If you don’t follow my twitter feed you’ve might have miss these:
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CerebusTV is on summer hiatus, but Dave Sim did a quick skit of voices: Lord Julius and Cerebus the most notable. It is just an audio file, but pretty fun to listen to (watch out though, it starts automatically and there are no volume controls for the segment so have your speak volume controls handy):
No compare that Cerebus with this Cerebus voice. The Cerebus Animated film crew has gotten their voice for Cerebus, played by John DiCrosta (who played the Doctor in the 2nd Transformers movie):
Cerebus has been making a guest appearance in the webcomic Weird Crime Theater. Cerebus is being drawn by Dave for the webcomic, and Cerebus is sporting a smoking jacket and a large pipe. I don’t know if Dave is doing the writing for Cerebus (though it looks like he is lettering the writing), but it is pretty fun stuff. Cerebus is due to appear in three days worth of comics. Here is Day One, Day Two and day three should be Monday.
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Have you been to the CerebusWiki lately? Thanks to Gilgamesh, a lot of updating is being done. . .he even inspired me to reread Minds and update the issue summaries for that phonebook. We even put this picture up for issue 4:
Thanks to the eagle eye of a Cerebus Yahoo!Group member (hi ekhanna!) who pointed out that a character in issue 4 looked a lot like Dave. So I dug out that picture of Dave from 1982 and put the panel with the character on top. They do look similar. . .
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I got this sweet piece of Bob Burden art of an ashcan edition of Cerebus #104 guest starring Bob’s creation Flaming Carrot:
Always interesting to see Cerebus as drawn by other artists.
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Over at the Cerebus the Original Aartvark blog, Brian has been showcasing the Six Deadly Sins portfolio, as colored by Gerhard! Originally Dave drew the Six Deadly Sins of Cerebus portfolio back in 1981, it was the first Cerebus portfolio to be issued, back before Gerhard was part of Cerebus. You can also read more about t he portfolio (along with the First Fifth portfolio) here on the Beguiling comicbook store website)
Eric is putting together a book about Cerebus, and he has a ‘call for papers’ out, from this website:
Length: 2,500-7,500 words with maximum 10,000 WORDS
Call for papers for a collection of critical essays on various aspects of or
approaches to Dave Sim’s comic book Cerebus, both a scholarly and popular, though coherent, companion (and introduction) to the series. Any subject matter is welcome, so long as it pertains to Dave Sim and/or Cerebus. Some recommendations of subjects that in which I am most interested:
Discussion of 1970′s comics scene in which Dave first started to contribute together with a discussion of the various influences on Cerebus (Howard the Duck, Conan the Barbarian, Red Sonja)
Cerebus as satire of the comics medium (The Roach, “reads,” etc)
Cerebus as social satire (political and religious satire)
The shift in tone from earlier and later Cerebus as a result of Dave’s conversion
The influence of Cerebus on the comics industry
Cerebus and the graphic “Novel”
Dave Sim as self-publisher and his feud with Gary Groth and the Comics Journal
Dave Sim and the CBLDF
Comics fandom and Aardvark Comment (& the Yahoo Group)
Narrative structure in Cerebus
“Mind Games”
“Something Fell”
Dave Sim as magpie (Barry Windsor-Smith, Mort Drucker, etcetera)
Gerhard’s impact on Cerebus
Sim’s use of literary characters (Wilde, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, etc)
Sim’s use of public personas (Elrod, Mick and Keef, Lord Julius, Konigsberg, The 3 Stooges, etc)
Meta-narrative in Cerebus (Viktor Davis/Reid in Reads, Sim in Minds and Guys)
Cerebus and Religion (both pre-and post-conversion)
So the biggest news out there is that there is an expanded edition, a revision of the 1997 version, Cerebus Guide to Self Publishing. Dave included all the stuff from the 1997 edition, and expanded upon those bits and also added new sections, i.e. Part Five Print on Demand, Web Comics, etc. For $18 you get the standard cover edition with 120 pages of Dave’s thoughts on self publishing. There is an alternate cover, no change to the contents inside, but the cover looks pretty cool, it is the top one in the picture below:
The standard cover is the bottom one in the above picture. The alternate cover edition is $25 from what I can find on line. The regular cover can be purchased via CerebusTV here, or both covers can be purchased via MyComicShop.com here.
