# What is Dave Simm so angry about? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 1, 2004, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-dave-simm-so-angry-about/237672 "2004-04-01T05:11:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-dave-simm-so-angry-about/237672/41 "2004-04-03T12:55:46Z")
> [@Chairman Pow](#): > > As for your list of boring male characters: I’m sure you understand that most, if not all of them are parodies. Elrond isn’t just Foghorn, he’s Elric the doomed albino prince of Melnibone, making him into Foghorn Leghorn was Sim’s way of showing how silly and over-the-top Moorcock’s gothic melodrama was. The Roach was the jab at the comic (read: superhero) zeitgeist. &c. Just to clarify: it’s not so much that the males are boring–they’re not. They’re generally more entertaining to read than the female characters. But they’re caractures–they’ve got no depth. Astoria is as real a “person” as a comic book character can get. Elrod (who, IMO, stopped being a parody (other than visually) of Elric around the election in #34–no more “last king of a dying race”, no more "black sword “Seersucker”\* etc) isn’t. He’s funny to read, but there’s no depth, nuance or facets to his personality. Can you imagine Elrod going through a change as profound as Astoria did? I can’t: it would destroy the character. Ditto with the Roach, Lord Julius, and so forth. I love the male characters, but they’re generally either funny (Roach, Lord J, Elrod) or stupid (Cerebus, Bear). The female characters are simply (to me, of course) richer. > [@](#): > > As for Cerebus’ interpretation of the Torah, Sim explains it somewhere in…(I had caught up to Latter Days in the trades and started buying the issues, but I can’t remember if the description was in the issues or commentary at the back of the trade) that Cerebus’ explication of the Torah was someone who had absolutely no knowledge of Judaism/Christianity and went at it from purely textual differences, even reconciling errors that were handed down via translations/recopying and who didn’t understand how the story worked in the culture it was conceived in. > > And as understood by someone as dense as Cerebus. Except that Sim apparently believes something similar as well. That’s what makes 'em so screwball. And they’re so damned misogynistic that they’re not even funny to read except in a screwball, tinfoil hat, “Protocols of the Elders Of Zion–it would be funny if it wasn’t so creepy” way (to me). > [@](#): > > As for your interpretation of Issue 300: interesting. To be honest, I skimmed the Torah commentary and the Book of Rick so I’ll have to go back to check those out(if you have issue/trade page references I’ll get to it quicker), but Jaka’s hand being a claw I think is you reading too much into a poorly drawn hand. I was going with the identity path, being that Cerebus finally finding peace (as it so happens, according to the story, peace can only be with God), but…I dunno how you want to read the Rabbi; worshipping false idols? Wanting to be something he’s not (feminist escapism?)? I agree with you: I want Cerebus to finally find peace and that’s how I choose to personally interpret it as well. But Sim is _very_ clear in interviews with the hand being a claw, and Cerebus’s eventual destination. (I don’t have issue numbers handy. I just skimmed the Torah stuff (and the Victor Reid stuff) this time around, so I’m going on memory. The "squished into the sun for all eternity/“Yahwoo=the light=the false female wanna-be God” bit should be easy to find though, as there’s a lot of pictures of the sun in that issue and it’s towards the end of the Torah stuff. Work backwards from the end and you’ll find it pretty quickly. I’ve got a Yahoo group posting of a transcript between a caller and Dave Sim that I’ll post next. I think it’ll give some insights into what Sim say about #300 (it doesn’t mention the hand-\> claw bit, but Sim clearly says where Cerebus ends up.) As an aside, newsgroup/yahoo group posts have been considered fair game: they’re not protected by copyright, so I’m going to quote the whole post (until they start chatting about non-relevant stuff–I’m also leaving off the everyone’s last name, since the SDMB has a much wider audience than the Yahoo Cerebus group) > [@Yahoo Group post](#): > > Message 37270 of 39610 > > Date: Sat Mar 6, 2004 11:54 am > Subject: [cerebus] Dave on 300 (Spoilers) > > Just called Dave. Caught him in between noon prayers and answering reader letters. I took notes as best I could for the beginning of the conversation, but after he answered my main question and went onto other topics I took less and less notes, so this will go from a literal transcription to a paraphrase by the end. Items taken from memory rather than notes are in [brackets]. There are more of those on my side because I was more intent on writing what he said than my questions. Soooo… > > Me: May I