So yesterday I said I’d post Dave’s essay on using tracing paper. So I scanned it in and posted it on my website, here is a tidbit of it:

During one of these phases, I also began to use tracing paper as a means of correcting imbalances and inaccuracies in the drawings. This technique involved getting a close approximation of how I intended the finished drawing to look and then flipping the tracing paper over and either drawing a finished version of the figure directly on the other side of the sheet or putting another sheet of tracing paper over the first one and doing the finished version on that separate sheet. When a final version of a figure was achieved (in reverse), the finished drawing was then turned face down on the artboard and—by tracing over the image in pencil—a light pencil impression of the finished drawing was transferred to the artboard which could then be “tightened up” in pencil and inked.

And one of the items in Dave’s Blog & Mail today:

According to the inventory list from the warehouse, as of the end of June, I still have SIGNED AND NUMBERED FIRST PRINTINGS of (quantities in parentheses) JAKA’S STORY (13), READS (178), MINDS (225), GUYS (33), FORM & VOID (58), LATTER DAYS (14), THE LAST DAY (13). Just to show what a nice guy I am, I’ll let them go at cover price: same as the regular editions.

Which is interesting in itself: No more limited editions of RICK’S STORY? Of WOMEN? Of FLIGHT? of GOING HOME? Odd that those ones sold out and not GUYS, which I think is one of funnier Cerebus phonebooks out there.  Out of the Mothers & Daughters storyline, I think READS and MINDS are above FLIGHT and WOMEN. . .

…But perhaps AV just published just enough or not as much of those other books? Lets see:

Flight    5000
Women    3500
Reads    3500
Minds    2100
Guys    1000
Rick’s Story    1000
Going Home    1000
Form & Void    1000
Latter Days    1000
The Last Day    1000

So it looks like FLIGHT had more then those other, but yet it is sold out. Even more suprising, is that JAKA’S STORY with its 13 signed and limited edition copies left only had 435 limited editions. Interesting.

So I framed the preliminary sketch that I won on eBay of Cerebus issue #262 pages #10 & 11. The prelim sketch is just Dave Sim art, so only the characters – Gerhard did his own prelim sketches of just the backgrounds, which I’d love to get a couple of some day – they do look amazing. But I digress. Here is a picture of the page #10 section:

(click on the picture to see a bit bigger picture). The part on the left is the preliminary sketches on the tracing paper, and the bit on the right is the finished page from the actual issue. Tomorrow I’ll post the letter that Dave sent out with the prelim sketches from issue #300 which explains how he uses the tracing paper in the actual production of the comic (right now it is too close to bed time to be staying up scanning and proof reading text). Basically he sketches out what he wants to see in that panel, copies that from the tracing paper onto the actual Bristol board. . .I don’t know if it shows in the above picture, but there is a crease mark in the tracing paper between the two mirror images of Jaka.

The next part was of page #11 of the same issue:

The top portion is the prelim sketches and the bottom is the actual page from the comic. On these two sketches I don’t see the roughs that he did for other one – it looks like these were an after thought: just use the tracing paper after he finished with it for the page 10 prelims to do some sketches for what he was looking for as far as emotion in Jaka’s face – though looking at the comparision between the two, it looks as if he used these two sketches.

Here is what the prelim “page” looks like in the frame with the matte:

I need to cut the matte a bit to show Dave’s signature, but other then that it looks pretty good to me. So for under $10 I got a piece of original Dave Sim art that was used in the production of an issue of Cerebus – four sketches of Jaka and a bit of Cerebus history. How could I say no?

Why oh why do I even bother reading 14 pages of “debate” and “discussion” over at the Comics Journal’s message board? What starts off with Rick posting Dave’s Blog & Mail entries on the Jeff Smith / Dave Sim . . .umm, non-confrontation? And that led to 14 pages of posts on all sorts of things, from the actual topic on hand to what issue of Cerebus to start with (someone, it seems, always asks that during one of these . . .threads, so if someone starts reading Cerebus, at least we have the thread to thank for that) to how “bugfuck crazy” Dave must be to how Cerebus and Dave suck. . .

