(from The Second Coming Of Dave Sim? by Geoffrey D Wessel, Comics Bulletin, 13 October 2012)
...So maybe Dave Sim WAS at the end of his rope when he ended glamourpuss, and announced The Strange Death of Alex Raymond. Maybe Judenhass
didn’t exactly set the graphic novel world on fire. Maybe Sim has some
repulsive negative views of the world and the people who live in it.
None of which belies that Sim is still fully capable of producing
beautifully drawn, thought provoking work.
Maybe
this is the perfect time for Dave Sim to change his mind about his
endgame. He's already admitted that the Kickstarter money for High Society Digital would help keep him in, for a little while. I’m sure IDW's contribution and assistance will extend that even more.
And maybe, just maybe, we can all take the time to properly reassess Sim, Cerebus, Judenhass, and glamourpuss, for the works, and for the art. Warts and all. Just in time for The Strange Death of Alex Raymond, at that.
Because
in the end, as much as Dave Sim makes us scratch our heads sometimes
with his comments, comics in general would be much, much poorer without
his contributions to the artform.
11 comments:
What I particularly despise about all comicbook manchild online writers is the constant use of the royal "we".
What the crikeyf_ck makes them think they're speaking for a majority of ANYONE given their incessant apologiae for disney and warner and their equally unending hostility to any nonconformist, especially those of genius level talent like Dave Sim?
Do they ever stop to look at the actually truly repulsive belief systems of people like Alan Moore and Grant Morrison? Both of whom are self espousing (and delusional) black magicians?
If one creator's fair game, all creators are fair game. But better, no creator should be fair game. It's just not relevant to the work on the page. One can guess at what's behind some work, but so what?
This is very much in the "Herge was a Nazi" vein of 12 year old level critique.
"...the actually truly repulsive belief systems of people like Alan Moore and Grant Morrison? Both of whom are self espousing (and delusional) black magicians?"
"This is very much in the "Herge was a Nazi" vein of 12 year old level critique."
Indeed.
Hi there.
> What I particularly despise about all comicbook manchild online writers is the constant use of the royal "we".
Just to make sure, I went over my original draft of my article, and the word "we" was not only used once, but used in the correct way ("We can all"). There's a whole shitton of "I" in there however, making it pretty clear this is my view, which takes the tack of "Hey, let's take another look at this guy who wrote what used to be my favorite monthly comic book."
> Do they ever stop to look at the actually truly repulsive belief systems of people like Alan Moore and Grant Morrison? Both of whom are self espousing (and delusional) black magicians?
Write an article, and submit. My article had naught to do with Sim's belief system beyond a couple comments. It had everything to do with his apparent need to self-destruct his cartooning career no matter what, and hey, how that might have just been averted.
> If one creator's fair game, all creators are fair game. But better, no creator should be fair game. It's just not relevant to the work on the page. One can guess at what's behind some work, but so what?
So nobody analyze what might be behind a work, especially when the tone of it changes, say, 2/3 of the way through, to fit the author's new(ish) belief system. OK, gotcha.
> This is very much in the "Herge was a Nazi" vein of 12 year old level critique.
OK. Thanks for reading!
See, that's exactly the opposite of a point I was trying to make: I don't think Dave IS a one-trick pony. He CAN create great works, still, today, and I look forward to them for years to come. CEREBUS may be the thing he's KNOWN for, but that doesn't preclude STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND or anything yet to come!
Whenever I see someone writing about Dave, and they bring up Tangent I just see it as lazy.
The one thing I took away from the article is... yet ANOTHER person who started reading High Society at age 13. I've heard this so many times now that I'm starting to think there should be a discussion about just THAT subject. What other parallels and patterns might be unearthed?
Why was my comment deleted? Do the Cirinists run this blog?
See the 'Comments' policy on the About page.
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