100 Hour Tour: Comicon

What follows are the posts from Dave Sim made to Comicon's message board as part of his "100 Hour Internet Tour".

02-16-2008 10:25 AM

Okay. As promised: Rick Veitch sent me his Xmas 'o7 King Hell print -- which was a picture of the President and Mrs. Kennedy arriving at Love Field in Dallas 22 Nov 63, JFK wearing a King Hell t-shirt. So I mulled that over and thought, "There has to be a REASON he has this as his Christmas -- er Xmas -- print for '07." When I did the math, I realized that Christmas '07 was exactly 44 years and 33 days after the assassination. The assassination was Nov 22 -- 11th month 22nd day -- so it represented a kind of mathematical progression: 11 22 followed by 44 33.

Rick upped the ante by asking me, If Veitch and Bissette did 1941 (the adaptation of the Steve Spielberg movie) in 1979 and 1963 in 1993, what's the name of their next collaboration and what year will it come out in?

Well, there's 22 years difference between the title years and 24 years difference between the years of publication. So the answer would be a graphic novel called 1985 and it would come out in 2017. Of course, I had to plow on ahead on that one and calculate that the next collaboration would be...ta daaa...2007 and it would come out in 2041 (if, God willing, they both live that long).

So I would suspect that the Xmas print is actually a Veitch/Bissette collaboration, qualifying as their "2007" project published 34 years early.

Please feel free to forward the Samsonite luggage and my lovely parting gifts to Box 1674, St. C, Kitchener, ON, N2G 4R2 if I got any of that right.

02-16-2008 10:32 AM

Does anyone know if Byrne owns his Dark Horse material? i.e. is copyright and trademark in his name in the indicia? It sounds like stuff that would warrant all-in-one collections.

02-16-2008 10:46 AM

Well, the distaste comes from staying removed from it: a mental/spiritual view as opposed to my dick's reaction which is, of course, HUZZA-WAAHHH! GIMME GIMME GIMME! It started with getting rid of my electronic media which meant no easy access to porn, then eliminating printed porn from my environment. In my experience if you don't have something around to kick sexual desire to the upper realms of a sustained erection, friction applied to the erection and, ultimately, ejaculation those become a non-starters. I get erections, mostly in the morning when I'm sleeping and they stick around a lot longer than they did when I was in my thirties, but if I don't do anything about them -- which I don't -- they go away leaving no trace of their passing. I haven't masturbated in four years (five years in September). It's the same as the way that I used to drool when I got even a whiff of cigarette smoke when I quit in 1999, now a whiff just makes me go, "Yeccchh...cigarette smoke".

It's difficult avoiding nudity in the fashion magazines only in the sense that I usually find an average of four usable pictures in a given fashion magazine. The rest of them are in the "Skanko, glamourpuss' Evil Twin Sister" category (which I only need one of per issue). Flesh is just self-evidently flesh to me now. If I started masturbating again and kept porn around to look at, I'd soon be back to seeing female flesh as The Mystical Top of The Reality Pyramid the same as if I smoked a pack of cigarettes, I'd be back drooling over them in no time and probably smoking two packs a day inside of a week or two.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step. That's true of enlightenment and self-chosen degradation.

I do tend to prefer "classic looks" like Gucci and Chanel but all of the fashion shots in glamourpuss are from the fall of 2007. I can probably be sued for doing a comic book that is actually "SO ten months ago" that describes itself as being "SO six months ago" but wouldn't you agree that that would be more than a little nit-picky?

I think so. Thanks for posting.

02-16-2008 10:53 AM

I got Gerhard to print out the fonts they had at the Comicraft website and asked him specifically to look for Ben Oda. If Odaballoon was on there, I missed it. My real priority was a very regular typeface that I'm not personally capable of doing and the Joe Kubert font fit the bill.

I've also used it on Secret Project One.

I might get Sandeep to buy the Odaballoon and compare them on some pages in issue 2. Definitely Ben Oda is very much associated with the photorealist newspaper strip Raymond School, even though he never lettered for Raymond as far as I know.

02-16-2008 11:02 AM

Originally posted by King of Wisdom: Whatever Dim light Dave Sim wants to portray women as I'm all for it because they are vile creatures that go into pussy panic mode for no reason except to get off on their Controlled dildo (their husbands) Marriage.