But this thread topped them all, it manage to digress to talking about green peppers. Don’t ask, you prolly don’t want to know. And save yourself the trouble of reading the 14 pages, unless you know, you just gotta find out for yourself that when posting about Cerebus or Dave at TCJ or Comicon or USEnet will devolve into a “discussion” of how Dave is crazy and Cerebus sucks. . .

Though isn’t that true of many internet message boards that contain a wide variety of  people who believe a bunch of different things? Not that the discussion will turn into a discussion of how Dave is crazy (he isn’t) and how Cerebus sucks (it doesn’t), but how it will totally go off at a tangent (or two) and not stay “on topic”. . .

But whatever . . .

Dave’s response to my three letters is “now playing” in his Blog & Mail as of today, only a couple more days of his responses to me.  After he is done, I’ll respond in my blog and then send him off another letter. . .at least thanking him for the rest of the goodies. Oh! And telling him I found a picture of the matches that I ask about in my letter. . .

Hahahaha! Nah, he don’t need to know that – but I find it . . .odd?. . .that after I get his letter, I was cleaning up and found issue #2 of Following Cerebus. . .which contains a picture of said matchbook. It doesn’t say what it is, and it being rectangle, it looks like just another piece of promo art for Now & Then Comics, but nope – the matchbook! Ah ha!

I can’t wait to start the archiving of the rest of the Cerebus Archives – the goodies contained therein will be fun to see. . .though winter, with its non-bike riding weather needs to come, so I can keep on the notebook DVD project. . .::sigh::

Though the Cerebus Wiki has been taking up a lot of my current computer screen time when I’m at home. Adding requested pages, more info to current pages and trying to put as much info in it as I have. I love that a few people have done a lot of work to help out with it – all the annotations that Onigame is making are a tremendous help, and the reason I like the idea of a Wiki – that fellow fans can go in and add what they’ve gleaned from the comic, Dave’s interviews, and the like.

And I just got my tracing paper prelim sketch from the CerebusArt.com’s eBay auctions.  I just need to put it on some tagstock, frame it and hang it up. When I do I’ll post a picture of it here. It is a nice piece with 4 “panels” of Jaka – two are the same – as one is the rough and the other is the tighten sketch of Jaka slogging through the snow with the pack on. The other two panels are close ups of Jaka’s face. I’ll dig out the page in the phonebook and post a shot of that too – so you can get the “side by side” comparison.  Since all my other Dave Sim art (yeah, like I really have that much of it. . .hahahaha!) is of Cerebus with one other prelim sketch of Jaka (just her back though), this was a nice change of pace.

So my dad came up to visit today. We went out for a motorcycle ride together. Turns out he has only 1,100+ miles for the season on his bike so far, compared to the 3,000+ (in three months!) for my bike, he needs to play a little catch up. . .

Though he has managed to put over 100,000+ miles on his Honda – he has ridden it all over the country: from Colorado to North Caroline to New Hampshire and points in between.

He hadn’t seen my new bike, so he came up to see it and go for a ride with me:

When I saw my bike beside my Dad’s I was suprised at how my bike was about the same size as his. I asked him what his, a 1986 Honda Shadow 1100cc, weighed: about 520 pounds. Umm. My bike weighs close to that: about 498 pounds. So not much difference. When I sat on his bike, it felt a bit higher, but not by much. His handlebar set up is obviously different then mine, with his pulled back a bit and mine straight out right. So with mine you tilt a little bit forward, with his you just lean back, but my elbows were right by my waist, I felt like I was squeezing my girls together – not too comfortable.

But the seat of his bike! It was sooooo comfortable. I definately have to get rid of my stock seat and get a more comfortable seat next season. He has done a lot of other “mods” to his bike, from pulling in the front turn signals so they are closer to the fork to putting the back turn signals on the rear fender to putting larger tires on the bike to the customized paint job to all the little engine mods, the bike has some serious time spend on it both riding and caring for it.

For the ride we went on my usual route, about 40 some miles through southeastern Massachusetts. The leaves are just start to change colors, with some trees red, yellow and orange and some trees still a vivid green. It was a nice peaceful ride. A few other bikers were on the road, and it felt odd to be riding lead with my Dad about 15 feet behind me, and giving the other bikers “the wave” as we rode pass each other.

I got my love for riding from my Dad, and he has taught me a lot about it: from maintenance on the bike to tips for things to watch out for while riding, and it was real nice to be able to go out riding with him.

