Thursday, 16 March 2023

Thumbnails for Cerebus #99

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.

Last April we saw page 18 from Dave Sim’s eleventh notebook used in the creation of Cerebus in Notes for Cerebus #96. That notebook covers Cerebus #96 trough 102 and had only had 129 pages left in it out of 140 pages. Of those 129 pages only 114 were scanned in as the rest were blank.

The notebook has many pages with thumbnails of pages, and one of those pages is page sixty-nine:

Notebook #11, page 69

Along the top Dave wrote page 6 and 7. And those are the layouts for pages 6 and 7 of Cerebus #99, which corresponds to page 962 and 963 of Church & State II. And yes, the text below the thumbnails is the dialogue that goes along with those pages. 

The dialogue and the page thumbnails are pretty much spot on. Well, except of course how Gerhard works his magic with the background:

Cerebus #99, pages 6 & 7

Along the bottom of the page is a calendar starting on May 19th and going to June 16th. Beside each date is a page number – a page a day.


Wednesday, 15 March 2023

Teenage Mutant Ninja Zombies Variant live

Get This:

NOW!!!

An Overly Exhaustive Making of A TMNT8 cover Part 2: Pencils and Inks

Benjamin Hobbs:

The Remastered TMNT8 Kickstarter campaign is moving right along. One of the covers on the campaign was drawn and colored by me:

Over the next several weeks I'm going to show an Overly Exhaustive Progression of this cover.  This week: The pencils and inks. 

Last we saw the cover, I had laid out kinda tight pencils on Cerebus and Renet and the circles, and REALLY rough pencils everywhere else:

The next step was inking the rings.  Is it a good idea to start inking before the pencils are finished? Probably not.  But at least this way I wasn't smearing the penciled rings as I was sorting out what else would go on the page:

Then I added more inked circles, worked out the design around two of the Turtles and penciled the Turtles faces. There are also lips floating to the right of Renet. I was using the board as sketch paper.  These lips were never intended to be part of the final composition:

Next, I inked the bottom two Turtles.  Added a design around one of the top tier Turtles and laid in rough text/logo elements:

This next one is strange. It looks like I stopped inking halfway through the top right Turtle's head.  The designs around the Turtles are all inked. Renet's hands, previously only light roughed in, are now fully penciled. One is inked. I had forgotten to draw the fins on Renet's helmet, so those are now roughed in. The floating lips to the right of her are now erased.  If you look at Cerebus' raised foot, you can see there is a smaller circle newly added. I was thinking about making it smaller. The larger size did not look accurate to Cerebus, but I really liked. Decisions!:

I inked more of Renet.  I debated about how much ink to put on her, and how much of the shape should be made by color.  Previously, there had been a shadow penciled in on the under side of her leg. This has now been erased here. The fins on her helmet are inked in.  Cerebus' foot was inked with the larger oval.  The NO. 8, previously at the top of the cover, has been placed at the bottom, with the price on the opposite side.  The top circle is now filled with the rough pencil of the design from Renet's helmet.  Cerebus' arm isn't inked here.  It's too long, and I had decided to move it downward:

Cerebus' arm is moved down, as well as the Time Scepter. The last bits of Renet's helmet are inked. The pencils under the Turtles and rings have been erased. The rings looked too thin after erasing the pencil,  so additional ink has been applied:

Cerebus' arm is inked, as is the Time Scpeter, the power coming out of it and the logo.  The only thing not in place here is the price, which at the time I was guessing as $10:

I scanned in the pencils, after whiting out a few areas.  Although there are a few areas that needed white out, but didn't get it. Such as the squiggle next to Cerebus' arm.  I decide to put $10 as the price on the cover. Reasoning that I could fix it digitally if I was wrong about it:

Next Week: An Overly Exhaustive Making of A TMNT8 cover Part 3: Colors

Tuesday, 14 March 2023

Zombie Variant goes LIVE 3/15 10AM, and Dave talks to Kevin Eastman

Hi, Everybody!

TOMORROW 10AM (EST) this:

Goes Live. As The Waverly says in the latest KS update:
Starting tomorrow (Wednesday, March 15th) we are introducing a series of 24-hour Zombie Variant flash sale covers. The first (left) goes on sale tomorrow at 10am est and will only be available for 24 hours as an add-on to your pledge. Dave Sim is working hard on 7 new zombie variants that will be unveiled over the next 7 days. They will include Cerebus, each individual Turtle and Renet! We're getting the art fresh from the drawing table and what you see here are works in progress with the remaining 5 to follow in the coming days. Each zombie variant will be priced at $20 and we expect these to number alongside the rarest variants of this release.
On the 16th, THIS ONE GOES LIVE:

And if those two sell, the next five go live. And if they don't, they don't.

