Showing posts with label Jeff Smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jeff Smith. Show all posts

Saturday, 24 February 2018

Previews Stuff (February edition)

Hi, Everybody!

The Cerebus in Hell? Auctions continue:
*NEW* The Life and Legend of Wallace Wood *NEW*
And The Un-Bedable Vark #1.
(And if he posts something after I post this, look for bonecrusher86 on the eBays.)
So open your checkbooks and bid, Bid, BID!!! (Or not, I don't care what you do. I got Girl Scout Cookies to hustle...)

Anyway, Travis is back:

Diamond Preview Picks: February 2018

Travis Pelkie returns with his regular monthly selection for Cerebus fans of comics and books featured in the latest Diamond Previews catalog. Travis is co-founder of the Atomic Junk Shop, a site about comics and other fun pop culture. To see your comics featured here or at the Atomic Junk Shop feel free to send an email to Travis at: atomicjunkshoptravis [at] outlook [dot] com.

The jokes on Cerebus, VIRGIL stole the iPod...
LOVE AND AARDVARKS #1
FEB180955

(W) Dave Sim, Sandeep Atwal (A) Dave Sim, Gustave Dore (CA) Lee Thacker
Jingles' 10 CGC-graded copies of Love & Rockets No. 21; if only Cerebus had married Maggie and Hopey; Jerusalem Crickets and The Crazy Catholics Hallelujah Chorus; An Ox's Nard;  Cerebus develops "Cerebus Go"; God vs. Tarim; Philosophers on Jesus' teachings; "Aardvark Amuck"; Epic-length "Satan the Closeted Gilbert & Sullivan Fan";  Infernal Realms Police Training; John Lennon in Hell?;  Drinking in Hell;  Infernal Intercontinental Wrestling Title. 

Yay! Another phone book with my name in the back!
MINDS REMASTERED EDITION
APR178991

(W) Dave Sim (A/CA) Dave Sim
The multi-year Cerebus Restoration project continues! Minds, the tenth volume of the 6,000 page Cerebus epic, finds the titular misanthropic aardvark hurtling through space alongside Cirin, his opponent and fellow aardvark, both heading for a direct collision with their small-m maker - "Dave" - a mysterious being who talks with them about themselves and their world, and who just might resemble Cerebus writer/cartoonist Dave Sim. Minds is the groundbreaking conclusion to the first two-thirds of the Cerebus epic, presented here for the first time in remastered form: painstakingly restored page-by-page from original artwork and photo negatives, and revealing detail never before present on the printed page. This volume also includes eight brand-new pages of extras, including a 6,000 word essay by Sean Michael Robinson.


Travis sez: Of course you're getting these.  A Love and Rockets parody cover for Cerebus in Hell?, and the remastered Minds?  Just take my damn money already! 
ACTION COMICS #1000  
FEB180146

(W) Various (A) Various (CA) Michael Allred
Celebrate 1000 issues of Action Comics with an all-star lineup of top talent as they pay tribute to the comic that started it all! From today's explosive action to a previously unpublished tale illustrated by the legendary Curt Swan to the Man of Tomorrow's future-this very special, oversized issue presents the best of the best in Superman stories!
Travis sez: The one that basically started it all, Action Comics reaches issue 1000 (through numbering shenanigans, of course).  Variant covers, because of course there are, but the '60s one is by Mike Allred and is of course stunning. 

APAMA THE UNDISCOVERED ANIMAL #1
 FEB181600

(W) Sikora, Ted, Miller, Milo (A/CA) Benito Gallego
The most inexplicable superhero of all time! Cleveland ice cream truck driver, Ilyia Zjarsky, goes hiking and stumbles upon the spirit force of the most savage creature mankind has never known! The acclaimed saga is printed in single issues for the first time ever in a new monthly ongoing series!
TAP DANCE KILLER #1
FEB181601

(W) Sikora, Ted (A/CA) Nikolaus Harrison
Actress Nikki St Clair was the sweetest gal in the city until she was cast in a horror show musical as the Tap Dance Killer. Now, unable to shake the role, this 1920s-esque bizarre mobster assassin is out on the streets dealing damage with a theatrical flair that leaves 'em, quite literally, slain in the isles! This first issue also features the first appearance of a knockout new villain!
Travis sez: The folks at Hero Tomorrow have some good comics, especially if you like Silver Age Marvel.  Apama is quite good, although you can probably find the trade with this issue easy enough, but it's very good stuff and worth a look.



BACKISSUE #104 
FEB181869

Back Issue is the "Fourth World After Kirby" issue, exploring the enduring legacy of Jack Kirby's DC characters! The Return(s) of the New Gods, Why Can't Mister Miracle Escape Cancellation?, the Forever People, Mike Mignola's unrealized New Gods animated movie, the Fourth World in Hollywood, and more. With an all-star lineup, including the work of John Byrne, Paris Cullins, J. M. Dematteis, Mark Evanier, Michael Golden, Rick Hoberg, Walter Simonson, and more! Cover by Steve Rude, re-presenting his variant cover for 2015's Convergence #6.


