Cerebus File Copies Up for Auction

Coming March 19^th, 2007, Paradise Comics will put up several Cerebus the Aardvark file copies for auction on e-Bay. A file copy is one originating from the publisher's own files. All comics have been graded, certified, and encapsulated.

I, along with basically everyone else in the free world and probably every single person in the rest of the world, disagree with most everything Dave Sim professes to believe, but there is no question that Cerebus is - and will remain - one of the most groundbreaking comic book titles of all time. Sim is a master of the field, though the subject matter which he tackled within the title often led to controversy and fallings-out between him and others in the industry.

Probably the most intriguing aspect of the title is that it was always (or, at least from very early-on into the process) meant to be an encapsulated story; though a monthly title, Sim planned it to end at issue 300, which it did a few years back. Some other intriguing, groundbreaking concepts Sim and Cerebus pioneered included direct-sales and the "phonebook" collections - both of which, again, inspired controversy and fallings-out within the industry.

But I must explain to people -- as I always do when the Cerebus phonebooks are mentioned -- that this was not exactly a new concept; the Japanese had been doing it for years. The real flip to the industry was in the direct-sales marketing method Sim used to move the books, thereby circumventing the comics distributors of the time.