And here's Part one of Dave's interview with Kevin Eastman:
And just because I F*CKING CAN:

Next Time: Zombies. Go live.

SDOAR 2023 GoFundMe Update XI: TMNT #8 Doldrums

 "Here's another piece I got as a thank you for supporting the SDoAR GoFundMe, which has stalled a bit, so consider throwing a few bucks its way, if you can!" 

- Philip R. Frey, SDOAR 2023 GoFundMe Donor
Shout to Philip R. Fry (who I keep wanting to call Philip J. Fry for some reason) for beating the SDOAR 2023 drums. But no matter what his last name is, Philip is right. We have stalled a bit. Caught in the TMNT #8 doldrums, which is understandable since folks are probably saving up their money for all the cool stuff Manly will be talking about this week when not pestering AMOC contributors for being behind on their posts.

That said, we did get on donation that pushed us up to $3,350 -- meaning we are only $50 away from the next page and someone getting some production art from Dave (maybe even like the one above).

Now I was going to unveil a new tote board -- but once I finished it in Affinity Photo, I realized I should probably bounce it off Dave -- and well, not enough time to do that before Manly kills me for being so late. Next time, hopefully, if Dave's on board and Manly hasn't killed me yet.
Anyways! here's the official SDOAR 2023 GoFundMe campaign update!
  • $3350 raised from 68 donations
  • 20 new pages released as mocked up by Dave Sim from June 11 to August 4, 2021
  • 41 total pages available on Dropbox, including Dave's 2019 mocked-up pages!
  • Only $50 away from unlocking fantastic page 42!
  • $650 away from making Jen work on SDOAR 2023 Ashcans Vol. 0 & Vol. 1!!
>> Magna Puncta <<
  1. If you have not donated >> $5+ donation grants access to all 41 pages and all unlocked pages moving forward! 
  2. If you have donated (thanks!!) >> GoFundMe does not have an option for monthly subscriptions. So... if you want to donate on a monthly basis, please do so as we are in month #3.
  3. GoFundMe is a dreadful communication platform -- if you haven't heard back from me, gotten access to the new pages, etc., please email me at jen@typingmonkeys.com
SDOAR 2023 GoFundMe -->> https://gofund.me/4e2e1c96 <<-- SDOAR 2023 GoFundMe

Just the Fax, Ma'am: SDOAR 2023 Rewards

Two more pieces of production art sent out by Dave to SDOAR 2023 donors! Help unlock a page (every $200) and Dave will send out something similar to you.

SDOAR 2023 GoFundMe -->> https://gofund.me/4e2e1c96 <<-- SDOAR 2023 GoFundMe

All-New Lower-Priced Pledge Items!

I'm trying something new this time around. And not just posting super late, Matt. No, a collage of extras from my collection. Postcards, buttons, cloisonné pins, collectible cards, bookmarks, drink coasters, extras from Kickstarter campaigns -- all in one photo. All up for grabs. But you need to donate enough to help out the campaign and help with postage. So make me an offer -- one that helps out the campaign and doesn't stick me with too much postage. All generous offers considered!
Interested? Email me at jen@typingmonkeys.com and make me an offer that I can't refuse.

SDOAR 2023 GoFundMe -->> https://gofund.me/4e2e1c96 <<-- SDOAR 2023 GoFundMe
 
That's all I got!

Jen 

Vale!

Monday, 13 March 2023

You Too Can became an "Official Aardvark/Turtle Facebook/Twitter Promoter, and Senior Assistant Shell Waxer"

Hi, Everybody!


Say Iguana, how's the Big Board doing?

Okay, then.

Dion Turner emailed me (titled: "Annoying people about the Kickstarter"):
G'day Matt,

Well to clarify I don't want to 'annoy'.

I just wanted to check, I was going to blind message some of the turtles groups I've seen on Facebook with a prepped statement on Turtles 8 (including noting the covers by some of the classic Turtles artists) and a link to the Kickstarter.
This gives them an opportunity to post it on their page if they are looking for something to fill a void and maybe we can get some wider exposure.

Now, before I do this I wanted to check that people weren't already doing this, I didn't want to badger or annoy people if they were already being approached. But having said that there's like hundreds of Turtles groups out there so who cares? Cry 'Havok!' And let slip the dogs of email with Kickstarter links?
I guess I just want a blessing (or complete and total apathy) before I do this as I figure it's on behalf of the Cerebus Brains Trust/Inner Circle, of which you are my contact.

Hope you're well mate and your work hours back under control.

Cheers,
Dion
And I responded:
Dion!

Yeah, sure, go ahead.

