Dave Sim: He has gone insane, hasn't he?

Cafe Society
1

So I’ve been reading Cerebus the Aardvark for many years (God…about 20 now). I dropped off when I went to grad school and have just purchased the large collections.

He has about a year left to issue 300 when I think he’s said he’ll stop.

But man has he gone mad. And he truly doesn’t like women.

Read this…if you dare.

There is indeed…a fine line between genius and insanity.

2

Something about cartoonist’s mindset leads to madness, methinks. Maybe it’s the fact that you have total control over every aspect of the world you’re creating makes it hard to interact in the real world where you have to actually work and interact with people.

I had a roomate that was a big Cerebus freak, so I read and enjoyed a lot of the early comics, but I haven’t seen any in a long time. I had no idea it was still going.

3

Yup, he’s whacko. I’ve heard for years that he was a misogynist and after reading some of his writings on it I have to agree. All men are rational and all women are emotional? Period? Yup, that’s an oversweeping generalization if I ever saw one. And don’t even get me started on the whole “Woman’s void eating up man’s light” shtick.

On the flip side I don’t think there are too many out there who can’t argue that he is a genius when it comes to telling stories in the comic book format and that he has done wonders for the self-publishing of comics. I’d kill to read a well researched biography on him and would even enjoy meeting him in person, if for no other reason than I could probably tell stories about him for years afterwards.

4

Insane doesn’t begin to cover it. The man is a casualty in the war on ignorance.

5

I’ve met him 3 times. Once in 82, once in 88 and one in 93. All at signings.

The first time he was with his wife Deni and they got along famously. I even had her sign the comic I had (she did it as graffiti on the side of a building).

But since the divorce…good God, y’all.

Good God.

6

I, also, was reading Cerebus for a long time, and I met Sim about 10 years ago. He seemed an OK guy. He was even hanging out with Colleen Doran at the time, so that was all right. I even have a letter printed in one issue of Cerebus, though the issue number escapes me at the moment.

However, in the subsequent years I began to notice, very quickly, how the comic seemed to absorb more and more of his “philosophy,” and less and less of the story I once loved. The characters mutated into unrecognizable forms, and the story got lost somewhere along the way.

Cerebus was one of the last comics to fall from my list of monthly purchases, but eventually, fall it did. It happened slowly, but it also happened on display for all to see, should they wish to do so. Sim slowly but surely lost it, in the pages of his magnum opus. I agree with the cited article that Sim still knows how to put pictures and words together with great skill, but it seems to me he forgot how to tell a story about his characters, and instead started telling a story about himself.

That’s not necessarily a good or a bad thing in itself, but it’s not what I signed on for. I miss the old Cerebus, but I don’t miss what it has become in the least.

7

Gone mad? He’s been there for a while . . .

8

I don’t know how well-substantiated this is, but I once heard that Dave is a closeted, deeply self-loathing homosexual. If true, this would explain much of his behavior.

9

^ Beaten. I thought it was pretty much accepted by now that Sim is nuts.

10

Heh heh.

“I will make a stab at reducing the Simian world-view to two basic propositions…”

<snort>

That’s just too perfect.

11

Yeah… certifiably whacked out!

I havent read Cerebus for ages, since 94 I think, so I am not up on recent developments … but his misogyny is a major reason I stopped reading it… and his freaked out images of “creatures” wrapped in multiple layers of clothing ranting about the evils of masturbation… shudder that was one issue that will stick to me just below the conscious level for ever…

I’d go with the self loathing homosexual theory… I always thought there was something sorta “sinister” about the way he related to/with Gerhard in the pics… notes… letters etc…

12

I’ve never even heard of the guy-and reading that, it just…wow.

That guy’s crazier than a shithouse rat.

13

well to be fare to the guy the first four volumes of Cerebus are great stuff

after wards he did get a WHOLE lot weirder

14

Gee. I have never seen this brilliance in his work. To each their own, I guess.

15

well he’s not Alan Moore and even he’s writen a few stinkers

16

Wow. That’s just so… sad. I read a litte bit of Cerebus when I was a kid. Had no idea it was still around. The guy seems genuinely sick. In a case like this, I have to hope he gets crazy enough to get the help he doesn’t think he needs, but not so crazy he becomes hopeless.

17

I don’t know which characters you’re referring to here or where you quit, but 201-266 are a return to form IMHO. Yes, there’s a lot of Sim’s disgruntled philosophy in them, but they have the weaknesses of it written in as well as the truths (and yes, there are truths in it). Guys showed that men can’t be adults without women, Rick’s Story shows the dangers of treating women as objects, and Going Home/Form and Void are about what happens when you don’t realise that growing up means not living life solely on your own terms.

To elaborate that last a little: the key point is the end, where Cerebus drives Jaka away. Why does he do this? Because Jaka is no longer the simple, rather subservient girl she was - she’s become a mature, confident woman. She’s grown beyond Cerebus, and he can’t handle the fact that she’s only with him because she wants to be. He doesn’t want her to want him, he needs her to need him - to rely and depend upon him. As a result, he loses the best thing he’s ever had. To call that particular story misogynistic is absurd; it’s quite the opposite.

Somebody - maybe it was the guy whose article got linked to in this thread - said that of late Sim had turned his female characters into hag-bitches. This is not true. It’s his male characters who aren’t mature, and they perceive women as hag-bitches when they often are not.

(Note that I’m deliberately not commenting on Sim here. I’ve never met him, and I buy Cerebus in book form so haven’t read his monologues either. His work, however, does justify defence.)

18

** evil death ** I’m going to have to disagree with you: in F&V/GH Jaka’s not any more mature of well-rounded than she was before, she just * acts * like she is. Maybe it’s a defensive tactic now that she’s older and the world is a lot different than it was when she was something special (we’ll also have to examine her reaction at the end of Jaka’s Story, I’d argue she wasn’t upset at what she did, nor because she diasappointed Rick, but that she’s all huffy because he refuses to love her anymore in the completely idiotic way he did before) and worshipped by everyone, not just the odd Cirinist.

  • Guys * is not about what men act like when there are no women around, it’s what they act like * because * there are no women around. Remember, the Cirinists, after taking control, allowed the taverns to exist for men to have places of their own where they could feel like they still had some control over themselves, so long as they didn’t cause any trouble outside. If they couldn’t handle going back to the outside world, they were kept in the taverns until they died. I’d argue that acting the way they did is a defense mechanism for their lost masculinity. I’d say that Sim argues that it is indeed a pointless way to spend their time, but there’s nothing else for them to do. It’s not all men who stay in the tavern, just those (we presume) who had some measure of “independence” before the war and are holding onto it. The instances we have of the guys with women in their lives doesn’t necessarily show them acting more like adults, but it certianly changes their behavior: Bear and Zig, Cerebus and Joan, the Igor from Young Frankenstein-looking dude and his wife. Think about how Thatcher scared everyone when she came in. I doubt they were any more mature than when the teacher leaves the room in 7th grade study hall, comes back in to check up and then leaves again.

I’ll agree with his male characters not being particularly mature, but I don’t think the women are any better.

19

Here is an article about Dave that gives some perspective into his nuttiness. You may have to scroll down a bit, but it is worth reading, I think, if you are interested in what makes him tick. It struck me as kind of sad, really.

http://spiltink.dreamhost.com/blogs/2003_12_01_oldSequentials.html#107228042796095292

20

Finally a Cerebus thread.

I cried at the end of Church & State. It rivaled anything Frank Moore ever did. I just committed blasphemy.