Sequentially reprinting Dave Sim's letters and faxed correspondence to me, with occasional annotation from me...
Today’s entry has a lot to do with a regular contributor to the old Yahoo Cerebus Chat Group, a fellow who alternately went by his real name, Rick S., and his pseudonym, Talon. He was notorious for stimulating discussion about Dave and Cerebus in controversial ways. If you wish, you may read that as: he pissed off a lot of people, including me. He and I went ‘round and ‘round a few times, but he was an ardent supporter of Dave and Cerebus. Looking back at this, eight years on, I wonder what all the fuss was about...
22 Aug 08
Hi Jeff--
No, I meant this was sent in a letter TO me -- that’s what Rick can cite, if he’s interested. But, I don’t want him giving out the guy’s name. I sent the guy a copy of the form letter, SOP [Ed: Standard Operating Procedure], now. If anyone wants to contact him and tell him how to get caught up on CEREBUS, they’re welcome to... although I’d hope that he would do that on his own, either online or at another shop. The question raised is: How common is this in comic stores? We don’t have the answer, but we, at least, have an anecdote that it does happen STILL even five years after I finished CEREBUS.
I’m not on the Internet, so my only experience with Talon is as one of the few people to actually show up and ask intelligent questions during my February Internet Tour and as someone I kept getting warned about as ruining my reputation with his behaviour. So, my offer stands -- if someone wants to send me a Talon quote and get me to denounce it and distance myself from it, I’ll be glad to do that, based on the content, if I think it warrants it. But, to be honest, I don’t know what good that can possibly do, when most of the attacks against me are based on writings from fourteen and six years ago, respectively; attacks I have been answering pretty much the same way for fourteen and six years, respectively. If the 99.99% consensus in the comic field is that I’m insane, and have been since 1994, then no one is going to pay attention to anything I say, no matter what it is, right? And, if only .001% of the field will listen to anything I say and assess it on its own merits, and the quote from Talon is from a year ago or two years ago, well, it’s hardly headline-making material. “Insane cartoonist denounces supporter’s views from 2006”.
I really think there could be a better use for everyone’s time.
Dave
Cc: Rick S., Margaret Liss, L nny C.
9 comments:
Interesting to read about internecine warfare. I remember Talon TM on the old Comicon.com boards acting quite similar to Jeff S.: immediate, fervent, and often unhinged attacks on anybody who said anything other than pure praise for the Great Man.
-- Damian
Some context is missing. How common is what in comic shops? Was someone's local shop refusing to stock or order Cerebus books?
Tony--Yeah, I think it was that, but this was back in the days when I still was not photocopying my letters before I sent them. Plus, sometimes it's difficult to get each document in the precisely correct chronological order in the archive, as I'm sure that Dave (and Ger) could attest to.
Unhinged, Damian? UNHINGED!!!
I'll have you know, Sir, that all of my screws are in just the right place. Although, I *have* been meaning to tighten up a few of them.
Of course, you know this *wah*, Suh!
D'oh! Make that, "Of course, you know this means WAHR, Suh!"
Formal declaration.
I still owe "Talon TM" a drink for defending me back in the usenet days. If you're ever up this way "Talon", drop me a line.
I had completely forgotten Talon TM. I would occasionally check the CEREBUS Yahoo Newsgroup if I was at the library and looking something up online and always telling myself "You DON'T want to do this."
And I'd be right. I DIDN'T want to do that. It was invariably an esoteric discussion of one of the STAR WARS movies.
I think the daily posting of something CEREBUS-related at AMOC takes care of that problem. Not entirely. Something always reminds someone of STAR WARS but the "degrees of separation" are greater. :)
STAR WARS rocks, but Star Trek rules.
Jeff, it's like I don't know who you are any more! :(
ChrisW
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