Cerebus Archive #8 came out on the first of July and can be purchased from ComiXpress for $4 plus shipping. Be advised that Dave and ComiXpress are doing something different with Cerebus Archive’s covers starting this month. So all you collectors out there that must have one of every cover be forewarned: there are three different covers. Well, the covers are the same but the three letters in the issue number box are different:
So on the first day of the comic being offered for sale, July 1st, anyone purchasing the comic would get the cover with FDC for “First Day Comic”. If one purchases the comic any time in July, the month of release, they will get the text “JUN” (Yeah, don’t ask me, I thought that was for June too). Anyone ordering the comic being August 1 will get the POD, print on demand, text. Nothing else is different about these covers. A nice way to get two times more money from the dedicated Cerebus fan one would think – though I did get a slight discount for getting all three covers in a special package deal on July 1st: $9.25 for the three issues, as opposed to the standard $4 per issue.
This particular issue wasn’t as good as the all of the rest of the issues – mostly because it reprints in its entirity the Oktoberfest comic that Dave did with Gene Day for Harry of Now & Then Comics. I didn’t enjoy reading that when I originally won a copy off eBay, and I sure didn’t read it a second time. Dave does annotate it as he does with the other issues of Cerebus Archive, but it was still slow going for this Cerebus fangirl as Dave’s annotations this issue are scarce compared to past issues and the material he has to talk about doesn’t help at all.
Another Dave Sim item that is sure to be a rarity is a small interview with him in Comicgate magazine #5 now on sale. The magazine is a German magazine, but if you use the contact form and ask about shipping to the USA they will get back to you (they did for me). You can get more information on the issue at this link.
There was also an announcement via the Superpouvoir website that High Society is being translated to French and will be released August 2010 for 35 Euro. It will be a softcover unlike the Pontent Mon’s Spanish translation which was a hardcover. 35 Euro seems pretty pricey for a softcover of High Society, which is $30 for the English edition. So converted into US dollars using today’s conversion rate, the French volume of High Society will be $45.69. Yoinks!
So I recently won on eBay an interesting piece of Cerebus history: the color separations for the cover to issue #59.
As you can see in the above picture, the one on the right is the original issue and one the left is the color separations. They were taped along the top and bottom with scotch tape. The scotch tape is yellowing, and the tape on the top has lost all adhesion with the piece of paper that they are taped to.
The below video shows the different layers of the separations. The top is the black and blue, the next one is the yellow and the bottom one is the red one. They feel like thin sheets of mylar. I don’t see any registration marks – no way to line up the three sheets by marks on the sheets. To line them up so nicely perhaps they cut a corner so each color layer lines up perfectly to the datum that is the 90° corner, then just place the corners up against a T and presto: they all line up. Either that or they lined up the sheets by placing them on a light table and using a scope to visually line up the color dots. Crazy. I’d think the aligned corners would be the easiest and quickest.
So for Cerebus the Newsletter #15, the original cover art was penciled by Fink! and inked and toned by David B of Strawman comics. David put it up on eBay with half of the proceeds going as a donation to CerebusTV. I managed to be the winning bidder, w00t!
It arrived a couple days ago, but I just managed to get to the mailroom to get it today. It is a super nice piece! So nice that it is the only non-Dave Sim piece of Cerebus artwork to be displayed on one of my Cerebus walls:
So recently CerebusTV had on their auction section Cerebus head sketches by none other than, you guess it, Dave Sim. Since they were only $25 (!), I had to get one. I asked Dave for Cerebus as a hockey player:
A bit later, CerebusTV once again was offering Cerebus head sketches by Dave for $25 – again with shipping included – so I got a Cerebus as Nerd:
As I said, these sketches included shipping – they came in a large envelope with a couple comic book backing sleeves and Dave’s lettering on the enevelope: “Please do not bend of fold! Thanks!” And amazing enough, no bends or folds – near mint condition as the kids would say. The sketches were done on the new Aardvark-Vanaheim stationary in ball point pen. I don’t know which I like better. . .Nerdy Cerebus or Hockey playing Cerebus. . .
Last year for the SPACE, Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo, Jeff T and myself had issue #14 of CEREBUS THE NEWSLETTER printed and for sale. It was the first issue from the new Friends of Cerebus, but we kept the numbering from the previous incarnation, which ended with #13 back in 1985. We just managed to get issue #17 to the printers in time for SPACE 2010, and so we kind of did a quarterly schedule:
Though I rather have a true quarterly schedule and not a rush to get the fourth issue out. So now we have to keep moving forward and get issues #18 out. Having contributions makes it easier on us to get a new issue out – the more contributions, the more issues I can publish. I’m not making any money off of this endeavor, just doing it because I enjoy CEREBUS. So all I can offer contributors is copies of the issue that their article, essay, fan fiction, artwork, etc was published in. Though – if you’ve not gotten any of the back issues, or are missing some of the back issues – send me a contribution for publication and your snail mail addy and I’ll send you the back issues you are missing.
