Monday, 8 October 2012

Heidi MacDonald's Reassessment

Following her recent summary of the Fantagraphics / Dave Sim negotiations, Heidi MacDonald offered this final thought at The Beat yesterday...

HEIDI MacDONALD (THE BEAT):
...While digging around over the last few days, I’ve been reminded just how amazing a cartoonist Dave Sim at his height was. Perhaps no one but Chris Ware has had such a far reaching grasp of how the physical act of reading a comic can be manipulated through time and imagery to create powerful storytelling effects. 

BTW, if you’re CEREBUS-curious but worried about all the weird, hateful stuff, the first 200 issues of CEREBUS contain so much humanity and subtlety in ALL the characters that you can read them in confidence. 

PS: looks like the end result of all this is that Sim’s work is going to be reassessed, which it deserves to be.

6 comments:

Eric Hoffman said...

It already has been reassessed: a full-length critical book was published earlier this year! CEREBUS THE BARBARIAN MESSIAH available at amazon or your local brick n' mortar!

Adam Ell said...

Can someone point me towards the "weird, hateful stuff" please? All these years and I still don't know what's(supposed to be so) wrong.

Tony Dunlop said...

Well, Adam, Issue 186 was "brutal," by Viktor Davis' (Dave's) own admission.

Slumbering Agartha said...

As far as Cerebus being re-assessed goes... what better place to start than October 10th, with the first issue of HIGH SOCIETY? And it's FREE!

I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve... can't wait til tomorrow!!!! Woohoooo!

M Kitchen said...

Adam: The fruitcake park stuff was hateful... if you are a fruitcake... and live in a park... I guess???

Alek Trencz said...

Adam, there was this essay published in issue 265:
http://www.theabsolute.net/misogyny/tangents.html
I think that's where some of the more "notorious" statements can be found regarding women.

Regarding the first 100-200 issues, I don't think that their can be much doubt that the level of praise directed at the craftsmanship on display there is absolutely justified. I don't know if reassessment is even necessary; I've never heard or read a bad word about the artwork or the plotting of the stories that really carried any weight. The ethics around gender issueslater on, well, most artist who give that much dedication to their work can be expected to lose touch with the outside world to some extent. Look at Steve Ditko, no-one's besmirching his achievements just because his heart went dark.