So yesterday I rode into work on the motorcycle. I don’t know how cold it was when I left the house, but when I got to work it was 44 degrees F. On the way in, with my insulated jacket and gloves, I was kinda warm. My nose and cheeks were chilly and my legs were getting cold. Even though it was a bright sunny dry day out I was the only one on days that rode my bike in. One of the second shift guys rode in also, and that was it.

Today I was prepared. Kinda. I wrapped a scarf around my neck to protect my nose and cheeks. So they were warm. My legs were getting chilly though. Time to start looking at chaps. . .through I really don’t want to look like a village person. . .meh. There are “ladies” chaps, and the white pair of Icon’s chaps look halfway decent, and would match the bike. . .but for $260? Yoinks. I’ll just put some thermal underwear on under my slacks for now. . .

***

On Sunday I went to the Newport International Boat Show in Newport, RI. It was insane. They had all these boats lined up in the water along the piers:

It was a bit . . .odd to see the boats just lined up, being able to walk up to them, take off your shoes and walk on them. We got to look around some super expensive boats. The first one we saw, a 50 some foot cataraman with two full size cabins, two heads (with toilet and shower), a smaller bunk bed cabin, a full kitchen with fridge, stove, microwave, sink, et al. And don’t forget the flat screen teevees for every cabin and the “living room / dining room” area. It looked like it had the same square area as my apartment did.

All for a measly $820K Canadian.

There a ton of boats like that. . .with so much under deck room it was crazy. Walking on pieces that had carpet and flowers and other such stuff. The boats were pretty and nice to dream of owning one, but at the same time . . .it all was too much for me. All I could think about was the slums of Port-au-Prince. . .

While we were in Newport we walked over to Goat Island. Yes, I said that right: walked over to an island. There is a small bridge connecting the two. Goat Island isn’t that big at all, it has a hotel, a restaurant and some private condos on it, and that is about it. Well, several parking lots and docks, but that is about it. No goats whatsoever. But a nice view of the light house and Newport Bridge:

It was pretty neat to see the bridge from that angle. I’m used to just going over it, not seeing it from the side like that. There was also a large cruise ship parked right on the other side of Goat Island. Well, not “parked” but tendered as they would say. It was pretty neat to see – it looked like a hotel out on the ocean.

Dave responded to my letter. Or more precisely, letters. One from my blog on June 21st and one from my blog on June 24th. He also responded to a letter I sent him about the fan club I sent to him in response to the letter I got from him on May 7th.

The thing is, it isn’t a letter in the usual sense. . .It is more of an email printed out and sent via snail mail. More aptly it is a blog entry printed out and sent via snail mail. It looks like Dave will be using my letters for blog fodder, like I do with his, on Sept 25, Sept 26 and Sept 29. . .At least that is what the dates are on the print outs. Odd that it skips two days, we’ll see what  comes in between them.

But along with the print out of the Blog & Mail ‘to be’ were some fanclub items: a FOC membership card from 1984, 1983, a couple magnets, a pin:

And some letters from the fanclub. I’ll be scanning those in tomorrow and posting them on the CFG site.  While the goodies were a very nice suprise, what made me smile was this sentence:

“Margaret first pointed out that her own views on God are very private, so, respecting that, I won’t quote what she had to say on the subject.”

Is part of why I respect him. I mean other then Cerebus of course. . .

There was some other stuff, but I won’t spoil the surprise – it’ll be out in a week and a half or so. . .

So with the Kawa gone, I now park the Honda by the Mustang.

I went out for a ride the other day, came back, and went to put my helmet in the Mustang.

Whats that? A piece of paper on the windshield of the ‘stang? At first I thought someone had hit my car and left me a note to tell me. . .I didn’t see any damage to the car so I opened the note.  It said:

Margaret – Came up to see if you wanted to go for a ride. I guess you did because you’re gone. Love Dad

After I ate my Quizno’s Turkey Bacon Guacamole (I love that sammich!), I gave my Dad a call. I told him I found the note, and I’m sorry I missed him and surprised he made it home already. He laughed. He left the note their last Sunday! He figured I’d find it when it rained and I had to take the car into work.

