Here's the first group of questions and Dave's responses to them. They appear in the order I received them, with only headers and other e-mail/fax junk edited out. I enjoyed having the first crack at reading them. Thanks to you and Dave for such positive and prompt interest in this experiment. This is the first of three groups of the first round of questions. Dave gave very detailed responses, so I had to split the posting. More to follow soon. Dave has mentioned that he would like to make this interview "democratically existential or existentially democratic." So follow-up questions are welcome. If any of these questions or answers trigger new questions in your mind, please send them to me (jim [o--v--i] at [um.cc.umich.edu]) and I'll pass them along. Finally, I apologize to the 80 column terminal users out there. I thought I had the original posting (I) formatted correctly, but I was wrong. Sorry about the word-wrap problems that resulted. *** Alexx Kay ([a--y] at [isis.cs.du.edu]) -- Are their musicians in Estarcion? We've never seen a band playing around Jaka, and there didn't seem to be room for one to be hiding at Pud's. We've heard people singing, but I can't recall *any* reference to musical instruments (discounting the fiddler from the Barry Smith "Cerebus Dreams" story). Is this an oversight, or are musical instruments something that hasn't been invented yet? Dave Sim -- Musical instruments are something that I've intentionally left out of the Cerebus story-line, although not many people have noticed. A part of it is that comics is a "mute" medium and I like to reflect that. It would be impossible to do Jaka's Story in any other narrative form because you would have to have musicians to accompany the dancing which would spoil the balance of the cast. Part of it is that I despise music unless I'm drunk or stoned. I stopped listening to it while drawing several years ago and I think this has brought a definite improvement to my work. I get a lot of music tapes in the mail, I think because people figure that with all the bands getting mentioned on the letters page that I must be a really big fan of music. Call it wishful thinking; that at some point in the distant past music didn't exist and never evolved. My own personal heaven. Arthur C. Adams ([a--d--s] at [aplcen.apl.jhu.edu]) -- Do you have all of the Cerebus story outlined in detail up to #300, or do you just have some broad ideas? Dave -- This is the second most commonly-asked question, although the phrasing leaves something to be desired. Obviously there is a world of difference between "outlined in detail" (Cerebus number 267. Page one panel two...adjustment...suggest changing Jaka's bracelet from left arm to right arm) and "some broad ideas" (Cerebus #114 to 136...Jaka's Story...Jaka and husband...and dead fat poet...Thatcher...improvise the rest). No matter how I answer this question, people don't listen to the answer, so my patience has been wearing thin with it. I know the Cerebus story-line. It was conceived in 1979, which was thirteen years ago. Some of it is very very detailed and I know exactly how I want to draw it and I can't wait to get there. Some things are upside down and backwards and I think they fit in Mothers & Daughters, but they don't actually appear until much later on. It's a lot like doing a jigsaw puzzle. I have all of the pieces on the table in front of me and month by month I fit them together. I don't write anything down about the current story until I begin it; although I had almost all of Jaka's Story written in my mind through the course of Church & State I hadn't put anything down on paper until I was ready to start it. Melmoth was originally conceived as a series of monologues; each of the characters taking a turn at "spilling their guts" while Cerebus sits in a catatonic trance, but primarily just Oscar going back over his life "where did it all go wrong" De Profundis kind of stuff. Once I actually re-read the Epilogue to Collected Letters and I got to the actual description of Oscar's death, I knew that that was my story. The previous notion of it was evading the actual death and since Death was the theme of the story, I switched it quite happily. The idea of the Cerebus and Oscar story-line inter-weaving through Jaka's Story and Melmoth with the two never actually meeting I was very pleased with, particularly in Melmoth where you have the virtual death (Cerebus) and the actual death (Melmoth). Also there is something that invokes a death consciousness in me about "ships passing in the night". How much of our lives are spent brushing up against people who might have become a profound and positive force in our existences if we had only turned around and said "hello" instead of just thinking about it or ignoring them entirely. Death by omission? At another level I am being told the story as I'm working on it. Sometimes the telling is as clear as a bell and if it wasn't for the limits of my stamina (severe) and focus, I could write and draw the next five issues without stopping to eat. Alas, the next day the glass is fogged and everything that was so clear is now covered with gauze and the side of me that doubted this whole enterprise from the first page is firmly in command and I seriously consider suicide or retreating to a tropical tourist environment to pass my days drawing caricatures