The rest of the first group of questions and Dave's 
responses to them. Remember, send follow-up questions to me 
(jim [o--v--i] at [um.cc.umich.edu]) and I'll pass them along. Thanks. 
 
                           *** 
 
tyg ([t--g] at [hq.ileaf.com]) -- What's Cerebus' circulation these days, 
and why did you stop listing it in every issue? 
 
Dave -- I realized that we were the only publishers who announced 
what our circulation is in every issue and that seemed kind of 
pointless after a while. It is going up with the beginning of the 
Mothers and Daughters story-line. How much, I couldn't say 
because we have re-orders, subscriptions, direct sales to stores and 
sales to distributors calculated separately. It went down through 
Melmoth (not surprisingly) and is going up through Mothers & 
Daughters. 
 
 
tyg -- Was Oscar in Melmoth the same character who was in Jaka's 
Story? People have said you've answered this question differently 
at different tour stops. 
 
Dave -- That was left intentionally ambiguous. If you go by the 
length of Jaka's hair between issues 75 and 114, Cerebus was on 
the moon for a longer time than it appeared, or was wandering 
around dazed for two years. The Oscar character in Melmoth refers 
to the author of Jaka's Story as a separate person. This was one of 
the instances where I was ambiguous with a capital "A"; 
manufacturing two separate, irresolvable interpretations. Nothing 
frustrates me more than the twentieth century adherence to the 
notion that you can find out what "actually happened" and that it is 
necessary for fiction to set out a linear, quantitative and absolute 
reality for the readers consumption and assurance. I think 
EVERYTHING is like the Kennedy assassination(s); riddled with 
inconsistencies, false trails overlapping stories and considerations; 
distortions wrapped inside fabrications and coated with lies. The 
sooner we get over the idea that reality isn't like this, the sooner 
we'll be able to put together a world that fits our circumstances as 
they are; not as they never were and will never be. I'm not holding 
my breath. 
 
 
tyg -- Why Aardvark Comment? I enjoyed it when you printed 
your responses, and I'd enjoy it if people commented on Cerebus, 
but the vast amount of non-Cerebus related letters have me 
skimming over it at extreme speed. Why not run more Single 
Pages or other creative material, or even just drop the pages 
entirely and lower the cost of the book a bit (or make more money 
by dropping the pages and keeping the price the same; I doubt 
anyone will drop the book if AC in its current form disappears). 
 
Dave -- You can't please all of the people all of the time. I have 
started answering the letters on the letters page again, but as soon 
as people start criticizing me personally and being insulting again, 
I'll stop again. You would be wrong in thinking that no one would 
drop the book if Aardvark Comment was dropped. You just aren't 
in the Aardvark Comment faction. You're in the Aardvark 
Comments Sucks faction. The most notable trait of the two groups 
is that they don't associate with each other and deny the other 
faction's existence; except as isolated whining. Both groups are of 
about equal size and feel very strongly that I'm the strongest 
proponent of their views and if they just reason with me a little bit 
I'll expand Aardvark Comment/cancel Aardvark Comment. May 
you have fans some day. 
 
 
tyg -- One account of a Tour stop I've read mentioned your 
daughter being there. I found this a bit hard to believe as you've 
never mentioned having a child in any of the non-fiction in 
Cerebus or interviews that I'm aware of. Do you in fact have a 
daughter, and if so, what does she think of Cerebus...and 
depending on her age, on the parts of Jaka's Story set in Jaka's 
childhood? 
 
Dave -- That would probably be Boston; and that was Izzy 
Greenberg, Fred Greenberg's daughter. She's eleven years old and 
at the age of seven was a better conversationalist than most women 
of my acquaintance. I'm taking her out to dinner in New York after 
the tour; maybe to Elaine's. She was helping us out selling Cerebus 
merchandise at the Boston stop. 
 
 
tyg -- Any chance of a Cerebus action figure in the Turtles line 
(hey, they did Panda Khan...)? 
 
