Dave Sim Conversations is published by University Press of Mississippi and available now from Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk. Edited by Eric Hoffman and Dominick Grace, Dave Sim Conversations is a collection of interviews spanning 1982 to 2006. A complete list of the interviews included in the book can be found here. Eric and Dominick kindly forwarded the following Q&A they pre-prepared for UPM's publicity department.
What drew you to Dave Sim's work?
Dominick
Grace:
Several things drew me to it. One is that, as a Canadian, I tend
to want to check out work by Canadian talents, so Cerebus automatically was something I needed to try out, once I heard of it. I first heard of it in The Buyer's Guide for Comics Fandom (later renamed The Comics Buyers' Guide), which gave glowing reviews to early issues and, more importantly, ran the one-page Prince Valiant
parody strips Sim did early on as a promotional tool. As a Hal Foster
fan (Foster was another Canadian, incidentally), I was predisposed to
like this strip, and Sim did a great job of affectionately skewering
that classic strip. It was a short step from there to Swords of Cerebus
volume one--another attractor was that Sim made the early issues
available in such an inexpensive and accessible format--and the current
issues of the comic; I got the first Swords volume and issues
13-17 (the then-current issue) all around the same time and was quickly
won over mainly by Sim's humour and deadly parodic skills.
Eric Hoffman:
When I began reading Cerebus I
was still quite young, 13 or so, and was mainly interested in superhero
comics, notably Alan Moore, John Totleben and Stephen R. Bissette's Swamp Thing. An employee of the comic shop I frequented showed me an issue of Cerebus that included a Swamp Thing parody
and I was immediately struck not only by the clever dialogue but also
the overall weirdness of the work (in that issue, the character Cerebus,
an anthropomorphic aardvark, is perched atop a floating mountain made
almost entirely of carved faces spinning through space on some unknown
trajectory while engaging in a conversation with a three-headed
monstrosity composed of equal parts wizard, Swamp Thing and Marvel's
Swamp Thing-esque Man-Thing). Also of note was the cover design, a
simple photographic image of a moon, and the interior artwork,
particularly the detailed line work of Sim's collaborator, Gerhard. It
was quite unlike anything else I had seen - and this sometime after the
height of the black and white comics explosion of the mid-1980s.
What makes Cerebus stand apart from other comic book works?
Dominick:
Several things make Cerebus
stand apart. One of the most significant is its scope. Sim was way
ahead of the curve on using comics to develop long, complex narratives
that stood up well to (indeed, really demanded) rereading when major
arcs were completed. Another, and perhaps the most significant one, is
its graphic innovations. There are few cartoonists with so complete a
command of the panel, the page, the sequence, the long narrative in
comics form--even of often invisible elements of cartooning such as
lettering. When Sim hit his stride, almost every issue of Cerebus
was not only hugely entertaining but also a master class in how to do
innovative, medium-expanding comics. Gerhard's contribution to this
aspect of the book cannot be overestimated, by the way; his
sophisticated command of spatial relations and masterly draughtsmanship
ground the funny animal protagonist in a fully realized world.
Eric:
When I first read Cerebus, I
became thoroughly addicted, as the work came out in mostly monthly doses
with little to no break in continuity (moreover, the 100 or so issues
that came out before I started reading it were available in collected
format and in bi-weekly reprints). I continued to read Cerebus
for several years until my interest in comics waned. When I came back to
the comic some ten years later, the first thing that jumped out at me was how Sim and
Gerhard's work had progressed, in particular Sim's skill as writer,
letterer and caricaturist and Gerhard's layouts and detailed line work.
Going back and reading the material I had missed - some one hundred
issues - was absolutely enthralling and engrossing. I can't say that any
other comic, which if it does last for any length of time regularly
changes creative teams and dispenses with continuity whenever possible,
provides a reader with a similar experience.
Where should readers new to Dave Sim's work begin their explorations?
Eric:
Personally, I think it's always best to begin at the beginning, with the first Cerebus volume. It generally gets short shrift among fans, and it has been customary for readers new to Cerebus to pick up the second volume, High Society.
