How open are you to criticism of your completed work and, in your mind, does it differ from editorial interference of a kind?
Hi, Dave! I would guess that I'm probably more open to criticism than most people are just because I've gotten so much more of it than most people do. I can't say that I've ever received a criticism of completed work -- and I'm assuming you mean completed work in general, not just CEREBUS -- that I hadn't already considered myself. Any comics work and its component parts are pretty intricate compared to most artistic expressions. While you're working on it you have to always be looking at it with fresh eyes as if seeing it for the first time. The balloons have to read in the right order. The phrasing in the word balloons has to be specific enough to not allow for any other interpretation than the one you intend. You have to watch for unfortunate juxtapositions. I remember showing a comic page to Mike Kaluta when I was 17 and it was of a guy in a sleeping bag with a campfire in the background. And Mike pointed at it and said "You have to watch that -- it looks as if his crotch is on fire." Which, as soon as he said it, WOW yes it did. Big learning moment. You have to do that for yourself because Mike Kaluta doesn't live at your house.
I also respect people's right to vent. There are a lot of people who have a "mad-on" that's not going to go away because I didn't keep doing HIGH SOCIETY for 26 years. Of course, there are people who have a "mad-on" that I didn't keep doing CEREBUS #1-20 for 26 years. If you take money for what you're doing you owe it to unhappy customers to sit there and take it. I think you do, anyway. I just got a letter from a retailer who was basically venting at me. But he did say -- in the course of telling me to do great comics instead of lousy comics -- that he considered the "Five Bar Gate" issue of CEREBUS a great comic. That's way, way, way further along in the run -- issue 267 -- than ANYone has had anything good to say about in recent memory. So, okay, if you're patient for eight years -- as I think I've been -- the impossible becomes the unlikely and then actually happens. Thanks for your question.
Okay, we sending everybody over to BLEEDING COOL, the first major news site to sign on with us. And we have a question from Daucuscarota:
The 80s are long gone now. The eighties were the years of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Stephen Bissette, Rick Veitch... what are your fondest memories of them (the 80s and these guys)? Do you still talk to them?
Head on over to BLEEDING COOL (and scroll down to post #17) right now and see if I'm longing for the 80s to return... and be back here tomorrow at A Moment Of Cerebus for more HARDtalk questions and answers.
HAVE YOU GOT A QUESTION FOR DAVE SIM?
Already signed up for the HARDtalk Virtual Tour are Bleeding Cool, Millar World, Terminal Drift, Canadian Comics Archive, The Comics Journal, The Beat and Mindless Ones. Add your question for Dave Sim at one of these fine websites before 10 October and if your question is chosen (they'll need to be tough, interesting questions!) you'll receive a personalised, autographed copy of a Cerebus back-issue, with a Cerebus head-sketch by Dave Sim!
Already signed up for the HARDtalk Virtual Tour are Bleeding Cool, Millar World, Terminal Drift, Canadian Comics Archive, The Comics Journal, The Beat and Mindless Ones. Add your question for Dave Sim at one of these fine websites before 10 October and if your question is chosen (they'll need to be tough, interesting questions!) you'll receive a personalised, autographed copy of a Cerebus back-issue, with a Cerebus head-sketch by Dave Sim!
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