Saturday 24 October 2015

Cerebus Archive Number Four: "Let's Roll!"


CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER FOUR
A Portfolio Of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints From Church & State II
Raising Funds For The Restoration and Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel
Kickstarter Ends: Saturday, 21 November 2015

Hi! Dave Sim, here.

To you, the last few hundred CEREBUS fans, Welcome Back!

AND welcome to any new CEREBUS fans joining us for the first time…or RE-joining us.

(Is there such a thing as a NEW CEREBUS fan? No idea! But joining our Kickstarter team for the first time is Eric B. who's going to be helping us to develop a more in-depth "read" of our stats: so next time I'll be able to say "Welcome back XXX number of CEREBUS fans" and "welcome to the X number of new CEREBUS fans who joined us last time"…)

(…AND "So long to the XX number of CEREBUS fans who have left": always better to face Reality head-on, eh?)

It's an interesting fact attached to CEREBUS ARCHIVE on Kickstarter that each successive portfolio becomes the RAREST Aardvark-Vanaheim publication as soon as it's released:
300  CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER ONE
290  CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER TWO
261  CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER THREE
This is the reason that I set a target of $800 -- the equivalent of ten portfolios -- on each Kickstarter campaign:
a) we have no idea where "the bottom" is. 250? 200? 175?
b) the "Last CEREBUS Fans standing" should be rewarded for their endurance! All the way down to the last ten if it comes to that! 
I'm pretty confident that the longest English-language graphic novel can't just be "wished away" by those who -- for whatever reason -- want me or CEREBUS or both of us to just GO AWAY! 

But that doesn't mean there isn't some "tough sledding" ahead. It's been "tough sledding" since CEREBUS came to an end 11 years ago…and I'm pretty sure the rest of MY life is going to be "tough sledding".

MOST of my time is taken up assuring that everything attached to CEREBUS -- except me, that is -- is RESTORED and PRESERVED IN PERPETUITY and that is definitely starting to happen, with your generous assistance. SOA! SAVE OUR AARDVARK!

Will YOU be one of the Last Cerebus Fans when we finally "bottom out"?

And what will be the ABSOLUTE RAREST CEREBUS ARCHIVE portfolio you own when we get to that point?

God only knows! Literally!

Let's roll! 

PLEDGE REWARD ITEMS

1.  A Signed & Numbered Portfolio of the 10 earliest pages from Church & State II ($79+p&p)

2.  Ten New Bonus Prints ($9 each)

3.  eBook: Dave Sim's Collected Letters Volume 3 ($15)

4.  Cerebus Digital Macro Print Download ($5)

5.  Bookplates (Signed & Personalised $40 for 8 / $60 for 16, Unsigned $20 for 16)

6.  Cerebus Artist Edition Postcard No. 1 (Signed & Personalised $20, Signed $15, Unsigned $10)

7.  Thirty-Minute Birthday Phone Call With Dave Sim ($99)

8.  Tour Of The Off-White House or Follow-Me-To-Work Days ($900)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did I completely miss Collected Letters vol 3? Or is coming out in future?

Anonymous said...

Really like the Swords of Cerebus cover art. A few more of those as bonus prints would certainly sweeten the deal.

This is probably, by chance, the best selection of pages of any Cerebus Archive so far and I think sales will pick up as a result.

Seven major characters are in this set (plus Cerebus!). That is more than any of the previous sets. CAN4 has the first and maybe only Astoria page from the series. By chance this includes pages from the Giant Stone Thrunk sequence, which is, I think, a fan favourite.

This set includes the first pages with Gerhard backgrounds and by this time things were definitely clicking. Dave's drawing is also really excellent here. I think the quality of art on this one is far and away better than any of the previous volumes.

And again, by chance, there is more variety in these pages because these pages bridge issues 81 and 82 and 82 is full of short sequences.

I'll predict that sales of CAN4 will rebound from CAN3. I think the drop in sales is because, of the archives so far, CAN3 had the least variety in terms of page selection and important characters.

I mean, throw in the page as a bonus print with Cerebus saying "Damn Right" and then blowing Thrunk's head off and this Cerebus Archive will probably top 300. Frankly, there are a bunch of fairly obvious pages that could be thrown in as bonus prints that would pump up sales. Every one of the most important characters in Cerebus is in C&SII.

Why not try to reverse the downward trend with the wealth of materials available?

- Reginald P.

Steve said...

So what I'd really like to see is the ability to purchase a high-quality print (such as what is done in the Archives) of any page that's available - which is, I'd guess, any page scanned.

Or perhaps better the opportunity to purchase the digital file - so then I could have the page printed locally.

I haven't ponied up the money for any of the Archives because on the one hand they don't really interest me (apart from perhaps the commentary on the pages) and on the other, knowing my compulsive completest nature, they obsessively interest me: buying the first I'd HAVE to buy each one.

But the opportunity to pick and purchase personally favorite pages - that's something I believe all of us buy into!

Steve

Sean R said...

Hey Steve,

It's a great idea. Keeping in mind this is a fundraiser for the restoration work, how much would you (theoretically) be willing to pay for that, per page? Say, files digitally delivered/printed for you and waiting at the nearest Fedex Office or Staples? Very curious what you'd think about the price point.

al roney said...

I keep hoping to see the phone book covers pop up as Bonus prints or something...

...someday?

Steve said...

Hi Sean -

Sorry for my tardy reply, I've actually been mulling this over for several days now.

I believe, given the limited fan base Cerebus has to draw on, that a lower price point over the long term works best: sell the most to as many fans as are willing to pay the price for the file.

(I've got no idea what FedEx charges for printing something like this.)

While there is the draw, the appeal, of a limited availability / higher cost item to a collector, given that the goal is fundraising I believe lower costs yield higher volume and repeat sales.

(And I suppose the idea of a signed page creates logistics nightmares no one wants to take on, to say nothing of Dave's reluctance to strain his hand.)

So I come in on a price point in the $10 to $20 range.

(A concern: the need to prevent the digital file being 'passed' from fan to fan, circumventing the fundraising.)

Steve