Note From The President, Cerebus 146, May 1991

Copyright 1991 Dave Sim
February 25, 1991
Neil Gaiman
Somewhere in England
Dear Neil:

Well, what a lovely surprise Here I've been avoiding answering this month's fan mail and in comes your 24-hour comic which provides the perlect excuse to get star1ed Just to give you an idea of the synchronicily involved:

  1. The Note from the President in 146 is a Neil Gaiman special It's not written yet but the rough outlIne is "tirst meeting-Savoy Hotel 1986 Neil as cub repor1er for great metropolItan news- paper or some such Asks good insightful questions so obviously is in wrong profession Second meeting-Coventry convention- Neil as nouveau riche second wave Brit invasion gun-for-hire 'Do you know how much they're paying me to write comics?' Concluding bit is, of course, THE Neil Gaiman, brilliant Sandman author, TABOO contributor, Books of Magic weaver, irrItant in the fabric of the DC universe et and cetera Speculation that the Savoy suIte was one of the infamous ones Oscar used to take his panthers to, though I didn't know enough about Wilde at the time to make note of the numbe, Looked up 'gamin' in the dictionary; 'a homeless youngster who wanders about the streets of a cily or town' Which makes your name something of a pan- ther instruction; 'kneel, gamin' " Long way to go for a lousy pun, but thaI's very much like me
  2. Here's your 24 hour comic chock a block full of Wilde, Can I print it in Its entirely? I'd offer to pay but you second wave Brit inva- sion gun-for-hire lads leave larger gratuities in restaurants than I make in a month I'm sure.
  3. I just saw you on telly last night "Prisoners of Gravity" with Commander Rick You ought to be ashamed, you ought.
  4. The whole Note from the President thing got triggered by finding a photo of the Interview at the Savoy which will be on the back cover of 146.

Write if you get work.

Most sincerely,

Dave Sim

President, Aardvark-Vanaheim Inc

A couple of days later Neil phoned to say that the "kneel, gamin" pun was absolutely atrocious (which it is). He said very nice things about my work. I said very nice things about his work. I mentioned that we never got Sandman 23 in our DC freebies and asked him to act it out over the phone. Well, he didn't think he'd do that, but he said he'd send one along in a care package with the Andy Warhol issue of Miracleman (which Steve Bissette had told me to buy and which I refused to buy because certain unnamed personages stood to profit from it) and his novel Good Omens has been "optioned" or "in development" or "turnaround" or is "set on puree" or something. I have to admit that I took a dim, Arthur Milleroid view of Mr. Gaiman going Hollywood until I read the first few pages and then, I, like, you know, got it. It's an obscenely-lucrative sort of witicism. Like merchandising Michael Zulli's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It verges on performance art or Living Theater or something.

Any Neil's 24 hour comic book (fourteen pages; but he's Neil Gaiman so we'll let it go) will appear in its entirety next issue; "Being an Account of the Life and Death of the Emperor Heliogabolus."

With a catchy title like that it could end up being his next screenplay.


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