HARDtalk: The Dave Sim Interview (23a)

Can we expect to see more Dave Sim collaborative work in future? 

The situation with Richard Starkings was an unusual confluence of events: I happened to be grafting John Scrudder's interview with him onto that episode of CEREBUS TV where he said "I'd LOVE to have Dave do an ELEPHANTMEN cover" so I called him to see if he was still interested. And then when I had it done, I thought I'd pitch him on two more covers and three more back-up stories done JUDENHASS style from each piece. Hey, why not? He was surprised that I was back, like, two weeks later with the finished work. When I say I'm going to do something, I do it.

Judenhass by Dave Sim (2008)
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As I say, most people think I'm Cerebus.  Who wants to work with someone who's just going to bite your head off? So, that perception has to be gotten around.  And probably can't be.  In comics, once you're carved in stone, you're carved in stone.  I know that, probably, better than most.  And it has to be someone who agrees that I can reproduce my own work, which I knew wasn't an issue with Rich (I mean, the episode of CEREBUS TV was all about how influential the Creator's Bill of Rights was for him back in the late 80s).  I'm not going to rush it into a DAVE SIM ART BOOK right away, any more than I did with TURTLES No.8 and SPAWN No.10 -- but maybe a couple of years down the line, you know, "Here's what my original story looked like".

I don't know how Marvel is, but for DC that's a deal-breaker on their work-made-for-hire titles.  So, "probably not Marvel", "pretty definitely not DC" but maybe anyone else who is a little bit flexible and thinks I can produce a viable raw material for them.  Oh, and they can't think that you can't be found because you don't have an e-mail address. 519-576-0610.  It's called a "telephone".  Or 519-576-0955.  It's called a "fax machine".

Actually, the collaboration with Rich came about because of my collaborations with micro-mini-comic creator Brian John Mitchell of Silber Media of North Carolina. I'll talk a bit more about that tomorrow.

TOMORROW: How ULTIMATE LOST KISSES No.11 led to Dave Sim's ELEPHANTMEN stories.