Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Cerebus vs Scott McCloud's Zot!

Cerebus / Zot! (unfinished, 1991)
Art by Dave Sim & Scott McCloud
(from Cerebus #154, January 1992)
Scott McCloud's Zot!, published by Eclipse Comics between 1984 until 1990, was a lighthearted alternative to the darker and more violent comics that dominated the industry during that time. There were a total of 36 issues, with the first ten in color and the remainder in black and white. McCloud credited Astro Boy creator Osamu Tezuka as a major influence on the book, making it one of the first manga-inspired American comic books.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Cerebus: In My Life - Nate Taylor

Nate Taylor is an indy book author/illustrator from Pittsburgh, USA


A MOMENT OF CEREBUS:
How did you discover Cerebus and how long did you read it for?

NATE TAYLOR:
I first heard of Cerebus when I was around 6 years old, in Scott McCloud's book Understanding Comics. When the latter book resurfaced last year, my interest in Cerebus was re-ignited. I was visiting a comics shop and asked the owner if he had any Cerebus - he retrieved a large sheaf of issues, consisting of part of Minds and most of Rick's Story. Shortly afterwards I bought most of the phonebooks, which I'm currently reading. I'm really into Women! The book, that is.

How has your own creativity/comics reading been influenced by Cerebus?

I love the way Dave's flowing, linear characters exist inside the tightly-rendered world that Gerhard creates. I've recently borrowed the technique of using an ink brush on characters and doing the backgrounds with lots of little lines in pen; it helps the viewer focus on the story's key players! Dave's ideas are also inspiring. The way he fearlessly lifts icons from pop culture and history has helped me loosen up a lot in my own storytelling.
Cerebus #227 (February 1998)
Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard
What is your favorite scene or sequence from Cerebus?

There's a scene in Rick's Story, issue #227, where Cerebus is drinking; the liquor is swirling around his body and spilling into a black abyss as he contemplates ultimate damnation. The lettering on this page is just beautiful, jumping between voices and giving the audience a crystal-clear image of what's going on in the aardvark's head. It's an amazing scene.

Would you recommend others to read Cerebus, and if so why?

After finishing Melmoth (my favorite so far), I passed it off to my brother. He got through the volume in a half-hour. These are great stories; regardless of your point of entry, the art and writing pulls you in. And by virtue of the storyline's sheer length, we REALLY get to bond with the characters. Cerebus is a monumental work, and an awesome example of comics' true potential.

Sunday, February 9, 2014

High Society Audio/Digital Experience

Cerebus: High Society Audio/Digital Experience
Art/Audio by Dave Sim
IDW, $29.99
On Sale: 27 May 2014

The majesty of Cerebus' High Society goings-on come to life in this special presentation of Dave Sim's groundbreaking work. Remastered, animated, and with characters voiced by Sim, this is a must-have for any serious Cerebus fan... and the easiest way for new fans to experience this piece of comics history.

Gerhard's Memories Of Home

"...a commission for Frank of his father's old house in Greece."

"I did a nice little commission for Adam of his house. It's going to be a gift for his wife, so don't tell anyone."


"A musical cabin by the water."


Clay's Cabin


"A thank you gift."


P&T's House

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Weekly Update #17: 'Cerebus' & 'High Society' Reprinting

Previously on 'A Moment Of Cerebus':
Dave Sim, working with George Peter Gatsis, has remastered the first two collected volumes of Cerebus to restore details and quality in the artwork lost over the thirty years since they were originally published (as detailed here and here). After Cerebus' original printer Preney Print closed its doors, Dave Sim moved his printing to Lebonfon in 2007 as at that time they were still capable of working with photographic negatives and making printing plates as Preney had done. And then Lebonfon switched to digital scanning and printing - a technology which struggles to faithfully reproduce Cerebus' tone without creating moire patterns (as detailed in Crisis On Infinite Pixels). Dave Sim continues to work with Lebonfon to ensure the print-quality of the new Cerebus and High Society editions (as detailed in Collections Stalled). Now read on...
Cerebus Vol 1 & Cerebus Vol 2: High Society
Cover art by Dave Sim & Gerhard
DAVE SIM: 
Okay, well, I've been here reading all of the comments on the last WEEKLY UPDATE and the MID-WEEK UPDATE. Which has taken about an hour (and answering them has taken another hour).  Let me try to cover some of the broad strokes:

1) Getting Wilf involved. My own view is that engaging legal counsel just means that whatever is going to happen just became 5-figures-more expensive for the folks in question.  And this would be a REALLY complicated legal case. Picture Sean Michael Robinson and George Gatsis briefing Wilf on the foundational questions of the reproduction involved.  And both disagreeing with each other.  Wilf would have to figure out what the "narrative" was -- how a judge and/or jury would read it -- and then find the shortest way to explain it.  It would be a lunatic number of billable hours for the phone chats just to that point.  Then the billable hours while he actually explains all this in a court of law.  Then the lawyer he was facing going over the same hair-splitting.  5 figures would be a conservative estimate. I would say "mid- 6 figures", not including travel expenses.  

