Date:    Wed, 24 Aug 1994 23:03:48 CDT
From:    Jeff Mason <[j r m] at [elm.circa.ufl.edu]>
Subject: STARCHILD: James Owen talks about the bet

A number of people were curious about the status of the bet between
James Owen and Dave Sim on the publication schedule of Starchild.  I
called Sonny Denbow of Star Clipper books to see if he still had a copy
of the post he and Carol put on CompuServe.  Below is a copy of that
post which includes James' fax to them:

-------------

>From [73773 2301] at [compuserve.com] Tue Aug 16 18:24:29 1994
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Date: 16 Aug 94 18:20:13 EDT
From: "Sonny Denbow:StarClipper" <[73773 2301] at [compuserve.com]>
To: Jeff Mason <[j r m] at [elm.circa.ufl.edu]>
Subject: Starchild posting

The following was faxed to me by James for posting to CompuServe. As arbiter
we both felt it was my responsibility to publically announce to the net the
current, and final, status on the bet.

Carol

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

July 12, 1994

Speaking of Dave Sim, Neil Gaiman states, "...He has been, in turns,
brilliant, congenial, infuriating, difficult, and much of the time,
right. Often more than one of these at a time. One of the most infuriating
things about Dave is that, even when you disagree with him, which I
frequently do, he's thought about whatever-it-is-I-disagree-about far more
deeply and exhaustingly that I have. This is dead irritating. It is even
more irritating when I disagree with him utterly and still suspect he may
be right. He also has really good rejoinders."

Right. What he said.

It's not just me and Neil, either - when asked you'd receive a similar
response from most of Dave's friends, and believe me - we've all disagreed
with Dave on one thing or another. Bringing Dave around to your point of
view is an exhaustive task as it is, and if the topic is any way related to
self-publishing, you can forget it; in this, frustratingly, often
irritatingly, Dave is centered with the accuracy of a laser. And, whether or
not you agree, anything Dave says about self-publishing is pure in its
intent, and because of that, usually worth considering.

Early last year, Dave and I made a bet, a personal wager between he and I,
that only a few close friends knew about. I won. As a result, Dave will be
inking the cover to Starchild #14, and he and I will be commandeering
Gerhard to color it.

The details of the bet are unimportant - suffice it to say it was solely
an incentive bet for me - *not* a wager of "James versus Dave". It also
had nothing to do with the books; Dave kept doing Cerebus, I kept doing
Starchild. Rah, rah. Life went on..

Later in the year, Dave and I made another bet; or rather, I threw Dave a
challenge. For the four of you out there who don't know, I wagered I could
do 12 issues of Starchild in 12 months - every one on time. I threw in some
high stakes to make it more interesting, and chose Carol Denbow, a retailer
both Dave and I trusted, to be the arbiter; an issue was on time if it hit
Carol's store, Star Clipper, in or before the month in which it was solicited.
Carol called Dave to see if the terms were cool with him. Dave said no sweat.
And so, the first monthly-if-it-kills-me issue of Starchild came out in
January of this year, followed by four more issues. All monthly, all on
time, according to Star Clipper.

I made the challenge in public; it quickly became more so. Articles in the
fan press and postings on the computer nets put the publicity, as well as
Starchild's circulation, through the proverbial *roof*.

I got a lot of encouragement from all levels of the industry: from fans
to retailers to professionals, everyone pitched in their support. It was
most welcome, and much needed. Hey, *you* try putting out a monthly
book. It's not as easy as it *looks*.

It's harder. Much harder, in more ways than one.

Then, a few weeks ago at the Diamond Seminar in Baltimore,Dave backed out
of the bet. To be more precise, he insisted that there never *was* a bet.
To be exact, he said, "There *is* no bet. There is only the *perception*
of a bet."

It's difficult to speculate on his reasons - Dave moves in mysterious
ways. It didn't stop me or any of the people I mentioned it to, all
being mutual friends from speculating *anyway*. Most of them thought
that he was just doing it to throw me - which regardless of intent,
was what *happened*. I was thrown. Verily, I suffered a throwing of
monumental proportions.