speak with Dave please? > > Dave: Speaking. > > Me: Hi, this is Steve {name removed by Fenris} from the Cerebus (caught myself and didn’t say “Yahoo”) – online group. > > Dave: Yes, hi. > > Me: As you could probably guess we’re having another dispute about What It All Really Means, so I thought I’d give you a call and ask. > > Dave: Okay. > > Me: Okay… in 300, the scene in the light. There’s two schools of thought on who the three people are who beckon him last. > > Dave (without prompting): It’s Ham, Jaka and Bear. > > Me (catching myself a bit, since I had prepared this whole schpeil to tell him the two opposing theories): Aha. So… It’s the first one that people were wondering about. So those people who thought it was Ham thought that these three are the three that best represent the risks of merged permanence. > > Dave: (silence) > > Me: Or, is it because they’re the three most important people to Cerebus? > > Dave: They’re the three most important people to the _wrong side_ of > Cerebus. > > Me: Meaning the side that [gets distracted and makes bad choices]? > > Dave: Exactly. > > Me: ['Cause there are those who thought it was Rick.] > > Dave: Well, yeah, this time it is definitely a right-and-wrong situation. [This time] I’m not going to say “let’s leave it up to the reader to decide.” [They’d hate me for that.] But no… I didn’t even think that there would be a question about that until Shawn {name removed} called asking the same thing. (Snipping a bit asking about who Shawn {name removed}… apparently he’s a frequent caller, who is probably not on our list.) I didn’t even realize how much Ham looks like Rick until he brought it up. > > Me: So as not to inject my own theory about what it means, can you tell me in your words what it means when Cerebus thinks about Rick two pages later. > > Dave: That comes from my own concern in terms of, we’re all going to go through it, this is all such a universal experience, the near-death experience. My first question is, who is it I’m seeing, these people, who’ll be making it into Paradise? That’s the assumption, [we all assume we’re going to get into Paradise, especially back when we were all going to church, and so] when you see these people, these are the people you expect to go into Paradise. But of all the people I know, [all the people I’ve met in my life,] unless God has set the bar really, really low where almost anyone can get in, I can’t think of anyone I know who’s going to get in. > > Me (thinking to myself “Yep, he really does believe this stuff…”): So, the people who thought it was Rick, they thought that Cerebus thinking of Rick and his rejection of it meant that this was Heaven and that Cerebus didn’t want to spend eternity with Girly-Boy. That this was a funny ending. > > Dave: (silence) > > Me: …and, the ones who thought it was Ham thought that his thinking of Rick was realizing that Rick wasn’t there… > > Dave: [Yeah, because I’m going to be thinking about who’s not there.] > > Me (trying to steer him back to Cerebus): …and therefore if Rick wasn’t there that this wasn’t Heaven. > > Dave: Exactly! > > Me (not expecting such a brief and definitive answer after that long bit about Paradise): Ah! Well, good. 'Cause that was my theory. > > Dave: Well, you’re batting 1,000 so far! (chuckles) > > Me (cursing myself now for not asking at this point if Cerebus was going to not-Paradise because of the froufrou’s proclamation): Okay, well cool! Thanks for talking to me, I’m going to go rub their noses in it now. > > { snipping stuff about an upcoming on-line chat–Fenris } You can also see the transcript of the on-line chat[here](http://cerebusfangirl.0catch.com/artists/031104talkpart1.html) One relevant quote from that page: > [@Dave Sim](#): > > Issue 1-150 strikes me as the `male cycle' because it's very `outward bound’—ejaculatory— which I think we can all agree is something of a male trait. The first half of the story is largely concerned with how uncontainable a force of nature Cerebus is—which ultimately gets contained by Jaka, by his feelings for Jaka, by Jaka’s domestic situation. He’s ultimately immobilized to the point of catatonia, a situation which has very little to do with him, personally. He’s catatonic on Jaka’s behalf. To me, a lunatic identification with your quarry. It’s like the eighth Tarot card; Fate calming a Lion. A very female concept. What do you do with a lion? Calm him down. If you can manage it, get him into an apron and show him how you wash the dishes (See? You wash the delicate pieces first). The first 150 issues are a 3,000 page cum shot which ends with Cerebus virtually expired—not even within Jaka herself—but within his distorted picture of who and what Jaka is. Issues 151-300 strike me as the `femalecycle’ because, as in our society, the takeover is complete. Fate calming a Lion has been institutionalized, carved in stone with all the unhappy consequences that