I'd consider that a very excessive misrepresentation of my views. I think women come by their opinions honestly, I just take issue with the viability of the idea that society can function with marriage as an equal partnership (my analogy being a car with two steering wheels, two brakes, two gas pedals, etc.).

I think the exploding divorce rate and the plummeting birth rate are the most obvious net effects of that secular-society-wide decision.

In the long term, of course, this will be to the benefit of the orthodox religions (and religious) because they adhere to the "be fruitful and multiply" dictum and follow the pattern of the husband and father as breadwinner and the wife and mother as homemaker. If we keep going in this direction, the United States will ultimately become a primarily Latino Roman Catholic country with a strong representation of white and black evangelical Christians. The secular humanists will just...peter out.

Personally, I don't think that's a good idea. We need a strong secular humanist presence particularly in North America to keep theocracy at bay. But as it stands now, I think secular humanism just... disappearing...in the next two decades or so is pretty much inevitable.

Well, you know, God gave free will to everyone, secular humanists included. If they want to use it to commit collective suicide, that's their choice, isn't it?

02-16-2008 11:06 AM

Originally posted by necrotechno: What? But yeah, it's a bit ironic that the guy who's supposedly such a great letterer would start using computer fonts.

I think it's just common sense. As a writer, a computer font allows me to make content changes in any text right up to the last minute. The writer's needs supersede the letterer's preferences.

Of course I still do my own "display lettering" where it's called for.

02-16-2008 11:10 AM

Originally posted by stanleylieber: Dave, how are you going to do the computer lettering now that your computer is kaput?

I'll basically be doing the lettering in rough pencilled form and getting Sandeep to type the words in and Photoshop them at the same stage where he scans the artwork.

02-16-2008 11:14 AM

Originally posted by geedis: And there's the hemming and hawing. Can someone please explain to Dave that his thoughts on the way things were and the way they ought to be are derived purely from personal comfort? Seriously, has the man ever read anything having to do with Athropology or Sociology? Has the man ever been aware of Matriarchal societies? No, there will be more dodging as we watch ol' Dave say "shucks, this here intinernet thing has me all confused".

Anthropology and Sociology, yes, I've read them, but ultimately it amounts to rationalizations of secular humanism that attempts to bypass that the choices constitute collective suicide. And I don't think there's an example of a Matriarchal Society beyond the agrarian stage. Not a successful one, anyway. Ergo, "It takes a village".

02-16-2008 11:35 AM

Originally posted by Shoegaze99: I'd take that a step further. Some type of debate is needed due to the fact that lengthy Gee Isn't That Dave Sim Crazy? threads are created on comic book message boards, full of people taking issue with his published comments.

Now the opportunity arises for those comments to be put to the man himself, and for him to have an opportunity to respond. Then maybe we can at least say that opportunity has been exercised.

Originally posted by geedis: It won't stop the goofy threads, but at least we'd have something more than one guy shouting on one side of a wall and a group shouting back at him on the other.

Well, frankly, what has appeared here seems to me to be pretty typical of what has attempted to pass for debate on the subject. "Dave Sim is full of s--t, Dave Sim is an evil misogynist." Feminism to this point is a nearly-forty year experiment and I don't think it's working -- certainly it isn't working as well as society used to work. Forty years in human society is an eyeblink and I think we've gone seriously off the rails considering how short a time that was. As opposed to, say, the eradication of slavery which just constituted a complete improvement in any society which eradicated it. Self-evident.

But, I would definitely agree: the members opposite don't actually ask me specific questions when they have the chance. They prefer to cluster together calling me names and dismissing ALL of my views without addressing them.

I can't fault them. It's working great. As I said on SEQUENTIAL TART it used to be that 20% of women were in the workforce, then 40%, 60% and from what I understand we are now up to 80%. Presumably within a generation we'll be at or close to 100%. Likewise enrolment in university. First year classes are now 60% women and 40% men so women have abandoned the goal of numerical parity and are presumably well on their way to 70-30 and 80-20 as fast as they can get there.

I'm saying I don't think that's a good idea. I'm the only one who is saying so. There's really not much more to say, as far as I can see, since we're pretty obviously as a society going very, very, very fast to the absolute extreme of feminism with not only nothing to stop us but nothing to slow us down.

I suspect I get to say "I told you so" in ten or twenty years when we get where we're going, but probably not until then.

02-16-2008 11:39 AM

Originally posted by geedis: but at least we'd have something more than one guy shouting on one side of a wall and a group shouting back at him on the other.

