June 30 2006 - Interview about iArt collecting

This was pretty interesting. Sala (www.onethousandpaintings.com)... you remember these (above), right? ... sent me this note the other day:

I contact you regarding onethousandpaintings.com.

[A writer] from NY Magazine "Smart Money" will interview me tomorrow on the project, and he said he would be extremely interested in hearing the collector's side of the story.

I don't know why, but I spontaneously thought about you.

Would you be willing to take some time (a couple of minutes, I assume) to answers [the writer's] questions?

*** ***

No problemo.

I spoke with [the writer] for about 45 minutes yesterday afternoon. He was interested in the changes in the fine art market, in particular, based on the impact of the internet to bring together directly the artist with the art collector. Naturally, during the course of the interview, I steered things towards original comic art and our friends in Kitchener, their art site, commissions, and so on. And I followed up with links. It was fun.

I know what some of y'all think about Sala's work, or his inspiration Anthony (www.anthonywhite.net)'s money series (e.g., below), but it seemed like an opportunity to extend coverage of the iArt market to include Cerebus, which would be as cool as it is appropriate.

june 29 2006 - 2006 Commission Part 19

On the re-creation of Issue #29, page 20, from the other day...

Had the opposite reaction to page 20 than I had to page 19. I was already thinking this early that the Elf was just an illusion fabricated halfway between Cerebus and the real Regency Elf which meant she was something of a ventriloquist’s puppet. What’s interesting is that here she just keeps asking Cerebus “And then what?” (I made it a little more playful sounding in the recreation – like a two-year old who enjoys tormenting adults with questions that become progressively more difficult to answer and consequently keeps repeating the question in a louder and more gleeful way) so, essentially, this is a dominant and suppressed part of Cerebus that has never actually asked himself, as a barbarian, “Well, okay, so we loot a lot of money – then what? What do we exactly want to buy?” And in a real sense all people in that situation want to buy the same thing: a quiet Elf; that is they want to buy the suppression of an inner voice that says materialism is a dead end.

June 28 2006 - 2006 Commission Part 18

Dateline: June 28 2006

Gerhard to alchemist57:

I've attached a pic of page 20 so far...
I have one project to do right now and then Rose and I are off sailing next week so I probably won't get yours done unitl after I get back.

to be continued

Hi. I would whadyacall post the image that Ger sent, but I am too busy losing bodily fluids over it. You'll have to wait till tomorrow.

Excuse me now, I have to go clean up...

...again.

January 15 1999 Cerebus #21 p 18 & #44 p 12

Actually, I posted on these before, but I recently uncovered the correspondence that sets the date of sale. I love seeing these really low eBay numbers for some reason.


eBay item number: 55176202
Seller: dave65
Buyer: alchemist57
Price: $305.11











eBay item number: 55178712
Seller: dave65
Buyer: alchemist57
Price: $224.72

May 4 1999 - Unpublished art

eBay item number: 96383377
Seller: Amazing Adventures
Buyer: alchemist57
Price: $210









**** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****

Public service annoucement

Currently on eBay:



Last sold: September 7 2005
eBay item number: 6552738835
Seller: jjonahjameson1
Buyer: dpbanks
Price: $499.99

July 15 2003 Cerebus #64 p 7

Private Sale
Seller: unknown
Buyer: me
Price: $450

This is sort of the beta-test for the page recreation commissions I am having done, I guess. According to Ger, they had this page sitting in front of them at a convention and started filling it in and coloring it in order to pass the time. I don't know of any other original pages that have been modified in this way - but we'd all be interested in case there was.

I scanned the page from Church and State I (p 259) so's you can compare:

February 7 1999 Cerebus #22 p 6

Private sale
Seller: R. Gary Land
Buyer: me
Price: $275

Found this one in some archival correspondence.

Still looking forward to seeing some of the second commissioned page in progress.

June 22 2006 - 2006 Commission Part 17

Pictured: Alien pokey-people having fun in the California sun.