So there's no sense, to me, in going that route. Or asking for legal advice, period.  Unless I was asking the future judge and getting a definitive answer on the merits, all I'd really be getting would be "double down on Red 35" -- that is, a gut instinct call on a complete gamble.  I'm not in the situation of gambling on 6-figure amounts and I assume Lebonfon isn't either.

2) I'm in the unfortunate situation of being both bystander and arbiter in this situation.  I don't know if Sean Michael Robinson is right or George Gatsis is right.  And, in a sense, I really need to decide. My best suggestion would be that Sean and George continue to discuss it and that, possibly, Sean should get a look at some of the digital files in question.  I do tend to agree: "Everything looks good on television".  And that a digital file that looks bad "on TV" CAN BE exactly what the printing press is looking for.  Sandeep did the grayscale to bitmap conversion on glamourpuss and it's the best reproduction of my work I've ever seen.  But, that's a different situation (possibly) because that was pure artwork-to-digital whereas what George has been doing is restoration. So as to whether that's the case here, the odds seem to me to be better of Sean and George coming to a definitive answer on that between them.  I'm way out of my area of expertise.

3)  I can definitely AFFORD, financially, a new fax machine. I bought mine at the same time Sandeep bought his and it was only $45 or $50 as I recall. So thanks to those who want to buy me one, but IF I decide to get one I'll know exactly what I'm looking for (e.g. colour copying I need for various things these days, space restrictions etc). What I've been doing since it stopped receiving faxes (and its quite choosy about which fax numbers I can fax out to, and changes its mind on that quite regularly: some days I can fax Patrick and some days I can't) I'm assessing it on the merits:

Can I afford one in terms of the amount of time I spend running upstairs to see if a fax has come in?

It's been an unexpected benefit: I hadn't realized how much time I spent doing that.  Right now, is there any reason that I should be hearing from people by fax?  I'm writing and drawing THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND and that's really ALL I should be doing for the next three or four years (Which reminds me: Tim! You need to change the dates on STRANGE DEATH on the home page -- 2017 or 2018 at the EARLIEST and probably later -- I'm working on page 18 of issue 4).  That's what I'm doing for a living and then other things to bring money in.

These Updates are really all that I can justify right now when it comes to CEREBUS. Basically dropping by the "lab".  "Come up with anything yet? No?"  Okay, back to STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND.

4) I think I'm safe in saying that there is no QUICK FIX to the CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY situation. We're all waiting to hear from Monsieur Auberge from LEBONFON or someone authorized to speak for him here in this stakeholders' forum.  Depending on what he -- or his agent -- says, then we can move on to the next part of the discussion.  It could take the rest of 2014 and possibly into 2015.  Complicated discussions are like that. I've got two or three different directions I CAN go, based on what happens next. And then -- if experience is any teacher -- two or three different directions once whatever has happened next has happened.

5)  My best advice for CEREBUS fans who want to help is -- if you are missing copies of the trades PAST CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY or if you've got a "read-to-pieces" copy you've been meaning to replace, ask your Local Comic Shop to order it for you.  This will primarily benefit Diamond, but then they are arguably the biggest stakeholder in this situation so anything that helps to bring in some CEREBUS money to them is all to the good. Likewise buying a used copy on Amazon or ebay.  My 21st century sense is that anywhere your book sells counts in your favour.  That even extending to illegal downloads. It's our present 21st century reality so I assume it's there for a good reason, or good reasons, whatever those may be.

6) Prestige editions of the books.  Not going to happen in the foreseeable future.  The more formats you have the books in, the more problems you have getting them into print and keeping them in print.  The more you confuse your customers.  "Oh, a prestige version of READS -- now I can sell all my trades and just buy the prestige versions".  "Oh, I'm going to buy the IDW versions".  It's always worth repeating: 6,000 pages is unprecedented.  A solution that works for 1,200 pages isn't going to work for 6,000 pages.

