DAVE SIM:
Just a quick note that I promised to address Erick on the 15 IMPOSSIBLE THINGS because he actually posted -- according to Tim W, the first one to ever do so -- his 15 replies.
This isn't MY website. It's Tim W's. If he wants to do this again: post Barry Deutsch's 15 RESPONSES and then Damian's 15 RESPONSES and have me reply to them -- and anyone else who wants to post 15 RESPONSES, I have no problem with that. But, at some point I think he should change the name of the site to A MOMENT OF FEMINISM.
Just saying.
12 comments:
Ha!
Although to be accurate, it would have to be "An Hour of Feminism." Or maybe just, "How Much Time You Got?"
It has been a talking point that no one addresses the 15 Things. Is it now a problem when someone does so?
Just a quick note to say that there seems to be no point in replying to Dave's responses, as he has said he won't consider any comments made here.
I will say that his posting so far continues to represent the standard of "thinking" that I have come to expect from Dave: anecdotal evidence (which he denies everyone else), illogic (which he doesn't see), prejudice (which he doesn't admit), made-up figures (watch those goalposts go zooming past when he's called on it), unquestioned Conservative Theocracy orthodoxy, irrelevancies, mockery, overuse of "quotation marks" and CAPITAL LETTERS, conspiracy-mongering, self-righteousness, and self-pity.
Ironically, Dave Sim is the worst thing ever to happen to Cerebus.
-- Damian
Damian, I could engage at length and, since Tim gave up the ghost and there are no more rules here (more's the pity), I could engage in another flame war with you.
But.
Dave created Cerebus. You are (sorry) an idiot to say that he is/was the worst thing ever to happen to Cerebus.
Damian?
Please.
Take your vitriol somewhere else, where it might have some positive effect (although that idea is, perhaps, overly optimistic).
You say you have an essay in the making about Mr. Sim being detrimental to the legacy of Cerebus. I think I know where you're going with that:
Dave turned a 180° skid and said that he was no longer amongst nor agreeing with the Feminists; nor, for that matter, the Marxists, in Canada.
How that must hurt you.
I mean, damage you.
But, he learned, belatedly, that the Right side; the Conservative side; the side that says, "THINK", first, is the side that will always win out.
Donald Trump notwithstanding.
Oh, SORRY!
I meant to put a smiley-face emoticon after the line about our next president.
God forbid he should be so elected.
Disco balls, hookers, and roulette tables in the parlour!
How much fun will the next 8 years be?
Sigh. Why's it gotta be flame wars, Jeff?
I think, Jeff, that Damian has a point when he says that Dave is the worst thing to happen to Cerebus. Obviously, he's also the best, but I think that there are plenty of people who would read and enjoy Cerebus (from the early years through the end, and might even find they enjoy the end more than they think), but because of what they've read about Dave's views, they find the book so abhorrent (in their minds) they won't even try it. Prejudicial? Of course. But you can find enough quotes of Dave's, not taken out of context, to show that his viewpoint is not one that...well, let's be generous and say it's not one shared by most liberals.
More's the pity for them, certainly, for not trying the book anyway.
But it's as much that Dave has his hammer and everything is a nail. For example, the Larry Marder piece excerpted here a month ago now talked very interestingly about Marder and self-publishing and the Creator's Bill of Rights, and then suddenly veers into :
"Self-publishing a behind-the-scenes book in violation of your Dark Horse contract JUST so you can call yourself a self-publisher seems... odd... to me. I don't think it benefits self-publishing because it creates a smokescreen which hides ACTUAL self-publishers behind semi- and demi- self-publishers. But I think that's the UNCONSCIOUS impulse behind it: the last thing the Feminist Theocracy wants is AUTONOMOUS MEN freely expressing creative political entertainment independent of the levers of feminist control: pressure on advertisers; pressure from editors and publishing executives; pressure from licensors."
The "skewering" of the Feminist Theocracy (if we capitalize it it is definitely true!) did not follow from the previous section of text.
And now this passive aggressive "this isn't my website, even though it's the only place I'm in contact with my fans online, and I keep asking for 15 years for a rebuttal to the Impossible Things and finally I've gotten ONE but oh my dear, I must be taking over Tim's website with all this anti-Feminism talk, y'all really should stop me before I get the vapors!" post tries to make it sound like Dave isn't the one that makes anti-Feminism his main theme in his creative life.
(And yes, I'll admit to being over the top there. I'm hoping that I can make everyone laugh even as I am trying to make a point here. Somewhere, I swear there's a point!)
To echo Damian with an example, the reply to #1 a day or two back is filled with anecdotes -- Dave's mom was not a full time homemaker, and it wasn't a great life, but the moms of some friends were, and so are the Kitchens, and they're all good people, so full time homemaker = good.
Let's try this Impossible Thing to Believe:
It makes rational sense to consign a gender, that makes up half the species, and that's perfectly capable of rational thought, to being only homemakers and mothers solely because they are the only gender that has the biological equipment to give birth.
Years ago I wrote a response to the 15 Things that I later adapted into a chapter in my first novel: http://1oct1993.com/gendersmurf.txt
It's framed as fiction, but, I think, still applies.
Oh, Damian...if only you could post without leaping into the temptative pit of baiting Jeff. Worst thing...Jesus, man.
I think Aardvark-Vanaheim could do better for Cerebus by making the writer/artist of Cerebus more actively promote. Dave's self-imposed exile from more direct promotion (so far as I am aware there is not petition against Dave's public interaction nor a universally issued restraining order or house arrest, so it is self-imposed regardless of how Dave/Sandeep/Jeff might wish to believe).
Now, Dave might be correct in market disinterest (referencing the Patreon articles and 1990s tour planning/stories), but it is pretty much hypothesis without actually experience. It is pretty much guaranteed without Dave's promotion, generating interest is VERY difficult. Because, new fans really could care less what Bill Ritter, Sandeep, Jeff Seiler, AMOC or other non-Dave Sim entities believe.
As far as promotion that is done: it is not sufficient to compel new interest.
I'd love to be wrong. I do not think I am.
For the record, Bill, I have always thought that Dave's "exile" was and is self-imposed. But, if you look at the record, or Dave's reports on the results, pretty much all of his attempts at promotion for Cerebus (at least, since his major tours) have been futile. To paraphrase him, Cerebus has always been a book that will sell X number of copies, whether he promotes it or not.
Personally, I think the remastering is the single best promotion he can do, at this point.
It could be Moments of Cerebus...
Gerhard is keeping things in the contemporary public eye at his many convention appearances...
Yes, Cerebus TV, you're correct. What Gerhard (Ger) is doing is drawing "Gerebus", with Dave's tacit approval. I have a 1 of 1 pencilled and inked drawing (signed and numbered by Ger) of Gerebus as the Prime Minister, that Ger drew on a lark at last summer's Wizard World Con in St. Louis. I convinced him to sell it to me, though he was reluctant.
So, yeah, cheers to Ger for keeping the word out there.
And, please, people, go see him at the cons and buy lotsa prints.
Jeff, we may not agree often, but I'm completely with you that "the remastering is the single best promotion he can do". Damn, those volumes look good! Aspects of the artwork that we never saw before leap from the pages.
-- Damian
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