implies. With the result that Cerebus’ life is still trying to be ejaculatory but it’s like badly timed after- spasms. John Lennon sang “Come Together” as if it was a good thing. Anytime I ended up “coming together”, the vaginal clenching and my own spasms were a recipe for penile disaster. He literally loses his “right ear”. There is nothing good to hear in a female dominated society. It’s also a Van Gogh reference. It’s a grisly, futile gesture made towards a completely unworthy object. He “shoots” past the Moon this time, but he has Cirin with him. Like going on a blind date with Nurse Ratchet in the back seat. He gets answers. Big answers, little answers, wide-ranging answers and personal answers. None of which do any male any good when they’re in a female cycle both personally and in a societal sense. What part of hopeless don’t you understand? He just couldn’t, wouldn’t break free. It’s an individual choice. If you give them that kind of power over you, everything is a mess. Whether I gave him back his doll, gave him back Jaka or not, the problem was still the same; he was imprisoned by the idea of Jaka because he saw Jaka as an Idea . An Important Idea. If you fail a test it’s that much more difficult to pass the next time around. He was so hopelessly ensnared within the misbegotten idea of what Jaka is that—even after Jaka has been dead for a century—a Jaka look-alike is his undoing. In that same transcript Sim makes it clear that he _does_ believe in the screwball Torah commentaries (including Yahwooh): > [@Dave Sim](#): > > Again, I can’t emphasize too strongly that all of the BRGWST [Big Round Glowing White Sphere Thing?-Fenris](and the distinction between Tarim and Terim) predated my reading of the Bible and, I suspect, were being used (that is, I was being used as well) to fish YHWH in. Tarim and Terim would have a lot of appeal for YHWH since their names would be a lot closer than God and YHWH, thus presenting the promise of an even narrower borderline between them. I wasn’t consciously aware of any of this. But it seems to me that God was. I think YHWH incarnates in a number of ways, just as I depicted. 289/290, to me, is the Origin of YHWH. It’s an utterly fascinating chat: by and for fans, not the press, so there’s tons of cool tidbits given out. Fenris \*“Tarim! Who’d have belived a sword could get so rusty as to turn _black_?” ---
**Author:** ![conurepete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e57/32.png) [@conurepete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/conurepete)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-dave-simm-so-angry-about/237672/42 "2004-04-03T21:56:51Z")
I love this thread. My question has not only been competantly and completely answered, but also Fenris and Ogre have done an outstanding job of illustrating how a work of art can go beyond its creator. I intend to read up to the end of Rick’s Story. Especially because teenyweenie type that runs together is a sign of an unbalanced mind, except on soap bottle labels. ---
**Author:** ![Chairman\_Pow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Chairman\_Pow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chairman_Pow)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-dave-simm-so-angry-about/237672/43 "2004-04-03T22:24:11Z")
Fenris: OK, I can’t argue with Sim and reading his comments makes things clear. You can get what you want and still not be happy indeed. Ogre: Forget the first trade, have her start with _High Society_, then go back to Vol 1. As you recall, the only things that are really missing then is 1) Who is Elrod? 2) Who is the Roach and 3) Why was being the kitchen staff supervisor such a big deal? You can explain the first two when she asks, but the kss joke is a lot funnier when you don’t know that Julius purposely named it that way. And finding out who Julius is is a lot funnier in that volume than the standard ABC method in volume 1. Of course, by vol. 3, she should have read vol. 1 to figure out a lot of the in jokes. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-dave-simm-so-angry-about/237672/44 "2004-04-03T22:32:50Z")
> [@Chairman Pow](#): > > Fenris: OK, I can’t argue with Sim and reading his comments makes things clear. You can get what you want and still not be happy indeed. I dunno: I’ll argue with Sim about the meaning of “Going Home” all day. The fact that he wrote one story while intending to write another doesn’t change just because he wants it to. 🙂 > [@](#): > > Ogre: Forget the first trade, have her start with _High Society_, then go back to Vol 1. As you recall, the only things that are really missing then is 1) Who is Elrod? 2) Who is the Roach and 3) Why was being the kitchen staff supervisor such a big deal? You can explain the first two when she asks, but the kss joke is a lot funnier when you don’t know that Julius purposely named it that way. And finding out who Julius is is a lot funnier in that volume than the standard ABC method in volume 1. Of course, by vol. 3, she should have read vol. 1 to figure out a lot of the in jokes. I’d quibble just a hair about this. You _must_ know who Jaka is for the “The Night Before” issue (#36?) to rip your heart out and stomp on it–. Maybe have her _just_ read issue 6 (if you don’t have the original, just bookmark the “chapter” in the first phonebook) and then follow **Chairman Pow’s** advice. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-dave-simm-so-angry-about/237672/45 "2004-04-03T23:35:52Z")