I went over a week without driving the car. That the note was there a week made me laugh pretty hard for a while.  I had been thinking of calling my Dad and asking him if he wanted to go for a ride. He has seen pictures of my new Honda, but hasn’t seen it in person yet. Plus it’d be nice to go out for a ride with him.

I’ve had the bike just over three months now, and have just over 3,000 miles on it. If I drove it year round, it would get approximately 12,000 miles a year on it – decent usage for a car let a lone a bike. My Dad said he just has over 1,100 miles on his bike, and that is for this season! To be fair, he doesn’t ride his bike to work at all, and he does stuff on the weekend other then ride (i.e. like work on this late 60′s Chevy pick up replacing the rear end, helping my brother rewire the brother’s new house, etc). . .All I usually do on a nice weekend is go riding.

Dave has some more prelim sketches up on eBay for sale. Well, Dave himself isn’t selling him, Jeff is – as Jeff is the webmaster for the CerebusArt website he helps out Dave with the internets stuff.

Now you think prelim sketches – you think something not so great. But the thing with these sketches? They aren’t just any sketches, they were used in the publication of Cerebus. Dave would sketch out rough pencils on a piece of tracing paper, then tighten them up on said tracing paper, and then put the tracing paper face down on the bristol board used for the pages of Cerebus. Then he would use a pencil to transfer the image from the tracing paper to the bristol board.

So the prelim sketches are on tracing paper, but you can adhere them to white tagstock, frame them, and make them look like this:

And the great thing about them? They are a lot cheaper then Cerebus original art pages! So you get a piece of cool looking Cerebus art by Dave Sim himself, that was used in the production of Cerebus, for only a fraction of the cost of an original art page.

So there I was, playing Sushi Samurai and someone knocks on my door. I hear the door knob twisting as someone tries to open it. What the hell? I got up to look through the peephole and couldn’t see anything. Someone had put their finger over the peephole, and they continued to knock.

Nice try asshole, I  thought as I put the little latch on that prevents the door from opening more then 2 inches. Whoever it was kept trying for a couple more seconds then gave up, only to walk down the stairs and out the door.

Some guy with long blonde lockes.  He went up to the area by the clubhouse, and I could see a lot more people walking around there. They made their way down the hill to the main door, and I could see the same asshole with them. They opened the door and started coming up the stairs. The blonde guy starting shouting that it was in my apartment number, and some girl that was with him corrected him.  Almost all of them were carrying bags of some kind, like the small carry-on bags. . .

The apartment upstairs was having another get together? What the hell?

***

Last night they had about 10 people over for  lord knows what. They came over and turned on some music. . .some 80s  tune. . .and then about an hour later, they all left together in different cars. Like they were all going out together.  I was just glad that I wouldn’t have to listen to them all night

***

So these people all came up the stairs – loud as could be, no regard for anyone in the apartments by the stairs they were going up.  They turned on some music, and I could hear a sing-a-long to Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline. . .but the thing was, it wasn’t really that loud.  I mean I could hear it, but for as many people as I saw go up those stairs, it wasn’t that loud.

Eventually that went off, and when it was just the people in the room, I could hear them moving around, and the usual creaking of the floor, but it was hard to believe that the room above me was crowded.

About an hour later it broke up. I could hear the door open and people started coming downstairs – carrying their bags. I couldn’t  tell if they had gotten changed, but I think some of them had.

I did a head count and got 21 people and I heard one still moving around upstairs: for a grand total of 22 people.

22 people in an apartment the size of mine? Insane. Where did they all sit? Did they just go up their and get changed one after the other? I don’t know, but I’m glad that they didn’t stay long.

I’ll miss her.

Rob came and picked up the Kawasaki today. It was like my baby was leaving for college or something. He brought up a van and we pulled the van around the decent hill out back. Put the ramp up to the back and rolled the bike right down into the van. Well, it wasn’t quite that easy, but it wasn’t that bad either.

There she is in the back of the van. I gave Rob the box of goodies with the bike as well: the great looking gas tank, the replacement master cylinder for the front bike, the manual and Clymer’s book, etc.

I felt sad to see her go, but at the same time – Rob seems like he’ll give her a good home: take her out on plenty of rides and show her the roads of Jersey. That is all a bike could ask for.