Manly
(But if you need it official:)
Domina domina domina, by the powers invested in me by the Most Holy of the Eastern Church of Tarim, and the First Church of the Immaculate Ooze, NYC, I hereby dub thee "Official Aardvark/Turtle Facebook Promoter, and Senior Assistant Shell Waxer". Go thee forth and Spreadith thine Good News to all and sundry. Let it never be said, "we didn't try." And remember: Don't take any wooden manhole covers...
And off he went. He's sent me some updates on how he and Sancho are doing against the windmills. And closed with:
If others want to hunt for more groups then I hope they jump in. The more reach we have the more people we can get on board.

My blurb and link copied below (this is what I have posted/messaged - with minor changes to make it personalised). Others might not want to lead with a 'G'day'

G’day,

Apologies for the random email/message.

I’m just reaching out to Turtles fan pages who might be interested in a recent Kickstarter for a reprint of issue 8 of the original Eastman & Laird Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles run.

This is the issue which has a time travel adventure with Cerebus the Aardvark and it was noticeably absent from the most recent IDW Turtles Compendium.

For the first time ever, Dave Sim, in collaboration with Waverly Comics, is producing an updated version of this classic issue with remastered art by master digital archivist Sean Michael Robinson (Living the Line), printed on premium paper for the best possible reproduction and with a variety of cover options from Sim himself and veteran Mirage artists such as Jim Lawson, Steve Lavigne and Michael Dooney.

Link to the Kickstarter is below. I just want to give any Turtles fans (especially us older Mirage comics ones!) a chance to get in on this as the print runs for the different covers will be relatively small and these comics are likely not going to be available off the shelf at your favorite local comic book store.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/waverly/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-8-remastered-edition?ref=nav_search&result=project&term=Turtles%208

All the best,
 NOW would be a good time to join the crusade, as there are TWO MORE SLEEPS until this drops:

And if https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/waverly/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-8-remastered-edition?ref=nav_search&result=project&term=Turtles%208 is just too G-DD-MN long, here's an abbreviated version:  https://tinyurl.com/bmssf8dn

And hey, you're still here, so how's about a faxy update on the Zombie Close-ups:


Oh Boy! Oh Boy!
_____________________________
Got the SECOND entry in the T8 Card Contest: (now "coloured"...)
I don't think the card will be colored...

Details as I know them. 
  • They're producing a card set called "Visions of Turtles 8" with art by lots of cool folks. (Maybe even me!)
  • They are looking for members of the Cerebus community to submit their own art ideas for a trading card that will be included in the set.
  • Dave Sim is one of the judges. Our man at the Waverly Press is the other.
  • Winner gets 50 copies of their card, and "a package of fun stuff including a platinum T8 ashcan"
  • Contest runs until Friday, March 24th at midnight.
  • Submit your entries to momentofcerebus@gmail.com
_____________________________
Heritage has ALL sorts of TMNT/Cerebus goodies
____________________________________
____________________________________
____________________________________
Up to 35% off site-wide:  
March 23-26.
Tell your fans! Remind them that everything will be up to 35% off 
___________________________________
Next Time: JenBenMags! UNLESS the Sim-Eastman videos drop. Then JenBenMags get interrupted. SIM FIRST MARGARET!!!!


 

Sunday, 12 March 2023

"I remember TMNT #8!" By Doug Sulipa of Doug Sulipa's COMIC WORLD

Hi, Everybody!

One of Dave's guerilla marketing ideas for the Remastered Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #8 by Aardvark-Vanaheim and The Waverly Press, was sending original art cards to Comic Book Stores that have been around since TMNT #8 first came out in 1986. And then he faxes me a 220% enlargement that I email to them:
And if we're lucky, they respond:
** In 1986 the World was watching many thing including; Chernobyl, Halley's
Comet, Phantom of the Opera, Ronald Reagan and Space Shuttle Challenger;
** Meanwhile Fans of Comic Books were often oblivious to these world events,
they were more interested in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank
Miller, Watchmen by Alan Moore, Man of Steel by Byrne, Daredevil in Born
Again
by Miller, Punisher limited series by Zeck;
** The Mid-1980's were BOOM Years for the Early Alternative Independent
Comics, as the Direct Market was growing; MAUS V1 by Spiegelman made a
small and overlooked DEBUT, only to win a 1992 Pulitzer Prize! Judge Dredd
by Eagle delighted Fans;
** CEREBUS THE AARDVARK was in its 9th Year with #100 coming in 1987;
CEREBUS was establishing it foothold as one of the most collectible and
enduring Alternative comics of all time, values of early issue were soaring,
better known than TMNT; I often recall when DAVE SIM did an Autograph
Session in my Winnipeg Store in the Early 1980's, long-lineup and a very
busy day! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was only in its 3rd year, originally
seen as a Gimmick comic with #1 impossible to find, thus the collectible
value was value soaring; When it was announced CEREBUS was going to Team-Up
with the Turtles in TMNT #8, many of my regular Comic Subscription buyers
requested at add to their List, with several buyers wanted 5 to 10 copies
each. Up until issue #7, we were ordering about 50 copies each of TMNT, but
for #8 we ordered 300 Copies; It turned out to be a good decision, as we
sold out Six Times our normal Order in less than a month. It was actually
one of the Greatest and Historic Crossover Independent Comics events of
Decade. Fast forward 37 years to 2023, with Zillions of comics printed, and
fans obsessed with The MCU (Marvel cinematic Universe) this Classic
Crossover has been mostly forgotten, with the collectible value stalled.
Perhaps the Reboot TMNT #8 will remind Fans of this overlooked 1980's
Classic Crossover Key issue!
Doug Sulipa
(Comic World; Overstreet Senior advisor since 1972)
-------------------------------------
Doug Sulipa's COMIC WORLD
BOX 21986
STEINBACH, MANITOBA
CANADA R5G 1B5
-------------------------------------
Email; dsulipa@gmail.com
Phone; 1-204-346-3674
TEXT; 1-204-392-6686
Inventory site; www.dougcomicworld.com

