Friday 17 March 2017

"Cerebus In Hell?" Parody Covers: Part 7

Send your parody covers to: momentofcerebus [at] gmail [dot] com!  
GARY BOYARSKI:
Here's my second and possibly FINAL bunch of Cerebus Cover Parody suggestions (we're about two weeks away from having a new baby in the house, so if I disappear from AMOC for a while, you can find me near the diaper bin on Sleepless Street.) I hope you guys find them amusing, I had fun making them up. Hey, maybe Dave could run a page or two of unused cover idea's in the back pages of these things. Anyway, here we go...

INCREDIBLE CEREBUS
I had to give this one a try, I mean it's so easy, A big grey figure on the cover? It's just begging for a Cerebus spoofing.  Unfortunately, it's not as easy as it would seem.   I had a hard time thinking of just the right gag for the images. Sometimes having too many options is not a good thing. I used the Cerebus head from a "Cerebus for President" image I found online.  It kind of works, although I't would be better with a meaner expression.  Does anyone know the legal parameters of altering someone else's art and mass producing it on a comic cover.  It's a little different from redrawing it entirely as in a homage type of cover.

DETECTIVE CEREBUS COMICS
Again, used the "Cerebus for President" head.  I tried shifting the eyes to the right a bit, but it just looked goofy instead of inquisitive. This was the first one that I added the 'Cerebus 40th Logo in the corner.  Not sure if this is something that Dave has considered, but my feeling is that it would tie the various covers together for the year. Unless this is something that is going to run indefinitely. 

CAPTAIN CAN-AARDVARK!
My first suggestion to Dave, I think there was some discussion in regard to postage stamps at the time. Let me tell ya, it wasn't easy getting Captain Canuck to disappear.

SIM CITY 
I can't believe nobody has thought of this one yet. Well, aside from sharing the name of a popular video game series, which could be a problem.  Maybe call it "Dave SIM CITY"?  I love how the lighting matched almost perfectly.  The shadow that's cast would need to be altered as well.

CEREBUS THE VALIANT
I don't think there's much I can say about this one. You either like it, or you have no sense of humour.

13 comments:

Tony Dunlop said...

"You either like it, or you have no sense of humour."

Or, like me, you don't know what is being spoofed. Some Frank Miller ninja thing is my guess.

Unknown said...

Gary - I definitely feel more than a little GUILTY about you working on these instead of JACK GRIMM No.4. But, your call, eh?

1) I think we're going to stick with Lee Thacker's parody of THE HULK No.1. I like what you did here, but my comfort level drops the more of the original artist's work gets used. The more so when you move up in the Comic Book Pecking Order. And Jack Kirby is pretty much "skyer no higher". I liked the fact that Lee gradually got rid of most of the original cover so that it was a CEREBUS montage. Liked the "mushrooms" line though!

[Lee: looking closely at your VARK No.1, I like the way you Photoshopped the arms. Can you do a "standalone" of that VARK figure and e-mail it to me through Sandeep? It strikes me as innately funny: VARK KILL!! VARK SMASH!! And it's just Batvark with his arms out and taking up more of the panel]

2) We're also sticking to a policy of not using the actual TITLE if we can help it. So DEFLECTIVE COMICS or something similar. I like this one, but I don't know if you can actually parody racism without being racist.

[FEELING OLD DEPT.: We're almost at the point where these #1 covers are chronologically equidistant from CEREBUS No.1 (1977 to 2017) as CEREBUS No.1 was from DETECTIVE COMICS No.1 (1937 to 1977). When I realized that I thought it was ironic that we were marking that transition -- DETECTIVE COMICS was one of the first titles of all-new comic book material -- by going back to strip reprints! So, it would be interesting to actually call attention to that. Unfortunately, we're already scheduled up through June 2018: halfway through the 41st year of CEREBUS. Seriously!]

3) CAPTAIN CANAVARK? You'd need to work on the logo and banners more, but it's a great gag!

4) SIM CITY is a "GO" as far as I'm concerned! Particularly if you can get the Batvark shadow so it really follows the same perspective! Writing four strips around "A DAVE TO KILL FOR" should be like shooting ducks in a barrel! I don't think the SIM CITY people will even know we're here (or would care if they did).

5) I'm with Tony on this one. DUH?? It sure looks familiar. VALIANT title?

Unknown said...

Just to keep you all updated, CEREBUS IN HELL? MARATHON THURSDAY this week consisted of

four LOVE AND AARDVARKS No.1 strips and the "cover conference" IFC (Sandeep's brilliant idea) So, that one's scheduled for May of 2018 (Lee! Fair warning! You only have a year and one month to get the finished cover done!)