I've never understood this. For one, the first volume does contain what
is now called "The Palnu Trilogy" which must be read first in order for
High Society to make perfect sense. Also, the work does
marvellously display Sim's stunningly vast improvement in skill as artist
and writer (it covers just over three years' worth of work) and there
are a number of plot points and characters introduced in this work that
are crucial later in the series. Finally, the comic is a painfully
amusing send-up of popular 1970s comic books, most notably Conan the Barbarian and Howard the Duck. Like much of Cerebus, it helps if you are familiar with what he is lampooning, but, like Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, is not necessary to enjoy the work.
Dominick:
Actually, I would recommend starting with High Society.
It does suffer a bit from plot points carried over from the first
volume, but not so much that it should really impede reading, and its
general level of accomplishment is much higher. Besides, now is a good
time to be getting it, what with IDW contracting with Sim to release a
digital version including lots of extras.
Did you have to work much with Dave Sim on this project, and if so, how did he contribute?
Eric:
This collection developed organically out of the collection of essays I'd edited,
Cerebus the Barbarian Messiah: Essays on the Epic Graphic Satire of Dave Sim and Gerhard.
I'd originally contacted Sim to obtain rights for reprints for that
book and he was quite willing to grant them, which is to be expected
considering his view that anyone engaged in what can be considered a
new, creative work does not require his direct permission. But I got it
anyway (other publishers have different views than Sim). I'd long
admired University Press of Mississippi's
Conversations with Comics Artists series and wanted to build on the
Barbarian Messiah book
with a collection of interviews. Again, Sim was quite straightforward
in granting rights to reprint images and so forth, but that was about
the extent of his involvement in either of these books.
How did you go about selecting images to accompany the interview selections?
Eric:
Well, there were two ways, actually. Many of these interviews, notably
the Spurgeon and Bernstein, were published with a number of images with
reference to the topics being discussed. We decided to forgo many of
these illustrations and to provide our own selections, in part to assert
this book's autonomy and position as a largely new work despite nearly
all of the content being otherwise previously available in some form or
another (though most of it out of print). Primarily, we followed suit by
choosing images we felt best illustrated a certain topic or theme being
addressed in the interview. In some cases, we chose images simply
because we had a particular preference for them; for example, Dominick
was quite adamant that we include images of Mick and Keef, Sim's
caricatures of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
Dominick:
I'd just add that, without trying to be
programmatic about it, we tried to ensure that we produced images from
across the run of the series, so that readers get to see samples of Sim
and Gerhard's work from early on, from the middle of the run, and from
late in the run. We ended up including images from most if not all of
the individual collections.
Were there any interviews you wanted to include but could not?
Dominick:
One that leaps to mind is an early interview conducted for
The Comics Journal, by Kim
Thompson. It's a great, wide-ranging one, but also massive (as many Sim
interviews are) and would have taken up a huge chunk of the available
space. As it is, since interviews with Dave Sim do tend to be expansive,
this book has fewer selections than some others in the
Conversations series,
so to include the Thompson one, we'd probably have had to cut two or
three others. We opted instead to include only one, later C
omics Journal interview, conducted by Tom Spurgeon shortly after the appearance of issue 186 of
Cerebus and ranging extensively over Sim's career and grappling with his ideas. (
The Comics Journal
is, of course, one of the most consistent sources of insightful,
expansive interviews with comics figures--perhaps the most consistent
source--so it needed to be represented in our collection.)
Eric:
I for one would have liked to include some later interviews dealing with Sim's post-
Cerebus work (notably
Judenhass and
glamourpuss) but as Dom says space was a concern and also the interviews included seem to have
Cerebus as
a natural focus, it being Sim's only major work and the bulk of his
professional output to date. To include some of the later interviews,
however fascinating, would have seemed a bit tacked on.
Why is a collection of Sim's interviews necessary?
