Monday 9 January 2017

OFF-WHITE HOUSE BULLETIN 1620 hrs 9 JAN

"BLACK ANGEL" COPIES OF CEREBUS IN HELL? #1

The CEREBUS IN HELL? #1 copies came in while I was adding some comments here earlier this afternoon.  We got 100 copies, 50 each for me and Sandeep.

Of those 100 copies There are:

22 BLACK ANGEL COPIES:  The strip on page 5 where (spoiler warning) the Angel identifies as Tony Bennett, the images on the the right side of panels 2 and 4 are completely obliterated by black ink. But, oddly enough, the word balloons aren't and the ink is confined to the panels themselves (I've never seen that happen with printing. Solid black misprints usually cover EVERYTHING; in  the strip on page 8, the "chicken-wing guy" is smeared with black ink.  And "Frank Sinatra" on page 20 has an inverted devil's head (!) on his right shoulder.

31 PARTIAL-BLACK ANGEL COPIES:  Same as the BLACK ANGEL COPIES, but on these the angel is only partly obliterated by black ink in panels 2 and 4:  You can still tell -- barely -- that it's an angel.

46 are perfect copies: exactly the way they were meant to be.  Sean did an amazing job making sure that every teeny tiny line of Gustave Dore's images is right there in immaculate detail.

Sandeep and Fisher and Rollie were getting the CAN6 Portfolios prepped for shipping, so they've wrapped that up and the packages are now on Packaging Too's plate.

Tomorrow, I'll get Sandeep to scan the distinctions between BLACK ANGEL and PARTIAL-BLACK ANGEL copies.

Since we can split them evenly, 11 BLACK ANGELS each and 23 perfect copies each, we'll be auctioning a PARTIAL-BLACK ANGEL on eBay this week, signed by both of us, so we each have 15 copies of those.  I definitely want three of each for the Cerebus Archive.

No idea what the split is in the copies that have shipped.  There was no pattern to it: a bundle of 20 copies would have 17 good ones, one BLACK ANGEL and 2 PARTIAL BLACK ANGEL. Then there'd be a bundle that was ALL BLACK ANGELS.

Feel free to do a little "shopping" at your LCS if you plan on collecting all 3.  I doubt that word is going to spread too quickly about this.  :)  


5 comments:

Eddie said...

Good to know I wasn't the only one having "what the f-- is going on" moments in my life today. I'll definitley be bidding on that Black Angel issue.

Unknown said...

We've got a delay on the scans: Sandeep didn't make it in today because of the weather.

I've signed three copies

#1/1: BA (Black Angel)
#1/1: PBA (Partial Black Angel)
#1/1: CIH? #1 (clean copy)

and will get Sandeep to sign them tomorrow and put them up on eBay as a package. Right now, we have no idea how many there are of each. I don't think we ever WILL know. If you're buying one, you'll just have to check inside to see which one it is. Sean is going to be looking at his own copies when they come in and sending any BA's and PBA's to Marquis.

As to the general market, I'm hoping that some folks will post "availability" here as the copies start arriving in LCS's: offering to trade BA's and clean copies for PBA's or whatever your preference is. That is, if your LCS only got in BA or PBA copies and you really want a clean copy, let people know and I'm sure someone will be able to help you out.



If the BA's and PBA's are any more than anecdotal exceptions, we'll also be posting the strip itself here so you can see what it looks like unobstructed.

Travis Pelkie said...

For your edification: The lyrics to the Velvet Underground song "The Black Angel's Death Song", per azlyrics:

The myriad choices of his fate
Set themselves out upon a plate
For him to choose
What had he to lose
Not a ghost bloodied country
All covered with sleep
Where the black angel did weep
Not an old city street in the east
Gone to choose
And wandering's brother
Walked on through the night
With his hair in his face
On a long splintered cut from the knife of G.T.
The rally man's patter ran on through the dawn
Until we said so long
To his skull-shrill yell
Shining brightly red-rimmed and
Red-lined with the time
Infused with the choice of the mind
On ice skates scraping chunks
From the bells
Cut mouth bleeding razor's
Forgetting the pain
Antiseptic remains cool goodbye
So you fly
To the cozy brown snow of the east
Gone to choose, choose again
Sacrificials remains make it hard to forget
Where you come from
The stools of your eyes
Serve to realize fame, choose again
And roverman's refrain of the sacrilege recluse
For the loss of a horse
Went the bowels and a tail of a rat
Come again, choose to go
And if Epiphany's terror reduced you to shame
Have your head bobbed and weaved
Choose a side to be on
If the stone glances off
Split didactics in two
Leave the colors of the mouse trails
Don't scream, try between
If you choose, if you choose, try to lose
For the loss of remain come and start
Start the game I che che che che I
Che che ka tak koh
Choose to choose
Choose to choose, choose to go

Travis Pelkie said...

On the book itself, I look forward to seeing the scans to see the difference here.

Any idea when CIH? 1 is set to get into stores?

Unknown said...

Hi Travis - According to relayed word from Sean, Marquis has contacted Diamond to see about getting all of the printing back and, evidently, since the books weren't scheduled to ship this week, they're all still in Diamond's Plattsburgh warehouse (just across the St. Lawrence from Marquis). To me, that's between Marquis and Diamond.

Short answer: after Marquis either confirms that most/all of the print run is OK if that turns out to be the case or after Marquis has printed enough good copies to "cover" Diamond's order.

When THAT will be depends on how busy Marquis is right now.

And we still don't have a definite idea of how long it takes for a book to "stream" into Diamond's system. We'll let you know when the books have left Marquis and you let us know when they get to your LCS and -- hopefully -- that will bring us closer to an answer of how long this whole process takes.

Sandeep scanned all of the material and will be posting an eBay auction for one copy each of a BLACK ANGEL, PARTIAL BLACK ANGEL and a CLEAN COPY, hopefully tonight. All three autographed by both of us.

He's also going to e-mail the images to Tim here at AMOC and hopefully, Tim will post them to this Bulletin.

Please stand by and thanks for your patience!