Travis sez: Back Issue 104 features the story of the Fourth World after Kirby.  Awesome cover by the Dude! 
 BATMAN '66 OMNIBUS HC
FEB180295

(W) Jeff Parker, Tom Peyer, Art Baltazar, Franco, Len Wein, Harlan Ellison, Mike W. Barr, Ray Fawkes (A) Jonathan Case, Ty Templeton, Ruben Procopio, Chris Sprouse, Christopher Jones, Michael Avon Oeming, Dario Brizuela (CA) Michael Allred
Put on your go-go boots and get ready to "Batusi" as DC reimagines the classic Batman TV show! In these tales, the Dynamic Duo takes on the Riddler, Mr. Freeze, the Penguin, the Mad Hatter, The Joker and more of the world's most colorful Bat-villains! And in BATMAN '66: THE LOST EPISODE #1, an outline from the original TV series featuring Two-Face is adapted to comics for the first time! This new Omnibus collects BATMAN '66 #1-30, BATMAN '66: THE LOST EPISODE #1 and a story from SOLO #7.


Travis sez: If you dig the Batman TV show, or just like good groovy comics, this collection of the entire Batman '66 series is a great bunch of comics.

BEANWORLD OMNIBUS
 FEB180057

(W) Larry Marder (A) Larry Marder
The iconic inhabitants of Larry Marder's unique Beanworld universe are introduced in this complete collection of the Beanworld comic-book run! Join Mr. Spook, Professor Garbanzo, Beanish, and many others as they experience adventures in their world that prove, whether friends or adversaries, they are all ultimately dependent on each other for survival. Marder's deceptively simple artwork illustrates a self-contained ecological fantasy realm with its own unique rules, truths, and lingo. Collects issues #1-#21.

Travis sez: The Beans are collected in a Dark Horse Omnibus, which is good because I missed the third HC, and holy cats, it's expensive on Amazon!  This collects the 21 issues of the original comics series.

EIGHT MILLION WAYS TO DIE
FEB180444

(W) John K. Snyder III (A/CA) John K. Snyder III
In crime-ravaged 1980's New York, a troubled ex-cop turned unlicensed detective takes on his most dangerous case, hunting down a serial killer-hitman, and ultimately coming face-to-face with his deadliest enemy, himself, in John K. Snyder III's graphic novel adaptation of the celebrated story by Lawrence Block.
Steeped in traditional pulp, Block's writing has a true gift for capturing the art of conversation between his characters. These are the lowlifes of society, for whom Block occasionally finds redemption, but who are more often among the vilest beings in human existence. Snyder's art both encapsulates and elevates these rough-cut gems in a graphic, grainy, and moody setting that evokes the dark, noir magazine covers of the period.

FASHION IN ACTION
FEB181731
(W) Various (A) Various
The 2080s haven't changed much from the 1980s, except for the jetpacks, Mars colonization, and rocket-fueled cars. Celebrities still need protection from crazed fans, and that's what Frances Knight and her squad Fashion In Action provide with bravado and style, all while facing up against the evil machinations of Dr. Cruel and his sidekick, the violently unpredictable superfan Roxanne. This classic 1980s independent comic series has been painstakingly restored by creator/artist John K. Snyder III, and includes a foreword by John Ostrander, new essays by comic book legends Trina Robbins and Martha Thomases, and an all-star pinup gallery by artists Kevin Wada, Jen Bartel, Rahzzah, Sara Richard, and Gisèle Lagacé.
Travis sez: You go ages without seeing John K. Snyder III, then he's in two books the same month.  IDW features his adaptation of a book by great crime writer Lawrence Block, and then Renegade Arts features a collection of his Fashion in Action comics series from the '80s.

BONE CODA BEHIND THE SCENES BUNDLE
FEB181319

(W) Jeff Smith (A/CA) Jeff Smith
For a limited time only, Bone Coda, the companion volume to Jeff Smith's Bone will be bundled with the Emmy Award-winning documentary The Cartoonist: Jeff Smith, Bone, and The Changing Face of Comics! Through interviews with Smith, Scott McCloud, Colleen Doran, Paul Pope, Terry Moore, Harvey Pekar and others, this bonus DVD takes an inside look at the story, art and commerce of Bone from the earliest days of self-publishing to the world wide phenomenon of the Scholastic color books and the creation of the Young Adult graphic novel movement. Coda, which includes behind the scenes essays and photos, as well as the revised edit of comics librarian and historian Stephen Weiner's Bone Companion, also includes the 37 page new Bone chapter!
Travis sez: I think these have both been offered before, but they're bundled.  The Coda to Bone, as well as a DVD about Jeff Smith's rise in comics.  I'm sure there will be a measured, unbiased feature about Dave Sim's impact on comics self-publishing, right?

