

Reads: The corrections for the edited text have arrived from Dave, and the completed text will be dropped into the template this morning/today, pending approval of the revisions I've made to the layout of the text pages. Other missing elements—my essay (half complete, accompanied by the before and after images for the back, which are all done), the thank-yous (waiting on JF to supply them).

Church & State II: All now complete save essay and back matter/thank-you's

Cerebus Volume One: Approximately 60 pages left, and then any revisions that will need to be made once I've made 11 x 17 "soft proofs" of the whole shebang.

Jaka's Story: A few hundred pages of scanning already completed. Once all of the original art has arrived, I'll figure out what we're missing and we'll make a list for what negatives we'll need to fill in the gaps, if there are any!

In the meanwhile...

Vertigo Contracts

Swamp Thing #21: The Anatomy Lesson (DC Comics, 1983)

by Alan Moore, Steve Bissette and John Totleben

(© DC Comics Inc)

DAVE SIM:
(from Al Nickerson's Creator's Bill Of Rights Blog, 27 December 2005)

...The mythology that the major company contracts have just been getting better and better ("EVERYthing's fine now.") takes a direct hit in finding out that seven years earlier Bissette got the same one I got. Plus, for a lot of guys with stars in their eyes the fact that Steve Bissette can't get a foot in the door at Vertigo is like finding out that Paul McCartney can't book recording time at Abbey Road studios. I mean it doesn't surprise me. There's the "ins" and the “outs” at the companies -- 'twas ever thus -- and the Neil Gaimans are the rare exceptions and not the rule. But it is very hard on the perception that runs very deep in the comic-book soul that all your hard work for DC and Marvel is like money in the bank not only while you're banging out your pages but that there's a Long Term Good Will Jackpot once you’ve served up a hit for them. "What have you done for us lately?" unfortunately is always more the company attitude. After all, this is the generation (or the generation right after the one: generations come and go so fast these days) that was weaned on Moore, Bissette and Totleben's Swamp Thing and would be starting from the baseline assumption that Bissette is the problem. If he would just get over his crankiness and his belligerence and let bygones be bygones and go and visit Karen Berger and his long-lost Vertigo family he'd be welcomed back with group hugs all around and given carte blanche to do whatever he wanted and a nice fat happy Neil Gaiman contract to boot. I'm not really being facetious, I don't think. The fact that Steve was given the same "take it or leave it" boilerplate contract for his proposed projects that I -- as a marginal presence and first time potential participant -- was given for the proposed Fables short-short speaks volumes about the non-Neil Gaiman end of Vertigo and of DC and of mainstream comic books in general. And those are volumes that creators don't want to read, unfortunately. I mean, heck, Steve Bissette is the absolute toppermost of the poppermost cutting-edge guy when it comes to comic-book horror -- still! -- just on the basis of what he did with Swamp Thing and Taboo and he can't get a project green-lighted at Vertigo even under their crap work-made-for-hire terms? That's just too sad. But look at the reaction of the comic-book field: given the choice between thinking badly of Steve Bissette or thinking badly of Vertigo, it's a no-brainer. If Steve Bissette is right (which he obviously is) then the average creator following in his career footsteps is walking into a potential death trap where they could end up as he did -- producing hundreds of pages of top-flight well-thought-of work and ending up like Jerry Seigel. Except nobody offered to buy Bissette an overcoat after they kicked him out the door. Maybe if he got a job as a messenger in Manhattan?...

STEVE BISSETTE:
(from Steve Bissette's Myrant Blog, 10 January 2006)

...True enough, Dave. As Dave knows from personal experience, it's no fun being a pariah, but so it goes. With few exceptions, the pro realm of comics was just as glad to see me go. For my own part, I uprooted, I got on with it, found other ways to get by in the world, and have been much happier since. Since being a messenger for DC isn't on my future job agenda (nor is returning to mainstream comics), I'll get by just fine without comics...

...Corporations do hold grudges as well or better than many frail mortals, and aside from the legal redirecting of creator ownership (relevant to the character of John Constantine) that emerged during my DC years, I've never directly benefitted from the hard-fought 'rights' battles fought with DC during the 1980s. As I've said here and elsewhere, I believe my role in those battles is part-and-parcel of the reasons I'll never benefit from the "new DC" era; it's been made quite clear to me there's no open doors there, even when the doors were tentatively teased opened (last in 1997-98). No love lost, but the belief, as Dave so neatly puts it, that if I would just "let bygones be bygones and go and visit Karen Berger and his long-lost Vertigo family [I'd] be welcomed back with group hugs all around and given carte blanche to do whatever [I] wanted and a nice fat happy Neil Gaiman contract to boot" is a tenacious one in comics fandom. It malingers to this day -- I just got an email from a fan to that effect on New Year's Day! -- and my stating otherwise is seen as just further evidence of my crabby disposition, ironically reinforcing the illusion that this is a situation I fomented and somehow cling to...

Stephen R. Bissette is best known for his collaboration with Alan Moore on Saga of the Swamp Thing from 1983-87, and for his self-published Tyrant comic, the portrait of a Tyrannosaurus Rex in the late Cretaceous period. He also edited the ground-breaking horror comics anthology Taboo, which launched From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. He co-authored the books Comic Book Rebels and The Monster Book: Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and his novella Aliens: Tribes, illustrated by Dave Dorman, won a Bram Stoker Award in 1993. More recently his articles on horror films have been collected in the Blur series published by Black Coat Press and Steve currently serves on the faculty of The Center For Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont.  

On Sale 4 Years Ago: Zootanapuss #4

Zootanapuss #4 aka Glamourpuss #25

(May 2012)

Art by Dave Sim