More Dave Sim Batshittery.

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I believe that is what they call a 'truth bomb'

Oilyrags, Monday, 21 April 2008 20:54 (sixteen years ago) link

I'd argue that it's utterly critique-proof, actually.

And I didn't think it was all that secret, since previews of it have been floating around the internet for nearly two months now. Hell, I read the whole of it more than a month ago at a local shop (one of the preview copies that were circulated early to build retailer support.)

Matt M., Monday, 21 April 2008 21:57 (sixteen years ago) link

Has anyone read (I think it was called) "Glamorpuss"? His satirical (presumably) look at fashion magazines? Pretty weird prospect...

Niles Caulder, Saturday, 3 May 2008 04:16 (fifteen years ago) link

Yeah, except it isn't really. It's Dave doing something like Eddie Campbell was trying in Egomania with his 'History Of Comedy', it's Dave's version of the history and development of the Raymond School. It's actually pretty interesting, and very nice to look at (because it's Dave playing drirectly to his artistic strengths).

Definitely worth buying at the moment if you like that sort of thing.

Also, I missed that I should have responded above - SUPER SECRET PROJECT #1 was how Dave was referring to it in development, sorry, I wasn't implying nobody knew about it.

aldo, Saturday, 3 May 2008 08:35 (fifteen years ago) link

I really kinda dig it.

I just wrote this on my tumblr:

Unfortunately for me, there is an implied bargain in comic art: The presence of words juxtaposed with pictures draws the natural inference on the part of the reader that both together add up to a sequential narrative.

Flipping through the pages in a comic-book store, you’re going to think that this is a comic strip.

A natural inference which I’m making use of by putting my narration into these word balloons, thus creating the illusion that this is a comic-art story instead of what it is: A Raymond and Prentice “slide show” - third rate (at best) compared to their own but, outside of their extant original artwork, the only place where you can see what the “look” was made up of.

Dave Sim, on page 9 of Glamourpuss #1.

I bought it on a perverse whim — I’ve yet to read Cerebus, but I was fascinated by what his new comic-book appeared to be: A parodic serial about the world of high fashion, created by a man who is largely understood to be a disturbed misogynist.

As you might have gleaned from this quote (I wish I could have just scanned from the page, but I don’t currently own a scanner), Glamourpuss is something very different, and much more strange. It’s basically a sketchbook in which Sim either replicates drawings by his favorite photo-realist cartoonists — Al Williamson, Alex Raymond, John Prentice, Stan Drake, Neal Adams — or draws images taken from (mostly current) fashion magazines in the style. The illustrations are arranged like a typical sequential comic, and accompanied by Sim’s musings on the history of the style and its artists, and an explanation of the project. There’s definitely some fashion parody, but most of the humor is quite self-deprecating.

Glamourpuss is self-indulgent to the extreme, but the artwork is gorgeous, and Sim’s writing is very engaging if you’re the type of person who tends to be fascinated by the process of obsessive artists.

Mr. Perpetua, Saturday, 3 May 2008 23:17 (fifteen years ago) link

http://www.inkstuds.com/wp-content/scan.jpg

Jordan, Tuesday, 13 May 2008 18:40 (fifteen years ago) link

Ow my brain.

chap, Tuesday, 13 May 2008 18:51 (fifteen years ago) link

that's amazing

Oilyrags, Tuesday, 13 May 2008 18:52 (fifteen years ago) link

Lowest, most subhuman form of life, surely.

chap, Tuesday, 13 May 2008 19:10 (fifteen years ago) link

So he's not denying that he's a misogynist. He just wants you to protest the designation.

Mordy, Tuesday, 13 May 2008 19:38 (fifteen years ago) link

This guy.

Abbott, Tuesday, 13 May 2008 19:41 (fifteen years ago) link

I like the review of Glamourpuss that was all, "Why do we scream at Greg Horn for tracing, but when Dave Sim does it without even having a story attached, it's art!"

Do I mean Greg Horn? Greg Land? Something like that. The guy who traces porn, anyway.

James Morrison, Wednesday, 14 May 2008 00:50 (fifteen years ago) link

Land has more blatantly traced in the past. Greg Horn's work is just static and dull.

