HARDtalk: The Virtual Tour #28

I’ve really enjoyed your published conversations with other comics professionals (eg Alan Moore, Chester Brown, Steve Bissette etc). Is this something you would like to continue and who else would you like to converse with?

It was interesting to me as an issue of FOLLOWING CEREBUS, united by the theme of graphic novelists editing their graphic novels. That was really what interested me - the variety of different attitudes the guys had towards it and documenting that. For obvious reasons, I like things that point to there not being One Right Way to do something and exploring the different ways there are to think. I would definitely have liked to have explored it further into "WHY do you think that way?" That is, what is it about the various choices that leads you in the direction of the one that you've chosen? I think that can be helpful to a new generation of cartoonists who are being raised to believe that there's only One Right Way to think, leading them to examine the various options and reasons given and to say, This is the one that most closely matches how I look at that subject.

In terms of continuing it, well, that gets into the Dave the Pariah areas. Bill Willingham signed the petition and told me that he would like to have a discussion of religion in the form of a dialogue with me. Great! So he sent me his overture, I sent him back a response and that was it. That tends to be what happens. Several times I had to hunt Chester Brown down to finish the dialogue on LOUIS RIEL in the last few issues of CEREBUS. Having to hunt people down to do something tends to take the fun out of it, to say the least. If you DON'T want to do it, by all means, just say, "I don't want to do that." Don't tell me that you do and then become completely unavailable in mid-stream.

Kevin Eastman has signed the iPetition and I told him if I have the cash next November is the 25th anniversary of the Creator's Bill of Rights and I asked if he was interested in meeting me at the Hotel Northampton on the anniversary. We could just hang out in the lobby and talk. I was asking about Steve Bissette as well -- because there was some bad blood between them at one time. Would Kevin be okay with Steve getting invited? That would make an interesting conversation, I think, to record and preserve.

Really, I'd be very interested in talking to Kevin about as many things that have gone on in his life since back then. How did the marriage to Julie Strain come to an end? I mean, not the gory details. Or the gory details if he wants to get into it. We've had a couple of conversations on the phone and it's very nice because he's, you know, he's still Kevin. He's still a huge fan of my work and actually makes a point of talking about me in public. "Dave, your ears must have been burning during Dragoncon, because I was telling everyone what a huge influence you were on me." Why is Kevin like that and virtually no one else is? THAT would make an interesting conversation. Why does HE think it's that way? Does he have any theories?

Loren Visser at BLEEDING COOL has a question for us now. Loren?

Mr. Sim, we know you're a fan of Al Williamson and Mort Drucker, but what are your feelings about the work of some of the other EC artists, specifically Jack Davis, Johnny Craig and apparently nobody's favorite but mine, Jack Kamen? Thank you. 

Hit the to BLEEDING COOL for the anwer to that question... and I'll be back on Monday for more HARDtalk.