More Dave Sim Batshittery.

chap otm

i think i had only a very vague idea about the marx brothers when i started reading cerebus

also dave sim writes a good groucho marx but 'mick 'n' keef' are not funny

all the moon roach, wolveroach etc shit: not funny

The Roach is great, especially the DKR parody. Mick n Keef have their moments, though I often find Sim's recreations of accents just annoying. It makes the dialogue a bit of slog sometimes.

I love Sims' Oscar Wilde, Mick & Keef and Marx Brothers stuff and don't think a prior knowledge is required to fully appreciate that stuff. I didn't know the details of Wilde's sodomy trial before reading "Jaka's story", was delighted to read later how well Sims had integrated those details into Oscar's exchange with the tavern owner (Pud?)

I ~get~ Moon Roach and he's just fine but he's probably the weakest character imo, with or without a knowledge of who he's satirizing

nothing engages new readers like twenty five year old parodies of rock stars and eighty year old parodies of slapstick comedies, unless it's biographical fanfic about oscar wilde and ernest hemingway

I dunno man, those jokes never really get old. My younger bros read Cerebus for the first time this summer and really dug it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc0ryR-1GZI

I started reading Cerebus as a teenager over 20 years ago. At that time I knew the Marx Bros well enough but not the Stones so I didn't get all the jokes but it didn't stop me from getting into it. The comics references are definitely of their time and place though. How many people are gonna get a DKR parody today? I think this stuff is minor though and doesn't really hurt the work but I can see how it might put people off.

I quit reading Marvel/DC around '93 so I didn't get any of the Rabbi/Preacher stuff. But by then the book had gone well off the rails, so I didn't feel I was missing much.

Oh man I forgot Secret Sacred Wars Roach: that might have been my favorite Roach. The whole joke of Shooter's paragraphs of expository dialogue might lose new readers, though it kind of fits in with that sublimely inexplicable atmosphere that pervades the first 100 pages of C&S II

Well, as a firm believer in both free will and predestination, I think [the non-narrative works Judenhass and glamourpuss] -- and CEREBUS -- were fully-formed when my grandfather was still in his mother's womb. But, in the sense that I see you as meaning: the conventional "physically incarnated" hatching out of our lives, yes, definitely they were gestating throughout my life. I wanted to be Neal Adams when I grew up. Or, at least, when I got taller :) It's hard to communicate the extent to which virtually EVERYONE in my generation of comic artist wanted to be Neal Adams when they grew up. It would be surprising if I would have done something else once CEREBUS was done.

It occurred to me for the first time a while ago that in a real sense most of CEREBUS could have just been a practice tee -- a 26-year and three month practice tee, if you can believe it -- getting me ready for doing THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND. He died in 1956. I was 112 days old when he died. 56 and 56 is 112. I'm 56 this year. It seems more than a little significant to me. God grinds the axes he intends to use.

And Dave grinds any axe that gets near him.

I can admire the craft, but man, I just could not get into CEREBUS.

as a firm believer in both free will and predestination

this guy

The TCJ thread where Dave & Kim and the general public have been "negotiating" has gotten out of control in a way that reminds of the old Journal message boards. Totally entertaining trainwreck, with people talking past each other and Hitler references and Gary Groth dropping a hot load on Dave's head.

Aaaagh, I just spent 90 minutes with that thread and the Hardtalk questions and I need a brain-rinse.

I did say it was like the old TCJ boards. Those always left me feeling wrong in the head.

makes me want to take up butt-chugging

upthread i wrote:

don't think sim ever forgave fanta for (rightly, imho) not including him in their list of 100 greatest cartoonists or whatevs, back in the day.

tom spurgeon wrote this today on the comics reporter site:

suspect this latest "negotiation" was entered into in somewhat bad faith by Sim, perhaps unintentionally, and as a result it quickly become a launching pad for longstanding grievances -- grievances I further suspect are more "exclusion from Top 100" oriented than "you compared me to a Nazi" oriented.

Dave posted in the middle of the night and is now pushing the goalpost of discussions into 2013. Batshittery shall never end.

Batshit is as batshit does.

Maybe we can get Neal Adams to illustrate this trainwreck and call it BATSHIT ODYSSEY. It's likely Dave Sim sits shirtless at a table narrating his adventures.

I would buy that comic.

this is very entertaining:

http://images.comiccollectorlive.com/covers/b0d/b0d36be2-e567-48fe-ba74-e771aa338c73.jpg

Dave interviewed Neal? So maybe we can get BATSHIT ODYSSEY to happen.

I know Following Cerebus existed but I've never seen one.

A booklength discussion between Dave and Neal.

This is a good description.

Okay, I just got the net up at the new place and downloaded the a/v High Society #1. I'm laughing out loud at Sim's voices for the characters. This ongoing batshittery will entertain me each week for months.

And speaking of batshittery, the way he played Fantagraphics just to be a total dick? Classic Sim.

where is this?

First issue is free here:

http://www.cerebusdownloads.com/

I backed the kickstarter for $15 so I'll get each issue free as they're released.

go to http://momentofcerebus.blogspot.com/ -- the "Fantagraphics Offer" updates from Oct and Sept in the sidebar summarize the stuff from here: http://www.tcj.com/dave-sim-responds-to-the-fantagraphics-offer/

The whole thing will take a while to skim and hours and hours to read thoroughly, and life is short.

EZ OTM, Dave has the instincts of a seasoned internet troll.

oh i followed the tcj thing, but the cerebus downloads is gonna be WHOA

You saw how he announced a book of Cerebus covers, and a special edition High Society Digital through IDW? And got $30,000 or something upfront? Serious douchebaggery when you consider what prompted the Fanta offer.

in the style of the fanta negosh, the "book of covers from IDW" had blown out to three, then four, then probably including the colour strips as well, within a day or so

Disingenuousness has a new name!

DiSIMgenuousness.

MAKE IT SO. FROM THIS DAY FORWARD.

For people who hadn't been keeping up, Dave has a new quarterly KS featuring 10 full size repros of pages and ancillary artwork still in his possession. Each quarter features a different phonebook/era, with the idea to keep him going to finish up Alex Raymond and to tidy up the scans of the art enough to get new phonebooks ready to publish. Assuming every quarter hits the same targets as this one, he'll achieve that goal.

the batshit part: he expects this to carry on for decades after his death

any idea how much dough was he pulling in in the mid-80s? I know he's broke/an ascetic now but back then he seemed to maintain this whole rock-star image, back cover photos of him pulling up to conventions in limos, staying in fancy hotels, bimbos hanging on him... was that all just bullshit or was he really rolling in it?

dude's arc seems like a total tragedy in retrospect

"bimbos"?

seems like the proper nomenclature for a dave sim thread

Aside from the pleasures of that kind of lifestyle, think Sim also wanted to show other comics people the riches they could earn from self-publishing (but this was at a time when creators on high-royalty earning corporate comics were also earning small fortunes - I know of one penciller who bought a house from the royalties they earned from just one single, high profile Marvel/DC crossover comic)

i'm curious. can you say what book it was?

xp what should they be called, Simbos?

"bimbos"?

not referring to Deni Loubert tbc

"bimbos"?

― Look at this joke I've recognised, do you recognise it as well? (forksclovetofu)

Voids.