$677 TO THE $30,000 PLATEAU
I've got JUST enough time to get back to the Off-White House before my sunset prayer. Thanks, everyone, as always for your outstanding generosity! I'll find out the final total on Tuesday!
Saturday, 3 September 2016
7:22 PM $29,178 PLEDGED! THANKS, EVERYONE!
$822 to the $30,000 PLATEAU
Of course, I wouldn't have told myself that I'd also be 19 and a half hours into a 48-hour fast, having committed myself to a 3:16 program of fasting for 24 hours on every 3/16 date in 2016. And only realized "What happens when a 3/16 occurs next to a Sunday when I'm already committed to fasting for 24 hours?" when it actually happened.
You read about "going to bed hungry" but it's a very edifying experience to actually go through it, realizing how much of the world does that, having no choice in the matter.
Mm. No, better just tell him about the $2,000 on his little television on a Saturday...and save the 48-hour fast for a surprise. :)
7:14 PM $29,158 PLEDGED! MANY THANKS TO EVERYONE
$842 TO THE $30,000 THRESHOLD
I have to tell you, it would have gotten me through a LOT over the years if I could go back and tell myself that WAY off in the future, I'll be able to type directly to fans of my comic book on a little television for eight hours on a Saturday and raise roughly $2,000.
"If THAT'S true, how bad can things get, eh?"
6:53 PM $29,158 THANK THANK THANK THANK YOUSE!
$842 TO THE $30,000 THRESHOLD! TICK TICK TICK
I was also thinking it would be interesting for the future AMOC "government" to try a lottery with a visit to the Off-White House and x number of hours of page-viewing time as the prize. Of course that would depend on an expanding CEREBUS readership after I'm dead.
Wish I could be here to help, but I'll be dead.
6:24 PM $29,138 PLEDGED! THANKS THANKS THANKS THANKS!!!
$862 TO THE NEXT PLEDGE PLATEAU OF $30,000
One of things that I'm "crunching" in the AMOC "government" angle is this whole idea of the Rich Cerebus Fans benefiting the Poor Cerebus Fans -- along the lines of our "in the moment situation": if we hit $30,000, the guy who just donated $1 will get $40 worth of digital rewards just by virtue of being One of Us.
If you extrapolate that All for One sensibility into the value that viewing/working next to the original artwork will have for artist AA BB or AABB, then it's not hard to see how AMOC, after I'm dead, would be the place to identify the AA or BB or AABB in any given year/decade/century and set up a mechanism whereby he or she could be funded for a visit of whatever-length-of-time to the Off-White House.
"We, the AMOC government, have determined that, for us, this is the Next Dave Sim or the Next Gerhard and we're all going to pull together to get this person to the Off-White House for a week? two weeks? three weeks? of study."
One of things that I'm "crunching" in the AMOC "government" angle is this whole idea of the Rich Cerebus Fans benefiting the Poor Cerebus Fans -- along the lines of our "in the moment situation": if we hit $30,000, the guy who just donated $1 will get $40 worth of digital rewards just by virtue of being One of Us.
If you extrapolate that All for One sensibility into the value that viewing/working next to the original artwork will have for artist AA BB or AABB, then it's not hard to see how AMOC, after I'm dead, would be the place to identify the AA or BB or AABB in any given year/decade/century and set up a mechanism whereby he or she could be funded for a visit of whatever-length-of-time to the Off-White House.
"We, the AMOC government, have determined that, for us, this is the Next Dave Sim or the Next Gerhard and we're all going to pull together to get this person to the Off-White House for a week? two weeks? three weeks? of study."
6:00 PM $29,013 PLEDGED! MERCI! MERCI BEAUCOUP!
$987 TO THE $30,000 THRESHOLD AND MORE FREE DIGITAL REWARDS FOR EVERYONE PLEDGING $1 OR MORE!
It really is my own fault that I'm having to deal with all this as a way of life at age 60. There are moments that I go, "Six THOUSAND pages? Wasn't that, you know, overdoing it a bit?"
Okay, overdoing it a LOT.
5:00 PM $28,973 PLEDGED! THANKS! THANKS! THANKS! THANKS!
$1,027 TO THE NEXT "FREE DIGITAL REWARDS" PLATEAU!
I know that the Mysterious Mr. J, the long-time CEREBUS fan who has vowed to donate the vast majority of his estate to keeping all of this going will be reading this either in real time or early next week. So:
Yes, Mr. J. This means that you can go ahead and have the papers drawn up specifying that AARDVARK-VANAHEIM INC. is your primary beneficiary instead of waiting until THE CEREBUS TRUST exists, now that THE CEREBUS TRUST isn't going to exist. :)
Mr. J is one of the big reasons that I'm EXTREMELY cautious with how A-V is governed after my death. He has to be sure that his estate is going towards the Aardvark-Vanaheim I've been building for nearly forty years, not something that will go off at an oblique angle as soon as I'm not here.
