Notorious typewriter and fax guy Dave Sim is taking advantage of the internet’s crowdfunding abilities to run a Kickstarter to reprint High Society, one of the best story lines from CEREBUS. The project met its $6000 goal within hours of starting.

In case you are coming in fresh, Sim is the author of one of the great feats of the indie comics age: his 300-issue run on CEREBUS, a genre-defying melange of slapstick, fantasy, and social commentary. The more the book had of the first two, the better it was; the more of the latter and…well…best not discussed.

ANYWAY, the book has been published up to now in giant “phone book sizes” reprints, but this will allow a digital edition of HIGH SOCIETY with various extras, as the Kickstarter states:

STEP ONE:  CEREBUS DIGITAL HIGH SOCIETY

Continue to convert HIGH SOCIETY into digital files by producing a HIGH SOCIETY combination e-book, audio book/ digital graphic novel/ oral history/weekly serialization at (so far) iVerse, Diamond Digital and Comixology and hope revenues can help things along by the time I’m getting paid early next year (The “Hail Mary” Pass Scenario)

STEP TWO: CEREBUS DIGITAL 6000

If more than $6,000 is raised (this is where I suspect John is pulling my leg: MORE than $6,000???) then the money would be put aside to do e-books/audio books/digital graphic novels/oral history/weekly serializations of ALL OF THE CEREBUS BOOKS, Beginning with CEREBUS (500 pages), CHURCH & STATE vol. 1 (600 pages). CHURCH $ STATE vol. 2 (600 pages), and JAKA’S STORY (500 pages).  


So it’s a digital e-book, audio oral something.

Many CEREBUS spin-offs like Following Cerebus and Glamourpuss go in unexpected directions, and this seems to be no exception. Elsewhere on the Kickstarter, it mentions this:

The  primary objective of this Kickstarter project is to introduce Cerebus to a new generation of comic book fans by turning the World’s Longest Graphic Novel into the World’s Longest Audio Book with (fingers crossed) the creation of digital versions of every page of each issue of Cerebus. Every digital issue will include front covers, editorials, essays, letters and back covers and be made available as a $0.99 digital download (If this project succeeds!) In addition to digital versions of the individual comic books, Dave Sim is also providing additional audio and video content,


Well, we’d go for the digital editions alone. More space!

1 COMMENT

  1. Issue them as hardcovers, and I’m in.

    The digital initiative sounds super cool… the commentary will be especially interesting.

    I know it’s unlikely, but I do hope he includes placeholders for the stories he ran from other creators, discusses his relationships, and encourages those creators to either allow him to reprint the content, or at least offer the content as a separate download.

  2. Wow! It’s now more than doubled it’s goal! Deni Louber, Dave’s ex-wife, donated and says:
    “Glad to contribute – heck I was there at the beginning. Tell Dave I wish him the best of luck – it is a brilliant idea to do this!”

  3. That really is remarkable (to me) that Deni contributed. I admit that I have not followed every in and out of the whole Sim saga, though.
    I loved Cerebus madly, though like a lot of folks I found the last third of the books pretty hit and miss, and his ranting became too much for me.
    I am saddened because I think he is correct when he says that a major achievement in comics has been / is being ignored by many. I certainly am not surprised by anyone who is turned off by some of his diatribes, though.

  4. This is pretty cool. I’m in. I’ve been meaning to revisit Cerebus for some time. I still think next to Eisner, Dave has some of the strongest use of graphics–as in sound effects and word balloon placements– on a page. A lot of people knock Dave etc etc but he has always been a strong supporter of my work, especially in the early days of self-publishing, when a leg up really meant a lot.

  5. I’m with Torsten:

    Issue them as hardcovers.

    It’s the one thing I’m amazed Sim’s never done. I’d be in the queue to get the first five, same as everyone else. My copies of Cerebus, High Society, C&S I & II, and Jaka’s Story are all showing signs of much reading. I’d love these in beautiful deluxe hardcover editions.

    The rest….. maybe I’ll stick with my phonebooks.

  6. This is great! Hope this means “a new generation” will be inspired by Sim’s genius cartooning skillz.

    Me, I just want all of the short stories (including the color Epic Illustrated ones) and covers collected in one book. This is WAY overdue!

  7. Interestingly enuff, High Society has recently been published in hard-cover … but they are Italian, French, and Spanish-language editions. (I hear rumors about a possible Japanese translation, too.) Those foreign-language HC editions are beautiful, and each one is slightly different than the other.