Dateline: Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Fax from Dave to alchemist57:

(more reflections on the recreation of page 20)

Of course I had to change the last panel where he says “Shut up and play.” This was a swipe of Shirley MacLaine’s last line in The Apartment which I believe was “Shut up and deal.” Again, my enthusiasm for a good line overcomes my narrative sense. The Elf had just taken her shot and I had used two panels to show her take it. When it’s your shot, you don’t say “Shut up and play.” I could fall back on “Cerebus was confused by the questioning and forgot whose shot it was,” but he had just said “Your shot,” a couple of panels previous to this. The player who says “your shot” is usually the one keeping track of the game for the less focused opponent. “Shut up and play” also violated the later plot point of “Don’t get mad at an elf.” If you’re that wary of it, you wouldn’t say “shut up” even in a light-hearted way. She’s a female and females are notoriously literal-minded. “Shut up” is “shut up” and “shut up” is “being mean to me.” He would need to be evasive instead of direct.

the end, again for now

June 21 2006 - 2006 Commission Part 16

Pictured: Some kind of neat-o swooshy grass stuff out in California (cuz I don't yet have any images from the recreation of Issue 29, p 20). I did get another fax from Dave, though, with some of his reflections on doing it.

Dateline: Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Fax from Dave to alchemist57:

Had the opposite reaction to page 20 than I had to page 19. I was already thinking this early that the Elf was just an illusion fabricated halfway between Cerebus and the real Regency Elf which meant she was something of a ventriloquist’s puppet. What’s interesting is that here she just keeps asking Cerebus “And then what?” (I made it a little more playful sounding in the recreation – like a two-year old who enjoys tormenting adults with questions that become progressively more difficult to answer and consequently keeps repeating the question in a louder and more gleeful way) so, essentially, this is a dominant and suppressed part of Cerebus that has never actually asked himself, as a barbarian, “Well, okay, so we loot a lot of money – then what? What do we exactly want to buy?” And in a real sense all people in that situation want to buy the same thing: a quiet Elf; that is they want to buy the suppression of an inner voice that says materialism is a dead end.

to be continued

(In answer to which, I suppose, we all wonder: would that be the kind of materialism that transfers part of my income over to DVS in order to commission recreations of Cerebus pages?)

June 20 2006 Cerebus #301 Cover (part deux)

It's always a good day when you walk in and find a package from Aardvark Vanaheim in your mailbox.

I posted on the "Cerebus #301 Cover" back in late May... but here is the cool dedication and drawing that Dave put at the bottom.

Grin.

June 19 2006 - 2006 Commission Part 15

Looking over to San Francisco from the hills behind Berkeley, whilst taking a walk in the Botanical Gardens.

Dateline: Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Fax from Dave to alchemist57:

(the rest of it - best for last, kids...)

Fortunately on page 20 which I’ve started on, it looks like all I’ll have to fix is Cerebus impaling himself with the croquet mallet in panel 2.

Thanks again for the commissions. I’m attaching a strip that I did for Siu Ta, Canadian actress and wife of long-time reader John Tran all of it done from photographs for her website. I was wondering if you were interested in doing something like this for your website: a comic strip featuring you. You supply the photographs and the dialogue and I supply the strip, which is exactly computer monitor-sized.

(the end - for now)

June 15 2006 Cerebus #6 (advert for #7)

eBay item number: 6636488412
Seller: tomjk
Buyer: no bidders
Opening bid: $2799.99

June 17 2006 - 2006 Commission Part 14

Dateline: Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Fax from Dave to alchemist57:

(in part)

Other things like Cerebus walking towards the reader with his tail about to hit the wickets. If you had a tail you would know to get it out of the way, I think. Trying to figure out how the robe is sitting on his body by the white stripes in the middle panel and finally giving up and drawing it properly. Likewise with him holding the croquet mallet in the second panel. It looks to me was if I got the figure done, realized I hadn’t put the mallet in so I just drew it vaguely intersecting the right hand which is resting on his knee (and then had it disappear behind the outer instead of the inner panel frame as a way of showing how clever I was an hoping that would distract from the fact that there is no rational way he would be holding the mallet at that angle even if he was holding his hand at waist level, the mallet would either be horizontal or tipping the other way.

***

Not that I am mongering disaster, but I've been coming to the Bay Area on a pretty regular basis for the last 10 years and I have yet to feel an earthquake. Yesterday morning there was a 4.7 about 40 miles from here at about 5:30 AM that lots of my colleagues at this meeting felt in their beds.

And I slept through it.

Dammit.

I am unnaturally fascinated by plate tectonics; maybe (spooky music of Sterling or Sim) it's just the echo of me living out here some time. Maybe it's just wishful thinking. But among the pages I check every day, like I check the weather, I check out the earth's earthquake status: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww

It's really quite fascinating.

Yesterday's Earthquake Details

Magnitude: 4.7 (Light)
Date-Time: Thursday, June 15, 2006
12:24:51 (UTC) Coordinated Universal Time:
5:24:51 AM local time at epicenter
Location 37.102°N, 121.492°W
Depth 3.1 km (1.9 miles)

June 16 2006 - 2006 Commission Part 13

I'm in Palo Alto this week, another one of those favorite art haunts is the not-to-be-missed Rodin Garden on the Stanford campus. I did get a fax from Dave, reflecting on the recreation of that page.

