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''Cerebus phonebooks'' are the paperback collections that
Dave Sim Dave Sim (born 17 May 1956) is a Canadian cartoonist and publisher, best known for his comic book '' Cerebus'', his artistic experimentation, his advocacy of self-publishing and creators' rights, and his controversial political and philosophical ...
has collected his
comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...
series ''
Cerebus ''Cerebus'' (; also ''Cerebus the Aardvark'') is a comic book series created by Canadian cartoonist Dave Sim, which ran from December 1977 until March 2004. The title character of the 300-issue series is an anthropomorphic aardvark who takes on ...
'' in since 1986. They have come to be known as "phonebooks" as their thickness and paper stock resemble that of phone books. The format had a large influence on
alternative comics Alternative comics cover a range of American comics that have appeared since the 1980s, following the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alternative comics present an alternative to mainstream superhero comics which ...
publishing and was key in the move from the periodical-centric publishing style that was once dominant.


History


''Swords of Cerebus''

Starting in 1981, Sim started collecting the Cerebus stories in ''Swords of Cerebus''. ''Swords'' collected four issues per volume, each with a backup story and new cover.


''High Society''

''
High Society High society, sometimes simply society, is the behavior and lifestyle of people with the highest levels of wealth and social status. It includes their related affiliations, social events and practices. Upscale social clubs were open to men based ...
'' had been conceived as one complete story, but Sim had not originally planned for it to be published as one volume. He did so more as an expedient: Sim published it as one 512-page trade paperback volume in 1986. It was offered exclusively through mail order and sold out its 6000-copy print run within a year. Its success convinced Sim to drop the ''Swords'' collections and republish their contents as one volume as well.


Further volumes

'' Church & State'', at 1200 pages, would have been too unwieldy for one volume, so it was published in twothe first in 1987, before the story was finished. '' Jaka's Story'' was the first to be conceived from the beginning with the end "phonebook" collection in mind. When serialized, it prominently displayed the novel name (''Jaka's Story'') on the cover, and printed both the current issue of the series and the current issue of the novel—so, for example, the January 1989 issue was numbered both Cerebus #119 and Jaka's Story #6. In ''High Society'', each issue of ''Cerebus'' comprised one chapter of the story, but as the series progressed, Sim came to compose the stories with the collected volumes in mind. This meant that the stories would be serialized in the comic book in twenty-page installments, but with little regard for the per-issue reading experiencesometimes an issue would end mid-scene. Many fans started waiting for the collected volumes to be released, abandoning the monthly seriesa phenomenon that came to be known as " The Cerebus Effect". Starting with the thirteenth volume, ''Going Home'', the books featured colour covers. The covers to ''Going Home'' and ''Form & Void'' were photographs taken by Gerhard.


Distribution dispute

When Sim published the ''
High Society High society, sometimes simply society, is the behavior and lifestyle of people with the highest levels of wealth and social status. It includes their related affiliations, social events and practices. Upscale social clubs were open to men based ...
'' phonebook, it was initially not available through traditional comic-book direct market distributors, who felt that ''Cerebus' '' success until then had been largely due to them and put up "a ''lot'' of resistance" to Sim selling directly through the mail. In retaliation,
Diamond Comic Distributors Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. (often called Diamond Comics, DCD, or casually Diamond) is an American comic book distributor serving retailers in North America and worldwide. They transport comic books and graphic novels, as well as other po ...
in 1987 chose to drop '' Puma Blues'', which was being published by Sim's Aardvark One International. Diamond's orders accounted for 33% of ''Puma Blues' '' sales. To extract themselves from the dispute, the book's creators,
Michael Zulli Michael Zulli is an American artist known for his work as an animal and wildlife illustrator and as a comic book illustrator. Career Michael Zulli's career in the comics industry began in October 1986 with ''The Puma Blues'', on which he collabor ...
and Stephen Murphy, moved publication of ''Puma Blues'' to
Mirage Studios Mirage Studios was an American comic book company founded in 1983 by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird in Dover, New Hampshire. The company was best known for the ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'' (''TMNT'') comic book series and the subsequent franc ...
. Sim did not relent on having the "phone books" distributed by the Direct Market until well into the 1990s. Retailers were able to get bulk discounts on boxes of ''Cerebus'' phonebooks directly from Aardvark-Vanaheim, however.