Dominick:
A collection of interviews is necessary, I think, because, like old
floppies, these original records also often tended to disappear quickly
into back issue bins, or oblivion. Comics and comics-related materials
are often ephemeral. Many of the interviews we've included are
inaccessible, or very hard to find, even for studious collectors--and
even in these days of eBay. In a few cases (e.g. the Sandeep Atwal
interview) the only reason we were able to include a piece at all is
that we happened to have copies in our own collections, and in other
cases, we had to rely on the great Margaret Liss, who probably has more
Sim-related material than anyone else (visit her website at
www.cerebusfangirl.com).
And it's important, even essential, to look at these records because
they present Sim in his own words. Given the controversies that dogged
the latter years of his career, I think it's important to get back to
his own explanations of his work and his ideas, rather than relying
solely on what others have to say about him--which is often, to be
frank, unfair to the work and to the man.
In what way has Sim's work changed the industry or the art form?
Dominick:
Sim made the graphic novel, as opposed to the floppy, the format of choice for comics, I'd argue. Pre-
Cerebus,
comics reprints were rare, and even rarer in book form--especially of
new material,which in most instances was consigned to back issue bins
within months (even weeks) of first appearing and had to be sought out
and paid for through the nose, if you weren't lucky enough to be in on
something when it started. I doubt we'd have the plethora of long
serials designed to have clear endings, or the increasing number of
original works produced at novel length, today without Sim's example.
Eric:
I'd add that without Sim's example
such creators such as Frank Miller and Alan Moore would likely have
continued working for the major publishers for a longer period of time
and such works as From Hell and Sin City might have
appeared in considerably different form. Creator's rights would have
been a more marginalized concern in the comics industry during the 1980s
without Sim's presence as a viable self-publisher/alternative. I'd say
in part because of the example of Cerebus (there was also DC's
well-publicized lawsuits over creative ownership of Superman, Jack
Kirby's struggle to recover his original artwork from Marvel and Steve
Gerber's lawsuit with Marvel over ownership of his character Howard the
Duck), both DC and Marvel began to take creator's rights more
seriously and to reconsider their very unfair and outdated contractual
terms concerning restitution for creators - allowing creators to retain
their rights, paying percentages as opposed to per-page pay rates, and
so on.
What position do you believe Dave Sim occupies in
the comic industry today? Ultimately, what sort of legacy do you
believe Sim has contributed to the comics field?
Dominick:
I think that the controversial nature of what Sim has had to say about
feminism and to a lesser extent about religion has unfortunately
marginalized him, at least to some extent. That said, many comics
luminaries, both long-standing and more recently emerging, have
acknowledged Sim's mastery of the medium (even when they object to Sim's
ideology). He is recognized as a master of the comics form, though his
influence is probably not as obvious as is that of some other comics
masters. Certainly, one does not tend to see many Sim clones or
imitators, as one has seen over the years with other figures, such as
Neal Adams, Kirby, Eisner, and so on. Sim's more sui generis--a unique
figure like Ditko, or Gene Colan--instantly recognizable, hard to
imitate, but definitely foundational. In some ways, it's hard to imagine
a figure more different from Sim than Chris Ware, for instance, but
when I read Ware, I can't help thinking that his innovations with layout
and format would have been unlikely without a precursor like Sim.
Eric:
I've already mentioned Sim's impact on
creator's rights and certainly that has had a major impact not only on
how comics creators publish and market their work but also on what kind
of work creators choose to publish. Cerebus is a long-form work ne plus ultra - there is literally nothing else like it in the discrete, monthly comic format (the closest form that comes to it is manga - a form with which Sim said he has little familiarity - and yet manga is designed to be read quickly and involves a more cinematic structure than its Western counterparts, most notably Cerebus which, with its many text interpolations, is a decidedly literary comic book). Anything exceeding Cerebus' length
is necessarily compromised by a variety of factors and always to the
detriment of its tone, narrative structure and stability and even
comprehension. As Dom notes, the medium has somewhat regrettably
shifted away from monthly comics as a viable publishing option for many
creators and publishers - the budgets are too tight and the work loads
too demanding - in favor of graphic novels or longer collected works
(and monthly comics are almost always written with an inevitable
paperback collection of 6 or 10 issues in mind), so it is my feeling
that, at least for the time being, Cerebus will remain an entirely unique work for its medium.
© University Press of Mississippi. Used with permission.
