Dave Sim's blogandmail #47 (October 28th, 2006)

A CERTAIN TRADE PAPERBACK WHICH SHALL BE NAMELESS WOULD LIKE TO ONCE AGAIN APOLOGIZE…ABJECTLY, ABSOLUTELY AND CATEGORICALLY…FOR ITS UNCONSCIONABLE, INSENSITIVE, UNCARING AND DEPLORABLE ACTIONS AND SPITEFUL, VICIOUS, VENAL, HURTFUL AND UNFORGIVEABLE WORDS OF EARLIER THIS WEEK. THAT SAME TRADE PAPERBACK WOULD LIKE TO FURTHER APOLOGIZE FOR THE COMPLETELY EVASIVE INADEQUACY AND TRANSPARENT INSINCERITY OF THAT TRADE PAPERBACK'S EARLIER APOLOGY WHICH ONLY DRAMATICALLY MAGNIFIED THE EARLIER INFRACTION AND THEREBY MALICIOUSLY AND CRUELLY REOPENED THE FESTERING RUNNING PUSTULES OF VIRTUALLY HOLOCAUST-SCALE PSYCHOLOGICAL AND EMOTIONAL SADISM WHICH THAT TRADE PAPERBACK PERPETRATED WILFULLY, KNOWINGLY AND WITH MALICE AFORETHOUGHT AND WITHOUT ANY PROVOCATION OR JUSTIFICATION WHATSOEVER UPON THOSE WONDERFUL, KIND, GENEROUS, FLAWLESS AND NOBLE DIFFERENTLY- NATURED SEXUALLY SELF-IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUALS WHO ARE, AFTER ALL (AND THAT TRADE PAPERBACK NOW REALIZES THIS) THAT TRADE PAPERBACK'S "BROTHERS AND SISTERS AND NONE-OF-THE-ABOVES" UNDER THE SKIN.

Hopefully, I will have had some time in Salt Lake City to post live stuff here as well as these "last week's potatoes" entries but just to be on the safe side, here's some more blather:

The Blog & Mail actually seems to be working out. I wasn't going to take a hard look at the numbers until I had done this a while, but I have to say that revenues are up—I won't say substantially, but noticeably—from about Week Three onward. Couldn't be more surprised. My plan had been to do this for a while to reassure myself that, like everything else, it wouldn't work and then move on to something else.

PARIAH KING OF COMICS: Well, MY work is done here! Now to head somewhere ELSE where I can be forcefully ignored! Pariah! AWAY!

[actually we have a promotion program that has been in the works for about a year but it has been log-jammed for the last while. Everything was supposed to be straightened out by September 1 and then nothing happened so, really, the Blog & Mail was more of a "Waiting for Godot" substitute. "I don't think this will actually work, but it's the only other thing I can think of while we're waiting, so why don't I do this so we can check it off as a non-starter?"]

It was a shock when Gerhard came in and said we had actually gotten ten or twelve orders from one of the mock ads [Whaat?! You've got to be kidding me!]. And there I was pulling trade paperbacks in the office and wrapping the packages and mulling it over. That created a bit of a problem. The success could just be a "success"—one of those temporary flukes that you can waste a lot of time over not realizing that it was just that, a fluke. On the other hand it could be a minor success that could be made into a…less minor success! ("Small Increments Are Us" PARIAH KING OF COMICS GUIDEBOOK). So, now I've had to drag Ger into it: getting him to actually monitor sales on the books at the Diamond Star System website after I plug one of them and see if there's a "cause and effect" (which is why we started including the Star System order codes last week: who knows? there might very well be as many as…2 to 3 retailers out there lurking in Yahoo Land. They might even be ordering books and, you know, paying actual money for them. If so, hey thanks) (Dave waves his arm around in the dark seeing if it hits anything) (whoever you are).

Anyway, where was I? Oh, I got some photos in from John and Siu that Siu took at the baseball game (did I mention that the Jays won? I did? Oh, well: I just thought I'd mention it again: the Jays won) and the Toronto International Film Festival and the Mr. Meaty set, so I'm going to see about getting Ger to scan some of them and include them here. Thanks John and Siu! (Thursday night update: a fax just came in from Siu telling me that she landed the part of Boston University student "Cynthia" a recurring role on a show called The Best Years that starts filming tomorrow. That was one of two parts for which I did line readings with her on my last visit to help her rehearse for the audition. Congratulations, Siu! She didn't mention if they wanted me to play Betty or whatever her name was even though I really thought I, you know, nailed the emotional core of the character. Oh, well. Their loss.) I've also got John's Ben Casey strips back from Craig Miller so John's complete set of photocopied strips will now be complete again.

Speaking of Neal Adams, he was very pleased with the way issue 9 of Following Cerebus came out and said that folks were still talking about it and thumbing through it up at Continuity. I've heard from a few people that the issue sold out faster than usual and Dave Kostis at Now & Then said no one was blinking at the $8.95 cover price. Craig's still got about a 100 copies, I think. He's trying to cut the print runs a little closer to the bone now that it looks as if he's going to be doing a trade paperback via print-on-demand of the first five…six?...seven? issues? Still some bugs to iron out. We both thought it was pretty unlikely that you could even do a trade paperback of a magazine but that's what the stores have been asking for and retailers know this business a lot better than we do when it comes to demand (Dave waves his arm around in the dark to see if it hits anything)…so…uh…it seems to make sense to do things their way.


So, okay, short entry this time out…here's hoping this is followed by a Live Report from Salt Lake City. Over to you, Future Dave.

THERE'S MORE FOR YOU IN TODAY'S BLOG & MAIL.

ONE TIN SOLDIER RIDES AWAY.


written Wednesday morning October 18

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REPLIES POSTED ON THE CEREBUS YAHOO! GROUP
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If you wish to contact Dave Sim, you can mail a letter (he does NOT receive emails) to:

Aardvark Vanaheim, Inc
P.O. Box 1674
Station C
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada N2G 4R2

Looking for a place to purchase Cerebus phonebooks? You can do so online through Win-Mill Productions -- producers of Following Cerebus. Convenient payment with PayPal:

Win-Mill Productions

Or, you can check out Mars Import:

Mars Import

Or ask your local retailer to order them for you through Diamond Comics distributors.