Matt M., Wednesday, 14 May 2008 02:58 (fifteen years ago) link

That letter is HIsterical

forksclovetofu, Thursday, 15 May 2008 21:38 (fifteen years ago) link

The man's got years of lunacy left in him yet. he should give up comics from now on and concentrate on his inimitable brand of total-immersion performance art.

chap, Thursday, 15 May 2008 21:43 (fifteen years ago) link

nine months pass...

http://gocomics.com/poochcafe/2009/03/13/

Guest appearance by Cerebus

Thrills as Cheap as Gas (Oilyrags), Friday, 13 March 2009 18:37 (fifteen years ago) link

three years pass...

crossposted from the ILE Cerebus thread --

'Cerebus' Creator Dave Sim Contemplates 'Career End Point' And Economic 'Doomsday Scenario'

How's My Modding? Call 1-800-SBU-RSELF (WmC), Saturday, 8 September 2012 03:21 (eleven years ago) link

Glamourpuss seemed interesting, but for one or two issues, not 26.

I wonder if his self-image as a Creator is going to stop him seeking illustration jobs - that would be a shame.

I'm curious about how well Judenhass sold - it seemed that if he could keep focussed then he could still put out amazing work - though obviously it was never going to be knocking anything off the top of the charts.

Andrew Farrell, Saturday, 8 September 2012 08:23 (eleven years ago) link

(D'oh I should finish the article first - 10,000 sales of Judenhass)

Andrew Farrell, Saturday, 8 September 2012 08:28 (eleven years ago) link

Glamourpuss was up and down - the Zootanapuss 'real women look like this' stuff was a weird and, dare I say it, FEMINIST diversion for Dave. The death of Alex Raymond piece has become a bizarre conspiracy theory about how it was all Stan Drake's fault because of professional jealousy. And the letters page was just crazy, you couldn't work out what was really happening and what was Dave writing to (and arguing with) himself.

I've been part of the C&S digitisation Kickstarter and Dave's been making it pretty clear there that he's DONE done with comics. The archive of updates for that is fascinating reading, Dave's being more honest about his career than he probably ever has; how he views himself as a failure and feels guilty for encouraging people into self-publishing too, because they're also doomed to failure. You also get to find out what he knows about Twitter amongst other things. Basically he used to go into a coffee shop that had free wifi and type till they threw him out.

passive-aggressive display name (aldo), Saturday, 8 September 2012 10:43 (eleven years ago) link

Not C&S, High Society.

passive-aggressive display name (aldo), Saturday, 8 September 2012 11:00 (eleven years ago) link

Reckon he could definitely make a good living if he taylored his stuff just slightly for a more mainstream audience (or any audience). Glamourpuss sounds almost supernaturally niche.

I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap), Saturday, 8 September 2012 16:09 (eleven years ago) link

The archive of updates for that is fascinating reading, Dave's being more honest about his career than he probably ever has

Yeah, the piece linked above is heartwrenchingly candid.

I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap), Saturday, 8 September 2012 16:10 (eleven years ago) link

He seems to be so clear-eyed and rational about everything except why he's radioactive. I think he could make enough to live out his days, or at least a few more years, if he would agree to a reprint deal on Cerebus with a publisher with funds. But 100% of nothing is preferable to a percentage of anything, I guess. Someday he, Ditko, Toth and Moore are going to sit around in Funnybook Heaven going "goddammit! none of them would listen!"

How's My Modding? Call 1-800-SBU-RSELF (WmC), Saturday, 8 September 2012 16:43 (eleven years ago) link

plenty of ppl listen to Moore and he's doing fine

itt: i forgot that he yells at a butt (sic), Saturday, 8 September 2012 23:23 (eleven years ago) link

unless you mean the Walking Dead guy who's suing the other Walking Dead guy

itt: i forgot that he yells at a butt (sic), Saturday, 8 September 2012 23:23 (eleven years ago) link

Bundled Update: Kim Thompson And Eric Reynolds Basically Make An Open Offer To Publish Dave Sim

Thompson can't help twisting the knife, though -- "But I think he’s too deep into his Final-Station-of-Dave-Sim-the-Martyr narrative to even consider such an idea." -- great turn of phrase, mean as hell, probably accurate, seems intended to sabotage any actual movement forward towards Fanta-published Cerebus, imo.

Irwin Dante's Towering Inferno (WmC), Tuesday, 11 September 2012 18:58 (eleven years ago) link

yeah Moore has plenty of money

Judenhaas was pretty terrible. glamourpuss seemed completely inscrutable.

stop swearing and start windmilling (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 11 September 2012 19:19 (eleven years ago) link

and yeah I'm bummed for the dude but at the same time ***MARTYR COMPLEX*** snark is totally otm

stop swearing and start windmilling (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 11 September 2012 19:19 (eleven years ago) link

Like I said, he could totally do well for himself. He's highly talented and well thought of (artistically).