4:30 PM $28,953 PLEDGED! THANK YOU, ALL!
$1,047 AWAY FROM THE NEXT "PLEDGE PLATEAU"! CAN YOU DO IT?
ALL PLEDGE PARTNERS -- FROM $1 AND UP -- QUALIFY FOR THE FREE BONUS DIGITAL REWARDS IF WE HIT $30K BY A UNANIMOUS VOTE OF THE AARDVARK-VANAHEIM INC BOARD
4:00 PM $28,798 PLEDGED! THANK YOU ALL, AGAIN!
One of the things that's "shifting" relative to The Cerebus Archive itself is the relationship between the Cerebus audience -- primarily the Pledge Partners -- and Aardvark-Vanaheim Inc.
My plans to have A-V dissolve itself at the moment of my death and convert into the Cerebus Trust has foundered on the fact that anything that happens with the corporation on my death that involves transferring its assets to another entity has HUGE tax consequences. Basically, everything has to be evaluated financially and then a percentage of that goes to the Ontario government. Big hit on the proceeds from my insurance which will be A-V's primary "lifeblood".
So, now I'm trying to figure out how to keep the "on-paper" corporation alive after I'm dead while ensuring that it sticks to doing a very limited number of things. One of which would be continuing to publish the CEREBUS ARCHIVE Portfolios as a means of financing "in perpetuity" while also making sure that CEREBUS enters the public domain.
The most devoted part of your audience is really the best guarantor of your wishes being followed.
I'm trying to figure out, basically, how to make AMOC, after I'm dead, into the Aardvark-Vanaheim "government". Except, if I can make it another ten or twenty years, I think you can take the quotation marks off of there. Corporations governed on the Internet will, I think, be the rule, rather than the exception.
My plans to have A-V dissolve itself at the moment of my death and convert into the Cerebus Trust has foundered on the fact that anything that happens with the corporation on my death that involves transferring its assets to another entity has HUGE tax consequences. Basically, everything has to be evaluated financially and then a percentage of that goes to the Ontario government. Big hit on the proceeds from my insurance which will be A-V's primary "lifeblood".
So, now I'm trying to figure out how to keep the "on-paper" corporation alive after I'm dead while ensuring that it sticks to doing a very limited number of things. One of which would be continuing to publish the CEREBUS ARCHIVE Portfolios as a means of financing "in perpetuity" while also making sure that CEREBUS enters the public domain.
The most devoted part of your audience is really the best guarantor of your wishes being followed.
I'm trying to figure out, basically, how to make AMOC, after I'm dead, into the Aardvark-Vanaheim "government". Except, if I can make it another ten or twenty years, I think you can take the quotation marks off of there. Corporations governed on the Internet will, I think, be the rule, rather than the exception.
3:30 PM $28,798 PLEDGED! THANK YOU, THANK YOU!
Side note on Matt Dow's question about comparing the Kickstarter reproductions with the original artwork:
While it's true that there are things that you can only see in the original artwork, no matter how good the reproduction is, the CAN Portfolios are the closest we can GET to the original artwork: certainly closer than you get with either the books or the original comic books.
In terms of posterity, a big plus with the CAN Portfolios is that they function both as accurate-as-you-can-get reproductions and as artist tutorials: "Here's what I remember about this page. Here's the thinking that went into the page. Here's what the artist in me sees when he looks at this page, this many years later."
So, if there are any philanthropists reading this, there are more cartooning/animation/graphic novel courses at Community colleges and universities in your area than ever before: filled with students that may never have even heard of CEREBUS. CAN Portfolios are really perfect for introducing CEREBUS to those environments since the treatment is very much cartooning AS a profession. Here's what it looks like. Here's the thinking behind it.
Ideal donation material. We have no idea where artists AA BB and AABB might turn up.
Just sayin'.
DOWN TO THE LAST FEW HOURS. LOOKS LIKE WE MIGHT BE WITHIN STRIKING DISTANCE OF THE $30K "EVERYBODY GOES HOME HAPPY WITH DIGITAL FREE STUFF. COME ONNN, RICH PEOPLE!!" :)
While it's true that there are things that you can only see in the original artwork, no matter how good the reproduction is, the CAN Portfolios are the closest we can GET to the original artwork: certainly closer than you get with either the books or the original comic books.
In terms of posterity, a big plus with the CAN Portfolios is that they function both as accurate-as-you-can-get reproductions and as artist tutorials: "Here's what I remember about this page. Here's the thinking that went into the page. Here's what the artist in me sees when he looks at this page, this many years later."