 HER INFERNAL DESCENT #1
FEB181023

(W) Lonnie Nadler, Zac Thompson (A/CA) Kyle Charles
A tale of loss told in five parts. Any good mom would march through the inferno of HELL to get her family back. Unable to cope with the burden of grief, a middle-aged mom descends the nine circles of hell to retrieve her forsaken family. Guided by the ghosts of William Blake and Agatha Christie, this no-nonsense mother journeys deep into a bizarre underworld filled with celebrity sinners, surreal landscapes, and absurd tasks. Her Infernal Descent is a retelling of Dante's Inferno that updates the themes for a modern audience. From the writers of the break-out hit The Dregs, and the artist of Roche Limit, this is HELL like you've never seen before. 
Travis sez: It's a retelling of Dante's Inferno with William Blake and Agatha Christie guiding a woman through the nine circles of hell.  Why not?  Wonder if they'll bump into any stray aardvarks?  (Ooh, Stray Aardvarks, there's a parody cover idea!  I could see an aardvark in the place of the ghost costume girl on this issue: https://www.comics.org/issue/103111/cover/4/ )


ELFQUEST: THE FINAL QUEST
 FEB180084

(W) Wendy Pini, Richard Pini (A/CA) Wendy Pini
A tribe of elves navigates friendships and dangerous enemies in a fantasy world of goblins, dwarves, fairies and humans!

This is it-the startling conclusion to the most world-changing chapter in all of ElfQuest: Final Quest! It is time for the Palace of the High Ones to return the elves of the World of Two Moons to their original Star Home, but not all have chosen to go. As human invaders threaten the sacred Father Tree itself, in the heart of the Wolfriders' home, freedom of choice comes with a terrible price. Volume 4 collects issues #19-#24 of The Final Quest.
Travis sez: The final trade of the final issues of the Final Quest (I'm sure there will never be another, after all, didn't the Who also retire in 1982?).


 BATMAN: GHOSTS
FEB180299

(W) Sam Kieth (A/CA) Sam Kieth
When a supernatural creature begins to kill in Gotham City, Batman tries to fight something that he can't even touch. Further complications arise when the monster says he knows about Bruce Wayne's parents' deaths! But when Batman discovers a link to a blind woman, can he defeat this bizarre threat? Collects BATMAN CONFIDENTIAL #40-43 and BATMAN/LOBO: DEADLY SERIOUS #1-2.  Travis sez: The Maxx's Sam Kieth on Batman, always an interesting time.
UNCLE SCROOGE #37
FEB180371

(W) Jerry Siegel, Joe Torcivia (A) Giorgio Cavazzano (CA) Dave Alvarez
"Few and Pharoah Between!" In a new-to-USA duck tale by Jerry Siegel (Superman), Scrooge McDuck travels through time to find riches in ancient Egypt-only to wind up stranded in a dystopian future!


Travis sez: Wha?!  Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel wrote Uncle Scrooge stories for the European market?  Whoa.... 
STRANGERS IN PARADISE GALLERY EDITION
 FEB180963

Terry Moore's work as a writer and artist (and letterer) are on display for all to see in the new Terry Moore: Strangers In Paradise Gallery Edition. Celebrate the 25th Anniversary of SIP with this presentation of Moore's art spanning the entire Eisner Award-winning series. The evolution of Terry together with Francine, Katchoo, David and all of the other characters that inhabit the SIP world is captured in this 248-page, large-format, hardcover edition. The artwork contained in this Smythe-sewn deluxe edition is framed by the original 20-page version of the very first SIP story and SIP #90, the series' 2007 finale. Included between these "bookends" is a representational page from each of the 105 issues published between issues #1 and #90. Also included is an extensive Gallery section containing covers and miscellaneous SIP art from the last 25 years. Sourced from high-resolution scans from the original art and reproduced at the actual size, this 12" x 17" deluxe volume is printed at 200 line-screen on heavy paper stock to approximate the look and feel of the original art itself.


Travis sez: Undoubtedly you have a spare kidney, liver, or spleen you could give up for this, a collection of Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise art in Graphitti Designs's Gallery Edition.  So tempting....

A STUDY IN EMERALD
FEB180021

(W) Neil Gaiman (A/CA) Shane Oakley
This supernatural mystery set in the world of Sherlock Holmes and Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos features a brilliant detective and his partner as they try to solve a horrific murder.
This complex investigation takes the Baker Street investigators from the slums of Whitechapel all the way to the Queen's Palace as they attempt to find the answers to this bizarre murder of cosmic horror!
From the Hugo, Bram Stoker, Locus, World Fantasy, Nebula Award-winning, and New York Times bestselling writer Neil Gaiman comes this graphic novel adaptation with art by Eisner award winning artist Rafael Albuquerque!
Travis sez: a comics adaptation of a story by Neil Himself mashing up Sherlock Holmes and Cthulhu.  The story is dang good, and Rafael Albuquerque is a good artist, so this should be a cool looking book. 