Just for the record, I'm not shouting. I've never shouted. The emotion-based, in my experience are just too sensitive to dissenting opinions and are always trying to portray those holding them as being aggressive or some other emotion-based negative. I think that's tactical because it gives feminists the high ground in the argument as the calm, quiet, reasonable ones.

I think I've always been calm, quiet and reasonable even though virtually all of what I've faced has been character assassination and name-calling.

02-16-2008 11:46 AM

Originally posted by Shoegaze99: I'd think he would take to message boards like a fish to water, given his proclivity to lengthy back-and-forth letters. I suspect that if given half the chance -- and Dave if you return here maybe you can comment on this -- he'd be a full-on message board junkie, maybe even to his own detriment.

No, to be completely honest, this is discharging my obligation to the retailers to do 100 hours of promotion for glamourpuss. It's like a month-long signing, finding new interesting ways to answer the same questions except there are a lot of insults and character assassination -- particularly when I'm not there to answer it.

February 27 can't come fast enough for me.

If you're reading this and you're interested in my new comic book, glamourpuss, rather than reading me being called names, I'd strongly urge you to go into your local store and ask to see their COMICS INDUSTRY PREVIEW EDITION of glamourpuss No.1.

Please make up your own mind about whether the book has any value, rather than letting the opinions of people who have never met me decide it for you. Much appreciated to everyone who is willing to approach my new title with an open mind.

02-16-2008 11:50 AM

Originally posted by BigAlexMac: I pass the comic book store that Dave is posting from every day on my way to work since it's right by my office. I often forget he lives here since I've only read 3 issues of Cerebus and haven't really ever followed his career. I take it from this thread and a few posts I read at the Tart link that I've saved myself from pulling hair out and kept my blood pressure low by not being so acquainted with him.

Well, obviously that's the uphill struggle that I'm facing. I'm not someone who pulls his hair out or has my blood pressure go up because I read something that I disagree with. Quite the contrary, I find that dissenting viewpoints are invaluable if you want to develop a coherent worldview. I disagree with Christopher Hitchens vehemently on his opinions on religion but agree with him 100% on his opinions on the War in Iraq. I think dismissing another person in toto is, if you'll forgive my saying so, foolish in the extreme.

02-16-2008 11:55 AM

Okay prayer time. I'll be back at 1 pm to try to answer this one.

02-16-2008 01:15 PM

Originally posted by Shoegaze99: I know it's shocking and painful to see people criticizing Mr. Sim, but have you ever considered that maybe geedis has no person stake or interest or desire to have a go at Sim, he's simply interested in being entertained by watching others do it?

I mean, jeez, I'm not in the camp of folks who say, "Let's all have a go at Sim!" but I'd sure be interested in reading such a meltdown if it happened.

You're not alone in that, believe me. But you'll notice it hasn't seemed to have happened in the last two weeks any more than it has in the last fourteen years.

And sincere apologies if this offends you, but I think you're projecting there when you talk about it being "shocking" or "painful" when someone criticizes me.

Most of the Cerebus Yahoos (who you seem, mistakenly, to see as sychopants of mine) disagree with my opinions on gender politics, most disagree with my opinions on politics, religion and just about anything else you'd care to mention: President Bush, the War in Iraq. To be sure, my opinions are "shocking" and "painful" to those who insulate themselves from opposing viewpoints. Such people in my view are far too thin-skinned -- or, even worse, pretending to be so that they can play the victim card. Like the woman who said that she felt physically sick when Lawrence Summers, then president of Harvard said that it was worth investigating the reason that women -- while at an enormous numerical advantage in the Sciences and Maths at Harvard in first years course -- virtually disappear in the later years when the study becomes more advanced. There's no reason for that to make you feel physically sick unless what you are doing is manufacturing an infirmity because you don't want to face the obvious answer head-on. I'm not unsympathetic but reality is always more important to me than how reality makes someone Feel.

However, the Cerebus Yahoos are -- credit where it is due -- people who are interested in dissenting viewpoints. The LAST thing they are is "shocked" or "pained" when someone criticizes me. The FIRST thing they are aware of (being open-minded people) is when people are just dismissing me, indulging in character assassination or calling me names.