So, if there are any philanthropists reading this, there are more cartooning/animation/graphic novel courses at Community colleges and universities in your area than ever before: filled with students that may never have even heard of CEREBUS. CAN Portfolios are really perfect for introducing CEREBUS to those environments since the treatment is very much cartooning AS a profession. Here's what it looks like. Here's the thinking behind it.
Ideal donation material. We have no idea where artists AA BB and AABB might turn up.
Just sayin'.
DOWN TO THE LAST FEW HOURS. LOOKS LIKE WE MIGHT BE WITHIN STRIKING DISTANCE OF THE $30K "EVERYBODY GOES HOME HAPPY WITH DIGITAL FREE STUFF. COME ONNN, RICH PEOPLE!!" :)
2:10 PM $27,607 PLEDGED! MANY THANKS TO ALL!
The design of the interior of the vault -- as I think makes sense with all comic art -- would be a LOT of very narrowly spaced storage shelves, narrowly spaced to the extent that maybe five 11 x 17 pages would fit comfortably in each one.
So, between 600 and 700 shelves.
This will make finding and accessing the pages easier. If you know the issue number, the page number in that issue and/or the trade paperback page number, you find the shelf and...there it is...with only the three or four pages on either side of it.
This brings us to the "I have no idea" point that I'm at with it: who is it that's accessing the pages in the vault?
You have person 1 and person 2 who have entered their respective combinations and they're now IN the vault. Presumably the insurance company isn't going to want to have their employee (?) there any longer than it takes to open the vault. So, I think we're talking about the bonded security guard and I think he or she actually gets sealed IN the vault for as long as the visitor wants to look at the artwork.
Outside the vault, you have the Studio which consists of a drawing board -- wide enough to hold, say, a half dozen pages under non-reflective bulletproof glass, as thin as you can make it and still have it completely indestructible. The visitor specifies which pages they want to see, the security guard finds them on the shelves, and inserts them from inside the vault into the glass-covered drawing board. If the visitor is artist AA BB or AABB, they can then pull out their drawing materials, adjust the glass drawing board to their comfortable angle for drawing and then set to work. Any ink gets spilled, it can be easily cleaned up off the glass.
If the visitor ISN'T an artist, then all they would do is prioritize before they got to the Off-White House which pages they want to look at, how many pages they want to look at and for how long based on how long they can afford to engage the security guard. (And how long they can get their "Rachel" to sit still, Sean) :)
There's a potential design/interface problem, I think, with the integrity of the vault for insurance purposes because you have the Studio attached. For the artist's purposes, you want the glass to be as thin as possible: it has to be as close as possible to working ON the page on the same plane as the artist's working page. Anything more than, say, 1/4" and you're going to get into visual focal length adjustments that are going to wear on you as an artist. For the insurance company's purposes, you want the glass to be as thick as possible.
I'm guessing that there's probably SOME kind of glass that has been created or will be created that will represent a compromise between the two.
The glass, however bulletproof, might also be an insurance company "deal-breaker". Glass? No, no. Tempered steel six inches thick ALL the way around. It's a VAULT, not a candy store.
So, between 600 and 700 shelves.
This will make finding and accessing the pages easier. If you know the issue number, the page number in that issue and/or the trade paperback page number, you find the shelf and...there it is...with only the three or four pages on either side of it.
This brings us to the "I have no idea" point that I'm at with it: who is it that's accessing the pages in the vault?
You have person 1 and person 2 who have entered their respective combinations and they're now IN the vault. Presumably the insurance company isn't going to want to have their employee (?) there any longer than it takes to open the vault. So, I think we're talking about the bonded security guard and I think he or she actually gets sealed IN the vault for as long as the visitor wants to look at the artwork.
Outside the vault, you have the Studio which consists of a drawing board -- wide enough to hold, say, a half dozen pages under non-reflective bulletproof glass, as thin as you can make it and still have it completely indestructible. The visitor specifies which pages they want to see, the security guard finds them on the shelves, and inserts them from inside the vault into the glass-covered drawing board. If the visitor is artist AA BB or AABB, they can then pull out their drawing materials, adjust the glass drawing board to their comfortable angle for drawing and then set to work. Any ink gets spilled, it can be easily cleaned up off the glass.
If the visitor ISN'T an artist, then all they would do is prioritize before they got to the Off-White House which pages they want to look at, how many pages they want to look at and for how long based on how long they can afford to engage the security guard. (And how long they can get their "Rachel" to sit still, Sean) :)
There's a potential design/interface problem, I think, with the integrity of the vault for insurance purposes because you have the Studio attached. For the artist's purposes, you want the glass to be as thin as possible: it has to be as close as possible to working ON the page on the same plane as the artist's working page. Anything more than, say, 1/4" and you're going to get into visual focal length adjustments that are going to wear on you as an artist. For the insurance company's purposes, you want the glass to be as thick as possible.
