The Lost Sim 'Road Bit'

Unpublished 'Road Bit' Dream Comic (1996)
Art by Dave Sim

RICK VEITCH:
(from Rick Veitch's Blog, 12 September 2008)

Found this cool unpublished Dave Sim ROAD BIT in one of my old sketchbooks. From the title, he seems to be hedging on whether its a real dream or not. This would have been done right in the middle of the SPIRITS OF INDEPENDENCE tour. I'm wondering why we didn't try the free beer idea!

Rick Veitch is a comic writer/artist best known for his creator-owned work on Brat Pack, Heartburst, The One and Can't Get No, as well as his work on corporate comics including Greyshirt, Supreme and Swamp Thing. Between 1994 and 1996 he self-published 21 issues of dream-inspired comics in Roarin' Rick's Rare Bit Fiends (a reference to Winsor McCay's Dream of the Rarebit Fiend), the first 20 issues of which were collected in three paperback volumes via his King Hell imprint. Rick Veitch had a cameo in the Cerebus story arc Guys as "Roaring Rick" where Cerebus is dreaming, and Roaring Rick appears to him and gives a surreal monologue on the nature of dreams and lucid dreaming.

Sim's Road Bit

'Sim's Road Bit' in Rare Bit Fiends #3 (September 1994)
Art by Dave Sim

RICK VEITCH:
(from Roarin' Rick's Rare Bit Fiends #3, September 1994)

When I travel away from home I carry a small black sketchbook to make a visual record of my dreams in. This serves to keep me focused on my work, even on the fly, and comes in handy when someone invariably walks up and says "I had the WEIRDEST dream last night!". I hand 'em the Road Bits sketchbook and tell 'em to put it down on paper. Some get right into it immediately and accept the challenge, others wait until they are back in the relative safety of their studios to come through...

Rick Veitch is a comic writer/artist best known for his creator-owned work on Brat Pack, Heartburst, The One and Can't Get No, as well as his work on corporate comics including Greyshirt, Supreme and Swamp Thing. Between 1994 and 1996 he self-published 21 issues of dream-inspired comics in Roarin' Rick's Rare Bit Fiends (a reference to Winsor McCay's Dream of the Rarebit Fiend), the first 20 issues of which were collected in three paperback volumes via his King Hell imprint. Rick Veitch had a cameo in the Cerebus story arc Guys as "Roaring Rick" where Cerebus is dreaming, and Roaring Rick appears to him and gives a surreal monologue on the nature of dreams and lucid dreaming. 

Zelda Cafe

"Zelda Cafe" in Roarin' Rick's Rare Bit Fiends #1 (July 1994)

Art by Dave Sim

DAVE SIM:
(from the 100 Hour Internet Tour: Comicon, 2 Febraury 2008)

...The only published Dave Sim Dreams story is "The Zelda Cafe" in Roarin' Rick's Rare Bit Fiends #1... oddly enough a dream that I had before I knew anything about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda. Impossible but True! I have about 25 mint copies that I've been trying to figure out how to get a) Rick to sign in the presence of a CGC rep and b) get slabbed by CGC. A couple of obvious problems: I'd be willing to bet the Veitchmonster [Rick Veitch] hates the very idea of CGC slabbing and I'd be willing to bet the nearest CGC rep is probably no closer than Boston. Although I might be wrong. On both counts...

Dave Sim: Thoughts On Vertigo

Unpublished cover for Swamp Thing #88 (1989)
Art by Rick Veitch (with Gustave Dore & Stephen R. Bissette)

DAVE SIM:
(from the annotations to Latter Days, 2003)

Rabbi - who becomes a more integral part of the story at this point - is a parody of a DC Vertigo series written by Garth Ennis and drawn by Steve Dillon which was called Preacher (at sixty-six issues, one of the longest graphic novels in comic-book history) which was recently described by self-confessed Preacher fan, Fred Hembeck, as "full of excessive violence, bad taste, blasphemy, perverse sexual situations, swearing, Oboy, lots of swearing". I was of that minority group for whom the entire Vertigo line was just a strange offshoot of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing - that peculiar generation for whom DC's "axing" of the Jesus Christ issue of Swamp Thing (written by Rick Veitch and drawn by Michael Zulli) was still an inexplicable amputation that books like Preacher, when they came along, only made more inexplicable. I first did Rabbi as a parody poster in the Cerebus Guide To Self-Publishing, as an expression of that fundamental confusion. "Jesus Christ in Swamp Thing is not okay, but Preacher is? Okay, how about a character called Rabbi?" It was only when I actually needed a Judaic frame of reference for Cerebus to serve as a bridge from the Book of Rick to the Torah that I thought, "Actually, that's a good point. Why not a character called Rabbi?"

Back-cover, Cerebus Guide To Self-Publishing (1997)
Art by Dave Sim

THE COMICS JOURNAL #129:
(from 'Newswatch: Rick Veitch Quits Swamp Thing' in The Comics Journal #129, May 1989)
Writer Rich Veitch resigned his assignment on DC Comics' Swamp Thing March 9 after DC President and Editor-In Chief Jenette Kahn refused to publish his previously approved and three quarters pencilled, script for issue 88. Kahn refused Veitch's Morning Of The Magician, the climatic chapter in two years of scripting Swamp Thing, apparently because she believed its portrayal of a meeting between Swamp Thing and Jesus Christ at the Biblical crucifixion "would be offensive to many of our readers." The decision prompted writers Neil Gaiman and Jamie Delano, scheduled to continue the series after Veitch finished his run with issue 92, to decline the assignment.

"...My initial response was I knew I would have to resign," Veitch said. "I knew it instantly, that there was no other way to defend my right of free expression and drive home my dissatisfaction, my contempt, for DC's decision. I had already agreed to make changes, but at that point they were asking me to complete a new script in a week to keep the book on schedule. I was definitely willing to make adjustments, but they didn't want the script, period." According to a press release issued by former Swamp Thing artist Stephen Bissette on behalf of Veitch, [Karen] Berger claimed "an unnamed Warner Executive reaffirmed Kahn's decision." Veitch confirmed that discussion, adding that Berger had told him that "two years ago, we could have published this story" but couldn't now because "the current political climate [determines] we can't have a religious icon with a monster in a comic book."