In short, I was in *trouble*.

It should be noted that wagering is no small motivation to me - it's
usually on something interesting, and the stakes are *always* high -
and it's often to prove a point. I did it a lot to pass courses in my
school days, as the instructors at one high school and at least three
different colleges can attest; I'd be floating in the middle of my
class, grade-wise, and I'd made a gentleman's bet on the final exam - A
perfect score got me an A for the term, while one error would earn me a
D.

The first exam I bet on, I pulled a 96%; the second, 98%.

That second exam was the last time I ever received less than perfect
score. After a while, people asked my professors *not* to wager with
me - I was raising and maintaining the curve in every course I *took*.
It got a point where I had developed enough of a reputation that
professors began giving me final exams after just two weeks in the
course.

What started out as a joke and an incentive not to fail became a standard
of excellence; it became a way to show what *could* be done; and it
became a means of earning *respect*.

As for my bet with Dave, well, I was still a bit askew. Our friends all
had pretty strong opinions, though. Some said to drop the bet, that I
was stepping on Dave's toes; some, that I should make it a public issue -
put Dave on the spot; some said I should finish the year and *then* put
Dave on the spot. Win the "bet". Get some more publicity out of the thing,
and so on.

The problem was that I hadn't engineered the bet to get Dave's goat.
(Well, all right - perhaps a bit.) I had engineered it as an incentive
to produce work more requently. And, on those terms, it *worked*.

Something else had to be dealt with, as well - it seems an ongoing debate
had been taking place in the industry about whether or not I'd been winning,
an opinion of which depended entirely on when the newest issue was received.
Arguments rose about whether Fed-Exing books to Star Clipper at the last
minute should count, when most stores didn't get their copies from their
distributors until days, or sometimes *weeks* later. This was of course the
purpose of having an arbiter - someone who could verify that I was
releasing a new issue by the end of the month, *each* month.When I made
the bet, I didn't have enough time before it began to get far enough ahead
to ship early enough to prevent this argument in the *first* place.

What I *did* do was cut corners. Skimp on details. Draw *faster*. Often,
I was trimming pages and once reprinted a short story to keep my schedule.
I became ill at one deadline, and completed an entire issue in just
*eight days*, start to finish. I missed sleep, drank obscene amounts of
caffeine, and growled a lot. I learned how to do a monthly book, sure, but
was the price I was paying worth it?

Mostly, yeah.

I can work faster, with quality, than I did before "the bet". The fans
love regular fixes of Starchild. And my bank account has never looked
better.

Which brings us back to that throwing of monumental proportions.

I quit working *altogether* for several days; and, for the first time in
six months, I missed a deadline. After all, what was the point in keeping
it? This whole arrangement was obviously getting under Dave's skin, and as
long as he was a part of it, bound to be a point of contention for the rest
of the year. I began preparing a statement for the Internet and this issue
of Starchild, explaining something you've heard from fifty other publishers:
"Well, the book will be late, *occasionally*, but it'll be *worth* the wait
'cause it'll be *so good*, blah, blah, blah."

Well, the *hell* with that.

The bet, perceived or otherwise, is *history*.

Did I want all this publicity? Sure. Did I want the focus to shift from the
book to the bet? Not really. It's not a blood feud, people. And it's not
worth sacrificing Starchild and myself to satisfy the requirements of a bet
that the other gentleman is distancing himself from, and a deadline that is
real primarily to two dozen patrons of Star Clipper.

What started out as a joke and an incentive not to fail, however, has
become to me something much, *much* more important.

You see, I've got something of a reputation now, and a lot of people are
watching to see what's going to happen. Ideally, I should catch up, and
then keep Starchild on a monthly basis. The June and July issues, numbers
ten and eleven, will ship (read: go on sale, *everywhere*) the second and
fourth weeks of August. (Ten will be available at San Diego, however.)
The August and September issues, numbers twelve and thirteen, will ship
in the second and fourth weeks of September, respectively. The October
issue will be released before the end of the month, as will the books
scheduled for November and December. Quality production on a regular,
reliable basis. That's what will happen. Ideally.

