Dave Sim's blogandmail #79 (November 29th, 2006)

The Mystery of STAROO Revealed!

STAROO is something that I have a lot of pride in: the fact that of the seventeen volumes Aardvark Vanaheim has on the Diamond Star System, eight of them start with the "Double Zero" designation, STAR 00, because they were early additions to the Star System when Diamond was starting it up in the early 90s (the lowest number is the Cerebus TPb which is designated STAR0070!)

Every once in a while, I'm just going to run all of the Diamond order codes for the Cerebus Trades for an entire week.

If you're a retailer, I hope you'll take it as a friendly reminder during "Listing Week" to take a few minutes to go and check your shelves and see if any of the trades are missing and order them from DIAMOND while you're still thinking about it. The Trades sell a lot better when you have them all in stock than they do when there's just volumes 2, 4, 7, 10, 11 and 16 sitting there.

If you're a potential customer I hope you'll use Listing Week to call the Comic Shop Locator Service

888-COMIC-BOOK

OR CLICK ON

comicshoplocator.com

and find out where the comic book stores are in your area

and if they don't have a volume you want in stock, you can give them the Star System order code right over the phone!


VOL.1 CEREBUS…………………….STAR0070

VOL.2 HIGH SOCIETY……………..STAR0071

VOL.3 CHURCH & STATE I……...STAR00271

VOL.4 CHURCH & STATE II.........STAR00322

VOL.5 JAKAS STORY………….....STAR00359

VOL.6 MELMOTH…........................STAR00431

VOL.7 FLIGHT……………………..STAR00543

VOL.8 WOMEN…………………….STAR00849

VOL.9 READS………………………STAR01063

VOL.10 MINDS……………………..STAR01916

VOL.11 GUYS………………………STAR06972

VOL.12 RICKS STORY……………STAR08468

VOL.13 GOING HOME……………STAR10981

VOL.14 FORM & VOID…………..STAR13500

VOL.15 LATTER DAYS………….AUGO31920

VOL.16 THE LAST DAY………….APRO42189

COLLECTED LETTERS 2004…….FEBO52434

Wednesday November 29 -

I think I'm starting to understand how to do this. When the mail piles up too high, I just go through and do this quick little responses until it's back down to zero and in doing so, I've filled up another weeks worth or so of Blog & Mail. I'm a slow learner, folks, but once I get the idea of something I latch onto it like a bulldog!

Mel Smith writes back in September (I told you I was falling behind on my mail) enthusing about just about everything having to do with me, which is very nice and a balm for my ego. He's still fighting to get the Bob Burden/Rick Geary Gumby comic book back to a bi-monthly schedule and said he will send me photo reference for Gumby creator Art Clokey so I can do a Siu Ta style strip about him (I will never give up my dreams of photorealism comics!). If you're a retailer, please keep supporting Mel's Gumby if you can. It's a great kids' book/all ages book.

D.B. Little and I had a little dust-up awhile ago and I've got this here short letter from him. Hello, D.B. Hope all is well.

Stephan Lapin sent me a script and character designs for a one-page jam that we're going to be working on when I can get around to it (I knew the script had to be around here somewheres and hyar it is).

Greg Vondruska of Tampa, Florida sends along a copy of his Summer Goes Slowly dedicated "For Dave! A huge inspiration and a great cartoonist, writer, blogger, visionary! All my best, Greg Vondruska." It boggles my mind how many wannabe Pariahs there are out there. Even one seems unlikely to me. Anyway, the half-sized booklet was published with the support of the Arts Council of Hillsborough County and the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners. If you want to check out some of his work (for FREE!) you can do so at www.gregvondruska.com and www.penandbrush.net or you can write to him directly at greg@penandbrush.net. Tell him Dave sent you.

James Turner brightened my day by writing and telling me that Slave Labor won't need the introduction to the first volume of Rex Libris until MARCH! MARCH! Can you imagine? Hey, Vado—don't you know that everything in the comic-book field needs to be done next week at the latest? Anyway, James also sent me another complete set of Rex Libris (all of my copies are in the hard copy correspondence file boxes along with James' letters) so I'm looking forward to it. Is it just me or does B. Barry Horst, the fictional publisher of Rex Libris look like Larry King? See if you can scare up a copy of Rex Libris at your local comic-book store and see if you don't agree. The conversations between Rex and Barry about how to increase sales on the book are some of my favourite parts of the book.

And the offer of another introduction came in by fax November 8. George Khoury is doing a book for TwoMorrows (hey, is there anyone who doesn't absolutely LOVE TwoMorrows publishing? I mean BESIDES the moping Fantagraphics types?) on the first fifteen years of Image Comics (he'll be interviewing and profiling six of the seven original partners but evidently Rob Liefeld has declined to participate which is really unfortunate and I hope he'll reconsider). Considering that the whole Image experiment took place on a plateau several quantum levels above my Pariah Cave, I'm very flattered and accepted right away. 500 to 1,000 words. As readers of the Blog & Mail know, I can barely tell you what I had for breakfast in 500 to 1,000 words but I'll see what I can do. They're even going to pay me. Can you believe that? Paying the Pariah King of Comics for an introduction! Don't you just absolutely LOVE TwoMorrows publishing?

TwoMorrow: Morrow Mail!

___________________________________________________

REPLIES POSTED ON THE CEREBUS YAHOO! GROUP
___________________________________________________
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.