Alexa & Dave

(A transcript of a segment from Cerebus TV, Season 3 Episode 4, 25 November 2011)

DAVE SIM [voice-over]:

She’s like the dream grand-child that I thought I’d never have... now that I’m at the age to have a grand-daughter the age of Alexa. Huge Glamourpuss fan... and never read Cerebus The Aardvark. As far as I was concerned, our discussions were just getting really interesting when she interviewed me in Toronto in July...

ALEXA TOMASZEWSKI:

So I read a book [Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women & The Rise Of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy] on a similar topic and essentially it was about how women like to act like men and throttle up on power to further themselves in their careers or just through everyday life, not necessarily taking the marriage route, but making something of themselves. And at the end of the book, the conclusion talked a lot about how women are not necessarily mirroring men in their actions to become powerful and move forward in their career, but actually modelling themselves after strippers and hookers and women who have been sexually abused or have had some kind of sexually dramatic experience... and so they were essentially saying, this writer, that women are modelling themselves, ourselves, after a generation of women who are sex workers.

DAVE SIM [voice over]:

..."Wow!" I thought. I couldn’t have believed that I would live long enough... that I would see the day when a young woman would be willing to listen to that, let alone discuss it with a man, let alone come up with it on her own. Certainly no woman I could think of in my generation, certainly no woman I could think of in my mother’s generation...

In my view, Alexa had definitely come half way, in fact far more than half way in the battle of the sexes (on the losing end of which I had been since I was 14 years old). She was the only female journalist to have taken even a remote interest in Glamourpuss in the three years that the book had existed. If I wasn’t going to meet Alexa half-way, who was I going to meet half-way? And if I wasn’t going to do it at the age of 55, just shy of becoming a senior citizen, when was I going to do it?

So I basically made a deal with this girl-woman, women-girl, my grand-daughters age... I’d help her with copy editing and help her put together an article on Glamourpuss she could (talk about a Hail Mary pass) try flogging to various fashion magazines. She could submit the article and just by-the-way just mention the [Alexa & Dave] blogspot which would hopefully increase her slim chances of making a sale. “Anything you want to include from Alexa & Dave, Ms Fashion Magazine Editor, hey, go nuts.” See, and I can just tell you all this because one thing that’s completely certain, no fashion magazine editor worth her salt would be caught dead watching an internet television show about comic books. So hopefully by the time you’re watching this at the end of November there’ll be something up there to read. I don’t know how often it’ll get updated. You can see, Alexa’s pretty busy, and I’m pretty busy, but I think it might turn out to be a pretty interesting discussion.

The Alexa & Dave Blogspot has been online since 30 October 2011. Alexa's Glamourpuss interview with Dave on is available to read online at Comic Book Daily. Back issues of Glamourpuss are always available from ComiXpress.