I have to confess that despite being an early reader of the series (I have the first issues not as singles but as the smaller compilations of five issues each) I gave up on the whole thing shortly after Cerebus returns from the moon. The pacing started to seriously drag, the whole gynocracy thing seemed pointlessly nasty, the tangents were getting more frequent and worse, and I just didn’t care anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-dave-simm-so-angry-about/237672/46 "2004-04-04T04:00:18Z")
**Fenris** sez: ---- Finally there’s Astoria, who is unique in the entire series since she’s the only character, the ONLY one in the entire 6000 pages who actually grows, changes and learns. For someone who thinks women are anti-creative monstrous voids who consume and devour male creativity, he sure makes them pretty damned interesting. ## Yeah, but I’m wondering whether Astoria or Cirin really count. Cirin is an Aardvark. I had the sense that Dave S. concluded that Astoria was actually more male in outlook, her female exterior notwithstanding. Astoria’s epiphany may have been a method of shooing her off the stage. I bought a couple of phone books a year in the early 1990s. Then I started in on the issues. By the end of Going Home, I felt I had cut Dave more than enough slack. I draw the line when half of the issue is half-assed printed diatribe. Am I pissed at Dave? Yeah. I haven’t decided whether I would purchase the next 2 phone books (one of which is currently available). Ok, I probably will, eventually. Not only is Dave a misogynist, he’s also a boring one: even when it was originally published, Dave was addressing issues in feminism/ popular culture that were at least 10 out of date, probably more. **Baldaron** ------ He spouts off all these essays in his comic where there is a distinct lack of peer review. Let him try these views at any university department with feminists, leftists, or homosexualists. He would figuratively be torn apart No need to go to the university: he would be demolished on this board! Then again, 100 blindfolded chimpanzees could probably outponder the man as well. * * * All the same, I believe that refusing to list Dave Sim in the, “Top 100 Comic Book Artists”, list that Fantagraphic put out around 2000 was ridiculous. A lot of Dave’s work was highly innovative and visually compelling. I even remember being stunned by some of his work in “Going Home”. (I’m thinking of the boat scenes)\*. Unfortunately, all my issues are currently in storage, as it were, so I can’t give further substantiation. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-dave-simm-so-angry-about/237672/47 "2004-04-04T04:02:17Z")
Oh yeah, I thought that one yahoo poster’s charactization of issue 300 was interesting: “More of a grand finally, than a grand finale.” ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-dave-simm-so-angry-about/237672/48 "2004-04-04T08:27:14Z")
> [@Measure for Measure](#): > > Oh yeah, I thought that one yahoo poster’s charactization of issue 300 was interesting: > > “More of a grand finally, than a grand finale.” Interesting how - because he, too, was passing off someone else’s line as his own work to anyone who didn’t know the source? ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-dave-simm-so-angry-about/237672/49 "2004-04-04T13:26:21Z")
That was the way Sim himself mentioned someone describing the end of Church & State, as I recall. And, just to prove we’re everywhere… [Check out the phrase about Tatsuya’s name on yesterday’s Sinfest (Don’t worry, despite the name it’s safe for work).](http://www.sinfest.net/d/20040403.html) ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-dave-simm-so-angry-about/237672/50 "2004-04-04T13:32:41Z")
