Dave Sim's blogandmail #70 (November 20th, 2006)

You think you've won? You haven't won! Staroo

will just yell for shorter periods of time until his

throat…cough…cough…feels better.

Staroo! Feel the…cough…cough


Finally got the "Reply to Roberta Gregory" three-pager is DONE just after my afternoon prayer on Wednesday the 8th and then I couldn't stop sitting there and looking at it, which was the case with the T. Casey Brennan story I drew for the ACTOR benefit book (which, not to sound uncharitable, but I still haven't even seen yet—if the guy who spear-headed the project is reading this and knows where to get me three copies for the Archive it would be much appreciated. I would have called ACTOR head honcho Jim McLauchlin but as I recall he wasn't hands-on with this one). Back in the days of doing Cerebus on a monthly schedule, I'd have spells of that—staying up late and going in and sitting and staring at the pages but most of the time it was just a mad scramble to get the pages done. Ger would bring in the last batch of pages, we'd have five minutes to appreciate them and then it was time for him to pull them down and take them upstairs to be photocopied (in case the FedEx box ever got lost on the way to Preney—which, mercifully, it never did even on 274 tries) and then FedExed. But now? WOW! THREE WHOLE PAGES! I FEEL LIKE SUPERMAN!

So then it was time for studio clean-up and to put together the pile of mail on which I am falling further and further behind (my best current thinking is to get Blog & Mail postcards printed up so I can notify people when I'm going to mention their letter or if I'm going to mention their letter). So, in an attempt to prioritize:

Here's what happens when you take a chance on trying to be funny. Back on October 11 I offered a couple of returned Cerebus Fan Club packages to the person ordering the most trade paperbacks in the month of October and printed the names of the intended recipients—Tim Maroney and Tom Vogel—because it would be funnier that way. Even as I was doing it, I thought, You know? This could really blow up in my face and in this case it did. I received the following letter dated October 12:

Dear Dave,


I hope this letter finds you well. We've met, though it was a great long time ago—at least once in Chapel Hill, NC, at the Heroes Aren't Hard to Find store (I'm the one staring stupidly at the camera in the photos in the back of…was it issue 68?), and once at the Heroes Con, at which you treated me to dinner at a local steakhouse along with Scott Hampton and some other people I wish I remembered more clearly.


Two different people e-mailed me today to ask if I knew anything about "Tim Maroney" of Chapel Hill. I do; he's my late brother.


Tim lived in Chapel Hill until 1983—I can't remember if he lived on Hillsborough Street or Bolinwood Drive after coming back to Chapel Hill from Greensboro. He moved to Pittsburgh to study at Carnegie-Mellon; then he headed west and bounced around the Bay area working for Apple, Adobe and probably some companies that don't start with A and end with E and have three letters in the middle, but they're not as memorable. I've included one of his cards from Apple.


He died suddenly in 2003, victim of an undiagnosed genetic disorder which led to a blood clot which led to a pulmonary embolism which led to oxygen not getting to his head or much of anywhere else.


So, it's unlikely that he's going to return to civilization any time soon, but we can hope. If you care to, you can check out his writings at .


While waiting for his return, I would be happy to take guardianship of his bounced fan club materials; I will put them next to Tim's stuffed Cerebus and my Diamondback deck in my study.


I can't say that I know Tom Vogel; I hope he's doing well.


Yours,


Kevin J. Maroney

Anyway, sincere apologies to Kevin Maroney for my inadvertent blunder. I called and got his phone number of Yonkers, NY and left a message saying that if he'll send me a photo of Tim, I'll be glad to do him a drawing of his late brother to put with the stuffed Cerebus and the Diamondback deck. Haven't heard back from him, but I will be sending out the fan club package in the mail this week. Again, sincere apologies.


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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.