And I'd say that's true mostly because THEY would love to read a reasoned explanation of where it is that I'm wrong on all this stuff because while virtually all of them disagree with me, like most of the dissenters here they have a lot of trouble figuring out where my logic breaks down. Or even beginning to discuss it. To what would you attribute the entire absence of women from the upper reaches of Maths and Sciences in the academic environment where all advantages possible are stacked in their favour and have been for some time? The fact that they get married and have babies? Old paradigm. They do that exponentially less than they ever have. When do the High End Female Mathematicians and Scientists start showing up at Harvard or (supplementary question to the honorable member for Kitchener Centre) When does Lawrence Summers get his job back since he was hounded from office simply for identifying a self evident reality?

The Yahoos would LOVE to read a rational point-by-point refutation of the Summers situation or of the Fifteen Impossible Things: all those (theoretically) obvious points that have been MIA since I wrote the "Tangent" essay in 2000-2001.

I think I'm safe in saying that what we all experienced on the tcj message boards, SEQUENTIAL TART and here was "Well -- SOMEBODY melt him down."

I think I -- and my opinions -- are very far from being melted down.

The only difference I can see is that the Cerebus Yahoos have years more experience at waiting for someone to melt me down than you have.

Thanks for your post.

02-16-2008 01:21 PM

Originally posted by stanleylieber: Immediately following 9/11 Dave said in the back of CEREBUS that he was done discussing gender.

I'd have to check, but what I meant was I was done talking about gender politics for the foreseeable future which at that time was pretty distant as I envisaged the amount of time that it would take to compose "Islam, My Islam" and "Why Canada Slept". There was certainly the strong hope on my part then (now frankly a vanished hope) that we were going to start concerning ourself as a society with other issues than gender politics.

No such luck.

02-16-2008 01:25 PM

Originally posted by IvanJim: Well, since his web site has carried his opinions on gender for quite a long time now, I'd have to say that he isn't quite as done as the statement you referred to might imply.

If what you're referring to is my former blog, the Blog & Mail, I certainly made every effort to discuss more interesting subjects -- and, I'll flatter myself, managed it on a number of occasions -- but we do live in a society where "all roads lead to Rome" -- Rome in our society being gender politics.

02-16-2008 01:37 PM

Originally posted by Alexander Ness: Seems more to me that people would like him to apologize for how he thinks, and that is highly unlikely.

Well, not only highly unlikely but irrational. Why should Galileo apologize for "thinking" that the earth goes around the sun? He doesn't "think" the earth goes around the sun. He KNOWS the earth goes around the sun.

Lawrence Summers had the numbers right in front of him and thought it was worth mentioning and investigating: why are there zip, nada, zero, bupkes women in the advanced years of the higher maths and sciences?

Cost him his job. That's the Middle Ages Vatican approach to discussion.

If you'll forgive me for saying so.

02-16-2008 01:43 PM

Originally posted by Alexander Ness: Beyond that, people just talk at or above each other.

Well, no, not necessarily. I don't think message boards, as an example, are structured that way. You get your turn, I get my turn. I don't think I'm talking "at" or "above" anyone. There is a very limited amount of information that can be gotten across in eight hours on these message boards (contrary to the illusion that in-depth discussion is possible), so I pick what I think is an obvious debating point: a) Why did Lawrence Summers get hounded from office b) how is that a legitimate basis for firing someone and c)why is there no discussion of the point that he raised?

See, I'm not talking at or above you, but I am trying to get you to see that you have far more in common with the Vatican of the Middle Ages than you have with Galileo when it comes to making sense.

The Pope thought he was being reasonable, too. But he obviously wasn't.

02-16-2008 01:49 PM

Originally posted by Alexander Ness: I think most of what Sim has written about women is wrong, or, even if a tiny bit is correct so mixed with crap as to make the whole mess vile.

See, forgive me for being forensically abrupt here, but that isn't a rational way to discuss anything. If everything I have written had been refuted at extensive and excruciating length and there was this one tiny point over here that was conceded to me, well, I'd go along with that.

But all of the arguments against me so far amount to "I really disagree with that, I find that offensive, I think Dave Sim is evil and I don't want to discuss it any more."

Sorry, but that's the Middle Ages Vatican position: my visceral/emotional reaction to what Galileo is saying supersedes any evidence he can offer in his own defence. He says the earth goes around the sun, I'm offended, God is offended, the Church is offended, and so the discussion is over.

You can be offended as much as you want and find my opinions as vile as you want -- but my opinions have facts to back them up, facts that your team refuses to even look at, let alone discuss.