Dave -- No. I had thought that we could do a quick Cerebus figure 
in the Turtles line and then just take it out of circulation after a 
couple of months, as kind of an inside joke. Imagine my horror 
when I was contacted by Kevin and Peter's agent who assumed I 
would be tickled to death to sign a contract (!)...I really thought 
that Kevin and Peter had enough clout to dictate terms to Playmate 
toys or whatever. I think they thought I was trying to find some 
way to move Cerebus into the big merchandising picture. 
Evidently Pete took it very personally, although I didn't find that 
out until very recently. It was just a "mixed signals" situation. 
Unfortunate. 
 
 
tyg -- What's your opinion on the upcoming Image line, in terms of 
it apparently being set up as sort of a "mainstream" Tundra? My 
understanding is that Malibu is doing the grunt work of publishing, 
but the creators will get very substantial percentages of profits. 
 
Dave -- It is very much a mainstream Tundra. In the same way that 
Taboo and Brat Pack are perceived as Tundra books, Spawn, 
Youngblood and others will be known as Malibu books. If you 
want to be an independent, you have to deal with the distributors 
yourself and have the checks made payable to your company. 
Otherwise you're just an employee of the company. The substantial 
percentage of the profits is the key difference between Malibu and 
Marvel as far as the industry is concerned. From the perspective of 
the medium, the key difference is creative control. It remains to be 
seen if McFarlane and Leifield and those guys have any fans of 
their own beyond the bogus collector's item first issues. It was 
conventional practice among dealers to cut orders on the Marvel 
books they did as dramatically as possible after the number one. If 
Spider-man (sans adjective) had made it to issue 50, it would 
probably have had the same circulation as Cerebus (any dealers in 
this thing want to back me up on this?). If they stick to four and 
five issue mini-series, they might be able to fool all of the people 
all of the time, but I doubt it. 
 
 
tyg -- Was part of the reason behind the Melmoth storyline and its 
relative lack of appearances of Cerebus a desire to do some work 
other than Cerebus? Either way, do you ever feel like there are 
other projects you'd like to do, but don't have the time for due to 
keeping Cerebus going? 
 
Dave -- No. This was a reality manufactured by R. Fiore in the 
Comics Journal. I think it was his review. It said that Dave Sim is 
getting sick of the character Cerebus. Utter nonsense, but like any 
other creator, you ignore the Comics Journal at your peril. People 
always think that they have  some inside pipeline that allows them 
to know what creators are thinking when in reality, they have no 
access to any creators except for the ones they earn their living off 
of. What I was attempting to portray in Jaka's Story and Melmoth 
is those points in your life when you can't think of anything you 
can do to get out of the rut you're in; when it gets so bad, people 
literally can't see you when you're standing right in front of them. 
To go from the conclusion of Church & State to the frantic 
epilogue to Melmoth with nothing in between would be very 
unlike life and very like a Marvel comic. 
 
There are other comic book stories that I want to do, but I think in 
the best of all possible worlds you have to earn the right to do more 
personal work by putting in your time on a regular feature. Will 
Eisner is my model on this. He's obviously not going to start doing 
eight pages of the Spirit a week at this point in his career. People 
who want him to are just being selfish. When I'm done with 
Cerebus, I hope to do exactly the same thing; stories that appeal to 
me, done at my own pace. When it's done it's done. I would hope 
never to draw Cerebus again at that point, except for the occasional 
benefit piece or whatever. 
 
 
Phillip Birmingham ([birmin g h] at [fnal.fnal.gov]) -- A lot of people I 
know who like Cerebus (including myself -- it's really great) agree 
on one thing: most of the letters in Aardvark Comment are really 
lame. Why do you devote nearly a quarter of the whole book to 
these, rather than making the book smaller? 
 
Dave -- The meeting of the Aardvark Comment Sucks group is 
down the hall and to your left. I'd warn you not to talk about your 
personal life, but nobody at the Aardvark Comment 
Sucks meeting does anyway. Enjoy. 
 
                              *** 
 
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 
 
jimO