of tourists in exchange for beer money. I have come to realize over the last fourteen years that that doubt is shared by the majority of my readership and is universal outside of it. Those who said I'd never make it to issue one hundred haven't changed their minds and merely increase the number to accommodate my progress (What issue is he at now? One fifty-five? He'll never make it to issue two hundred). These, of course, are the same people who have bought a hundred copies of every first issue produced by Byrne, McFarlane, Liefield, et al., secure in the belief that they have arrived at the onset of a dynasty. The short answer is that there is no way I can answer your question without disappointing you completely or sounding as if I'm evasive. It's impossible to describe what it all looks like from my vantage point. Each of the novels is constructed in the same way...a playing out of a line; a seemingly random series of events and introduction of ideas and characters for the first half of the story; followed by a winding, weaving, connecting process for the last half of the story. The structure of the whole 300 issues is the same; the first half consisting of the developing of multiple unrelated elements as mystifying to the readership as it is to Cerebus himself (one of the things that makes him sympathetic to the reader us that he shares their mystification) followed by revelation and reaction. Church & State functions as a compressed allegory of the entire revelation part of the story; Jaka's Story and Melmoth the reaction part. The four books of Mother's & Daughters function as an allegory of the First Half; Flight (book one) is Cerebus, Women (book two) is High Society, Reads (book three) is Church & State and Minds (book four) is Jaka's Story/Melmoth. One of the things I want to bring out is that explanation/revelation brings no relief. One of the saddest elements of arts/entertainment in the 20th century is that it has nothing to do with the nature of existence. As Orson Welles once said "A happy ending is dependent on stopping the story before it is done" i.e. Cerebus 44, Cerebus 88, Cerebus 129. Arthur -- Is there any reason Cerebus is an aardvark (story-wise), or is it just a neat idea? Dave -- The original idea was to capitalize on the success of Howard the Duck. There was an explosion of funny animal material in the mid-seventies, but is consisted mostly of all funny animal casts. I decided the success of Howard could be attributed to the "funny animal in the world of humans" motif. Of course by the time I was working on High Society, the larger issue seemed to be alienation and its nature. Each of us has to see ourselves as unique. We are all the single funny animal in the world of humans. Each of us has something that sets us apart or makes us feel as if we are set apart. Consequently there is, again, a ready identification with Cerebus by the reader. Most particularly since Cerebus is not a "winner" and most people don't think that they are "winners" either. John Lennon did not write "I'm a Loser" in a whimsical frame of mind I don't think. The guy who used to come on stage with a toilet seat around his neck and got into rock n roll because he couldn't figure out how they DID that to Elvis probably got a clearer look at the nature of karmic forces that I'm trying to document in Cerebus than anyone else in living memory. "Instant Karma" "No one, I think, is in my tree". Death must have come as quite a relief. Chris ([x w ba 10] at [ucrmath.ucr.edu]) -- How much does it cost to put out Cerebus, and how many copies are printed for each issue? Dave -- The human cost is rising all the time, as well as the spiritual piper demanding payment compounded hourly. This is a difficult question to answer any other way than facetiously, since most people think I get every penny spent on Cerebus comics. It costs thousands of dollars to print the regular monthly title; tens of thousands to print the reprint volumes. We usually over-print by a few hundred copies which has meant that we always have copies in stock of the current story-line, with the exception of Mothers & Daughters which has sold out within a week no matter what we over-print by. We're waiting to see what the orders are like on the second printings. Andrew Weiland ([aw 1 s] at [andrew.cmu.edu]) -- Where did [you] get the idea for Weishaupt's bowl cannons in Church & State I? Dave -- The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, the guy who penciled that brilliant run of Ghost Rider in the late nineteen seventies. Andrew -- Is that K'Cor on the 2nd page of Cerebus #155? If not, who is it? Dave -- Yes. That is K'Cor. He is the first move in the chess game between Cerebus and Suenteus Po in Cerebus #158, which I would be working on right now if I wasn't answering these questions. *** A reminder about upcoming tour dates: April 12 Denver, Holiday Inn -- I-70 at Chambers Road (Time Warp in Boulder on April 11) April 26 Chicago, Hyatt Regency -- Woodfield Road, Schaumburg (MoondogUs in Mt. Prospect on April 24, MoondogUs in Lincoln Park on April 25) May 3 Miami, Park Plaza Hotel -- Palmetto Expressway & NW 103rd St. May 31 Kansas City, Marriott -- Metcalf Ave. in Overland Park Again, send your new questions to me and I'll pass them along. I'd also appreciate any comments you have on how to do this better. jimO