“Cerebus 174 page 7”

Cerebus174p7Cerebus 174 page 7” (1993)
by Dave Sim (1956-) & Gerhard (1959-)
11 x 17 in., ink and tone on board
Coppola Collection

If only this page had Suenteus Po in it… because it has everything else:
• Cirin, Astoria, Cerebus, and the Roach
• a funny Cerebus moment
• the parallel compositional design of the main panels
• some great Gerhard environmental pieces

“Iron Man” (stylized)

IronManNewIron Man” (2014)
by Neil Carroll (1966-)
12 x 16 in., oil on panel
Coppola Collection

I was surprised to see a take on Iron Man coming from Neil, who tends to florals, landscapes, toys, and other real subjects. The sense of light/dark for the character, however, was perfectly suited to his style – and you do not want to meet this hero in a dark alley if you have been naughty.

I like the way your eye needs to fight into the darker areas in search of detail and more information, which is generally not forthcoming.

I also wrote back: “If you ever want to take on a companion piece, of the original ‘steampunk’ Iron Man, let me know…”

He did.

I did.

He did it.

“Bosc Pear, The Green Stripe (La Raie Verte)”

StripePear
“Bosc Pear, The Green Stripe (La Raie Verte)” (2014)
by Abbey Ryan (1979-)
8×10 in., oil on linen on panel
Coppola Collection

The painting references The Green Stripe (La Raie Verte), also known as Portrait of Madame Matisse — a famous portrait by Henri Matisse of his wife, Amélie Noellie Matisse-Parayre. He painted it in 1905.

“Cerebus Art Dragnet (Logo)”

CerebusArtDragnetCerebus Art Dragnet (Logo)” (2014)
by Dave Sim (1956-)
11 x 17 in., ink and tone on board
Coppola Collection

There is a digitization project underway (2014) to gather original art pages that are “out in the wild” (e.g., the 200 or so pages that I possess) and get high-res scans of them for future digital versions of the Cerebus collective volumes (as opposed to trying to scan the crappy printing done on newsprint, of the originally printed books).

The restoration project, being run by Sean Michael Robinson, has been dubbed “The Cerebus Art Dragnet.”

The original art for the “badge” logo and an illustration of Jack Webb (Dragnet!) as a Aardvark, above a couple of 2014 head shots of Cerebus, was auctioned.

For my inscription, I asked Dave to be creative with the classic noir intro narrative motif used in the Dragnet series: “This is the city… we wear badges…” … This is what came back. Pretty cool. You can see the art as it was auctioned, also, to see what was added.

The fact that I won this auction and ended up with this personalized piece kicked off an interesting firestorm within the community of Cerebus fans (which is an interesting story) and ended up doing some good for a great guy (which is another interesting story). Only three people actually know the full story – me, Dave, and Ger… and one of the conditions I put on the telling of this tale was that it was our business and not anyone else’s. I’ll put it in my memoir.