Dave Sim: The Silence Of Your Friends

"Dave Sim: Misogynist Guru Of Self-Publishers"

The Comics Journal #174 (February 1995) 

Art by Bill Willingham

10 December 07

Hi Rick [Sharer]:

Well, you know, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, at least so far with your columns you're really not much different from anyone else who has written about "foolish Dave Sim the evil misogynist" since 1994.

You're documenting READS (sort of) – but you're also carefully pulling out the most provocative quotes which is pretty much guaranteed to get everyone riled up again (the opposite of getting them to think about what is being said) and you’re also, so far, being scrupulously careful not to offer your own opinions on whether you agree with anything that you’re quoting. So, the net effect tends to be an appearance of: not only not defending Dave Sim and his opinions but with the added detriment that you’re quoting me out of context to no good purpose. I mean, you deplore that no Comics Name has stood up and defended me publicly. Well, what would you think if some Comics Name suddenly started doing a bi-weekly column where they quoted all of the most provocative parts of READS but without actually saying, "This I agree with, this I disagree with."?

Particularly the really tough stuff where it takes guts to say, "I'll probably get everyone furious with me for saying this, but I think this stuff is self-evidently true and we’ve just blinded ourselves to it because our society, far from being misogynistic is actually misandrist. Our society hates men. Just ask any Dad who has had to go through the family law courts." If you really want to help the situation, I’d suggest that you cite some of your own examples and experiences instead of just quoting mine.

Yes, I think it was certainly true that EVERYONE in the field turned against me after issue 186 (which is a much, much larger group than the "mega-load of Marxist-feminists" of your description in your cover note). Certainly on the COMICS JOURNAL message boards -- as, I am told, it is to this day -- I was called every extreme name that they could think of, Gary Groth held his Star Chamber/Stalinist Show Trial of me at San Diego (or was it Wondercon?) without notifying me he was doing so and got massive ovations assassinating my character in a public venue, presumably, with the wholesale and enthusiastic endorsement of the convention organizers. Have you ever heard anyone attached to the Con where he did so speak out against the Con being used as a venue for criminal libel without even offering the subject of that criminal libel a chance to defend himself?

Bill Willingham finally phoned (the only one who did phone) to ask if I knew just how bad the attacks were getting, that this was completely unprecedented. Of course he didn't call until weeks into the cybernetic tarring and feathering and he certainly didn’t "stand up" on the COMICS JOURNAL message boards and say, "Listen, I think this is getting a little out of hand, here. We’re supposed to believe in freedom of speech in the comics field."

As Martin Luther King said (I’ll have to paraphrase here, I can’t find the quote) It isn't the venom of your enemies, it's the silence of your friends that gets you the most.

I accepted the inescapable conclusion (at the time and to this day) – that I didn’t have any friends – with reluctance but without regret. If the people I had considered friends to that point could stand by and do absolutely nothing for years on end while this was being done to me, what sort of friends were they?

The mistake they made and continue to make, of course, is in thinking that if you don't agree with Dave Sim publicly, if you shun him and damn him with faint praise that this will somehow appease the misandrist Marxist-feminist juggernaut devouring our society. It doesn't. All it does is show that males will take whatever females dish out no matter how bad it gets because men have chosen to be deathly afraid of women.

Affirmative action now means that 60% of all college admissions are women, 40% men. And men don't say anything about it, but just meekly submit to institutionalized gender imbalance as the "new normal". What does the ratio have to get to before men say something, or at least start to say something? 80-20? 90-10? 95-5?

Kowtowing to a bully is never – and will never be – the way to stop bullying.

I've never regretted taking a stand over the last thirteen years. On the contrary, knowing that I will be seen by history as one of the few willing to stand up for reality and that I was doing so for a good decade before anyone else, well it’s very satisfying. That and not having to pretend that I agree with Marxist-feminist b.s. on a daily basis. I wouldn’t trade that for the world.

I’ll be visiting www.comicsvillage.com early in February to promote my new title.

Dave

From "Dave Sim's Collected Letters 2007", a Cerebus Archive Kickstarter reward.