I'm guessing that there's probably SOME kind of glass that has been created or will be created that will represent a compromise between the two.
The glass, however bulletproof, might also be an insurance company "deal-breaker". Glass? No, no. Tempered steel six inches thick ALL the way around. It's a VAULT, not a candy store.
1:20 PM $27,607 PLEDGED! MANY "LABOUR DAY WEEKEND"THANKS
When it comes to the design of the on-site bank vault, the first priority will be that it be "insurance directed". Insurance is always based on risk, so what I have to do is get the vault designed based on the risk as perceived by the insurance company (whatever company that ends up being). What are the insurance company's specs?
One of the elements -- it's all still at the multiple-theoretical stage -- that I've come up with is tandem combination locks, both of which have to be accessed simultaneously in order to open the vault, and basically having a "you call it" access approach to the one combination lock reserved to the insurance company. "This is about YOUR level of comfort. The higher your insurance comfort level, the lower the risk and the lower the premiums, so YOU TELL ME: who do you want to appoint as the 'other person' who has to be there to open the vault?"
While I'm alive, I would be the "first person", presumably. But the fact that I won't be able to get into the vault on my own but only in company with someone appointed by the insurance company, I'm pretty sure will count in keeping the insurance costs down. After I'm dead, the 'first person', arguably, could also be appointed by the insurance company.
I'm trying to "dovetail" this with the security guard element. Anyone can have unlimited access to the Off-White House after I'm dead. They just have to hire a bonded security guard, locally. He or she will be there with them to ensure that they put everything back where they found it and that they don't break or steal anything. We have to go on the (I think, safe) assumption that visitors will be very, very, very few and very, very, very far between. One every ten or twenty years wouldn't be unexpected. The point isn't the number of visitors, the point is artist AA BB or AABB...or The Researcher.
Again, I relate it to Alex Raymond. If Raymond had preserved his home/studio in perpetuity, I could go there, hire a Stamford security guard to follow me around and basically just look through everything over a period of several days and I'm assuming I would learn a lot. I'd probably make several trips, the first one just to figure out what I wanted to look at more closely and I'd be willing to bet I'd end up helping the local economy more than I intended because of avenues that would open up that I'd feel compelled to explore thoroughly.
I might be the only visitor in fifty years. To me, THAT isn't the point, either. The point is First Custodianship. The debt is to the people that you Inspire who come after you, however long "after you" they come.
A very different way of looking at things, but then apart from my self-perceived custodial obligations to the Off-White House and its contents and to the people for whom they're important, my only PERSONAL possessions are my Bible, Kingdom Interlinear translation of the Gospels and my English-language Koran. CEREBUS brought me to this point, but CEREBUS is, in that sense, just the jettisoned first stage rocket.
Of interest, now, only to others.
One of the elements -- it's all still at the multiple-theoretical stage -- that I've come up with is tandem combination locks, both of which have to be accessed simultaneously in order to open the vault, and basically having a "you call it" access approach to the one combination lock reserved to the insurance company. "This is about YOUR level of comfort. The higher your insurance comfort level, the lower the risk and the lower the premiums, so YOU TELL ME: who do you want to appoint as the 'other person' who has to be there to open the vault?"
While I'm alive, I would be the "first person", presumably. But the fact that I won't be able to get into the vault on my own but only in company with someone appointed by the insurance company, I'm pretty sure will count in keeping the insurance costs down. After I'm dead, the 'first person', arguably, could also be appointed by the insurance company.
I'm trying to "dovetail" this with the security guard element. Anyone can have unlimited access to the Off-White House after I'm dead. They just have to hire a bonded security guard, locally. He or she will be there with them to ensure that they put everything back where they found it and that they don't break or steal anything. We have to go on the (I think, safe) assumption that visitors will be very, very, very few and very, very, very far between. One every ten or twenty years wouldn't be unexpected. The point isn't the number of visitors, the point is artist AA BB or AABB...or The Researcher.
Again, I relate it to Alex Raymond. If Raymond had preserved his home/studio in perpetuity, I could go there, hire a Stamford security guard to follow me around and basically just look through everything over a period of several days and I'm assuming I would learn a lot. I'd probably make several trips, the first one just to figure out what I wanted to look at more closely and I'd be willing to bet I'd end up helping the local economy more than I intended because of avenues that would open up that I'd feel compelled to explore thoroughly.
I might be the only visitor in fifty years. To me, THAT isn't the point, either. The point is First Custodianship. The debt is to the people that you Inspire who come after you, however long "after you" they come.