Some specific replies:

Anonymous: on the auction of CEREBUS original artwork.  That's low on the list for me personally. I'm pretty intent on preserving the CEREBUS ARCHIVE including as much of the artwork as possible.  Selling the artwork works against that plan. You would see the glamourpuss artwork on sale before you would see CEREBUS pages.

Paul Slade.  Hi, Paul.  I don't want to "overdo" the relationship with IDW and I think they recognize that they need to be cautious until they see what sort of market they have for CEREBUS material.  The HIGH SOCIETY AUDIO DIGITAL package will be the first test of that.  It wouldn't make sense for them to commit to a half-dozen CEREBUS projects until they see what (if anything) those projects are likely to do.  I think they've opted for giving me optimum STRANGE DEATH creation time over, say, getting me to write the commentary for the CEREBUS COVERS books.  Which would be my preference as well.

Keith -- "accept the flaws and move forward".  Thanks for your input.  There is a real case to be made that most of the audience just wants to read the books and don't much care about the reproduction.  I do want to make sure everyone knows that I'm not trying to "put one over on them" by "foisting" substandard printing on them.  It's definitely a long process to find out where the "sweet spot" is.

Anonymous - printing in China.  IDW has volunteered to put me in touch with their printer in South Korea.  If possible, I'd like to keep printing CEREBUS in Canada since it's always been printed in Canada.  If it takes some time to figure out how to do that, I don't want to make the decision to go offshore just because I was impatient.

Damian T:  "Can Dave afford to live without revenue from these two books?"  Two years ago, I would have said "no" but -- so far -- the answer has been "yes".  It's been very liberating to know that it's not a matter of "Without CEREBUS, I'm NOTHING!"

Anonymous:  1100 head sketches is a LOT of head sketches, even if they're really quick and bad.  And it would require either me flying up to Val d'Or and doing 1100 head sketches on the unbound covers or having 1100 covers shipped down here.  Since Kickstarter, I've been pretty determined not to turn my home and offices into a loading dock again.

Dave Kopperman - "Vendors don't want your business".  I definitely have to take that into account as a distinct possibility.  It's one of the reasons that I solicited retailer feedback.  If no retailer wants to provide feedback, then that makes the process somewhat easier: a)  the CEREBUS fans and readers and collectors and b) Diamond and Lebonfon will help me decide the appropriate way forward.

Jeff Seiler - re: "ordering in quantities that reflect what customers want".  Yes, definitely.  The question is "Does CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY being off the market this long mean that there is no further demand, that we have entered the 'World Without Cerebus' context and whatever that entails in the long term?"  We aren't going to know that for a while, unfortunately.

The Kickstarter campaign I talked about last time - saying I would know in the next two weeks or so -- is definitely "no go" at this point which I'm very happy about because there are still about a dozen things I want to have figured out before even attempting another Kickstarter campaign.

Thanks to everyone for participating here.

We'll see what the next week brings!


Originally serialised within the pages of the self-published Glamourpuss #1-26 (April 2008 to July 2012), The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond is an as yet uncompleted work-in-progress in which Dave Sim investigates the history of photorealism in comics and specifically focuses on the work of comic-strip artist Alex Raymond and the circumstances of his death on 6 September 1956 at the wheel of fellow artist Stan Drake's Corvette at the age of 46.

Friday, February 7, 2014

Cerebus: In My Life - Chris Woerner

Christopher Woerner is from Lincoln, Nebraska and has served in the United States Army for seven years. He is also the author of Life & Polonia and Double
The Ages Of Cerebus Portfolio (Epic Illustrated #32, October 1985)
Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard

A MOMENT OF CEREBUS:
How did you discover Cerebus and how long did you read it for?

CHRIS WOERNER:
I discovered Cerebus in the pages of Epic Illustrated. My interest in the medium had rekindled my father's interest in the medium. He'd noticed I was gravitating towards Spider-Man comics, pulled Marvel Tales #137 off the grocery store rack and told me it was the first Spidey comic ever. [You can imagine how this messed with me. "Who's that guy with the glasses?" But Marvel Tales became a regular purchase, the only comic I've ever had a subscription to, and I may have been twenty years late, but *MY* Spider-Man is by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.] Dad looked for comics that weren't about kids for his own interests. In addition to Epic, he picked up Denny O'Neill's Daredevil which led him to Frank Miller's Daredevil: Born Again which led him to Dark Knight which led him to Watchmen, Elektra and everything DC put out which was "for mature readers." He bought Sandman #1 off the rack, enjoyed the hell out of it, instructed me not to file the "Doll's House" storyline during my 'organizing comics' days until the story was finished so he could read it properly, and gave up on the title shortly thereafter because it was "too good" for him to follow. Less than a year later, I was organizing comics, bored for something new to read, ran into the issues of Sandman and thought 'hey, didn't Dad like these?

