Note From The President, Cerebus 239, February 1999

Copyright 1999 Dave Sim

CEREBUS NO. 1

Wizard magazine's Tom Root did a nice little write-up on Cerebus on the back page of issue 89 (January 1999). I mean, I'm not crazy about Cerebus being described as "The Energizer Bunny of the small press," but hey.

I'm mentioning it here because Tom had to leave some things out, owing to space constraints I'm sure, and the one I was hoping they would've run was that I drew a substantial part of Cerebus' first issue up at Gene Day's place in Gananoque.

It's just one of those things about interviews. If you know what they're driving at, it's pretty easy to tailor your answers to the intended article. Tom threw me for a loop when he phoned and asked, "What do you remember about Cerebus No.1?" Because, I have to admit, the first thing that comes to mind about Cerebus No.1 was the industrial-sized garbage bin in Gene's studio and how we filled it up with used Kleenex and (eventually) used toilet paper over the course of a few days. In his article, Tom describes it as a "torturous bout of the flu." I even called it "the flu" in the interview. Is it just because I'm old that "the flu" doesn't mean what it used to? It's okay, you can tell me. I mean, when I was a kid, "the flu" meant (specifically) puking, you know, throwing up. Headache, sore joints, chills, runny nose - that was a cold. If you wanted to justify feeling sorry for yourself, a bad cold or a really bad cold.

Anyway, that was what Gene and I both had. And it wasn't so much torturous as it was... what's the term I'm looking for? ... comedically gross? Sitting back to back about five feet apart at our two drawing boards and every five seconds: HOOOONNNNKKKK. Wipe, wipe. Plop. Sniff, snuffle, snuff. And then it was the other guy's turn. Gale (Gene's wife. Hi, Gale.) must've thought there was a flock of Canada geese on the second floor.

HOOONKKK. HONNNKKK.

Gene was working on his "Days of Future Past" story. I remember that. Came out from Star*Reach, I believe, either in Star*Reach or Imagine! Looked real good on the glossy paper Epic magazine used when Archie Goodwin ran the art folio tribute to Gene as an obituary. Shit. Now Archie's dead, too.

Should've stopped on the punch line, folks.

HOOOONNNKKK. HOOOONNNKKK.

Anyway, this is the last one of these for the foreseeable future. Good one to end on, eh? I think so. See " Aardvark Comment" for more on the changing face of Cerebus the monthly comic.


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