A very different way of looking at things, but then apart from my self-perceived custodial obligations to the Off-White House and its contents and to the people for whom they're important, my only PERSONAL possessions are my Bible, Kingdom Interlinear translation of the Gospels and my English-language Koran. CEREBUS brought me to this point, but CEREBUS is, in that sense, just the jettisoned first stage rocket.
Of interest, now, only to others.
12:40 PM $27,547 PLEDGED! MANY, MANY THANKS!
THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO CONTINUES TO HELP! THE CAN5 KICKSTARTER IS ENDING TODAY: ACCESS THROUGH THE "JAKA'S STORY" BUTTON TO YOUR RIGHT THERE
I'm jumping WAY ahead in discussing these things but there does come a time to say, "Yes, there are long term plans underway" and the latest Kickstarter seems like the perfect place and occasion to do so.
I mean, where we are right now is in a frantic "do-or-die" (actually "do-THEN-die") race to get all of the artwork scanned and the digital scans remastered and restored and the restored books brought into print before, on any given day, the money runs out.
It's as close to an impossible task as you could ask for.
We're a few years into it, with an uncertain number of years to go. God willing we can keep going.
But, however impossibly, so far -- with the generous help of Diamond Comic Distributors and all of our Pledge Partners -- we're managing to do it. So, as the First Custodian (the sole First Custodian since 2006) of CEREBUS, I always have to be thinking, "Okay, let's say -- impossibly -- we get through all this. THEN what?"
So, that's what this thinking is all about.
The artwork is presently stored off-site and has very limited insurance (ballpark of $120,000). If you value just the CEREBUS pages -- 3,700 of them -- at $500 each, you're talking about $1.8 million; at $1,000 each, you're talking about $3.7 million. Somewhere between those two amounts. You (meaning in a general First Custodian sense) don't want to sell the artwork because, for all intents and purposes, it then vanishes. One person, the owner, has access to it with no way of getting the artwork and artist AA or BB or AABB together (again, the Top Priority). Ever. It just passes from "one person/non-artist access" to "one person/non-artist access" from then on.
Bad enough (from a First Custodian vantage point) that 2,300 pages are in that situation. And that most of those pages are from the most artistically influential period of my work: CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY. Bad First Custodianship on my part, but no use crying over spilt milk.
Given that I'm able in a good month to afford to pay myself $1,000 there is just no rational way to even contemplate insuring the pages as things stand now. So the plan is, some day, to bring them back ON-site but in a way that satisfies all the insurance problems. Which means duplicating the bank vault scenario by essentially creating bank vault conditions on-site. That means as close to Zero Access as possible just as you have with a bank vault.
BUT! Still having extremely limited controlled access, but focussed on preserving that access in perpetuity for artist AA or BB or AABB, someone who may not actually be born until, say, 2147 when I'll be long dead. As with everything else having to do with CEREBUS "in perpetuity" is always the problem because "in perpetuity" is, like, FOREVER! :)
ANY COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS? I'LL BE POSTING HERE ALL DAY SEPTEMBER 3RD UNTIL THE CAMPAIGN ENDS
11:12 AM $27,447 PLEDGED! MANY, MANY THANKS
THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HAS PLEDGED FOR CAN5, THE "STRIPPED DOWN"KICKSTARTER! QUICKER DELIVERY GUARANTEED THIS TIME
(GOD WILLING)
A HUGE problem with original comic art as a learning tool is the vulnerability factor. Obviously, if an artist is studying original comic art and trying to learn from it, the best way is to work NEXT to it and working next to it mean bringing a bottle of India ink into direct proximity to it. Heart attack city. Even though the number of unhappy accidents with bottles of India ink that occur in the average comic artist's life are anecdotal. A minor spill on your own work once every ten years or so is just part of the price of doing business.
[Russ Heath tells the story of being George Wunder's assistant. Wunder used to have a pan of India ink instead of a bottle -- which is logical. You can "dip" your brush randomly in the pan in the way you can't with a bottle. Multiply a few split seconds times the hundreds of times you "dip" in the course of a page of artwork and it is a time saver. Wunder had turned around to say something to Heath and when he turned back, the sleeve of his jacket dragged through the pan and across a nearly completed Sunday page. "Damn." he said. Just one "damn", tore the page in half and started over]
YOUR work is one thing, the work of an artist who has been dead for fifty years and who produced the page a hundred years ago is something else again.
But, to me, that just makes it a problem. You SOLVE a problem. You don't let it defeat you.
A related HUGE problem with original comic artwork is insuring it. It's almost impossible to insure because it has a bad insurance profile. Just about the worst. It's easily portable for one thing. No matter how you store it, a PILE of it can be moved quite easily. As opposed to, say, framed paintings (close to the worst insurance profile). How does the insurance company know that someone stole it? How do they know you didn't "steal" it yourself?
