December 30, 2003:
Dear Dave,
I bought the collected "Latter Days" a few days ago. I just started it tonight, and because I've read it twice recently (once as it originally came out and once as part of the Great Cerebus Reread on the Yahoo discussion list), I'm doing it backwards, reading the annotations in the back and skipping forward to reread the bits the annotations are about as I go.
A few minutes ago, I happened upon this comment, regarding the Three Stooges and their appearance in Cerebus:
". . . what I had chosen to do was a grinding, arduous task knowing that virtually everyone would look down on the result. Sweating bullets for days and weeks on end to get it right and I knew that virtually everyone's reaction would be, "Oh, the Three Stooges, they're stupid."
You go on to talk about how your work had been ignored since #186, but I stopped right there and came upstairs to start this letter – which I'm not going to be able to finish tonight, because it's very late and my wife's already asleep (although I hate to kick my teenage daughter off the computer) and I need to be asleep, too.
I want you to know that while we may not have had pieces published praising it and we may not have written you personally about it (many of us felt you no longer wished to hear from us), the fact is that the consensus on the Cerebus discussion list, from nearly everybody on it, is that the Three Stooges parts were absolutely wonderful. Many people
who hated "Chasing YHWH" still loved the Wise Fellows, and one just a few days ago spoke quite eloquently about the powerful segment where Koshie had his stroke and how he thought it was among the high water marks of the whole series, period.
The work you put into this was and is appreciated, Dave. Honest.
You know, maybe I am done with this letter after all. I think I'll go put a header on it and print it up and send it out tomorrow.
Oh yeah, by the way: congratulations on getting it done. I look forward to reading the rest.
Your loyal reader,
Steve Bolhafner