I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap), Tuesday, 11 September 2012 20:02 (eleven years ago) link

I don't know, what exactly does 'more bookshop friendly than the phonebooks' actually mean? Marketed better? Does Kim think I'm going to buy it again because it's in a hardcover with a nice dustjacket? Or does it mean dropping the text parts out of Reads, the bits that criticise the Hemingways and Fitzgeralds, omit pretty much all of Latter Days? Actually further down in text Kim suggests it's making casual readers able to pick up any volume at random. Which makes me wonder whether he's actually ever read the longest single narrative in comics. Will a single introductory page really make The Last Day able to be picked up by just anyone as a standalone book, as Kim suggests?

Also I'd suggest RASL is a bad example to be holding up as a success, having scraped through the 6000 barrier just as a final issue. For comparison, Glamourpuss sold a couple of hundred more issues of #1 as they were launched in the same month and Glamourpuss ended up just under 3000 sales in the final month having published 11 more issues in the interim. Is that close enough to being a draw? Maybe.

passive-aggressive display name (aldo), Tuesday, 11 September 2012 20:13 (eleven years ago) link

He seemed more focussed in my reading of it - and doesn't he say that he's not touching the crazy stuff? - like why not put enough in there that you could start with High Society (which is still what I'd recommend), or that, if it's been a year say since the last one you bought, you don't have to reread it before picking up a new one.

Andrew Farrell, Tuesday, 11 September 2012 20:19 (eleven years ago) link

If that's what Kim means YMOF then I'm not surprised Dave turned it down if it was offered to him. He wants to pick and choose which bits of a single narrative get republished in the pursuit of cash? What defines 'crazy stuff'? How much of Mothers & Daughters? Does Melmoth still work as a Cerebus book outside of M&D or is it easier to just remove the panels Cerebus is in and print it just as a Wilde biography? Does Cerebus' confused sexuality in Guys/Rick's Story make sense without Reads? Is the Garth Innocent section (and Cerebus' breakdown) comprehensible without knowing about the Three Wise Fellows? How much of Woody Allen remains or makes sense without the exegesis? Does Kim in fact just mean he wants to reprint HS, C&S and Jaka's Story and fuck the rest?

Eric Reynolds' suggestion seems genuine, and Dave has alwyas said he wants to complete it as a book anyway so doing it there or doing it himself seems like a decidion that he'd be capable of making.

passive-aggressive display name (aldo), Tuesday, 11 September 2012 20:26 (eleven years ago) link

RASL?

stop swearing and start windmilling (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 11 September 2012 20:27 (eleven years ago) link

Does Cerebus' confused sexuality in Guys/Rick's Story make sense without Reads?

having not read Reads I'll say yes to this one

stop swearing and start windmilling (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 11 September 2012 20:28 (eleven years ago) link

Jeff Smith's post-Bone book. Launched the same month as Glamourpuss, lasts 15 issues.

passive-aggressive display name (aldo), Tuesday, 11 September 2012 20:29 (eleven years ago) link

Well these are the lines I'm mostly working from:

I’d be perfectly happy to repackage the CEREBUS material in a more bookstore-friendly format than those fucking phone books and give the material the new lease on life it (or at least the first two thirds of it) so richly deserves.

I think that by the time you get to the last third it's mostly impenetrable gibberish and the most editorially savvy attempts at presenting the material wouldn't work, but much of the rest is complex but coherent and just in need of the kind of small pre-orientation some judiciously written back cover copy, or maybe a foreword, could bring.

Rereading the first I can see that I've got him wrong - he sounds like he might be willing to publish it all, but he doesn't have any hopes for the later stuff. Which sounds fair - I'd hate to have to actually interest anyone in anything after Reads.

Andrew Farrell, Tuesday, 11 September 2012 21:15 (eleven years ago) link

Does Melmoth still work as a Cerebus book outside of M&D

The answer there is surely yes, since it has always been outside of M&D?

Andrew Farrell, Tuesday, 11 September 2012 21:17 (eleven years ago) link

seems intended to sabotage any actual movement forward towards Fanta-published Cerebus, imo.

dude was spitballing to three ppl on a comments thread, not making an actual offer to Sim or detailing one that he has previously made

Kim's absolutely right that the lack of any back-cover blurb or introductory material makes every volume enormously more impenetrable than they need to be.

and the martyr comments are likely to inflame Sim's martyr complex, but Dave has also always cited - whether proudly, thankfully, or despairingly depending on his mood at the time - Kim's 1979 review as the first critical attention ever paid Cerebus; that could count for something.