02-16-2008 01:53 PM

Originally posted by Alexander Ness: I realize that some would call what I am saying as bashing Sim, but honestly I think he said what he did, he does not apologize for it, and people don't like it. What else is there to be said?

I realize that some would call what I am saying as bashing Galileo, but honestly I think he said what he did, he does not apologize for it, and people don't like it. What else is there to be said?

I guess all I could add would be: I'm sure glad you folks don't have the Inquisition to tack onto the end there

02-16-2008 02:05 PM

Originally posted by Shoegaze99: The thing with Cerebus is that it's simply not possible to separate the work from the creator and gender issues. And believe me, I've tried.

This does not hold true in the first third of the run, and only holds true for the second if you're looking for it, but it unquestionably does in the final third. Sim very much made his views on gender a densely intertwined part of the ongoing Cerebus story. You can't remove them and still have the same story; they are a fundamental part of what later Cerebus is. Therefore any discussion of Sim's body of work will invariably end up on issues of gender.

Further, it is somewhat difficult to separate the creator from the work because in this case, Sim very consciously made himself part of the story. He appeared on the pages of Cerebus, as himself, indicating that he, Dave Sim, was a factor in the later Cerebus stories. The main character referred to him by name, Sim's essays became part of the story, and so on. That means that in order to discuss these aspects of his work, you must also discuss Sim himself.

I fully understand what you're saying, and to an extent agree. From my point of view, Cerebus is one of the greatest achievements in comic history not because it lasted 300 issues, but because of the constant innovation, the superb use of the page, the full realization of the medium's potential, its wit and intelligence, and much more. Nothing can change that.

But for good or ill, Dave Sim himself is a part of any Cerebus discussion because the very nature of the overall saga demands it.

I would agree with the fact that my WRITINGS are an important part of any Cerebus discussion, but any discussion of Dave Sim would pretty much drop off the map in 1998 when I stopped associating with people in any personal sense.

Not that there aren't going to be a lot of self-appointed experts who would claim that they "knew me well" post-1998. But I think that's a common mistake in our society. When I'm reading Norman Mailer's essay "Of A Small and Modest Malignancy" I'm well aware that what I'm reading is an early 70s essay. I would never claim that all of the views on television that he espoused in that essay were the same views he held up until his death last year.

I went from being a devout atheist to a devout monotheist pretty much overnight in 1996. That should be factored in, I think, in any discussion of my WRITINGS but isn't usually.

02-16-2008 02:10 PM

Originally posted by Gail: Just guessing...You're hetero and male, right? Sincerely, I'm not invalidating your point, Tuck. Just making an educated guess. Best, Gail

Personally, I think this is more than a little disingenuous: anyone asking someone in 2008 if they're "hetero and male" is doing so for only one reason: to invalidate whatever point that they're making.

We get the message, Gail, heterosexual men, there's nothing lower on the human scale in our society. It's not as if it's a huge secret or anything.

02-16-2008 02:17 PM

Originally posted by shjonescrk: I'm with you necrotechno, Sim will only be remembered as a footnote in the history of comics. So what he did 300 issues. It doesn't override the fact that much of his work (and I've read the first 150 issues of Cerebus) isn't very good.

I'm very fortunate that so many retailers and so many comic store customers disagree with you on that point.

02-16-2008 02:27 PM

Originally posted by necrotechno: Working women supporting bum boyfriends or husbands is nothing new. Now, if the woman works for a printer and the bum is a cartoonist who can't get work from the major publishers... that's an interesting footnote in comic-book history.

Deni worked for a printer, but not the printer that we used -- if what you're suggesting is that that was my motivation in dating her. Deni was alternately employed and unemployed through the time that I started dating her. She could never find what she wanted to do and she wanted a job that she loved the way I loved my job.

I was a working cartoonist and commercial artist at the time I met her and paid my own way with a part-time job at Now & Then Books and freelance artwork. When we moved in together, I supplied my half of the overhead for the apartment and for Aardvark-Vanaheim and often more besides.

A lot of the motivation in doing CEREBUS as a comic book was to give Deni the chance to be a publisher which is what she wanted to be when I met her.

I can't remember the last time I was rude enough to call someone a bum whose history I didn't know.

I don't even call the panhandlers downtown bums.

02-16-2008 02:32 PM

Originally posted by Alan Coil: Sim only wants to talk gender issues when it won't affect his income. He has no true convictions, or he would staunchly defend his positions AT ALL TIMES. He is acting cowardly.