 TANGLED THE SERIES VOL. 2 THE WRITE STORY
FEB181724

(W) Jimmy Gownley (A) Jimmy Gownley, Various, Veronica Di Lorenzo
A new graphic novel series featuring original stories starring Disney Princess Rapunzel from the hit Disney Channel show Tangled: The Series by New York Times-bestselling writer/artist Jimmy Gownley! Rapunzel is totally fangirling because she's about to meet her favorite author! After starting a book club to catch up on anything and everything she missed over the last 18 years, Rapunzel becomes obsessed with the books by J. K. Yewgise. The king invites the author to Corona, and she offers to write Rapunzel's authorized biography. Rapunzel is thrilled! But after a series of mishaps, Eugene accidentally ends up telling most of her story - and he tends to exaggerate. Now Rapunzel's biography is full of lies! Will the princess be able to get herself out of this pickle?
Travis sez: Our pal Jimmy Gownley returns with another Disney Tangled book, although he probably belongs in pun prison for "J.K. Yewgise" (sound it out).  Shaking my head.... 

FRANK THORNE'S BATTLING BEAUTIES 
FEB162027

(A/CA) Frank Thorne
Hermes Press celebrates the career of Frank Thorne, renowned good girl artist extraordinaire with a comprehensive art monograph where he explores his art and the process of creating it step by step. See pencils, preliminaries, final artwork, as well as the final printed comics created by Thorne. This extensive art monograph presents artwork from such titles as Red Sonja, Ghita, Lann, The Iron Devil, and more. This book explores not only the comic book artwork of Thorne but also illustrates the motion pictures concepts and storyboards for the never-made Ghita film.
Travis sez: I think this is offered again, but it features the art of Frank Thorne, one of the few besides Dave and Ger to do a Cerebus cover.

JUGHEAD'S TIME POLICE
FEB181126
(W) Various (A) Rex Lindsey (CA) Ron Lindsey
Get ready for a wild ride through time! Jughead has been drafted into a time-traveling police force, tasked with keeping history from going haywire. ...But is Jughead the right kid for the job? Collects the complete Jughead's Time Police storyline!

Travis sez: Jughead.  Time Police.  Need I say more? 
XERXES FALL OF HOUSE OF DARIUS #1
 FEB180011

(W) Frank Miller (CA) Frank Miller
Frank Miller returns to the world of 300 with this sprawling historical epic! Persian King Xerxes sets out to conquer the world to avenge his father Darius's defeat and create an empire unlike anything the world has ever seen . . . Until the hardy Greeks produce a god king of their own, Alexander the Great.
Travis sez: Frank Miller returns with a sequel to 300, and it looks ok.

X-MEN: THE DARK PHOENIX SAGA
FEB180915
(W) Chris Claremont, Jo Duffy (A) Dave Cockrum, John Bolton, Mike Collins, John Buscema, Jerry Bingham (A/CA) John Byrne
  The greatest comic-book saga ever told, in one cosmic-sized Omnibus! It begins with a shocking story in which Marvel Girl sacrifices herself...only to be reborn as Phoenix! But when a galaxy-spanning adventure reveals that Jean Grey has somehow attained power beyond conception, Cyclops and the X-Men can only watch as Phoenix is corrupted, absolutely. As the team faces the Shi'ar Empire, Hellfire Club and more, can Jean Grey be redeemed? Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum and John Byrne weave an epic tale of triumph and tragedy that changed everything for the X-Men - and all of comics! It's the full Dark Phoenix Saga, with bonus tales illuminating Jean Grey's defining story! Collecting X-MEN (1963) #97-105, #107-108 and #125-138; and PHOENIX: THE UNTOLD STORY - plus material from CLASSIC X-MEN #6, #8, #13, #18, #24 and #43; BIZARRE ADVENTURES #27 and WHAT IF? (1977) #27.
Travis sez: The classic run of the X-Men, collected here, from when Dave and Chris Claremont had a mutual admiration.

More Diamond Previews picks at Atomic Junk Shop's regular Flippin' Through Previews column.

Friday, 7 April 2017

Jeff Smith vs Dave Sim: Round 3


The Comics Journal #218 (1999)
Cover art by Charles Vess

DAVE SIM:
(from The Blog & Mail, 15 September 2007)
HERE IT IS AT LAST, FOLKS! THE REASON THAT YOU'RE ALL SUPPOSED TO SHUN DAVE SIM AND VILIFY HIM AND SNEER WHENEVER YOU MENTION HIS NAME. YOU KNEW THERE HAD TO BE A REASON SOMEWHERE RIGHT? WELL, THIS IS IT, FROM JEFF SMITH'S INTERVIEW IN THE COMICS JOURNAL BACK IN 1999:
SMITH: There's not much to tell. A lot of it was based on Dave's infamous CEREBUS #186 where he published his little "tract" about women sucking the life blood out of men, and how they can't "think", they can only "feel". He put Vijaya and I [sic] into that issue. That was unacceptable to me. He was crossing a line that he had been warned not to cross.
[This was interesting to me in that the only line I had been warned not to cross was when I had told my then-horizontal-mamba-partner (1992-1994) Diana Schutz how READS was going to be structured: along the lines of Truman Capote's "Cote d'Azur" – real comic-book people and incidents fictionalized in the first half, then shifting to an actual documenting of what was going on in my life at the moment that I was writing the concluding issues and seeing what the result was in juxtaposition with the Cerebus vs. Cirin wordless battle in the comics parts of the stories. She said, "Leave me and my family out of it."

Which I was more than willing to do.