Up to now, I've been working towards storing the artwork at a facility that has a good insurance profile. Like a bank vault. The benefit of the bank vault is that it's designed for Zero Unauthorized Access. Not "close to zero". Zero. However, moving in the direction of a good insurance profile means moving almost completely away from any "learning tool" profile. Artist AA or BB or AABB can't get into the bank vault. That's the point of the bank vault.
That's when I started working, mentally, on my own model: the Comic Art Bank Vault Studio.
THANKS TO EVERYONE FOR THEIR CONTINUED SUPPORT OF CAN5 AND ALL OF OUR RESTORATION/REMASTERING/PRESERVATION EFFORTS ON THE 6,000 PAGE CEREBUS GRAPHIC NOVEL!
10:40 AM $27,447 PLEDGED! MANY, MANY THANKS!!
LAST DAY OF CAN5! PLEASE CONSIDER A PLEDGE OF ANY SIZE! EVERY LITTLE BIT HELPS! LINK THROUGH THE "JAKA'S STORY" BUTTON AT RIGHT! THANKS!
Artists, notoriously, are poor as church mice, so the problem of getting an artist together with his biggest influence's original artwork is always going to be problematic.
Although I went to Syracuse University to look at Stan Drake's papers in the Bird Library more as a researcher (for glamourpuss) than as an artist, obviously the artist part of me "tagged along". I could comfortably afford to stay in a hotel near the campus for two or three days. Hotel rooms are not cheap. The Library has a good seven or eight years' worth of HEART OF JULIET JONES originals, dailies and Sunday pages. What I needed to do was to find the best examples of different aspects of Stan Drake's work in the shortest period of time and get them photocopied by the university up to a maximum of 100.
So there I was with piles of HOJJ dailies in a highly polished communal research room and having to look at them and assess them at an unnaturally fast pace. UNDERSTANDING STAN DRAKE in a very compressed time-frame. There was a lot more to understand in the original artwork than I could EVER have gotten from the reprint collections.
"I bet this isn't going to 'fly'" I remember thinking as I did the most obvious and sensible thing with a pile of daily strips. Tilted them to a 45 degree angle, balancing them between my abdomen and the edge of the research table. You need to look at comic art at an angle so you're looking at it "square on" to best understand it. Sure enough, that was against the rules. The artwork must be flat on the table. I've been handling artwork all my life, no danger. But...rules is rules.
It does illustrate a major problem, however: how to make comic art accessible to another artist in its most useful form: at an angle.
You also really need to be ALONE with the artwork and your own thoughts and observations -- and that's always going to be problematic as well. I wouldn't describe the Heritage Auctions showroom at the Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion in NYC as noisy and distracting per se (that was the only place where I've actually seen and held and observed closely two Alex Raymond RIP KIRBY originals back in 2013), but relative to what your "artist self" needs to actually LEARN from original artwork, as opposed to what your pure "fan self" can derive in the "Oh, COOL!" scheme of things, it was definitely not ideal. The University research room was closer to idea but only somewhat closer.
Somewhat closer -- when you're the guy who has to set up where and how your artwork can be viewed in perpetuity -- just isn't going to cut it.
Artists, notoriously, are poor as church mice, so the problem of getting an artist together with his biggest influence's original artwork is always going to be problematic.
Although I went to Syracuse University to look at Stan Drake's papers in the Bird Library more as a researcher (for glamourpuss) than as an artist, obviously the artist part of me "tagged along". I could comfortably afford to stay in a hotel near the campus for two or three days. Hotel rooms are not cheap. The Library has a good seven or eight years' worth of HEART OF JULIET JONES originals, dailies and Sunday pages. What I needed to do was to find the best examples of different aspects of Stan Drake's work in the shortest period of time and get them photocopied by the university up to a maximum of 100.
So there I was with piles of HOJJ dailies in a highly polished communal research room and having to look at them and assess them at an unnaturally fast pace. UNDERSTANDING STAN DRAKE in a very compressed time-frame. There was a lot more to understand in the original artwork than I could EVER have gotten from the reprint collections.
"I bet this isn't going to 'fly'" I remember thinking as I did the most obvious and sensible thing with a pile of daily strips. Tilted them to a 45 degree angle, balancing them between my abdomen and the edge of the research table. You need to look at comic art at an angle so you're looking at it "square on" to best understand it. Sure enough, that was against the rules. The artwork must be flat on the table. I've been handling artwork all my life, no danger. But...rules is rules.
It does illustrate a major problem, however: how to make comic art accessible to another artist in its most useful form: at an angle.