I respectfully disagree. As you can see, when the subject switches to gender politics that's all that's going to get "discussed". I promised the retailers 100 hours of promotion, taking Brian Hibbs at his word, "I think you've made your point" in choosing to only discuss gender politics at SEQUENTIAL TART.

So, including the day spent at SEQUENTIAL TART and the second day here, that's roughly fifteen hours where I'm going to come up short on my promise.

I apologize to the retailers and I hope I can hit close to 85 hours having put in 50 or 55 by my reckoning on the other websites.

02-16-2008 02:40 PM

Originally posted by Alan Coil: As Winterman might say--- Dave Sim: Done! Despicable ideas about minorities, ideas that counteract all the good he may have been perceived to have done. And he hasn't the courage to talk about them now because speaking of them now might affect his potential sales on future products. Done!

As I just said, that's all that I'm talking about -- now on hour number four today. Nothing about comics, just defending myself against charges that I'm a freeloading bum, a bigot, etc. I answered you way back at the beginning, Alan: I don't hate anyone. I disagree with a lot of people but I don't hate anyone.

Galileo didn't hate the Catholic Church or the Pontiff. From what I understand he loved the Church. But he KNEW that the earth went around the sun just as I KNOW that Lawrence Summers was hounded from office for completely illegitimate reasons.

And I think people are attempting to destroy my reputation for comparably illegitimate reasons.

Okay, all you want talk about is gender politics, racial politics and sexual orientation politics, there's not much I can do about that.

Hour number five, here I come.

02-16-2008 02:50 PM

Originally posted by necrotechno: Oh, yes it does. His girlfriend worked for the printer. The cost of self-publishing for him was next to nothing. The 80's were full of indy cartoonists trying to emulate his publishing model, but they lacked three basic things: 1) their girlfriends didn't get them discounts at the printer; 2) they weren't satisfied with using the cheapest paper stock available to print on; and 3) most of their ideas were geared towards entertaining more people than just themselves.

Again, Deni worked for a printer in town but not the printer that printed Cerebus. I paid full commercial rates for the printing right from day one.

See, you keep repeating stuff like that and pretty soon that becomes Reality. Why? Because it makes Dave Sim look bad. And anything that makes Dave Sim look bad HAS to be true.

1) My girlfriend didn't get me a discount at the printer

2) I've always preferred newsprint for the CEREBUS stuff. Chester Brown has the same preference for his work. Do you think he's guilty of the same charge?

I've conceded to popular opinion on glamourpuss and have moved up to the same paper Los Bros. use on LOVE & ROCKETS.

I can't wait to find out what moral crime I've committed by doing that. I'm sure you'll let me know.

3) But, isn't that the opposite of the point that you're making? If they were appealing to a much wider audience than me wouldn't their sales be much higher? And conversely, if I was only appealing to myself wouldn't I, ipso facto, have been a failure?

Prayer time. I should be back around 3:40 EDST.

03:46 PM

And my girlfriend didn't get me a better deal on printing. Deni worked at a printer in town, but it wasn't the printer that did CEREBUS. See I write that but the viewpoint is already getting entrenched here. "Oh, I read that the only way he could be successful was to have his girlfriend get his printing at a discount."

03:50 PM

Okay, I had to post that again because it looked as if what I was saying was what the earlier poster was saying.

I repeat: my girlfriend did not get me a discount on printing.

And of course the Flood Control won't let me post it right away so there's ten minutes used up just correcting a mistaken rumour...again.

03:58 PM

Actually it's not a page. All of the artwork on the website is only for the website. On the website, en Francais, she's saying "What is...Beyond Noir?"

If Jessica Alba wants to sue me for using a picture I drew of her from an ad in a fashion magazine saying "What is...Beyond Noir?" I'll just have to take my lumps.

04:04 PM

Well, as I said elsewhere -- I think it was today, but it's getting to be hard to tell -- I wasn't aware that there was a Ben Oda font. I got Gerhard to print out the Comicraft inventory of fonts and I don't recall seeing it. I might have missed it because it was Odaballoon while Joe Kubert was just called Joe Kubert. I'll certainly consider giving Sandeep the company credit card to order it and see what it looks like when compared with the Kubert font.