[the full title of Todd Hignite's book, published through Abrams Comicarts is THE ART OF JAIME HERNANDEZ: SECRETS OF LIFE AND DEATH. Highly recommended. Margaret! You'll have to buy one just for the picture of Mario wearing a PETUNIACON t-shirt!]

one THE UNDATEABLE CEREBUS No.1 strip (Benjamin! You only have a year to change "Dante" to "Virgil" and "Virgil" to "Dante" in the word balloons, add a strip of black over the banner, crop most of Cerebus off the bottom of the cover and add an APRIL cover date! HURRY!) and the "cover conference" which I think finishes that one, if Sandeep has three strips. Or almost finishes it if he only has two strips. Sandeep! Let me know!

one CRISIS OF INFINITE CEREBI #1 strip (I'm pretty sure I can do three more next week! God willing). Benjamin! You have BARELY a year and two months to get an AV round logo and APPROVAL IS AN AUTHORITARIAN CONSTRUCT corner seal on this one -- and take the caps off of the "i's" in the subhead! HURRY!

One "General Use" BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER gag I got from a WASHINGTON POST article (Oh, I HAVE to write that down). Which you should all see by the Fall of 2018 if sales hold up.

Anonymous said...

Dave,
I'm'a HURRYING! When do you need the League of Cerebi and the Cerberus in Hell? covers by?
-Benjamin Hobbs

Gary Boyarski said...

Thanks for the promt input Dave! You're right, I really should be working on Jack Grimm #4, but it's not everyday that I get a chance to play in the Cerebus sandbox. Besides it was a fun distraction that allowed me to learn more than a few photoshop skills along the way. Also, for the most part they were "quickies" that I didn't stress over the details too much. Hence the sloppy logo on the 'Captain Can-Aardvark', and female shadow on 'Sim City'. Speaking of which, I can fix that up no problem as well as tweak the logo and art on the Capt. Can-Aardvark cover.

Am I correct in understanding then, that you would like final versions of your approved cover spoofs? I can do that, for the Ninja Cerebus' and the Sim City ones. I can do cover images only and leave the rest up to your team.

The 'Cerebus the Valiant' cover is a spoof of Rai #0, it was a hot commodity during the height of Valiant Comics in the 90's. Most comic shop owners and anyone who read Wizard Magazine should be aware of it.

Jeff Seiler said...

I like the female shadow on the SIM CITY cover, as a shoutout to Cerebus being an hermaphrodite. I think you should keep it, Gary. And Dave could do one or more strips around the hermaphroditism. Right, Dave? Dave?

Tony again said...

I'm delighted to say I've never heard of Valiant Comics. By the mid-90s I'd retreated behind the Fantagraphics/Last Gasp/Drawn and Quarterly firewall.

Gary Boyarski said...

Dave's call on the Sim City cover shadow situation. I'm thinking he'd rather have it altered to further distance the image from the original art. I don't think it should be a problem using the brick building art on the Ninja Turtle one. The last time I talked with Kevin Eastman, he had nothing but the highest regard for Dave. But, having done several comic cover recreations in the past, I could always redraw it, if there's any concerns about art swiping.

Unknown said...

Gary - Yes. If you can mail me copies of what you consider finished covers, I'll let you know if I see anything else that needs fixing. I did screen captures of the covers and ran them off on my printer. If it's something physical, I can write strips around it. If it's just on my computer screen it doesn't exist enough for me (for some reason).

Kevin, I'm not worried about. In fact, I thought it would be funny to retain his signature and clone some letters from it so it reads NOT EASTMAN '84. And I think we'll stick with the Batvark shadow on SIM CITY.

Benjamin - The earliest I would need THE LEAGUE OF CEREBI or CERBERUS IN HELL? would be September/October of next year. On the latter, get SeanR or Sandeep to e-mail you a scan of the original CEREBUS #1 cover. Might as well go right to the source.

Lee Thacker said...

Dave - that's a pretty tight deadline - I'll see what I can do!
Love And Aardvarks Cover: let me know what else needs to be added to it (did you see the redraft with your suggested additional speech bubble?)
The 'Hulk' arms Cerebus jpg: the foreground Cerebus figures are hiding a multitude of sins in my Photoshopped 'Cerebus with his arms out' picture. I'll try to get a 'good-looking' jpg together but I fear this might be a job for Benjamin!

Mouse Skull Entertainment said...

My Sin City parody was the cover to That Yellow Bastard #1.

Harrdigan was replaced with a Batvark, and off to the right was an angry Cerebus with the sword.
text Angry Cerebus: OH NO, YOU ALREADY GOT A FRANK MILLER PARODY COVER, IT'S CEREBUS'S TURN!
Text Batvark: NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA, BAAAATTTTVVAAAARRRKK!!!
The logo is changed to "DAVE SIM'S CEREBUS CITY", and at the bottom it's "THAT ZIPATONED BASTARD".

I was gonna mock it up, but:
A: I don't have photoshop, and
B: I don't have time.

So, there's the idea if one of you photoshopping geniuses wanna give it a go...

Matt Dow

Mouse Skull Entertainment said...

The alternative titles were:
'Vark city
Sin no more, Cerebus

Or, if Dave wants to keep Sim City, I would suggest "Frank Frazetta's? Sim City"

Matt Dow

Damian T. Lloyd, Esq. said...

"Sim City" made me laugh out loud. I too can't believe nobody suggested it before; it seems so obvious in hindsight (of course).

-- Damian