The only interesting person in the extended Schutz family – the then-current members, anyway -- on a "Cote d'Azur" basis that I could see was her sister Trishie who had only been interesting when she was going out with Joe Matt and only because Joe documented their relationship in an interesting and humourous way. As soon as they broke up Trishie vanished into obscurity along with the rest of Diana's relatives. I did use a lot of the comic-industry dirt that Diana trafficked in extensively and compulsively told me about no matter how many times I told her I hate gossip and I don't like listening to it. How Jeff Smith could be construed to be part of Diana Schutz's family is an interesting Marxist-feminist story in itself, but unfortunately a YHWH speculation for another day: here I'm sticking strictly to the facts, ma'am]
SPURGEON: He talked to you about it beforehand?

SMITH: He was writing [it] about the time he came out to California to stay with us during the first APE show. The night he arrived, Dave sat down on the couch opposite us
[This isn't true. I was seated on a single chair at right angles to the couch. Jeff was at the near end of the couch to my right and Vijaya was at the opposite end of the couch]
and said, "Let me tell you what color the sky is in my world." Then he proceeded to lay out this horrible, upside-down, conspiracy-theory view of the world. Vijaya and I sat there, and at first we talked with him about it. We were like, "Wow. You almost have a point, sort of, but it's upside down there at the end." And he goes on for hours! Droning on and on…
[This isn't true either. What I was doing was responding to Jeff's conversational question when we had arrived at their A-frame house atop the San Andreas fault – he had picked me up in a limousine at the San Francisco airport -- "So what are you working on?" What the hell. I had nothing to hide. Literally. I described the structure of READS, with the fictionalized comic book first half and then, in the second half, moving into a more literal "here's what's going on in my life right now," and I explained some of the anecdotes that I was working with, newspaper stories I had been accumulating that had been getting weirder and weirder as soon as I began collecting them: particularly a recent one that I had found about some environmental group which had spent an unearthly amount of money cleaning spilled oil off of a seal and had then had this ceremony releasing it back into the wild where it was promptly eaten by a killer whale.

My thesis was that life was out of balance and these ludicrous excesses of Life Uber Alles (now pretty well swept under the rug beneath the label of "politically correct" – as if that justifies them) were becoming more the rule than the exception. But I was aware that most people saw the killer whale eating the seal as a Profound Tragedy instead of seeing it for what it was: what killer whales, you know, do. This is, presumably, what Jeff meant by "upside down there at the end". I was viewing a Profound Tragedy and seeing it as a Weird Burlesque.

So, I attempted to tackle the question from another angle: For the first time in human history birth was exceeding death by a wide margin but we were still behaving as if death was this near-universal condition and that birth was barely able to stay ahead of it. Essentially, we were still selling ourselves (as a society) on the view that we live in a tragic, death-based patriarchy. My view was that it was a lunatic, out-of-control birth-based matriarchy and had been for some time. At that point, Jeff and Vijaya became part of the point of my story I was working on. As I wrote:
"Oh, NO! No way. Uh-uh." Jeff smith is shaking his head violently from side to side. He has lunged forward in his seat, his hands waving in the air, as if shooing away a large insect. All of his movements are agitated. At the other end of the couch, his wife sits, her feet tucked beneath her, calmly smoking a Marlboro Light. Her features are inscrutable. Viktor Davis takes another sip of his beer.
[a Heineken, and not only a Heineken but a bottle Heineken: Jeff and Vijaya definitely had good taste in beer, unless they had bought it specifically for me]
"You'd agree that Death is Male?" he asks.

"Yes."

"You'd agree that Birth is Female?"

"Yes."

"Which one is winning?"

"No. No, no way. It's just not true." He stares straight ahead for a moment or two and then looks at Viktor Davis. "I just don't think that way, man. I just can't see that at all."

Vijaya grinds out her cigarette in a small glass ashtray.

At Jeff's insistence, the discussion ends. They agree to disagree. Viktor Davis isn't certain what the disagreement is, but clearly an impasse has been reached.

They begin to discuss animation instead.
[Deciding to do READS the way I did it, was really a matter of my saying to myself, "I really have to start documenting some of this stuff that keeps happening to me, because it is really getting to be too weird for words and everyone is acting as if their reactions are normal and my observations are weird." And Jeff's extreme and agitated reaction to a simple discussion about the balance between life and death in the world – coupled with Vijaya's complete non-reaction – was definitely in that category. "This is so weird. What IS he so upset about?" I was a guest in their home and I think I'm a very accommodating guest. You don't want to talk about a subject, boom, subject dropped. You asked me what I was working on and I started to tell you and then you freaked out. No problem. Let's – very calmly and rationally, so I hopefully don't upset you that badly again -- talk about your background in animation.]
SPURGEON: Dave can talk.

SMITH: Now I knew what it must've been like to be trapped in Waco listening to David Koresh! Vijaya and I were rocking back and forth, going, "Can we please go to the bathroom now?" I'm making light of it but it was really offensive stuff, and there was no arguing with him. Finally I said, "Dave, if you don't shut up right now, I'm going to take you outside and deck you."

SPURGEON: Really? Wow!