Being who I am, of course, that won't be good enough. As I said, I've a
reputation to maintain, and a lot of people are watching.

It's time to raise the *stakes*.

It's time to prove a *point*.

Producing a monthly book on one's own hasn't been done in a while - until
I came along, it hadn't been done on a regular basis in over a *decade*.

Since then, several other creators have taken up the mantle and done it
as well. This January, however, I intend to raise the curve.

Throughout the year of 1995, I intend to release Starchild monthly, and on
time. I also intend to release Monographs, a series of twenty-four-hour
comics, one a month for the entire year. Both Starchild and Monographs will
ship early enough that the sale dates will be met, without question.

No bets, no wagers. Just a goal.

The incentive, now that I've got your attention, is to establish and
maintain a standard of excellence - not to "beat Dave", or get a free pizza;
that, and to start reinvesting time and energy into what should never have
been overshadowed in the first place - the *work*. Anything outside of that
is just a distortion, and ultimately, a distraction.

But then again, a friend of mine in Kitchener probably knew that already.

James Owen
July, 1994

One last note - I'm *still* throwing a pizza party in San Diego next year.
Hope to see all of you there.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Even though Star Clipper did receive a certain amount of attention in the
industry due to this wager between James and Dave, I cannot help but feel
relief that is is over. I accepted the role as arbiter for two reasons:
1) because I like and admire both Dave and James a great deal, and 2) because
I saw it as an incentive to get James sufficiently motivated to produce Star-
child on a regular schedule.

I respect both of these creators enough that I didn't want to see either
one "lose". What I wanted was another quality, regularly shipping,
story-oriented comic. One more good creator-owned book. I suppose what
I was wanting was to see more examples that Dave Sim (and now Jeff
Smith) is not an anomoly in this business, that a creator *can* put out
a regular (monthly or bimonthly) comic over a period of years *and*
earn a respectable living at it.

>From my point of view, there is no winner or loser in the "bet", but the
wager was sucessful: James is committed to a regular production schedule.
And hopefully, he will maintain it.

To the arguments that have arisen that it's okay for James to be "a little
late", that were it not for Gerhard, Cerebus wouldn't come out monthly,
either, I say: "balderdash." Without Gerhard, the finished art in Cerebus
might not be so finely detailed or we might have more text to read (as in
Jakka's Story). But to suggest anything else is to suggest that Cerebus is
anything less than what it is: Dave's story, just as Starchild is James'
story.

If they each come out monthly to the letter, fine. If they slip a week or
two here or there, okay -- these things happen. The crux of the whole
matter boils down to the fact that it is now more firmly established
that a creator can produce a regular shipping title that he or she *owns*.

- Carol

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've know James for slightly over a year now. During that time I've had the
fortune of discussing a variety of topics with him; some related to comics,
some not. I respect his opinions and admire his accomplishments. If I ever
considered entering the field as a creator I can think of no better person
to have as a mentor.

I've known Dave slightly longer. The first time I met him, when he did a
signing at our store in '92, I was so awe struck by him that I don't
remember saying more that a dozen words to him during his entire stay.
Now, having met him many times since I've come to realize that I did myself
a great injustice by not talking to him sooner.

This having been said, I'm glad the bet is over. Did James win or lose?
Was there really a bet or simply the perception of one? I don't know and
I no longer care. All that matters to me is that I and many others were
able to enjoy Starchild for five months straight. I would like to have
seen issue ten come out on time, but it didn't. I'll live.

Above all else, the argument that has bothered me the most during this
ordeal has been "If Dave didn't have Gerhard CEREBUS wouldn't be monthly
either." So? If Marvel and DC didn't have their creative teams their books
wouldn't come out monthly either. Just because more than one person works
on a title should not invalidate their accomplishments. If your goal is to
produce a quality, monthly title then who cares how many people work on it.
If your goal is to produce a quality, monthly title single-handedly, well,
that's another matter - and a different goal.

- Sonny