Dave Sim's blogandmail #309 (July 17th, 2007)

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Fifteen Impossible Things to Believe Before Breakfast That Make You a Good Feminist

1. A mother who works a full-time job and delegates to strangers the raising of her children eight hours a day, five days a week does just as good a job as a mother who hand-rears her children full time.

2. It makes great sense for the government to pay 10 to 15,000 dollars a year to fund a daycare space for a child so its mother - who pays perhaps 2,000 dollars in taxes - can be a contributing member of society.

3. A woman's doctor has more of a valid claim to participate in the decision to abort a fetus than does the father of that fetus.

4. So long as a woman makes a decision after consulting with her doctor, she is incapable of making an unethical choice.

5. A car with two steering wheels, two gas pedals and two brakes drives more efficiently than a car with one steering wheel, one gas pedal and one brake which is why marriage should always be an equal partnership.

6. It is absolutely necessary for women to be allowed to join or participate fully in any gathering place for men, just as it is absolutely necessary that there be women only environments from which men are excluded.

7. Because it involves taking jobs away from men and giving them to women, affirmative action makes for a fairer and more just society.

8. It is important to have lower physical standards for women firepersons and women policepersons so that, one day, half of all firepersons and policepersons will be women, thus more effectively protecting the safety of the public.

9. Affirmative action at colleges and universities needs to be maintained now that more women than men are being enrolled, in order to keep from giving men an unfair advantage academically.

10. Having ensured that there is no environment for men where women don't belong (see no.6) it is important to have zero tolerance of any expression or action which any woman might regard as sexist to ensure greater freedom for everyone.

11. Only in a society which maintains a level of 95% of alimony and child support being paid by men to women can men and women be considered as equals.

12. An airline stewardess who earned $20,000 a year at the time that she married a baseball player earning $6 million a year is entitled, in the event of a divorce, to $3 million for each year of the marriage and probably more.

13. A man's opinions on how to rear and/or raise a child are invalid because he is not the child's mother. However, his financial obligation is greater because no woman gets pregnant by herself.

14. Disagreeing with any of these statements makes you anti-woman and/or a misogynist.

15. Legislature Seats must be allocated to women and women must be allowed to bypass the democratic winnowing process in order to guarantee female representation and, thereby, make democracy fairer.

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Tuesday July 15 –


The reason that I can afford to be philosophical about the Cerebus art market and Gerhard less so is that I'm definitely of the Will Eisner School when it comes to my artwork. I'd rather have the artwork. If I sell it, I get money, but then I spend the money and I don't have the artwork AND I don't have the money. Ann Eisner was from the other side of things. She'd rather have the money than a lot of artwork that neither of them really looked at. For Will and for me "looking at it" didn't really enter into the equation. The Cerebus artwork is stored in such a way as to preserve it and definitely not in any way that it is easy to access and view.


Recently Matthew E. -- who is really giving everyone including alchemist57 a run for their money as Cerebus art buyers -- bought three covers (issues 153, 166 and 189) for $6,000 each which is a new record for cover art. All three of those covers are under Gerhard's jurisdiction on the "one for me, one for you" basis under which we split up the artwork.. The theory is that we both own our drawings. I own all of my drawings and Gerhard owns all of his drawings. Given that there is no way to get my drawings off of Gerhard's pages or get Gerhard's drawings off of my pages, the only sensible thing I could come up with was jurisdiction. If it's a page or a cover I have jurisdiction over you can make me an offer and I'll either accept it or reject it and then I'll give Gerhard a cut at my sole discretion. And the same on Gerhard's side. With these three covers – all of which were under his jurisdiction -- he'll decide what my part was worth and cut me a cheque – or, actually, Aardvark-Vanaheim a cheque since I am DBA (Doing Business As) Aardvark-Vanaheim, Inc. Always have been (God willing) always will be -- and that's when I'll find out what I get.


Originally Matthew E. got 153 and 189 and he wanted a third piece so he offered $6,000 for the Cerebus trade paperback cover. No go. Ger and I haven't even discussed who has jurisdiction over the trade paperback covers. They would be the last thing to go. So then he offered me $3,000 for the double-page spread of Cerebus and Jaka from issue 166. And he ran smack up against Will Eisner. "No, I'm not interested in selling any artwork". He bumped it to $5,000. Same answer. So, he asked me, Okay just out of curiosity what WOULD I sell it for? And my honest answer was, It would have to be for an amount of money that I either a) don't have or which would represent b) a substantial on improvement on what I do have.


I'm not rich, but I DO have $5,000.


Gerhard isn't really in the same mental category that I am. He'd like to keep the artwork, but he's also willing to sell if the price is right. So, he has to be a little less philosophical about what the artwork is going for and what is happening in the open market and what you might be doing or might not be doing to prices. It makes sense for him to establish a new benchmark price. Does that mean he would sell all of the covers over which he has jurisdiction for $6,000 each? I don't know. You'd have to ask him. I somehow doubt it. It's one thing to establish a new benchmark price and another thing to open HAPPY GERHARD'S CEREBUS USED COVER LOT AT THE HIGHWAY 8 CUT-OFF INTO DOWNTOWN KITCHENER -- EVERYTHING MUST GO!


If I was selling artwork it would have made a lot of sense for me to sell the double-page spread of Cerebus and Jaka for $5,000 since that would be a "new high" for interior pages, a good new benchmark. Since I'm not selling artwork a new benchmark is meaningless to me. I'm so philosophical about it (how philosophical am I?) I'm SO philosophical about it that if Gerhard blew out all of his pages and covers in one Giant E-Bay Auction, thereby glutting the market and driving the price of pages back down to $100, it really wouldn't make any difference to me. If you're not selling, it doesn't matter whether you don't sell it for $10,000 or $5,000 or $100 or $15.


In practical terms, that means of the 6,000 pages that make up the CEREBUS storyline, roughly 2,200 are already "out there" but aren't really being offered for sale (as you discover – and document -- pretty much on a daily basis). 1,900 of them are under my jurisdiction and aren't for sale at ten times what they're going for right now. Which leaves the 1,900 pages under Gerhard's jurisdiction as the only ones with a question mark (or, at least, a potential question mark) next to them.


UPDATE 26 JUNE 2216 HOURS – Okay. I've been at this for about fifteen hours now, with an occasional break. Time to pack it in and try and again tomorrow.


Tomorrow: Back to the (relatively small, I should think) bone I have to pick with CEREBUS THE ORIGINAL AARTVARK.COM


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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. Here are the Diamond Star System codes:

Cerebus #1-25 $30.00 STAR00070

High Society #26-50 $30.00 STAR00071

Church and State I #52-80 $35.00 STAR00271

Church and State II #81-111 $35.00 STAR00321

Jaka's Story #114-136 $30.00 STAR00359

Melmoth #139-150 $20.00 STAR00431

Flight #151-162 $20.00 STAR00543

Women #163-174 $20.00 STAR00849

Reads #175-186 $20.00 STAR01063

Minds #187-200 $20.00 STAR01916

Guys #201-219 $25.00 STAR06972

Rick's Story #220-231 $20.00 STAR08468

Going Home I #232-250 $30.00 STAR10981

Form and Void #251-265 $30.00 STAR13500

Latter Days #266 - 288 $35.00 AUG031920

The Last Day #289 - 300 $25.00 APR042189

Collected Letters - $30 FEB052434

Collected Letters 2 - $22 MAR073054