The Cerebus effect

Japanese manga strips had been collected and reprinted in
tankōbon is the Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or cultur ...
format since at least the 1930s, but before ''Cerebus'', it was uncommon for American comics to be made available in collected form. Collections, while requiring more money to be spent up front, came to be seen as a way of keeping beloved strips in print. This presented a dilemma to creators, particularly if they relied on the income from the series to support themselves until they could publish enough material for a collection. ''
Comics Journal ''The Comics Journal'', often abbreviated ''TCJ'', is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels. Known for its lengthy interviews with comic creators, pointed editorials and scathing re ...
'' columnist Bart Beaty coined the term "Cerebus effect" to label this tendency, as ''Cerebus'' was seen as the first Western series with which this problem emerged. Another aspect of the "Cerebus effect" was that ''Cerebus'' and certain other serialized comics (such as
Chester Brown Chester William David Brown (born 16 May 1960) is a Canadian cartoonist. Brown has gone through several stylistic and thematic periods. He gained notice in alternative comics circles in the 1980s for the surreal, scatological ''Ed the Happy Clo ...
's '' Underwater'',
Gilbert Hernandez Gilberto Hernández (born February 1, 1957), usually credited as Gilbert Hernandez and also by the nickname Beto (), is an American cartoonist. He is best known for his ''Palomar''/''Heartbreak Soup'' stories in '' Love and Rockets'', an alterna ...
' '' Poison River'' and Tom Hart's ''The Sands'') would appear in installments that critic Robert Boyd said were "like they were cut randomly from a larger narrative." This hurt the serialized reading experience and further convinced many readers to wait for the collections, to the detriment of the periodical comic sales.


Printing

The books are all
softcover A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with glue rather than stitches or staples. In contrast, hardcover (hardback) books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, ...
and printed on
newsprint Newsprint is a low-cost, non-archival paper consisting mainly of wood pulp and most commonly used to print newspapers and other publications and advertising material. Invented in 1844 by Charles Fenerty of Nova Scotia, Canada, it usually has an ...
, printed by Preney Print & Litho, of
Windsor, Ontario Windsor is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, on the south bank of the Detroit River directly across from Detroit, Michigan, United States. Geographically located within but administratively independent of Essex County, it is the souther ...
in Canada. Except for the final four volumes, the covers are all in
black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...
. At one time, Sim talked about publishing high-quality, oversized editions of '' Jaka's Story'', but soon scrapped it as a cash-grab. Foreign editions, however, have come out on higher-grade paper, some in hardcover.product page
for ''Alta Società'' at Black Velvet Editrice
In March 2015, the eleventh printing of High Society was issued as a high quality, 30th anniversary gold logo signed (by Dave Sim) and numbered (out of 850 copies) on a tipped in bookplate to the inside cover, printed on white paper. This edition had artwork digitally scanned and restored using current technologies with contributions of original artwork by Cerebus fans, acknowledged in the afterword.


Books


See also

*
Graphic novel A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...
* Trade paperback *
Tankōbon is the Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or cultur ...


References


Works cited

*Bisette, Stephen R. "SpiderBaby Archive: Taboo Origins", par
1 (2009-06-10)2 (2009-06-11)3 (2009-06-12)4 (2009-06-13)5 (2009-06-16)6 (2009-06-17)7 (2009-06-20)8 (2009-06-26)
http://srbissette.com/?p=4763 9 (2009-06-27)]
srbissette.com
Retrieved 2011-05-23. *Hatfield, Charles. ''Alternative Comics: an emerging literature''. University Press of Mississippi, 2005. {{Dave Sim Cerebus novels Comics formats