Cerebus Readers in Crisis #2

Unlike last year's CRIC #1 the latest issue of CRIC contains several stories by several different creators, from the index:

• Cover art: By Dave Sim (pencils, inks and colors), Jeff Tundis is the cover technician.
• “false(?) WARNINGS” by Billy Beach - page 3: I suppose my intended theme for the work has to do with the way that Dave and I perceive warnings differently. He perceived a warning in the mishaps of his journey, while I doubted those events were really any kind of warning at all. On the other hand my internal warning system or conscience is more finely tuned to highlight what I view as participation in any kind of pagan worship, while it seemed to me that Dave’s conscience was not then affected by those considerations. So, Dave’s negative vibe of the journey from Canada is juxtaposed against my negative vibe of the visit to Loreto. I don’t know how well that theme is expressed in the comic; probably not very well. You’ll have to evaluate that for yourself.
• “A Cerebus Reader In Crisis”, by Mike Kitchen—page 14: I think that the crisis implied in this story is quite clearly self-evident. “This letter was inspired by a letter written to Dave Sim. It was mostly drawn in the U.S. Embassy. The rest was finished on the GO Train, and then digitized in my basement. Based on a true story.” —Mike Kitchen
• “Adaptation”, by Dan Parker—page 16: This story was adapted from “Reads”. When I first received it from Dan, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, but I knew it was good. So, I asked. It turned out that it was a case of a reader perusing the text of the comic and mentally inventing images to go along with it, something I also was guilty of doing when I read “Reads”. I’m not sure there was any crisis in Dan’s case, unless it was that he really, really needed illustrations for those pages of text. In any case, I think it is a mighty fine adaptation. –Jeff
• “Comics Industry Help”, by Ray Earles—page 19: “For 15 years, Cerebus has been my favorite comic book Prior to 1992, I’d only managed to acquire the odd issue from various mail-order houses, usually as a replacement for some other title I’d ordered when the firm in question happened to be out of stock, or as the promised “. . .get one free” on the back-end of a particularly large order. Well, the ballast copies took hold. In this case, the scattered freebies served as poor inoculation against the readily apparent quality of the book In short, when I was fourteen years old, Dave Sim became my role model. Imagine my surprise when, ten years later, he started answering my letters —Ray Earles
• “A Speech to the Industry”, as imagined by Jeff Seiler--page 20: The following fantasy story is an adaptation of excerpts from a speech that was given by the venerated newsman, Edward R. Murrow, on October 25, 1958. This adaptation presupposes that the president of a certain independent comic book company could have had similar thoughts about the nature and purpose of the medium knows as the graphic novel. The text of Mr. Murrow’s speech follows the story. For those of you who were looking forward to “Twenty-two Years with Cerebus” (both of you are much appreciated), I can only apologize and explain that I had an epiphany. You see, I saw the movie “Good Night, and Good Luck” and heard some words that clarified the issues for me. Therefore, this story took precedence. While “Twenty-two Years with Cerebus’ languished in my mind and refused to allow me to translate it to the page, this story took only three hours to conceive and lay out Thus, the previous six months of grunting and groaning over “Twenty-two Years with Cerebus” were obviated by the above- mentioned effortless epiphany. It should be noted that the “crisis” for this Cerebus reader was the very same to which Dave Sim alluded in one of his Blog and Mail—that of trying to do a comic book story while being nearly completely unskilled in comic book writing and artistry. Ergo, caveat emptor. —Jeff
• Pin-up --page 23: Just what it says, a pin-up.
• “Following Larry”, by Larry Hart--page 25: And, finally, we come to Larry Hart’s story. What I particularly like about his contribution, other than the implication that there could be hot babes in the afterlife, is that Larry has set it up so that this can be an ongoing story. “In a future that may or may not be far off, Larry Hart faces perhaps the ultimate crisis upon entering the afterlife, where his lifetime is almost literally an open book. But, as he both studies and relives some highlights of his old life, the question remains whether he’s in ‘Heaven’ or ‘Hell' and how he would recognize one from the other. It is a Cerebus-themed story of personal choice and character.” —Larry Hart
• Pin-up of “Stacey”, by Larry Hart--inside back cover: In case there was ever any doubt, let it be known far and wide that Larry Hart knows how to draw hot babes. —Jeff

signed and numbered copy (of 75): Out of print

unsigned copy: Out of print.