Cerebus Kickstarter Campaign

ctowner1

The digitization of Cerebus has begun:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/189735833/cerebus-high-society-special-audio-visual-digital

As low as $15 gets you the entire High Society volume (25 issues) in electronic format, PLUS DVD-type commentary to go with each issue. The project funded fully within 9 hours, and the extra $$ are going to further digitization of the 300 issue graphic novel.

If you've never read Cerebus, this is a perfect place to start. If you've read it already, you know how great it is! One of the (little sung) cornerstones of the comics medium.

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John_Steed

Awesome project - but I don't like the audio feature thus far - Dave Sim doesn't sound very motivated reading the dialogues.... Although I won't back it on Kickstarter (already supporting so many other things) - I might give the finished product a poke this fall.

According to last updates it looks like in the coming years we will see all Cerebus being released this way.....This Kickstarter project collects money like crazy...

WetRats

I'm in!

@ctowner: I'm grateful to you and the others who have established yourselves as Mr. Sim's "ambassadors".

@John_Steed: If you don't have Cerebus #0 or Cerebus #51, it's worth the $20 by itself. Hilarious!

Zhurrie

I don't care too much about the commentary but I chipped in, I'd like to read the whole run at some point and digital would be perfect for this. I wish the higher priced incentives were a bit better thought out though.

ctowner1

I'm in!

@John_Steed: If you don't have Cerebus #0 or Cerebus #51, it's worth the $20 by itself. Hilarious!

well, you don't get Cerebus #51 by itself - it's one of the issues reprinted in Cerebus # 0 (along with several of the other issues that don't appear in the collected volumes). Still, they're giving a lot of bang for the donation buck here.

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WetRats

I'm in!

@John_Steed: If you don't have Cerebus #0 or Cerebus #51, it's worth the $20 by itself. Hilarious!

well, you don't get Cerebus #51 by itself - it's one of the issues reprinted in Cerebus # 0 (along with several of the other issues that don't appear in the collected volumes). Still, they're giving a lot of bang for the donation buck here.

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I know.

I have Cerebus #0.

I meant that the reprint of Cerebus #51 in Cerebus #0 is worth the $25* by itself.

*Quoted the price wrong the first time.

ctowner1

I'm in!

@John_Steed: If you don't have Cerebus #0 or Cerebus #51, it's worth the $20 by itself. Hilarious!

well, you don't get Cerebus #51 by itself - it's one of the issues reprinted in Cerebus # 0 (along with several of the other issues that don't appear in the collected volumes). Still, they're giving a lot of bang for the donation buck here.

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I know.

I have Cerebus #0.

I meant that the reprint of Cerebus #51 in Cerebus #0 is worth the $25* by itself.

*Quoted the price wrong the first time.

ah..gotcha! And agreed! :^)

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kfreeman

Yeah, the only thing with most of the affordable incentives is that I have virtually all of the things that they are giving away. So I stuck with the $15 level. I was never worried that he was going to make his goal. The high-end awards are pretty amusing, though. If I had the idle cash to throw around, a couple of those would be tempting.

WetRats

Yeah, the only thing with most of the affordable incentives is that I have virtually all of the things that they are giving away. So I stuck with the $15 level.

Yep. Me, too.

ctowner1

Yeah, the only thing with most of the affordable incentives is that I have virtually all of the things that they are giving away. So I stuck with the $15 level.

Yep. Me, too.

ditto! But that $15 level is pretty decent - you get 25 issues, plus the commentary, for $15. I don't even read digital comics and don't have an ipad (or other platform, other than my computer), but figured if I was ever going to try it, this is for me - plus I wanted to support the project anyway.

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ctowner1

3 minutes left in the campaign- still time to contribute- over 62k now! Wow!

Zhurrie

I mentioned it in the Kickstarter thread but I actually backed out of pledging anything for this. I have never been a big fan of Dave as a person but the project really lost its way as time (and money) went on. He is so proud of his lack of technology yet he is announcing how he is just wasting money left and right on dumb stuff and things for other future projects. Instead of paying one dude to scan pages at $4-7+ per page as he claims, there are scanning services out there that specialize in high-volume/rapid high-res scanning that comes out to less than a dollar a page. I wish them luck on this and future projects but I'm entirely out.

ctowner1

I mentioned it in the Kickstarter thread but I actually backed out of pledging anything for this. I have never been a big fan of Dave as a person but the project really lost its way as time (and money) went on. He is so proud of his lack of technology yet he is announcing how he is just wasting money left and right on dumb stuff and things for other future projects. Instead of paying one dude to scan pages at $4-7+ per page as he claims, there are scanning services out there that specialize in high-volume/rapid high-res scanning that comes out to less than a dollar a page. I wish them luck on this and future projects but I'm entirely out.

I haven't read all of the updates on the site, but what do you mean by "dumb stuff" and "future projects" - the only future project I saw was digitizing the rest of the Cerebus run. That seems in keeping with supporting the original project. Did you mean something else?

Also, I don't know enough about the costs of scanning to comment on whether they're doing it in a cost efficient way or not - I'm assuming that quality of scan is an issue as well. To the extent you are concerned about the project and want them to be efficient with their money, why not contact them and give them the benefit of your experience here?

In any event, why does it matter if he's doing it in the most efficient way, anyway? Aside from supporting a project you'd like to see done, the bottom line for the individual supporter may be if you're getting your money's worth. Here, for $15 they were giving you a digital copy of the 25 issue High Society - at 0.60 an issue, that seemed like a pretty good deal to me!

