What About Trying That?

MARGARET LISS:

A few years ago I scanned all of Dave Sim's notebooks. He had filled 36 notebooks during the years he created the monthly Cerebus series, covering issues #20 to 300, plus the other side items -- like the Epic stories, posters and prints, convention speeches etc. A total of 3,281 notebook pages detailing his creative process. I never really got the time to study the notebooks when I had them. Just did a quick look, scanned them in and sent them back to Dave as soon as possible. So this regular column is a chance for me to look through those scans and highlight some of the more interesting pages.

We last looked at Dave Sim's thirteen Cerebus notebook last October in Terror in a Turgid Tool. The notebook covers Cerebus 112 / 113 plus a few other miscellaneous things. One of those things is a couple pages that show a draft of an editorial cartoon:

Notebook #13, page 10

Notebook #13, page 11

Both look like mock-ups of a cover for WAP!, aka Words and Pictures, a newsletter for comics professionals. But it isn't. It was used as an editorial cartoon, The Corporate Pyramid, in WAP! #6. IT was also reprinted in an issue of The Comics Journal.

The Corporate Pyramid

Editorial Cartoon in WAP! #6 (1988)
by Dave Sim

DAVE SIM:
(from the Comics Forum interview, 1993)

...If you picture a multinational corporation as a pyramid, coming down there's a ragged bottom of middle-level bureaucrats, and dangling from the end of one of the strands is an editor. Down below him, trying to reach up, is the creator. An editor is paid a Manhattan salary. Those people leave tips in restaurants bigger than what creators work for. This is why the reward for one of the top creators is always to offer them an editorial position. They're struck dumb when they say to someone like Alan Moore, "We'd like to make you an editor, an overseer of a line of comic books," and the reply is "No, I just want to write them."

You have to understand that these people have no credibility. Neil Gaiman has no credibility. Frank Miller has no credibility. They are a profit center. They are a prestigious thing to have around... The company has to feel at every point that what they have given you is a magnanimous gesture on their part. They cannot have the tail wagging the dog. There's a reason why it's the Vertigo Tour and not the Neil Gaiman Tour. DC owns Vertigo, they don't own Neil. They've already been burned with Frank Miller and Alan Moore. They didn't own them but the made them into superstars and then had them walk away. They won't make the same mistake again. They know what they own, what they control, and what they don't. I'm not, and refuse to be, a lapdog begging for scraps. Whatever level you get to in the comic-book field, that's what you are. Once you sign the contract, you get what you get. It's the company that decides it. You don't, your agent doesn't, your lawyer doesn't, your publicist doesn't. You're talking Time Warner. You are a tiny speck in the middle of their magnifying glass and that's all you can be. If you see it any other way, you're kidding yourself...

On his My Rant Blog, Steve Bissette details the content and historical context of the 9 issues of WAP!, "the forgotten activist pro-zine", published between 1988-1989, which included contributions from Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Dave Sim and other comics creators.

WAP! (Words and Pictures), a newsletter for comics freelance artists and writers.”), arrived sometime in early 1988. - See more at: http://srbissette.com/?p=17233#sthash.A3D4feoS.dpuf

Judas Goats

Editorial Cartoon from WAP! (1988)
by Dave Sim
(Click image to enlarge)

DAVE SIM:
(from the Comics Forum interview, 1993)

On a percentage basis, to me, one Jeff Smith is worth a hundred Frank Millers... the companies have realised that they have to elevate someone to an exalted plane to represent the thing that everyone else shoots for. Neil Gaiman is in that position and Alan Moore and Frank Miller were in that position. They've been functioning as Judas Goats, leading twenty-year-old kids to their doom thinking, "I'm going to be the next Neil Gaiman." Well, no, there's only one at a time, and he's up there to persuade you that if you tie your fortunes with them, then you too can be Neil Gaiman.