Thanks Mr. Sulipa!

If you ARE, or KNOW of a Retailer who's been around since 1986, email me at momentofcerebus@gmail.com and I'll get your info to Dave, and he'll mail you an original art card.


_____________________________
It's Iguana's day off. Big Board will return tomorrow.
_____________________________
Got the SECOND entry in the T8 Card Contest:

Details as I know them. 
  • They're producing a card set called "Visions of Turtles 8" with art by lots of cool folks. (Maybe even me!)
  • They are looking for members of the Cerebus community to submit their own art ideas for a trading card that will be included in the set.
  • Dave Sim is one of the judges. Our man at the Waverly Press is the other.
  • Winner gets 50 copies of their card, and "a package of fun stuff including a platinum T8 ashcan"
  • Contest runs until Friday, March 24th at midnight.
  • Submit your entries to momentofcerebus@gmail.com
_____________________________
Heritage has ALL sorts of TMNT/Cerebus goodies
____________________________________
____________________________________
____________________________________
Up to 35% off site-wide:  
March 23-26.
Tell your fans! Remind them that everything will be up to 35% off 
___________________________________
Next Time: How YOU can help the T8 KS without spending your retirement savings... (for real this time...)

Saturday, 11 March 2023

The (some what) unexpected Legacy of Turtles #8 (RPG Edition)

Hi, Everybody!

Welcome back to AMOC where we TCOB about TMNT8.

First up, Iguana, how's that Big Board looking?

Well that's just swell...

Dave faxed:


The details of the Flash Sale for this on MARCH 15th are still being banged around.

But one of the things Dave Faxed was this:
Ya'll get the EMPHASIS?
The planning continued:

And continues:
So, this:
MARCH 15th. $20. Six more covers that are 500% enlargements of this art to follow if you people wanna throw money at them. POSSIBLY an A/V Portfolio at some point if the covers tank.

So, here's a part of the Legacy of Turtles #8 that I was PEVIOUSLY UNAWARE OF:

So back in the day ('87), they did a Turtles Roleplaying game:

I had a copy. Can't find it now. May have sold it when money was tight. May have sold it when I was downsizing at one point. May be at my brother's house in a box. Anyway, it's gone. But I found a PDF you can download online.

"So, Cerebus is in there?"

Not in an official capacity, BUT there are rules to make a mutant aardvark:

And while hunting for that PDF, I found out that there's a supplement called Transdimensional Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 

This book covers time/inter dimensional travel. And they quote from Turtles 8 a couple times. No mention of the Aardvark, but look who shows up:



You can download a PDF here. If you need physical copies, the Core book goes for about a hundred bucks. Trans Turtles is more reasonably priced.
_____________________________
Got the first entry in the T8 Card Contest:
Details as I know them. 
  • They're producing a card set called "Visions of Turtles 8" with art by lots of cool folks. (Maybe even me!)
  • They are looking for members of the Cerebus community to submit their own art ideas for a trading card that will be included in the set.
  • Dave Sim is one of the judges. Our man at the Waverly Press is the other.
  • Winner gets 50 copies of their card, and "a package of fun stuff including a platinum T8 ashcan"
  • Contest runs until Friday, March 24th at midnight.
  • Submit your entries to momentofcerebus@gmail.com
_____________________________
Heritage has ALL sorts of TMNT/Cerebus goodies
____________________________________
____________________________________
____________________________________
Up to 35% off site-wide:  
March 11 & 23-26.
Tell your fans! Remind them that everything will be up to 35% off 
___________________________________
Next Time: How YOU can help the T8 KS without spending your retirement savings...