Dateline: Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Fax from Dave to alchemist57:

(in part)

“Insanity is the last line of defense for the master bureaucrat” is an interesting observation, but it’s hardly a Lord Julius line, so I tried to fix it so it read like something Groucho Marx would say. The salesman line was indelicate relative to the personality of the Elf. You just wouldn’t say to the Elf (or to a female of any kind) “sniffing your crotch” since they don’t hear it in the abstract the way men do. If you say “sniffing your crotch” what they is is that someone wants to sniff their crotch. I switched genders, elevated the action anatomically and “cuted” it up with the “mooing” which would pass muster with a female. “Impregnable” is not a word that Cerebus would use. As with the Lord Julius line, this is Dave Sim conveying his best current thinking on an abstract subject and completely losing his characters’ voices and personalities in the process.

June 15 2006 - 2006 Commission Part 12

Dateline: Thursday, June 15, 2006

I have lots of things to tell you about, but with the low activity in the buying and selling of Cerebus original art, I'll drag this out. Really, if anyone wants to put a story about a purchase (or twenty) up here for the record, please send it along.

My Übermensch graduate student, Alan homepage.mac.com/akiste The Observant, noted that a hotel he saw outside his own hotel room once, in Vancouver, had lots in common with the drawing of the Regency that Ger had done. Nice catch, Alan.

I asked Ger about this.

Tuesday June 13, 2006

Gerhard to alchemist57:

"Yes, the Regency was based (traced) on a CN hotel, but at the other end of the country; the Château Laurier in Quebec city."

to be continued...


Mesdames et Messieurs, Le Château Laurier:

June 14 2006 - 2006 Commission Part 11

Dateline: Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Gerhard to alchemist57:

He agreed to do the second page, so... I guess it worked.

I'll keep you posted on the progress.

to be continued... waaaahoooooo

June 13 2006 - 2006 Commission - Interlude

INTERLUDE

In case you have not gone back to look at the page in question, it is my favorite page of all time (and the subject of the first posting back in April). The comparison is great to make. Issue 29, p 19.

I have asked Dave to reflect on the dialogue changes, and on doing the recreation in general. I'll share what I get.

I have also asked them - despite the "no elves again, not now, not ever" warning from Dave - if they would do the following page (Issue 29, page 20) as a companion piece, and doubled the price of the commission as my offer.

I'll let you know how that turns out. Hopefully Dave won't go postal on page 19... I did consider waiting.

I'm not optimisitic, but I also know you don't get what you don't ask for.

June 12 2006 - 2006 Commission Part 10

Dateline: Monday, June 12, 2006

Gerhard to alchemist57:

I got the colour done, now it's back to Dave for the sound effect and last two word balloons. Almost there...

to be continued

June 11 2006 - 2006 Commission Part 9

Dateline: Saturday, June 10, 2006

Gerhard to alchemist57:

Dave says, "No more elves."

Monday will be my colouring day.

I'm off to the boat...


to be continued


(my jaw is on the ground - again,
my shorts need to be changed - again,
and I'm hyperventilating - again)

June 10 2006 - 2006 Commission Part 8

Dateline: Friday, June 9, 2006

Gerhard to alchemist57:

work in progress...

to be continued


(OK, everyone can lift their jaws from the ground, change their shorts, and resume normal breathing)

June 9 2006 - Commissions

Private Commission
Sellers: Dave 'n' Ger
Buyer: not saying
Price: $1500


As featured in the latest Following Cerebus, the cerebusart.com site features a couple of the commissions that Dave and Ger have agreed to do, including the one pictured here. I have heard the story of this piece, but unless I get permission to write about it, I'll keep that info in the files. Perhaps because those color-cover recreations have been going in the $900 range, I think it is interesting that Dave's been willing to make public the $1500 price tag on these. If you listen to the stories, there is definitely a sense, at least, of pitching an interesting idea at them, and if they like it, they will pursue it.



"The 2006 Commission - Part 7"

Dateline: Monday, June 5, 2006
alchemist57 to Gerhard:

That's all anyone can ask for!

to be continued

June 8 2006 - Samuel Gompers

travel day today...