> [@Measure for Measure](#): > > Yeah, but I’m wondering whether Astoria or Cirin really count. Cirin is an Aardvark. I had the sense that Dave S. concluded that Astoria was actually more male in outlook, her female exterior notwithstanding. Astoria’s epiphany may have been a method of shooing her off the stage. It probably was, but since he could have had her killed or (worse) Jakafied her (No, she was _always_ stoopid. _ALWAYS_. Ignore what was printed. You’re just misinterpreting it.), I’m grateful that she got a _good_ ending. I do disagree with the idea that Astoria had a male outlook. She’s _everything_ that Sim hates in women–bitchy, mecurial, emotional when she can manipulate you, frosty-cold when she can’t (remember the scene in High Society when someone sends Cerebus a packet of drugs and she pretends to be stoned just so she can mess around with Cerebus?). I got the feeling that Sim was sorry he removed Astoria, as “New Joanne” did _exactly_ the sort of things (once she had Shep-Shep) that Astoria would have instituted if Astoria had been given the power to enact them. > [@](#): > > All the same, I believe that refusing to list Dave Sim in the, “Top 100 Comic Book Artists”, list that Fantagraphic put out around 2000 was ridiculous. A lot of Dave’s work was highly innovative and visually compelling. Yeah, but no-one cares what Fantagraphics thinks, IMO. IIRC, The Comics Journal has a circulation less than 1500 copies a month. No cites, I’m going from memory, but… And remember the story Sim told (that Gaiman and others have backed up) when, in the mid-80s, Sim and Groth were talking and Sim mentioned how exciting Sandman was (it was starting the “Game of You” arc, I think)–and Groth not only hadn’t read it, _he hadn’t even heard of it!_!) No wonder no one reads TCJ. Fenris ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-dave-simm-so-angry-about/237672/51 "2004-04-04T21:34:56Z")
I didn’t know that the yahoo-poster was quoting Dave S. (I suspect that he or she figured everyone would get the reference. Oops.) ----- I do disagree with the idea that Astoria had a male outlook. She’s everything that Sim hates in women–bitchy, mercurial, emotional when she can manipulate you, frosty-cold when she can’t (remember the scene in High Society when someone sends Cerebus a packet of drugs and she pretends to be stoned just so she can mess around with Cerebus?). Good point. Consider my paradigm shifted. Thinking back to the drug-packet scene, it occurs to me that Astoria, while not quite the protagonist, tended to steal the stage whenever she appeared. Furthermore, she secured the reader’s sympathies, perhaps because she was more reasonable than Cerebus. Her deviousness inspired more admiration than repulsion. Up until 10 minutes ago, I might have thought that this was merely a result of Sim’s, “Making a statement true by putting it into the mouth of a beautiful women,” as my paraphrase of Rick puts it. Now I am much less sure. * * * In the 1970s, those tired of Superhero comics wondered why they stunk so much. Explanations included the concentration of titles under 2 corporate umbrellas, the dreaded Comics Code, and evil market pressures under capitalism. I think we’ve learned a little about market pressures since then. On the one hand, they tend to encourage a formulaic approach: it is understandable that an investor (or an editor) would tend to support things that have sold in the past. This is unfortunate, IM-not-so-HO. However. Market pressures also curb creator self-indulgence. I really believe that Dave Sim _potentially_ has some terrific work ahead of him. At the same time, he is in desperate need of a strong editor.\* A little external pressure might do wonders for his output. * * * - Davy doesn’t hire editors though: he only permits his genius to be filtered by proofreaders. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Chairman\_Pow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Chairman\_Pow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chairman_Pow)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-dave-simm-so-angry-about/237672/52 "2004-04-05T03:28:10Z")
> [@Measure for Measure](#): > > * * * > > - Davy doesn’t hire editors though: he only permits his genius to be filtered by proofreaders. :rolleyes: In need of an editor or not, recall that Dave was probably comic’s biggest auteur. That is, according to his [Onion](http://www.onionavclub.com/feature/): > [@](#): > > My best intellectual assessment of the completed work is that I said exactly what I wanted to say, exactly the way I wanted to say it. I think Dave would consider an editor baggage (of course, one could argue that if he added Gerhard and this is included in telling the story “the way I wante to say it,” it wouldn’t have been too difficult to add an editor as well). The _Cerebus Guide to Self-Publishing_ has an interesting section on how he keeps his thoughts focused (i.e. he handwrites everything and if he finds himself rewriting a passage two or three times, he knows he’s not focused enough)which one can argue takes the place of an editor’s job. Regarding Fenris’ comments about Dave meaning to put meaning into the book where the text suggests an alternate meaning (or at least knowledge that a reader would not have otherwise): perhaps we should alter his statement to read, “…what I wanted to say, exactly the way I wanted to say it, even if it wasn’t clear enough to someone who isn’t me.” Fenris: > [@](#): > > Except that Sim apparently believes something similar as well. Get ready for a lack of cites: As previously noted, Sim wanted to have a conversation occur on what the Torah meant to someone who was reading it compeltely free of any extra-textual associations (the same that you or I would have in today’s world). That Sim chose to adopt these interpretations into his own belief systems follows from his non-feminist/homosexualist axis views (read: intellectual).