You also really need to be ALONE with the artwork and your own thoughts and observations -- and that's always going to be problematic as well. I wouldn't describe the Heritage Auctions showroom at the Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion in NYC as noisy and distracting per se (that was the only place where I've actually seen and held and observed closely two Alex Raymond RIP KIRBY originals back in 2013), but relative to what your "artist self" needs to actually LEARN from original artwork, as opposed to what your pure "fan self" can derive in the "Oh, COOL!" scheme of things, it was definitely not ideal. The University research room was closer to idea but only somewhat closer.
Somewhat closer -- when you're the guy who has to set up where and how your artwork can be viewed in perpetuity -- just isn't going to cut it.
THANKS TO ALL OF OUR PLEDGE PARTNERS! CAN WE HIT THE NEXT THRESHOLD OF $30K FOR EVERYONE TO GET FREE DIGITAL REWARDS? STAY TUNED!
10 AM $27,447 PLEDGED! MANY, MANY THANKS!
What The Cerebus Archive is "All About" A SERIES OF POSTS ON THE LAST DAY OF CAN5 BY DAVE SIM
Please feel free to post comments and questions. I'll be checking back on each of these posts through the day.
The biggest priority -- and the most difficult problem to solve -- is how to get 1) the CEREBUS artwork and 2) the artist most influenced by CEREBUS in any given age -- after I'm dead -- together.
The best way for any artist to improve, when they are heavily influenced by another artist, is through access to that artist's original artwork. There are things you can see in the original that you really can't see any other way.
A good illustration of this is the relationship between Alex Raymond and Al Williamson. They met only once, in 1948, when Williamson went to see Raymond at his studio/home in Stamford CT. Williamson brought samples of his own comic-book work and Raymond would have seen that, by 1948, Williamson was 1) hopelessly infatuated with Raymond's FLASH GORDON work and 2) as good as Raymond himself working in that style.
Raymond's palatial home must have been stuffed to the rafters with his original artwork. Ten years of FLASH GORDON and two years of RIP KIRBY. The absolute best thing he could have done -- artist to artist -- was to give Williamson access to his original artwork and a drawing board where he could sit and study it while pencilling and inking on his own.
Logistically, there was no way for that to happen. Our society wasn't -- and isn't -- set up that way.
MY goal isn't to rearrange society, but it IS to create one small corner of it that does function that way. To make the Off-White House the place where that happens.
Artist A - Alex Raymond. Artist AA - Al Williamson
Call me "A". Call Gerhard "B". Call him/her -- the unknown artist -- either "AA" (primarily influenced by my artwork) or "BB" (primarily influenced by Gerhard's artwork) or "AABB" (influenced equally by both of us).
Please feel free to post comments and questions. I'll be checking back on each of these posts through the day.
The biggest priority -- and the most difficult problem to solve -- is how to get 1) the CEREBUS artwork and 2) the artist most influenced by CEREBUS in any given age -- after I'm dead -- together.
The best way for any artist to improve, when they are heavily influenced by another artist, is through access to that artist's original artwork. There are things you can see in the original that you really can't see any other way.
A good illustration of this is the relationship between Alex Raymond and Al Williamson. They met only once, in 1948, when Williamson went to see Raymond at his studio/home in Stamford CT. Williamson brought samples of his own comic-book work and Raymond would have seen that, by 1948, Williamson was 1) hopelessly infatuated with Raymond's FLASH GORDON work and 2) as good as Raymond himself working in that style.
Raymond's palatial home must have been stuffed to the rafters with his original artwork. Ten years of FLASH GORDON and two years of RIP KIRBY. The absolute best thing he could have done -- artist to artist -- was to give Williamson access to his original artwork and a drawing board where he could sit and study it while pencilling and inking on his own.
Logistically, there was no way for that to happen. Our society wasn't -- and isn't -- set up that way.
MY goal isn't to rearrange society, but it IS to create one small corner of it that does function that way. To make the Off-White House the place where that happens.
Artist A - Alex Raymond. Artist AA - Al Williamson
Call me "A". Call Gerhard "B". Call him/her -- the unknown artist -- either "AA" (primarily influenced by my artwork) or "BB" (primarily influenced by Gerhard's artwork) or "AABB" (influenced equally by both of us).
Friday, 2 September 2016
Cerebus Archive Number 5: Kickstarter Ends Today!
CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 5
A Portfolio of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints from 'Jaka's Story'
including an exclusive 11,000 word commentary by Dave Sim!
Raising Funds For The Restoration & Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel
Pledge just CDN $90 plus postage
Kickstarter ends TODAY! Pledge now!
A Portfolio of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints from 'Jaka's Story'
including an exclusive 11,000 word commentary by Dave Sim!
Raising Funds For The Restoration & Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel
Pledge just CDN $90 plus postage
Kickstarter ends TODAY! Pledge now!
ADDITIONAL REWARDS!
