Saturday 19 March 2016

The Cerebus Oversize Project #1 - Cerebus Sledgehammer

ALL THIS WEEK, EXCLUSIVELY HERE AT A MOMENT OF CEREBUS AS WE COUNT DOWN TO THE 7 PM FRIDAY MARCH 25 "TCOP" -- THE CEREBUS OVERSIZED PROJECT -- LAUNCH, DAVE SIM WILL BE HIGHLIGHTING AND COMMENTING ON SEVERAL OF THE FEATURED PIECES


Cover illustration for CAPITOL CITY INTERNAL CORRESPONDENCE 1995.  DC Comics had, as far as I was concerned, signed Capitol City Distribution's death warrant with their exclusive deal with Diamond Comics.  So, this was an attempt to at least raise Milton and John's spirits by giving them a nice "rah-rah" cover for one of the last issues they would publish.  "It's Not Over, 'Til We SAY It's Over"  

(when you're stealing your "rah-rah" mottos from John Belushi in ANIMAL HOUSE you're really clutching at straws) ("Did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?" "The Germans?" "Quiet, he's on a roll.")(But, then, that was part of the charm).  

It really wasn't until Gerhard had brushed on the process cyan, process red, process yellow Dr. Martin dyes on the statue fragments of -- uh, whoever that happens to be a statue of -- that I thought, "Mm. This is a little more over-the-top than I had intended it to be."  I thought about getting him to damp down the colour a little bit but then I thought "Eff it. In for a penny in for a pound."  

It was shortly after the cover was published that Christopher Reeve had his horse-jumping accident that left him paralyzed.  I always felt bad about the possible Comic Art Metaphysics inference:  that Cerebus' sledgehammer had been metaphysically to blame.  

Because INTERNAL CORRESPONDENCE was magazine sized, the original artwork qualifies for the OVERSIZED PROJECT. 


THE COUNTDOWN TO THE TCOP THE CEREBUS OVERSIZED PROJECT LAUNCH CONTINUES. 
STAY TUNED FOR MORE UPDATES...

2 comments:

Damian T. Lloyd, Esq. said...

So Dave caused Christopher Reeve to fall off a horse by drawing a picture of Cerebus smashing a statue of Superman?

-- Damian

Unknown said...

Hi Damian! In a Comic Art Metaphysical sense, yes, I think so. It wasn't my intention but Comic Art Metaphysics appear to traffic heavily in the Laws of Unintended Consequences. In this instance, you're talking about a singular moment in the history of a Where The Medium Went -- realistically comic strips which had been a huge metaphysical construct for a good fifty years had been displaced in favour of realistically drawn comic BOOKS. Comic strips are all HI AND LOIS stuff now.

And realistic comic BOOKS had mutated from a newsstand construct to the Direct Market construct. And the Direct Market was composed of Diamond and Capitol and a bunch of small distributors which had just been eradicated. And Capitol was about to be eradicated. And there I was creating a VISUAL of that right at the metaphysical apex: the last VISUAL expression of Capitol City before it was eradicated.

The inclination of the Metaphysics in those situations is to "Go Somewhere": to move from the DEPICTION level of incarnation into what we call the REAL WORLD: our own level of physical incarnation and to incarnate.

Which is actually just a different form of DEPICTION for the "next chessboard up" . Our three dimensions, to them, are the same as two dimensions are to us.

I'll stick around for a few minutes to see if you're still here and want to follow-up on this.