02-16-2008 04:13 PM

Originally posted by Tuck: This, to me, is the crux of the whole ballgame when it comes to Dave Sim/Cerebus/Secret Project 1/Glamourpuss...I don't need to see the advance copy, I've already got it on my order sheet. I don't know if Dave is "evil" or a "misogynist" or an "evil misogynist." I don't care. I've only met him the few times. He was actually a lot like Lawson (a compliment to Dave, there): funny, engaging, low-BS threshold...but even if he had been (what others accuse him of), so what? As long as the book's cool, eh?

Thanks, Tuck, but that's a nutcracker in my situation. A substantial number of people in our society care very very deeply if someone is a misogynist and they work actively to assassinate the character of anyone accused of that...they consider that the highest moral calling of which someone can partake: destroying someone who has been called a misogynist.

Look at the Lawrence Summers situation. He back-pedalled like crazy from his factual stand and promised to throw a million dollars or so at the problem -- here's a million dollars to facilitate more women at the high end of Harvard's math and science departments -- but it was too late at that point. His enunciation of the facts meant that he was already gone: dead man walking. That's how our society works: You're not a feminist and you're stupid enough to say it out loud?

Badda bing Badda boom. GOODbye.

The only thing that keeps it from happening with me is

1) the CEREBUS trades continue to sell to open-minded retailers and to open-minded comics readers and fans

2) I don't have a boss or corporation controlling me who/that can be pressured to fire me

3) I don't have advertisers who can be pressured to pull their advertising.

Lucky me.

So far.

04:24 PM

Originally posted by stanleylieber: I always try to point this out. Especially with regards to discussion of 'Reads,' which was built on a different foundation than 'Tangent.' Whereas in the early '90s your arguments were founded on reason, after 1996 your arguments had to be founded upon faith in God. To me these are very different starting points.

Yes, definitely. I was up to my eyeballs in the belief in fixed commodities, THE POPULATON BOMB stuff, blah blah blah

Faith in God definitely gives me a different perspective on that. God wouldn't create a world where there was insufficient resources. The whole debate with YHWH is about much larger issues (as I see it) and the last thing God needs is other side issues detracting from the debate. YHWH is going to latch onto anything to change the subject (and, as I see it, does to this day)but, as far as I can see, God has all of that factored in. People are pretty clever and we're always figuring things out that YHWH doesn't have a clue about. Like the "We're running out of oil" panic in the 70s. You live long enough and you figure out that The Sky is Falling is a recurrent motif on the other team to keep from discussing core issues. It's always a different sky that's falling and the sky never does seem to actually fall but any distraction from the core debate is a good one in YHWH's view.

As Bob Burden once said, "THIS calls for an EMERGENCY!"

02-16-2008 04:35 PM

Originally posted by Alexander Ness: Mr Sim I am not here to argue, I was simply pointing out that there doesn't seem to me to be much point in arguing. Assholes and Opinions, we all have both. Whether you see me as some leader of an inquisition is up to you. Most people I know would disagree.

I don't see myself as arguing, I see myself as discussing.

Arguing is when you get into personalities and character assassination, trying to destroy someone behind the scenes, shooting the messenger. I think there is a great deal of benefit to defining the differences between people -- particularly in a situation like my own where I am the only person on this side of the fence in the city I live in, the province I live in, the half of the country I live in and the creative field in which I work.

I'm not looking to capitulate to feminism and I'm not looking to make anyone else capitulate to my disbelief in the underpinnings of feminism.

Particularly here. There is very, very limited room to communicate anything even if you're putting in seven hours or so as I am today.

I'm not accusing you of leading an inquisition, but I am suggesting that when -- as tends to happen with feminists -- you shut down on the Lawrence Summers situation and destroy his livelihood and never once consider What His Actual Point Was and when you show no curiosity in adding 2 and 2 and saying "No matter what disproportionate advantage we give women in academe, women vanish out of the higher sciences and math for what reason?" And refuse to actually take a hard look at the only really obvious answer to the question...

...then in terms of intellectual honesty, you're coming up more than a day late and a dollar short to me. In fact you are then in the category of intellectual dishonesty exemplified by the Vatican in the Middle Ages.

I'd like to think differently, but the evidence I've been facing since 1994 is that intellectual dishonesty driven by feminism is the Core Reality of our society.

And that to me is just as dangerous today as it was in the Middle Ages.

I'll work around it as long as I have to (fourteen years and counting), but I sincerely don't think the problem is on my side or Lawrence Summers' side.