I like Neil... But I never lose sight of the fact that in my medium, he's... over on the other side of the fence. Frank Miller's making great hay out of introducing Jack Kirby in San Diago and saying, "Go out to the Marvel Comics booth and say two words to them... pay up!" There's a nice standing ovation, and what does Frank do? He goes back and does Daredevil for Marvel.

That's not establishing a lesson. There's no moral center there. That's a career move, an opportunity to be one of the good guys and then go and sign a contract with the enemy. I ignore those people... You don't change multinational corporations from within...

On his My Rant Blog, Steve Bissette details the content and historical context of the 9 issues of WAP!, "the forgotten activist pro-zine", published between 1988-1989, which included contributions from Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Dave Sim and other comics creators.

Dave Cockrum: We Stand, Like, On The Shoulders Of Giants, Eh?

Illustration for The Uncanny Dave Cockrum: A Tribute (2004)
Art by Dave Sim
(Click Image To Enlarge)

DAVE SIM:
(from a letter to Clifford Meth, January 2004, reprinted in Dave Sim's Collected Letters 2004)

Well, here it is. I really didn't have any idea of what to do and started with Dave's signature and then incorporated the Cerebus as Wolverine as Bob and/or Doug [McKenzie] – realising that it was more of an editorial cartoon than the illustration I started out doing. As usually happens when it takes a few hours to do something doubts set in. Do people even remember The Great White North or Bob and Doug [McKenzie]? As was the case with most of my work on Cerebus, I just go with my own gut instinct and try to get it as close as I can to how I pictured it in my head. The original punch-line was going to be "which is why Cerebus is sitting here dressed like a bumblebee in an S & M porno flick, eh?" Which was probably too controversial and offensive. And then it was going to be "on accounta they wouldn't let Cerebus do the topic he wanted to do which was 'Why don't those hosers at Marvel give Dave Cockrum some work, eh?'" I still can't quite believe that there isn't a book somewhere in that pile of ---- they put out every month that couldn't benefit from Dave Cockrum's hand.

Dave Cockrum (1943-2006) was the comic book artist known for his co-creation of the new X-Men characters Nightcrawler, Storm, and Colossus, who made their debut in Giant-Size X-Men No. 1 (Summer 1975), and then in a relaunched Uncanny X-Men (beginning with issue #94).

Support the Dave & Paty Cockrum Scholarship at the Joe Kubert School by bidding on the sale of Swords Of Cerebus Vol 1-6 from Dave Cockrum's personal comics collection. (Bidding ends 16 January.)

(Post submitted by Sir Boltagon. Thanks!)

Truth, Justice & The Corporate Conscience

Editorial cartoon in WAP #4 (July 1988)
by Dave Sim
(Click Image To Enlarge)

STEVE GERBER:
(from Truth, Justice & The Corporate Conscience, WAP #4, July 1988)

...Keep Siegel and Shuster's long years of agony in mind each time you sign a DC or Marvel voucher and every time you read the words "work made for hire" above your signature. Ask yourself what traditions you're helping to perpetuate. Ask yourself whether you really feel invulnerable to the kind of strong-arm business tactics that, for a time, made a mail boy and a recluse out of the creators of Superman. This year marks the Golden Anniversary of Jerry and Joe's 1938 release form. Fifty years of screwing creators is about forty-nine and-a-half too many.

Steve Gerber (1947-2008) was a comic writer best known as co-creator of Howard The Duck. He was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall Of Fame in 2010.

On his My Rant Blog, Steve Bissette details the content and historical context of the 9 issues of WAP!, "the forgotten activist pro-zine", published between 1988-1989, which included contributions from Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Dave Sim and other comics creators.  

The Fantagraphics Two-Step

Let's Twist Again or 'The Fantagraphics Two-Step' (from Cerebus #167, February 1993)
Art by Dave Sim
(Click Image To Enlarge)

DAVE SIM:
(from the essay Last Waltz, Cerebus #162, September 1992)

I remember talking to Gary [Groth, Fantagraphics publisher] early this year on the phone just before the start of the Tour, discussing with him the approach I intended to take in discussions with retailers; advocating that the term Independent comics was no longer functional and that a better choice would be Alternative comics... even a comic book published by DC, Sandman would qualify as just such a...