So a while back Dave gave his permission for Spanish, French and Italian translations of CEREBUS. The Spanish translation by Ponent Mon’s Andres Moon of HIGH SOCIETY is the first one to be published. ALTA SOCIEDAD will be a hardcover edition with the Ponent Mon name on the front, side and the ISBN on the back being the only other distinguishing marks on the cover:
The Spanish edition is a slightly bit smaller then the English edition, but neither the cover art nor the interior art lacks for this. The book holds true to the fonts used, and where the artwork was touched up for the lettering, it appears seamless. I don’t speak Spanish good enough to read ALTA SOCIEDAD, but it appears to be a beautiful book that is worth the 30 Euros being charged for it. Heck, I’d paid $30 for a hardcover of the English edition. When asked about the hardcover vs softcover, Dave stated that the book being in hardcover was Ponent Mon’s decision, not his, as he prefers the softcover “phonebooks”.
The bookmark is a special item given out to the comic book stores in Spain / Europe – not really an incentive, more like a promo item. I was told by several that it was limited to 100 bookmarks. The one I have is #8 of 99 signed by Dave Sim.
So usually when I take time off to go to the Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo in Columbus, OH every year, I’ll take off not only the Friday beforehand for travel time, but the following Monday for recuperation. Monday is the day I sleep in and then upload my pictures and write a blog post about the good times that was had.
Well, looking at my calendar, I don’t think today is Monday. But that is part of the story that is SPACE. The end of it actually.
Friday JeffT and myself once again took only 8 minutes to check in and get through security. After 1.5 hours of waiting, we boarded our flight to Washington, DC and then to Columbus, OH. We got in about 2:30 pm, well before the van of Cerebites, so we headed off to pick up some needed items for the show and the weekend. We made our way to the hotel and waited for the van of Cerebites to show up, which they did soon enough. Larry H, Matt D and wife Paula and friend Kevin, Jeff S and lady friend Gaby. We headed out to the Laughing Ogre comic book store. As soon as we walked in, Larry spotted the comic book he worked on: Cerebus Readers in Crisis. In fact, the store had copies of several of the issues. After picking up some comics, we headed out to a Japanese hibachi for some tasty eats. When we got back to the hotel Matt, Kevin, Jeff T and myself registered for our tables and got our exhibitor passes. We then headed up to the room to practice for the Cerebus Live panel that we’d be doing on Saturday. After going through all the skits we’d be performing, we made our corrections and then headed back to our rooms to get some rest as we had an early wake up for tomorrow.
Saturday morning saw not only a 6am wake up time, but tasty eats at the Hometown Buffet. Hey, for $7 we got all we could eat breakfast and all you can drink beverages. When we got back to the hotel, I started slogging our stuff down to the table and setting it up. A few minutes later, the guys hauled down the cooler with frosty cool beverages and we were ready to sell Cerebus the Newsletter:
Jeff T and myself sitting at our table. Picture by Steve Peters of Awakening Comics.
I soon left the table and walked around, saying hello to the creators whom I had made a note of seeing this time around. . .well, those at least who were at their table. First up was Nick Jones, from whom I picked up the latest trade paperback of Tiny Life, then Eric Adams from whom I got issue #6 of Lackluster World – only one more issue to go, Eric talked to me about his plans to collect the series in a trade with the addition of some new material, from David Branstetter I got the latest issue of Strawman, #9 – though to be honest, we got these last night from David when he came up to watch us practice for Cerebus Live – this special cover of Strawman #9 is a homage to Cerebus issue #170. I then headed over to say hello to Max Ink and get the latest issue of Blink comics.
By this time, Jeff S and Gaby had finished up their panel on Judenhass – dangit, I missed it! – and it was Jeff T’s turn to leave the table and walk around. Eventually it was 2:55pm and the Cerebites made their way to the panel room for Cerebus Live! V:
Steve Peters was sitting to the right of the Friends of Cerebus table, while Matt and Kevin of Racecar comics were sitting to our left. Behind us was Ed Piskor of Wizzywig and Paul Hornschemeier of Forlorn Funnies. Paul had allowed me to print in Cerebus the Newsletter #17 a Cerebus drawing he did for me, so I went over and gave him his contributor’s copy and then I did the same for Steve Peters who allowed me to print the Sparky as Cerebus from the cover of Cerebus #1. Pretty cool having art from both of those great creators in the newsletter. Here is the view of the con from the Friends of Cerebus table:
When the con headed for the day, we closed up shop and headed up to the rooms for a quick breather before heading out to the Sausage Haus for some tasty eats and frosty beverages. The Haus gave us a 2 hour waiting time for 15 people, as we were joined by Steve Peters, Max Ink, Lora Innes – the SPACE prize winner for this year, her husband. Though once again, we were seated fairly quickly – having only waited about an hour or so. After the tasty eats of the Sausage Haus, we headed back to the hotel. I started reading some comics – and found that after the day’s events I could barely keep my eyes open. So when the room cleared out to go downstairs and smoke a cigar or two, I went to sleep and was out like a light.