Reynolds seems an excellent editor for the completion of glamourpuss' Alex Raymond storyline.

┐(´ー`)┌ (sic), Wednesday, 12 September 2012 00:19 (eleven years ago) link

Uh, Sim clearly has some mental health issues (not to be confused with moral health issues) -- I'm not sure Thompson's jibe is appropriate, even if it seems dead on.

Chuck_Tatum, Wednesday, 12 September 2012 09:14 (eleven years ago) link

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. there's also 'political' differences between him and (the notably silent) gary groth that would make the prospect of cerebus at fantagraphics v v unlikely (tho iirc, only one of the two fanta owners/directors has to be behind a project for fanta to take it on.)

def. agree that cerebus needs a lot of contextualising for ppl who aren't marinated in comics and fantasy lore - and even groucho marx must be a pretty remote figure to large numbers of readers, today - and that's before you get into the repugnant sexual politics and general narrative collapse of the second half of the series.

wld much prefer fanta to be giving us - off the top of my head - properly translated breccia for the first time rather than yet another go-round for fucking cerebus, but (at least on ilx) i know i'm in the minority on that one.

Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 12 September 2012 09:42 (eleven years ago) link

it's fair to say his mental health issues sometimes exacerbate his separate martyr tendencies I reckon - it's the flipside of how proud he was to be on the outside of accepted opinion prior to #186 and the post-HW market collapse

┐(´ー`)┌ (sic), Wednesday, 12 September 2012 09:50 (eleven years ago) link

(tho iirc, only one of the two fanta owners/directors has to be behind a project for fanta to take it on.)

Eric R is able to bring in or initiate projects himself these days too

Groth has almost never posted on the CC-era TCJ comments threads, just like he didn't post on the 90s message board but Kim loved getting into arguments or cheerfully elucidating publishing strategy; his silence is not notable, he probably doesn't even know the original post, the discussion thread, or Thompson's idle thoughts therein exist. And back in the Spirits days Sim wrote in editorials about how he and Gary enjoyed hanging out in person together even while they were tearing strips off each other in print.

┐(´ー`)┌ (sic), Wednesday, 12 September 2012 09:58 (eleven years ago) link

dunno what Spirits is, but am happy to accept yr point.

and lol at me for thinking that the publisher of wendy whitebread might have qualms abt dave sim's female void batshittery

Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 12 September 2012 10:10 (eleven years ago) link

http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/0/4/36690-2930-41008-1-cerebus_super.jpg

year of touring and co-throwing indy cons monthly and hanging out talking in hotels afterwards bcz he didn't do coke anymore

┐(´ー`)┌ (sic), Wednesday, 12 September 2012 10:36 (eleven years ago) link

lol that's the other thing i was gonna ask - for a time, sim was making serious coin from the phonebooks etc - i remember at one 80s uk comic convention, him and gerhard shared a massive suite at the Savoy in central london, which can't have been cheap (while virtually every other convention guest made do w/ far more modest accomodation) - so did it all go up his nose, in the end?

Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 12 September 2012 10:45 (eleven years ago) link

nah: money kept flowing past the millennium, but cashflow slowed hugely as sales declined and thus more of cash-on-hand would have to be sunk into reprinting volumes, which then wouldn't pay themselves back for years; he had to pay Gerhard off when he asked to leave A-V (Ger ostensibly owned 40%; rather than actually analyse their assets, Dave said "yes" to the first figure Gerhard named and they just worked out a payment plan); and I suspect most significantly he's been tithing everything he doesn't need for groceries for many years now, instead of saving it.

┐(´ー`)┌ (sic), Wednesday, 12 September 2012 10:59 (eleven years ago) link

altho the amount of tithing may have reduced as he's been paying off Gerhard I imagine

┐(´ー`)┌ (sic), Wednesday, 12 September 2012 11:04 (eleven years ago) link

yeah he definitely seemed like he was flaunting wealth in the late 80s/early 90s, to a totally unheard of degree in the comics world iirc

stop swearing and start windmilling (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 12 September 2012 15:52 (eleven years ago) link

wrt RASL it should be noted that it's pretty unreadable and I say this as something of a jeff smith fanboy

This cad needs a cordial introduction to Eugene of Oxbow. (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 12 September 2012 20:31 (eleven years ago) link


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