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Zhurrie

I have contacted all three of them about these issues directly. I received one response basically stating that they had no idea how to go about doing it differently and were just going to continue along. Dumb stuff like an $800 video camera for his other TV project, and to scan digitize other material for future oversized hardcovers which are not part of this project and scanning what is for this project at a higher res than needed purely for future projects (at an increased cost and time). I do have experience in this area and have set up businesses that do high speed/archival scanning on a large scale and that is why the pricing and time comments made struck a nerve. They are so far beyond even reasonable that it is a bit nuts. If you read his updates they change quite dramatically when the funding started to really grow and the scope crept and continues to creep.

Without a doubt it is their money to do what they want with, how they want, but paying Sandeep $4-8 per page and such for scanning isn't the wisest or most efficient use of the money. Or camcorders and other crap that has no connection to any of it at all. Other projects use additional goals and funds to make their projects better, this one just seems to want to sprawl all around and do a bunch of things with no clear focus. The digital version alone is worth $15 I agree, but it just seems that isn't even the core interest anymore. It is all about funding pet projects and side items that the funders aren't getting or even getting a part of.

John_Steed

I was very close to backing it, but due to having another 3 Cerebus tomes on my to-read pile I decided to stick to paper first. Guess if the multimedia Cerebus is a success it will be around for a future purchase.

ctowner1

uh oh.. this is bad news...from the Cerebus Kickstarter UPDATE section:

=========
Bad news
Update #78 - For backers only · Aug. 24, 2012 · 23 comments
Dave Sim, here: Just thought everyone should know: Fisher came over today and asked if I had heard from Sandeep. No, I hadn't. Hands me today's RECORD. Front page: Sandeep's place -- and the buildings on either side of him -- were gutted by fire yesterday afternoon. He got out in one piece but with nothing but the clothes on his back and his wallet (he had been in the shower and a cop showed up at the door: "You have the leave. NOW") The whole place went up in about five minutes.

All of the negatives for HIGH SOCIETY were destroyed as well as the 11x17 scanner and the new negative scanner. No insurance. So, I thought I'd better let everyone know that we're definitely not on track for the September 12 launch at this point.

I don't expect that I'll hear from Sandeep for at least a few days -- he's staying with friends and obviously has a lot more important things to think about than HIGH SOCIETY DIGITAL.

Okay -- gotta run to make my 3:00 prayer. Please feel free to relay this to anyone you think should know. Particularly people who are waiting on HIGH SOCIETY DIGITAL.
============

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WetRats

Well that sucks.

ctowner1

Here's some correspondence on what this means to the Cerebus Kickstarter Project:

In terms of the digital Cerebus project, what does this mean? What are negatives? Are those what were shot from the original art and then used to produce the comic? Is it just a case of reshooting the original art again? Does Dave have a complete set of High Society original art?

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The negatives are pictures taken from the original art work that are used in the production of the comic. You can see more about them here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/189735833/cerebus-high-society-special-audio-visual-digital/posts/241603

No, Dave does not have a complete set of the original High Society art as he sold most of it during the early days of Cerebus. If anyone has original art from High Society, please look into getting a high resolution scan of it done to help out. For more info on that see:
http://thecerebusartcollection.com/index3.html

As to what this means to the kickstarter? From a comment on update #76 from Aug 13:
Creator John M. Scrudder on August 13
Sandeep here: Just finished scanning in the first 200 pages of High Society from the negatives. The negative scanner is working great and the pages look fantastic; George agrees. We're getting ALL the detail in the drawings from the negatives, more than you can see in the High Society phonebook. The final digital version will be superb quality. "It's like seeing it for the first time!"

The first 200 pages goes into issue #35.

--
Take care,
Margaret
http://www.cerebusfangirl.com>>

Wow - so that's terrible. That would mean that there's no way they can complete this project unless they track down the last 300 pages of original art! (I'm assuming the digitized files of the first 200 pages survive somewhere? Please don't tell me they didn't have a backup in a location other than Sandeep's apartment!).

And what does this mean in terms of the kickstarter project money? Given that they will be unable to do what they committed to in the timeframe promised, does all the money revert back to the donors and they'll have to resolicit the money once they have the goods?

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304 pages to be exact. But that is an update from Aug 13, 10 days before the fire. I'm sure Sandeep probably did some more scanning during that time frame. Plus if you look at this page:
http://thecerebusartcollection.com/index2.html
And count all the green pages past #35 (assuming Sandeep was working in chronological order), which are pages they've got scans of original artwork, that is 123 pages. So 181 pages to go (out of 504 pages, not including covers and all the extras like letters pages, notes from the publisher, etc, which they've got scans of already), not to mention what Sandeep might have scanned in that time frame..

So I would say it isn't looking as bad as it could be - we just need to spread the word of getting those pages that they do need scanned and getting Sandeep some help:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/cerebus/383853128348735/

But I can't answer your questions about the kickstarter, only Dave can, and he probably will since he has been so open with the kickstarter via the updates.

--
Take care,
Margaret>>

Well that certainly sounds better! Do we know that Sandeep backed up the digital files somewhere though? (like do YOU have the backups, perhaps???). Is there any chance that the digitized files were all lost in the fire as well?

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From Sandeep: "issues 26-40 were scanned and uploaded to George's server,leaving issues 41-50. Of those, Dave has about half of the original art, so we're probably looking at about 100 negatives lost that weren't scanned."

So while it is shitty that the negatives were lost, it sounds like a small hill to climb over rather then a mountain. . .

--
Take care,
Margaret>>

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