The next morning the Cerebite Van was leaving for parts westerly, so Jeff T and myself said our goodbyes to them and then went to get some breakfast in the hotel. Jeff was impressed with my pancake / eggs / pancake sammich (of sorts), a tasty combination I had picked up from my Dad. After breakfast, we headed back down to the table. We stayed there until 1pm at which time we went to see the “For me, Indy comics led to. . .” panel with Sean McKeever, Paul Hornschemeier, Jim Rugg and Guy Davis. It was an entertaining panel with the guys talking about how Indy comics gave them the start to do either comics work for the “big 2″ or other graphics jobs. At 3pm Jeff T and myself packed up the table and headed out to another local comic book store to look for Dave Sim and Cerebus items. We picked up a few things then rushed back to the airport – for we only had a 1/2 hour before they started boarding the plane.
We managed to make it to the gate with 5 minutes to spare. The flight to LaGuardia had no issues – as I slept through the entire flight – and upon landing we had about an hour before we began boarding our next flight so we got some eats. Then the bad news started to roll in. The flight was delayed for an hour as thunderstorms were wrecking havoc in Philly and the flight that was going to become our flight was delayed there. Then another delay. A gate change. Further delays.
Around 11:45pm, as the aircraft that would become our flight sat lifeless on the tarmac waiting for a crew, US Airways made the announcement: the flight was canceled. Meanwhile, flights were continuing to land and take off, and the rest of the airport stores were closing. We made our way to the “special services” desk right beside our gate and waited in line. Upon getting to the counter I just asked if we could get a refund, as we booking for a flight in the morning when we were only a 2.5 hour car trip from home, seemed stupid. The counter agent took my boarding pass and started to enter the information. He then asked me for an email address. What? You have all the information you need, I’m not giving you an email address to spam me at later. He didn’t know how to by pass this so he asked the woman sitting beside him. One escape key later, he started entering the ticket’s code. It wouldn’t go through. He was confused again so he gave it to the woman beside us. She tried entering it and said it was an United Airlines code and that US Airways couldn’t give us a refund due to that. They laughed and said good luck getting a refund through United.
Frak.
Luckily, our baggage was waiting for us at the carousel so we headed down there to pick it up and get a rental car. Some other US Airways agent was taking the baggage off the carousel and almost made off with our luggage but fortunately I grabbed it before he could. After 15 minutes of playing which phone to which rental car company works and which rental car company will actually have cars, we managed to get in touch with a rental car company. After waiting around for a half hour, and then getting our car, at 12:30 am we left New York City. We stopped at Jeff’s house, where I had left my car, and where we left the rental car – he would bring it to the rental car company later that day, and I left for my place. By the time I got home I was over exhausted – it was close to 4:15 am – I just passed out cold. Waking up at 8:30 am, I knew I had to get up lest my sleep schedule totally be thrown out of whack.
It was all I could do Monday to post the latest issue of Cerebus the Newsletter for sale and upload my pictures to Flickr. I managed to come down with some sinus head cold and felt like crap on Tuesday back at work. It probably didn’t help that I stayed up late on Monday to go to the Bruins vs Sabres game 6 at t he Garden. But oh, what a game! So here we are, Friday at a few minutes past 10am and I’m just getting to post about SPACE.
If you want to see more pictures, check out my flickr set on it:
Edited to add: United Airlines had a form online to fill out for refunds. I filled it out, and a week or so later they credited my card with the pro-rated amount of the final flight from NYC. They also sent a separate email in which they apologized for the snafu and gave me a voucher for a future flight. Nicely done United Airlines. Nicely done. Shame on US Airways for just letting its passengers sit around for 3+ hours waiting for a flight crew that never materialized. Then not sending us an apology or anything. I think the onus was on US Airways, not United Airlines, but United still stepped up when US Airways wouldn’t.
