Aardvark Comment: Is The Petition Helping?

Back in 2008 Dave Sim started the "I don't believe Dave Sim is a misogynist" petition and began issuing the form-letter below to any correspondence he received. However, in a recent weekly update Dave Sim stated:

"Six years with the petition, six hundred signatures on it, no signature from any major creator still working in the comic book field, except for Kevin Eastman, Steve Bissette, Troy Little and a handful of other people. Picture virtually any big name in the comic book field and their name is not on the petition."

Even among Dave's supporters the petition isn't a straight forward proposition, as Iestyn recently commented on AMOC:

"I won't sign the petition even though I believe Dave is not a misogynist because I believe the thing to be a straw man argument in the first place. I believe that maintaining it, reinforces the very thing it supposedly exists to deny."

To detractors, the petition is just further evidence of Dave Sim's erratic behaviour, and as comics-writer Ed Brubaker mentioned this back in 2012 on that tortuous 'Sim/Fantagraphics Negotiations' thread at TCJ.com:

"I’ve been in comics about 20 years, and I didn’t even know Dave Sim had a petition he was demanding people sign. So I don’t see how the number of signatures he’s gathered is an indication of anything."

A recent exchange on the Cerebus Facebook Group highlighted the problems with how the petition is perceived:

SANDEEP ATWAL:

...if Dave IS going to give you even more of his time for free, all he asks is that you state publicly that you don't think he's scum. Considering how many people do think he's scum (and take a look at Twitter anytime if you doubt it), that doesn't seem too much to ask...

CHRISTOPHER WOERNER:

...If there's a "problem," I think it's the petition, and Dave's insistence upon it. No one who would agree with Dave will sign the petition because it's a stupid idea, and few people who might agree with Dave will even be inclined to inquire whether or not he's a misogynist, because who wants to deal with someone who makes you sign a petition before he'll deal with you? I was one of the first people to sign the petition because he's not a misogynist, duh. But all that gets me is a ticket into Dave's world. All insisting on the petition does is deny Dave a ticket into anybody else's world, which he's going to need if his work will remain viable in the short-term.

The short-term is an important point. It's how Dave gets paid, and Ger, and everyone else. Does no good to focus on the long-term if everybody starves to death before we get there. I freely admit that I don't have a good answer to how Dave can get through this, and I don't pretend that any of my advice would work, and not leave him in a horrible ghostly form swearing revenge upon me in the classic superhero mode. And I can't even say 'get rid of the petition' because it's worked for him the same way everything else has. I think it's a bad idea, but it's his bad idea and doesn't harm anyone else. [Which actually places it higher than a lot of other bad ideas in history.]

The world that exiled him is not remotely the world which exists now. I don't know if that helps, but I do think he's hurting himself with the petition.

SA: I appreciate your comments. I think I know what you're saying. But honestly, as far as the petition goes, I don't think it makes much of a difference. Sign the petition: Okay, thanks! Don't sign the petition: Okay, no hard feelings! And that's pretty much about it. It's not like if Dave got rid of the petition there would all of a sudden be this massive influx of interest, acclaim and money coming his way. I honestly don't know if anybody would even notice. So I think it's just a real-world way of not doing free work for people trying to slander him, as many have done and are doing...

...I certainly don't see a massive explosion in attention and acclaim for Dave Sim happening anytime soon, as much as I think he deserves it. More like slow and steady wins the race, continue to build a group of dedicated fans who are the hardcores who support the art and the artist and are the ones who keep the work alive for the next generation. That's just the way I see these sorts of things playing out in general. If you want to be romantic about it, just remember Oscar Wilde died in complete disgrace, in debt, and in exile; William Blake had about 4 people at his funeral; nobody cared who Edgar Allan Poe was; Van Gogh lived a life of poverty and then shot himself, and it took about 200 years of obscurity before Vermeer was recognized as one of history's greatest painters. But everyone loves them now. So there's always that. 