02-16-2008 04:41 PM

Originally posted by Steve: PS I think you are basically wrong about everything but can't be arsed getting into a long winded post at this point in time.

Well, again I would respectfully submit that I get a lot of that as well. People spread the word far and wide that Dave Sim is a raving misogynist, bigot, homophobe and everything he says is poisonous nonsense, etc. etc.

But when crunch time comes what I always get is a variation on I "can't be arsed getting into a long-winded post at this point in time."

No offence, but that's intellectually dishonest, mate.

Thanks for the best wishes on glamourpuss and good luck with your laundry.

05:05 PM

The fact remains that we went from women-as-homemakers to women-as-workers as the societal norm in an eyeblink relative to human civilization's history.

And if I'm not mistaken, yours and Rev. Smooth's point of view was that all women should go out and work because all women NEED to go out and work. No other economic model works. Either you're alone and you have to work or you're half of a marriage and need two paycheques to make ends meet.

I think that's the prevailing view in our society but I think that the model of man-as-breadwinner and woman-as-homemaker tends to sustain itself structurally. As soon as you have both parties working outside the home, what you have is two autonomous role models that children can pick from but which is more likely to lead them (sooner rather than later) into pure autonomy: living alone. Being a homemaker just gets eliminated as a valid choice. It's looked down on for the most part and those choosing it are seen as "not as good" as working women.

I think that's what the ever-increasing divorce rates are about and that's certainly something that has developed in tandem with women going from 6% of the workforce (or 10% or 15%) at the turn of the last century to the (no problem, let's take your own number) 59% today.

I think that continues: divorce going up as women in the workforce goes up. Structurally I don't think that's sound. The ghetto community is way ahead of us white folks in that area: the single mother family model is the norm and I think we can see what happens when the absence of the father becomes the societal norm. Women I don't think have the discipline "chops" that men have. I think they're too compassionate and too lenient by nature and consequently fatherless households are more apt to produce boys who become men who go off the rails early and permanently. And the further along that goes, the more the cycle perpetuates itself. Increased divorce, men less inclined to be good fathers, more women in the workforce, boys going off the rails at younger and younger ages.

I have no quarrel with you, Gail. I think it's great that you went from working outside the home in the beauty salon to working inside the home. How much time you devote to your writing when compared to how much time you devote to your homemaking is a) relevant to the discussion and b) none of my -- or anyone else's -- business but you (and your family).

But I would certainly put you on a much loftier plateau than, say, those women who write a bestseller about the joys of being traditional wife and mother -- and then go out on the road for six months to flog their books.

I think it would be very fruitful for society to find as many professions as possible that can be conducted from the home and to develop education programs in high school that would combine classic HomeEc and time management.

I'd be willing to bet the consensus would favour bare sustenance homemaking and larger swaths of work-for-pay but at least -- as with your own self as an anecdotal example -- it would be a large step in the right direction.

My point for some time has been that a home is made by a homemaker being in residence. That's what you're doing. I think that's great.

05:12 PM

Sorry, Gail, I stick by this one. A core element of gender politics in 2008 is that being a heterosexual and a man pretty much invalidates your opinions or at least makes them suspect.

Asking someone if they are either is in the same category as asking if they still beat their wives in our present context.

I'll take you at face value that you didn't intend that. It's only polite to do so. But I agree with the guy it was directed at: it was either a non sequitur or something worse.

05:22 PM

Originally posted by lionsunmind: letter (in keeping with recognized Cerebus custom), so this is a great opportunity!

Hi lionsunmind! Yes I did read it yesterday and thanks. It was a very cute drawing. I hate to be a pain, but I'm going to have to ask you to post your questions to The Comic Forums on Wednesday. Today got eaten up with gender politics and its pretty much a lock that that's all that will get discussed on Tuesday at the SEQUENTIAL TART return visit.

I'll try to get back to talking about comics next Wednesday. In the meantime, COMICS GEEK SPEAK has an interview with me about MELMOTH on Monday (and they don't once accuse me of being a homophobe! Bonus!)

Again, apologies to you...and apologies to the retailers for the "missing fifteen hours".

05:26 PM

Okay. I have two minutes, so let me recommend that the dueling Petes post their viewpoints to the SEQUENTIAL TART website and I'll see if I get there during hours fifteen through twenty-two of Gender Politics Uber Alles.

Hope to see the rest of you Wednesday at the Comic Forums for discussions about glamourpuss and comics.

Thanks, Rick. Thanks everybody.