Memorial to Samuel Gompers at the intersection of 11th/L/New York, in a park across the street from the Inn where I was staying in DC. Gompers (1850-1924) was an immigrant cigar-maker who, partly in response to the sweatshop conditions, was selected as President of the Local 144 Cigar Makers Union. As a delegate to a larger union conference in the 1880s, he helped create a loose confederation of like-minded labor unions, initially called the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Councils. This organization was reconstituted in 1886 as the American Federation of Labor (AFL), and Gompers was its first President, serving in that capacity through the time of his death.

"The 2006 Commission - Part 6"

Dateline: Monday, June 5, 2006
Gerhard to alchemist57:

Sure, I'll see what I can do.

to be continued

June 7 2006 We think you're just sensational, Mame.

"Four Colors Four Words" (Jospeh Kosuth)


"The 2006 Commission - Part 5"

Dateline: Friday, June 2, 2006
alchemist57 to Gerhard:

And If it is not too horribly bad of a request, it would be really cool if you could grab a few digital images to document the creation of the recreation of the page from issue 29... I would love to be over your collective shoulders to see the steps in the process...

to be continued



Yesterday, 10:30 PM, after seeing the show:

Friends of alchemist57 to alchemist57: "That was loads of fun. Let's see if there is a matinee showing tomorrow..."

Heh.

June 6 2006 You charm the husk right off of the corn, Mame...

"The 2006 Commission - Part 4"

Dateline: Monday, May 31, 2006
Gerhard to alchemist57:

I'm hoping to start on recreating that page from issue 29 this week.

to be continued


Aftering chatting up the show yesterday, I'll be leading a small group of conferees to a showing of "Mame" tonight. Does that mean I will be seeing it again so soon?

Well... what do you think?


















When it comes to being the ring leader for getting the stoic academic crowd off of its collect hind end, I am pretty much that guy who organizes stuff... moves the break-out session down to the pool, particularly if they are serving little colorful drinks with umbrellas, and bagging the late night, endless drone-a-thon session to go bowling. Apparently my inner Love Boat character is the Cruise Director.

It's a fine balance, having the reputation as that guy. You have to have your bona fides in place, and ditch stuff you just know everyone else actually wants to do but where no one wants to be the first to make the move. Once you are that guy, then you earn this odd sort of legitimacy to be troublemaker. As Lord Julius says, you just have to lay the groundwork early in the game.














A few scenes from the Hirshhorn Museum are dotting the post today, include the true masterpiece at the end: this wonderfully composed woman was standng outside the HIrshhorn hailing a taxi. She looked as though she belonged in with the displays with a little tag nearby telling us the title of her composition.

In order of appearance:

"The Last Conversation Piece" (sculpture, by Juan Muñoz)

"Composition with Yellow and Blue" (Piet Mondrian)

"Sky Light" (Alma Thomas) & Garden (Agnes Martin)

June 5 2006 You coax the blues right out of the horn, Mame...

If you are in DC sometime between now and early July, and you want to see a fun musical, I can heartily recommend the production of "Mame" that is on at the Kennedy Center. Christine Baranski ("Mary Sunshine" in the movie version of "Chicago") does a perfect (perfect!) job in the lead. I called the theater on a lark and ended up fifth row center in a singleton seat in an otherwise sold out show.


















































My other recommendation du jour is the National Museum of the American Indian. I happened to be in DC just after it opened last year; and this was only my third visit. The architectural choices are so spectacular - I think it is the best looking building on the Mall.



















Inside, it is a spectacular museum. It has a distinctive feeling. Start on the 4th floor ("the Evidence") and linger. I am so compelled by the whole "1491" idea - a pair of continents over on this side of the world, with ever-increasing evidence for the rich and complex set of civilizations that were eradicated when the Europeans arrived. I've not read the book of this title (1491) yet, but it's in the stack.

I wonder what Dave's opinion is on the First People's question; surely he has one.




















"The 2006 Commission - Part 3"

Dateline: Monday, May 8, 2006 (even later in the day)
alchemist57 to Gerhard:

I was thinking about $xxxx-ish.*

to be continued

*only with Dave's say-so, y'all

eBay ca 2000 Cerebus #61 p 18-19

eBay item number: unknown
Seller: unknown
Buyer: alchemist57
Price: $350 for the pair

As I recall, from somewhere, Dave wrote a really interesting story behind the construction of the "Boom!" pages. If you know where that is, let me know.


"The 2006 Commission - Part 2"

Dateline: Monday, May 8, 2006 (later in the day)
Gerhard to alchemist57:

I'll run the commission idea past Dave, what sort of price range were you thinking?

to be continued