Dave Sim's Collected Letters: Volumes Three, 2006 & 2007
Digital editions of letters from Dave Sim's correspondence files.
Additional CDN $20 pledge per volume
Digital editions of letters from Dave Sim's correspondence files.
Additional CDN $20 pledge per volume
Dave Sim's Notebooks: Volumes One, Two, Three & Four
Digital editions of Dave Sim's Cerebus notebooks.
Additional CDN $20 pledge per volume
Digital editions of Dave Sim's Cerebus notebooks.
Additional CDN $20 pledge per volume
Tour Of The Off-White House
Spend the day with Dave Sim in Kitchener!
Additional CDN $900 pledge
One Day To Go On CAN5!!
DAVE SIM:
I will be posting here tomorrow, God willing. Probably starting two or three narrative threads. One of which will be: how my vision of the Cerebus Archive itself is mutating and what the concept is behind it.
Another will probably be the CEREBUS ARCHIVE Kickstarters and how those are mutating and what the concept behind those are/are turning into.
Might just be me talking to myself on the Labour/Labor Day weekend, but if you have any questions about the Long-Range Planning and you're in front of a computer somewhere, tomorrow will be the time to ask them!
Thanks for the outstanding support to date: $25K Bonus Items for everyone! On me!
I will be posting here tomorrow, God willing. Probably starting two or three narrative threads. One of which will be: how my vision of the Cerebus Archive itself is mutating and what the concept is behind it.
Another will probably be the CEREBUS ARCHIVE Kickstarters and how those are mutating and what the concept behind those are/are turning into.
Might just be me talking to myself on the Labour/Labor Day weekend, but if you have any questions about the Long-Range Planning and you're in front of a computer somewhere, tomorrow will be the time to ask them!
Thanks for the outstanding support to date: $25K Bonus Items for everyone! On me!
CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 5
A Portfolio of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints from 'Jaka's Story'
A Portfolio of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints from 'Jaka's Story'
including an exclusive 11,000 word essay by Dave Sim!
Raising Funds For The Restoration & Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel
Kickstarter ends Saturday 3 September. Pledge now!
Raising Funds For The Restoration & Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel
Kickstarter ends Saturday 3 September. Pledge now!
Thursday, 1 September 2016
Weekly Update #146: The Many Origins Of NOT Jaka
CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 5
A Portfolio of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints from 'Jaka's Story'
A Portfolio of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints from 'Jaka's Story'
including an exclusive 11,000 word essay by Dave Sim!
Raising Funds For The Restoration & Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel
Kickstarter ends Saturday 3 September. Pledge now!
Raising Funds For The Restoration & Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel
Kickstarter ends Saturday 3 September. Pledge now!
Cerebus In Hell? - Week 10
CEREBUS IN HELL? #0 ships 28th September 2016
(Diamond Order Code: JUL161105)
Read CEREBUS IN HELL? daily at CerebusDownloads.com
CEREBUS IN HELL? #0 ships 28th September 2016
CEREBUS IN HELL? #0 ships 28th September 2016
CEREBUS IN HELL? #0 ships 28th September 2016
CEREBUS IN HELL? #0 ships 28th September 2016
CEREBUS IN HELL? #0 ships 28th September 2016
CEREBUS IN HELL? #0 ships 28th September 2016
(Diamond Order Code: JUL161105)
Read CEREBUS IN HELL? daily at CerebusDownloads.com
(Diamond Order Code: JUL161105)
Read CEREBUS IN HELL? daily at CerebusDownloads.com
Read CEREBUS IN HELL? daily at CerebusDownloads.com
(Diamond Order Code: JUL161105)
Read CEREBUS IN HELL? daily at CerebusDownloads.com
Read CEREBUS IN HELL? daily at CerebusDownloads.com
(Diamond Order Code: JUL161105)
Read CEREBUS IN HELL? daily at CerebusDownloads.com
Read CEREBUS IN HELL? daily at CerebusDownloads.com
(Diamond Order Code: JUL161105)
Read CEREBUS IN HELL? daily at CerebusDownloads.com
Read CEREBUS IN HELL? daily at CerebusDownloads.com
(Diamond Order Code: JUL161105)
Read CEREBUS IN HELL? daily at CerebusDownloads.com
Read CEREBUS IN HELL? daily at CerebusDownloads.com
CEREBUS IN HELL? #0 ships 28th September 2016
(Diamond Order Code: JUL161105)
Read CEREBUS IN HELL? daily at CerebusDownloads.com
(Diamond Order Code: JUL161105)
Read CEREBUS IN HELL? daily at CerebusDownloads.com
(Diamond Order Code: JUL161105)
Read CEREBUS IN HELL? daily at CerebusDownloads.com
Read CEREBUS IN HELL? daily at CerebusDownloads.com
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