Long story short, within a few months I was a devoted Sandman fan, picking up the series on my own, and I have since made sure he has a complete set of the TPBs. Where was I going with this? Oh, right. Epic Illustrated. I read the parts of Epic that were interesting to me. John Byrne's Last Galactus Story was kinda weird, but I knew who Galactus and Nova were. Rick Veitch's stories were always interesting. The stories with naked ladies were stupid because who cares about naked ladies? But the Cerebus stories were interesting and memorable.

A few years later, my father was dating a woman whose son was my age, and a major fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. On a trip to the comic book store (a weekly father-son experience I'll always treasure) Dad bought him the Turtles collections, and somehow I recognized the little grey bastard on one of the covers. I was never a TMNT fan, but the comics were a lot better than I was expecting, and of course, there was Cerebus.
The Ages Of Cerebus Portfolio (Epic Illustrated #32, October 1985)
Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard
 
In my teenage years, I had little connection with any goings-on in the comic-book field. But somehow Dave Sim and Cerebus were appearing higher and higher on my radar. Then Marvel exploded with their new #1s by McFarlane, Liefeld and Lee. I was given a free copy of Spider-Man #1, ruined its value by tearing the plastic bag so I could read it and, although I've never liked McFarlane's art, I thought the story was surprisingly serviceable. Todd was the first to admit he's not a writer, but as far as making interesting characters doing interesting things, it worked. Years later, I read the Torment collection and had the same basic reaction. It's an interesting take on Spider-Man. Sure, it ruins "Kraven's Last Hunt" (which was an awesome story - also purchased by my Dad without any effort from me) but it's a Spider-Man comic. Be serious.

So then Image formed. I liked Mark Silvestri's art, I liked the way Jim Lee drew girls, and even though I loved [and still love] superheroes, the only appeal Image had for me was it's basic commitments to creators rights, which I had just been learning about. It was in the air. Around the same time, David Letterman left his show on NBC and suddenly pop culture was bantering around words like "intellectual property". At a Chicaco Comicon [back when it was still called the Chicago Comicon] I saw the first couple issues of Spawn for sale and decided, 'why not? I liked that first issue of Spider-Man, right?' So I read the first issues of Spawn, liked them, and started reorienting my thinking about the concept of creator's rights. Todd isn't doing Spider-Man, he's doing his own character, that he created, that he can decide everything he wants, and can lay out the story in ways that work for his style of drawing [and coloring; Steve Oliff is the one who made computer coloring work, and although it meant suffering through long periods where colored comics looked like a plate of hurl, we've finally made it past the dark ages and the coloring on books like Fables or ABC is absolutely gorgeous, worthy of the art it adorns.]

So there I am, a happy Spawn reader, and Todd announces the series of guest-written issues. I know who Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Frank Miller are, but Dave Sim? Todd helpfully provides an ad for Cerebus just to give us a chance, so we won't drop the series when the little grey bastard shows up.

At this point in my life, I didn't have a weekly comic book store to attend, but when I did get to the store, I noticed these thick books which showed Cerebus, some matching the cover of High Society in the ad. A 500-page comic book? Is that legal? As a kid, there was a point where I wanted to deface my copies of Marvel Tales and staple them together so they would make one big Spider-Man book, but really? Can you actually make a comic book like that?

Have I mentioned that, again, thanks to my father's influence, I had recently become a fan of the Marx Brothers? I had decided that a 500 page comic *MUST* be its own reason for existing, I'd taken the plunge, I'd kinda enjoyed the story, and once I finally realized who Lord Julius really was, I was in fanboy heaven. I started picking up the regular series, roughly at the beginning of "Women", which included the Sandman Roach parody. I gradually filled in the books I was missing and continued following the on-going series. The letters page was particularly helpful, because I'd never read a page like "Aardvark Comment", especially when Dave started dishing about goings-on in the comic book field. My first experience at my first Chicagocon was Chris Clarement saying he was leaving X-Men, and Dave is talking about Claremont [Hssssssss!] being forced out, and confirming my impressions of what crap the X-titles turned into after he left? This creators' rights stuff must be really meaningful.

So, to put it bluntly, I became a fan. Next question.
The Ages Of Cerebus Portfolio (Epic Illustrated #32, October 1985)
Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard
 
How has your own creativity / comics reading been influenced by Cerebus?