"Is that any good?" he interrupted.

Certain that I had misheard or misunderstood, I asked him, was what any good?

"Sandman. Is it any good?"

How is one to answer? Does one laugh? Does one cry?

Is Sandman any good?

...When someone has carved himself a niche in the world of comics journalism; aspires to raise the quality of that journalism and purports to be the foremost spokesman for an emergent medium. When someone invests time and energy and money and all of his considerable intellectual powers to initiate, provoke and mold the debate on the merits and detriments of the comic book medium.

Is Sandman any good.

Gary is isolated.

AARDVARK COMMENT:
(reprinted from Aardvark Comment, Cerebus #165, December 1992)
Dear Dave,

I noted with interest your plug for Yahoo. Since Yahoo is now on near-infinite hiatus pending the completion of the seven-part Palestine mini-series [by Joe Sacco], I was wondering if you would be willing to offer up some kind of blurb for this new project. I have enclosed a complete Xerox of the first issue, which will be published in December. Sorry I missed you on your trek through Seattle.

Best wishes,

Kim Thompson

Fanatgraphics Books

P.S.: I've read Sandman, but I don't much care for it. Is this a more serious or less serious sin? (Parts of the issue Charlie Vess drew were well written though.)

I've resolved not to have any interaction with Fanatgraphics until I see how the next few issues of the Comics Journal go, Kim. No offence, but I think for the moment, you guys do more harm than good for advancing the medium. Your P.S. is a classic example of the Comics Journal's sneering arrogance.

A Funny Animal In A World Of Humans

Prepare To Breathe Your Last, Duck! (BEM #34, July 1981)
Art by Dave Sim

DAVE SIM:
(from an interview in UK fanzine Arkensword #19, 1986)

...the essence of it is that a funny animal in a world of humans to me was what was central to Howard's popularity. Because there's very few things that you can do in comics that you can't do better elsewhere. You can do more in-depth character analysis of how somebody's thinking in a novel. You can do more realistic things, or literal, this is what's going on now in 1985 things in film. But in comic books you can do super-heroes better than they can do it in film or novels or radio or animation. It's at its most appropriate in the comics form. There are very few things you can say that about. Westerns aren't like that, science fiction isn't like that. Funny animals and humans inter-relating can be done better in comics than elsewhere.

...when Cerebus and Jaka are looking at each other you really believe that they both exist in the same space and time, they're both rendered in the same weight of line, shadows on the right side, and you can believe that they're actually inter-related. You can do the Disney Song Of The South thing, with an animated character and a live action character, but you never really lose track for a minute of what is real and what is animation. There's no blurring of the distinction and consequently there's no genuine inter-reaction possible. You watch Gene Kelly and Jerry the Mouse dancing, and you appreciate both for the separate art, for somebody actually drew this mouse dancing, and there's Gene Kelly do his great thing, but there really isn't the indication they’re together... just the trickiness of it. You never lose track of the fact that it's a trick.

Free Speeches

Illustration from Free Speeches, Oni Press (1998)
Art by Dave Sim

DAVE SIM:
(from Free Speeches, Oni Press, 1998)

If we are to be a free people and if we are to set ourselves apart from those who practice and advocate suppression, censorship, the imposition of one person or group's sensibilities upon another, then we must adhere to the absolutism of our position. If the forces which are interested in suppressing or labeling or sequestering Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's From Hell are to be kept at bay, we must resist efforts along the same lines with a work like A Taste Of Cherry in Verotika #4... To give censors an inch on Verotika is to invite them to take a mile - and within the confines of that mile might well exist From Hell, Sandman, Stray Bullets, Love & Rockets - perhaps even Spiegelman's Maus or Eisner's Dropsie Avenue.