SMITH: It was that serious. Well, he shut up. There was dead silence, and he squinted his eyes. He took a drag off his cigarette, and that was it. We went on with our weekend and forgot about it. At least I did.
[There are a couple of interesting things here: first, "it was really offensive stuff, and there was no arguing with him." Well, it seems to me that if a point I'm making is "really offensive" then it should be easy to refute. If a devout Muslim told me, as an example, that Jews are pigs and monkeys, which many of them believe, it would be pretty easy to just say, "No, Jews are human beings. They just have different beliefs from you." Call it the Sixteen Impossible Things Syndrome. It's not actually offensive, it's reality. You, as a Marxist-feminist, only react to it as being offensive because you have strong in-built prejudices against reality. Just explain to me why it is critically important for us as a society to lower standards for soldiers and policepersons and firepersons so that we have more women in those professions and how that is more important than having high standards where public safety is concerned. See, you get offended because you want half of every profession to be made up of women. But to do that you have to erode standards. That's not offensive, it's factual. The fact that birth is outrunning death by a wide margin in our society isn't offensive, it's factual. The person who has a problem is the one who thinks that the correct reaction to the enunciation of a fact is to react emotionally and explosively. Except in a Marxist-feminist society where the correct reaction to a fact that doesn't conform to Marxist-feminist prejudices is always to react emotionally and explosively.]

 DAVE SIM:
(from The Blog & Mail, 17 September 2007)
TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT HIS 1999 TRILOGY TOUR INTERVIEW AND SEEKING AUGURIES IN ITS ENTRAILS

[I also think it's interesting – in the same way a multi-car pile-up traffic accident can be said to be interesting -- that the Marxist-feminists who exert an absolute tyranny in the comic book field and who, politically, pride themselves on deploring violence of any kind, immediately and universally leapt to Jeff Smith's side – as all of you reading this, I assume, are about to do if you haven't already -- when, if you take Jeff's version of events in the COMICS JOURNAL at face value, we were discussing a number of weirdly humorous facts that have resulted from the feminization of society – spending thousands of dollars to clean all the oil off of a killer whale's lunch, being a good example -- and Jeff, out of a clear blue sky, suddenly told me to shut up and threatened to take me outside and deck me. What kind of a way is that for a theoretically civilized human being to behave towards someone he is having a disagreement with? It's an actual question but since the odds are that whoever is reading this is a Marxist-feminist no, I don't really expect an answer. Just your usual high altitude intellectual tour de force which consists of going quiet and sullen and blocking out whatever was just being discussed] [Yes, like you're doing now] [What Jeff's manufactured after-the-fact Tall Tale really did for me, as someone who is only interested in reality, was to escalate the level of weirdness attached to the incident, the initial weirdness being Jeff suddenly and explosively reacting to a simple observation on my part and insisting that we have to stop talking about this NOW and the subsequent weirdness being Jeff feeling compelled to add, years after the fact, a threat of physical violence to his already bizarre and excessive emotional reaction to a simple conversation] [to repeat: What are you so upset about?]

[Okay, now that none of you are paying attention again, here is Jeff's version of what I wrote in READS. If you were fair-minded people – which I know you aren't, but let's pretend that some of you are – here is a living example of how Jeff Smith wouldn't know the truth if it came up and bit him on the ass:][and because you're Marxist-feminists and won't look up what I actually wrote so as to maintain your eight-year delusion that Jeff was telling the truth and is therefore Good and Dave Sim was lying and is therefore Evil, I am pleased to repeat what I actually wrote immediately after Jeff's version. Oh, you're more than welcome:]
SMITH: He wrote about it in CEREBUS #186. But in his version, instead of me threatening to give him a fat lip, he has me fawning and begging him not to reveal the true evil secrets of women in front of Vijaya. [Scared voice] "Dave, stop giving away the secrets of the universe! Please! Stop giving them away! I'll get in trouble with Vijaya!" And Vijaya is portrayed like a scheming Mata Hari, when really she was just angry and bored. [Laughter]
Okay this is actually what I wrote:
`Oh, NO! No way. Uh-uh.' Jeff Smith is shaking his head violently from side to side. He has lunged forward in his seat, his hands waving in the air, as if shooing away a large insect. All of his movements are agitated. At the other end of the couch, his wife sits, her feet tucked beneath her, calmly smoking a Marlboro Light. Her features are inscrutable.

Viktor Davis takes another sip of his beer.

`You'd agree that Death is Male?" he asks.

`Yes"

`You'd agree that Birth is Female?'

`Yes"

`Which one is winning?'

`No. No, no way. It's just not true.' He stares straight ahead for a moment or two and then looks at Viktor Davis. `I just don't think that way, man. I just can't see that at all.'

Vijaya grinds out her cigarette in a small glass ashtray.

At Jeff's insistence, the discussion ends. They agree to disagree. Viktor Davis isn't certain what the disagreement is, but clearly an impasse has been reached.

