Sunday 19 March 2017

"It's Just Not That Simple"

Dork Tower #9 (2000)
Art by John Kovalic & Dave Sim

29 March 07

Dear John:

Howdy. It's me, the aardvark guy.

I realize that you're one awfully busy guy these days with your rapidly expanding empire, but I was wondering if I could trouble you for a favour? As you’ve probably heard, Gerhard left the company at the end of last year and I'm now in the situation of having to figure out how to buy back his 40% of the company and (obviously) I'm interested in doing that as painlessly as possible. So, I was flipping through the Comics & Games Retailer 2007 Industry Directory and wondering to myself if a Cerebus role-playing (or other kind of) game wasn't something that I should look into. What I'm thinking of is basically an authorization and some input and some artwork from me but, of course, I'm completely clueless about how that market operates whether there even IS any money to be had in it or what company would be the most likely to pay the most money up-front or what company would even be aware of Cerebus from back in the barbarian days.

And then I ran across the Dork Storm listing and I thought, "Unless John is absolutely faking it these days, I assume that he's still pretty current with the Games environment and would probably at least have an idea of who would be my best bet, who I should steer away from completely and (again) whether this is even something lucrative enough to be thinking of in terms of making some quick cash for a minimum amount of work." Or if you’re now laughing uproariously at my lack of sophistication (i.e. trying to make money in gaming is like trying to make money in local theatre).

If you could fax back a quick note at the bottom of this fax if I'm way off base on this one (I’ll take your word for it) or give me a short list of "best bets" if I'm only slightly off base on this one or 15 or 20 minutes of your valuable time on the phone if "it's just not that simple", I'd really, really appreciate it. Phone number's right down here on your right.

Hope all is well with you and yours.

Sincerely,

Dave Sim

From "Dave Sim's Collected Letters 2007", a Cerebus Archive Kickstarter reward.

 ~ John Kovalic (via Twitter, 12 March 2017)

5 comments:

Travis Pelkie said...

...and now there's another comic book that I must find....

What I've read of Dork Tower was pretty good, btw. And those mini figures look neat.

Sad news, though.

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2017/03/19/comic-legend-bernie-wrightson-passed-away/

Sigh.

Jeff Seiler said...

R.I.P. Bernie. Let's all thank him not only for his skills, but for inspiring so many other artists, including at least one from the hinterlands of southwestern Canada.

Travis Pelkie said...

Also, I know Dave can't draw with the wrist issues, which I assume also means he can't do that sweet sweet lettering like we see here, huh? Dang, that stuff is great!

Unknown said...

Travis - the question would be, do we have enough letters in each "font" to create a computer font?

Anonymous said...

Hopefully I'm giving credit where it's due, but I love how the tablecloth separates. I've the feeling most artists would just draw your standard tablecloth but Dave has it split in just the exact way those things will in real life.

It's that attention to detail that I enjoy in his work.

A Fake Name