CW: "Slow and steady wins the race" is a good way to put it, and it's exactly where Dave has proven himself. And you're right, there would not be an influx of interest if he ditched the petition. And I can understand why he thought the petition was a good idea. He worked himself up from a fanboy in the 1970s writing articles and doing interviews into the legendary comics creator that he is. And if he is exiled from the world that he helped build, he has every right to demand that anyone he deals with sign a petition before he wastes a single second on them.

I just don't see him making any progress, even among the people who are most receptive to his work, if he insists on a decades-old petition being signed before he'll even consider responding. It's a needless impediment, and we're in an internet world. Needless impediments are the first things to make you go 'screw this.' Not the best way to approach people who could be receptive towards your work. 

SA: I appreciate the input. I certainly don't speak for Dave (he does that for himself, if you've noticed!) but I would say.... it's a needed impediment. Believe me, I don't think Dave takes these things lightly at all and has fully considered how it would affect his career, etc. But, again (this is me) I think that after 20 years of slander he decided to do something about it. Anyway, it's really not THAT much of an impediment, is it?

CW: Look at it from the perspective of somebody [anybody] who thinks this Dave Sim guy might be saying things worth paying attention to, but any attempts to investigate [i.e. Google] lead to him whining about how the world considers him a misogynist, without any context, or how we need to sign a petition before having any further contact. I agree that Dave doesn't consider this lightly, I agree that he's made the best possible decisions for his career, and since those decisions are how he made "Cerebus" possible, I can't in good conscience tell him he's wrong, but yes, for any potential "Cerebus" reader [or Dave Sim fan] the petition is a needless impediment.

Dave himself often points out to people who've made their own comics past issue #50 that they didn't become "Cerebus" fans until they read "Cerebus" #150 [made-up example by the way, but there are plenty of real examples] and asking where they would be if he'd given up during those hundred issues before they discovered his work. That's where I think the petition is self-defeating, that it gives potential fans a reason to give up. We're in an internet world where #186 and "Tangent" are easily-Googled, but why should I give this guy the slightest effort when he's always whining about how Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman won't sign his petition? Why is that guy who did the "Stardust" movie so important anyway? Oh, I have to sign a petition before he'll tell me. Oh well, thanks for the advice on women. Didn't cost me a penny.

SA: Even if Dave was lauded by every publication on the planet and never wrote 186 and was a feminist, you're still talking about a 6,000 page comic book about an aardvark. The work itself is an impediment to the work. Dave made it pretty clear years ago that this is about him doing his work on his terms. If anyone else finds that too constrictive, well, okay. I think what you see as needless impediments, are simply part of the story. These people overcame those obstacles. Those people didn't. I don't think that there is an endgame where Dave just does X, Y and Z and all of a sudden he's popular. Plus, playing the game of doing things just to get an audience never works. Instead, the game Dave is playing, I think, is my work, my way. Want to come along for the ride? Great, hope you have a good time. Don't want to come along for the ride? No hard feelings, hope you find what you're looking for. My work, my way. Nothing beats that. Not even the cover of the New Yorker.

CW: But it works both ways. Yes the sheer scale of the work is itself an impediment. So why add another impediment? Particularly one which makes the work itself far too easy to dismiss as some guy who sat at home and wrote a 6000-page manifesto, but won't talk to anyone about it unless they've signed his petition. Let's face it, that is not a completely inaccurate description of "Cerebus" and how it was created. It's not fair nor entirely honest, but it's not completely inaccurate either.

Popularity is a capricious thing and I certainly wouldn't bet any money on Dave becoming popular, but he also wants an audience. He wants people to pay money for his work, and we all want that for him as well. Front-loading the reader's investment in this 6000-page work with a petition on some website somewhere, or even just creating the perception that this petition is anywhere near as important to him as the work, is needlessly detrimental to the work finding an audience, in my opinion. It's simply not as important to the reader or potential audience.

I don't think this would mean contravening any of Dave's moral positions, which he's worked very hard to achieve and maintain. I would advise him to drop the petition as a battle that's been lost, but only because the larger points he's made all along are a battle that can be won, but not by focusing on the petition. And I freely admit I have no idea where he could turn his limited time and energy towards, whether he takes my advice or not...

iPetition: "I don't believe Dave Sim is a misogynist"