They begin to discuss animation instead.
[For the two or three Marxist-feminists still reading at this point – I know, I don't believe anyone is still reading at this point either, but let's pretend that some of you are still playing along with our home version of the game and you don't have access to a dictionary] [Well, obviously you have access to a dictionary, but you're Marxist-feminists. You aren't going to go and look up a word if it means that it will prove another Marxist-feminist to be full of hot air:]
inscrutable – not readily investigated, interpreted or understood: MYSTERIOUS (i.e. "God, thy judgements are inscrutable" Robert Browning)
There is no pejorative connotation for the word inscrutable. It was the most apt adjective I could find to describe Vijaya's complete non-reaction. She didn't look angry and she didn't look bored. Jeff looked angry. Vijaya was completely blank. That was what I found remarkable. Jeff is going ballistic over... I don't know what, considering that we both agreed that Birth was Female and Death was Male and the former is, factually, exceeding the latter by a wide margin… and Vijaya isn't going ballistic with him but also doesn't say, "Jeff, calm down. What are you getting so excited about? We're just talking." If there was something to get extremely upset about, why isn't Vijaya getting upset? And if there's nothing to get extremely upset about, why isn't Vijaya more concerned about Jeff's erratic behaviour?

[It's an interesting basis for speculation – again, for another time, again, I'm sticking strictly to the facts here -- to wonder at the psychological transference that Jeff's unconscious mind obviously engaged in: translating what I actually said into what his unconscious mind had decided he needed to believe that I had said. Where did he get the "fawning and begging" thing from? Where did he get the "giving away the secrets of the universe" thing from? The "true evil secrets of women" thing from? The "getting in trouble with Vijaya" thing from? None of those are in there, not even remotely. I'm not, as you all know, big on psychiatry to say the least. To me, it's simple demonic possession. Unclean spirits. But, for those of you who do believe in psychiatry, what do you make of this bizarre and excessive form of transference? Where, psychologically speaking, do you suppose it comes from?]

[The important thing from a Marxist-feminist standpoint is that it worked like a charm. Frank Miller went on record as saying that he too would find it intolerable if a guest in his house had insulted Lynn. My universal pariah status – which continues to this day -- was assured. My question, in "Dear Jeff Smith": "How did I insult Vijaya?" was ignored, both by Jeff and by the comic-book field in general. I'll ask it again, "How did I insult Vijaya?" No response. Exactly.]


DAVE SIM:
(from The Blog & Mail, 18 September 2007)
WHERE TO HIS FAVOURITE ACCOMPANIMENT IN THE COMIC-BOOK FIELD (CRICKETS CHRIPING) DAVE SIM GOES ON TO SAY:

So returning to reality (as I like to do), I had come all the way to Columbus with a set of boxing gloves and, in my "Dear Jeff Smith" piece in CEREBUS 265, I had left it up to him to pick the venue, the timekeeper and the referee. It seemed to me that it would be completely dishonourable for him to just walk in at that point and tell me where and when we would be sorting this out when I had given him that much advance notice, coming in two days ahead of time to give him the most number of scheduling options, but the fact that I had brought the gloves with me indicates that it didn't surprise me that he would handle it that way. People like that are just that way: if there's a sneaky, underhanded way of doing something and a direct and above-board way of doing something, they will always pick the former over the latter, every time. Why? I'm the wrong person to ask. It's just the way those people are. Personally, I always go the other way. If there's a sneaky, underhanded way of doing something and a direct and above-board way of doing something, I pick the latter. Which is what I was doing here. Jeff had to be made to put up or shut up. I would allow him to choose the context in all particulars and weight them in his own favour whatever way he wanted to. We would insulate our hands to keep from jeopardizing our livelihoods. Jeff could pick the referee who would presumably keep him from getting seriously hurt. Presumably the biggest gorilla he could find or knew of. Presumably the gorilla would feel no comparable compulsion to keep me from getting seriously hurt if things went the other way. Fine. I had made my peace with the whole situation.

Let God judge between me and thee.

If he did just stroll in at the last minute, I assumed – again, opting for sneaky and under-handed -- he would set a place and a time for Monday, figuring that I would already be booked on a flight home (which I was) so he could say that he named the venue and the time and I ducked out. Big Tough Jeff Smith wins again. So I was already prepared that I might have to re-book my return flight or miss the dinner that I was going to buy all the exhibitors after the show if he set the place and the time that night or have to negotiate an alternative if he said everything had been arranged for Sunday which presumably he would know I wouldn't violate the Sabbath for. The last one was the trickiest one, but one way or another, we would see who would deck who and who would give who a fat lip. I sleep in track pants and a sweatshirt which would serve as athletic gear in a pinch. I had already said in the same piece that I would take my chances without headgear or a mouth-guard and left it up to Jeff if he wanted to use them or do without them.

He gestured at the table, smirking, and said, "So where are the gloves?" And I replied, straight-faced, serious and factual, "They're back at the hotel." He gave me a derisive, "Yeah, as if." look, said "Welcome to Columbus" – to which I replied "Thanks, Jeff" and then he walked on to the next table and left the room roughly ten minutes later. "Well, that was easy," I thought to myself.