My creativity has been influenced in the sense that I have similar interests to Dave. I love looking at the long-term nature of things and telling stories that fit. I realized early on that my novel Life in Polonia was basically trying to write Cerebus in prose, in a month's time - it was part of the NANOWRIMO challenge - and without editorializing or dwelling on particular periods. The main character transforms the (fictional) society he lives in, and he's closer to death every day.

Dave has also influenced my creativity with his 'just do it' arguments. I can't draw worth a damn. My handwriting is so bad that I have trouble reading it. But I became a writer because I want to write comics, and it finally hit me that I should just draw/letter what I write, and if I ever collaborate with an artist in the future, I can give him finished pages and say 'do a better job with these than I did.' As a result, I have a couple thousand finished pages, and several completed books featuring my superheroes the way I think superheroes should be handled. Most likely they'll be seen by very few people until my corpse is found and the causes of my death are investigated, but dammit, I have finished comics I'm proud of. They're just not drawn or lettered very well is all.

And self-publishing. I can't count the number of people who ask who published me and when I answer "I did," flinch and react "No, I mean who's your publisher?" Me. I made these books, I contacted and paid the printer, and now I have finished books for sale. What part of this don't you get? My storage unit has more examples of failed attempts at self-publishing from my life. Dave opened the curtains wide as far as I'm concerned. I still have people complimenting me on my comic book depiction of how to run an Arms Room.

Otherwise, as a creator, I'd say it's mostly been in lettering. I am pretty good at laying out a page and trying some formalist experiments, but it doesn't work if the 'artist' knows where the word balloons are going to be placed and how big they're going to be. That's how I got started drawing. I came up with an idea for a superhero story, and halfway through, I decided to lay it out. The story will never be finished (it was kinda stupid anyway) but focused my attention on 'writing the story' and once I'd done that, 'screw it, just draw it as best you can.' The stories started coming easier and working better because I had finished comics to rely on. There isn't an unbroken record of creation, but you can see some of my efforts here and here on the internet.

Do you have a favourite scene or sequence from Cerebus?

Don't have a favorite scene. "Junior here can have everything on this side of the viaduct" is as good as Cerebus pulling out a knife to kill Shep-shep. The Real Cirin telling us "Women read minds" is as good as Dave's forceful telling Cerebus to shut for once in his life. We can have a fun argument about which scene is better, but I have no favorite Cerebus scene.

Would you recommend others read Cerebus, and if so why?

Yes, but I won't say why. In my opinion, the reasons to read Cerebus contradict each other, unless you're the sort of person who is blown away by a 500-page comic book, which, in the 21st century, you probably aren't. The reason I'd recommend Cerebus will differ from person-to-person. I gave my Dad copies of "The First Half" and I think he picked the reading order because of which was easier. He later emailed me that Melmoth, Jaka's Story and Church & State were masterpieces that would last as long as comics. He's never said much about High Society and his comments about the first book are limited to 'wow, Dave Sim really improved' and a few jokes about Bran Mac Muffin, who also cleaned himself up in later appearances. If you want 'guy' jokes, you have Guys. If you want Biblical commentary, there's Latter Days. If you want the Marx Brothers, there's High Society. Basically, the series is "too good" for me to recommend it.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Cerebus Crystal Statute Mystery

ED WEST:
(by email, 31 January 2014)
I was wondering if you could tell me something about a small glass, or crystal, figurine of Cerebus on a wood base. It is in a white box with the word Cerebus on white strips of paper that are pasted on. On the top is the following: Cerebus Series F NO= 2 of 50. Inside is a label that reads: Venessa - Crystal Creations and a phone number: 0582 580452. An internet search turned up nothing. I spoke with Dave Sim who did not remember it. If memory serves, Forbidden Planet in New York had this one in the 1990s. Any thoughts about its value?

MARGARET LISS (aka CEREBUS FANGIRL):
(by email, 31 January 2014) 
This is the second such figurine to come up. The first one I heard about popped up on the internets a while back - 10 years? - and I managed to get some pictures. I thought it was Brian "Cerebus Aartblog" who owned it, but I didn't find it on his superb Cerebus original art and goodies website. The series F is interesting - as the pictures I have are of series A but show 1 of 50. The value is hard to say as this one is pretty rare and no confirmation from Dave as to it being authorized or not. At least a couple hundred dollars if not more. Feel free to use the photos on your blog Tim. The high visibility of it perhaps might get some more info from other Cerebus fans out there.