Having made a point to come over to where I was sitting and to ask about the gloves, to me, established who was backing down here. Just to make sure, I brought the gloves back the following year. No Jeff. Nor has he shown up at SPACE since that second show.

The boxing gloves were among the contents of the penthouse apartment that I sold to an estate liquidation agency in 2003 shortly after the SPACE show. I didn't see any need for them anymore and in my new more aesthetic lifestyle, storage space was at a premium.

So, the issue of who was and who wasn't a coward having been established, I was pleased to shake hands with Jeff on the front steps of The Beguiling two years ago, the afternoon before the first TCAF and I made a point of seeking him out for amiable chatter over in the children's tent where he would be set up when I saw him over there, waving to him whenever I saw him at a distance that weekend and figuring the whole thing had been sorted out back at the second SPACE show when he didn't follow up on his "where are the gloves?" question with "where and when" we were going to do this and at the third SPACE show when there was no sign of him. And I haven't said a word about it since.

Until now.

And if everyone would just learn to leave the whole subject alone I won't have to say a word about it again. On the other hand, if Jeff wants to opt for the Bryan Talbot version of events, or if any one of the other hundreds of people he has told Tall Tales to over the years about what happened choose to revive the issue publicly, my offer remains open. I come to Columbus every year for SPACE.

Name the time and the place – publicly, I have no interest in any private communication with someone who says one thing privately and another thing publicly as Jeff has continued to do -- and I'll be there. I don't have as much money as I used to, but I would consider buying another pair of boxing gloves to be an investment.

A solid investment.

And if Jeff chooses to ignore this, then obviously he's the coward -- which he and I both knew five years ago after I answered his "So, where are the gloves?" question and he wandered off and which I was willing, until Bryan Talbot's book, to keep just between the two of us. I have a great deal of compassion for the "accuracy challenged" having been married to one. He backed down and that was good enough for me. I would prove that I was a bigger man than he by keeping it confidential. Anyway, he now has Bryan Talbot to thank or blame (as the case may be) – not me -- for my now, of necessity, making his cowardice a matter of public record.

Only one of us is a coward and trust me, folks, it isn't me.

Gary's follow-up fax, still full of vituperation and vilification and "Crazy Dave Sim" stuff at least contained one sensible sentence:
"For what it's worth, I can understand your need to set the record straight."
Which I appreciated. A great deal. More than I can say. One faint glimmer of light in the Marxist-feminist darkness that has surrounded me since 1994. I assume from that, that thirteen years later Gary finally (finally!) read what I wrote and read what Jeff Smith said I wrote and understood that a disservice had been performed towards me by Jeff with the full duplicity of his magazine (and the universal endorsement of the comic-book field).

Should he or Tom Spurgeon or someone else have actually read the passage in READS and compared it to Jeff's version before publishing Jeff's version and launching another wave of self-righteous Marxist-feminist trashing of Dave Sim on the Internet which lingers to this day? It depends. If we're supposed to take the COMICS JOURNAL at face value as a journal -- that is as an example of journalism, presumably yes. Presumably it should have been checked at the proof-reading stage or it would have made an interesting side-bar on that page or someone might have looked up the passage and done a follow-up question with Jeff.

Of course, I don't take the COMICS JOURNAL at face value as journalism. Far from it. It's Tabloid Journalism of the vilest Marxist-feminist sort, the comic book field's answer to Pravda and all you have to do is find yourself outside of their high school girls' clique and you know the full extent of what that means for you and for your career. Just ask anyone who has gone through it.

Jeff is drawing the covers to Fantagraphics' reprints of the Walt Kelly OUR GANG material and designing their POGO reprint collections, which I hadn't known. Gary told him that I'd be responding to the slander in Bryan Talbot's book and Jeff asked him to pass this along to me:
Well, next time you talk to Sim tell him to calm down. I don't have any bad feelings about him anymore. He can write whatever he wants.
I had to laugh. He ruins my career and incites everyone to treat me as a pariah and thirteen years later he doesn't have "any bad feelings" about me. No, I'm sure he doesn't. What would he have left to feel bad about now that I have been permanently exiled from the comic-book field and he has assassinated my character with his Tall Tales all over the world? He's done a solid job for thirteen years. He hasn't completely destroyed me, but he has come very close. I asked Gary to relay this on my behalf to Jeff:
I am calm, Jeff. I've been calm for thirteen years while all of you people have done your level best to destroy me. It hasn't worked out BECAUSE I've been completely calm. Now I'm – very calmly through the Blog & Mail – reading into the record what has happened for the last thirteen years and – you can thank Bryan Talbot for this – revisiting your key role in that attempted destruction. I don't care and never did care what your "feelings" were about me or anyone or anything else. All I'm interested in and all I ever was interested in is reality.
And there you have the reality as it stands: Jeff Smith the lying coward. We'll see if he wants to change half of that next April at SPACE.

And to the familiar sound of Marxist-feminist crickets chirping in the dark emptiness of the comic-book field, let me say here and now that I'll be happy to update all this the next time a Marxist-feminist chooses to follow in Bryan Talbot's footsteps and slander my name in public by recounting the lies Jeff has been spreading since 1994.