\* If you’re having trouble with the Protocols, simply change the name from “…of Zion” to “…of the Illuminati,” as some believe it was originally titled. Maybe it gets funnier then. - As an aside: does he ever call himself a “masculinist?” or is the issue, in his mind, ot that divided? ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-dave-simm-so-angry-about/237672/53 "2004-04-05T04:22:57Z")
Thanks for the link **Chairman**. I wasn’t aware of Onion’s spinoff, _OnionAV_, by the way. I have decided to be optimistic about Dave’s prospects: after all, the man has developed a pretty solid skill set. (OTOH, being a leftist, I recognized that I must first “…destroy Dave Sim as an individual and… ignore his work.” Yes, he really said that. Now, I’ve already muffed the 2nd part, so it behooved me to get serious about the character assassination. The pressure was really on until I realized that no effort was necessary: Dave would finish the job for me himself.) Ok, yucks aside, here’s what Sim has to say about his future work: > [@](#): > > _Dave Sim, in the Onion AV article_ > Peter Birkemoe of Toronto’s Beguiling comic-book store told me that what he hoped I would do is an accessible, self-contained graphic novel that he could give to customers to read and use as an entry point into graphic novels. It was an interesting idea. Having proven that I can push envelopes and kick open doors, it would, I thought, be a real challenge to produce an interesting self-contained short work that would fit the bill. That’s a nice aspiration. But, of course, there’s a problem: > [@](#): > > As I got closer to the end of Cerebus, I started examining it as if it were a math problem. I got X and Y figured out and made some progress structurally, and then I hit the brick wall of feminism. I live in a society that believes feminism is workable. They literally won’t read anything unless it’s founded on an outright lie. Never mind the fact that many stories don’t address gender relations. Set that aside. Sim’s commentary was always far more dubious/offensive than his comics. Provided he limits himself to a couple of pages of useless pontificating, I think he may be able to pull this off. [sub]Note to Dave: If you want to share your um _interesting_ ideas, try a blog. That’s what they’re for, after all.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-dave-simm-so-angry-about/237672/54 "2004-04-05T04:29:07Z")
Say, Dave never wrote about the [Stylites](http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/evagrius-simeon.html) (Pillar Saints,) did he? If not, he should have, since he’s attempting to become the modern-day equivalent of a pillar-sitting religious ascetic, shouting to the crowds below and living a life of worldly denial. I remember a movie from years ago where a traveler happened upon a religious ascetic hermit that had been sitting in a cauldron of oil for years and years, with the vague idea of withering his penis away in the oil. That’s Dave Sim these days. Anybody remember that movie? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-dave-simm-so-angry-about/237672/55 "2004-04-05T09:56:16Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > I remember a movie from years ago where a traveler happened upon a religious ascetic hermit that had been sitting in a cauldron of oil for years and years, with the vague idea of withering his penis away in the oil. > > That’s Dave Sim these days. Anybody remember that movie? I never saw the movie, but I read the novelisation. It’s _Circle of Iron_, and the scene as written is hilarious. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-dave-simm-so-angry-about/237672/56 "2004-04-05T12:02:29Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > Pffft. It espouses faultless logic, but follows from a false assumption, or rather, a set of them - that “all women are emotional creatures,” or more to the point, that men aren’t. Pure blind, wrongheaded foolishness. I’ve seen women on these very boards who can out-logic most intelligent men I’ve ever known, and men who couldn’t follow a logical argument if it were a ten-lane highway. > > In his case, he makes willful generalizations, proclaiming them to be iron-clad truth, but is logically impervious to the inescapable fact that if _one case_ can be shown to go against his pet theory, then the theory is blown. > > It’s easy to find a logical woman. I’d love to see him get into an argument with, say, **Anthracite** or **Jodi** , and see how long his theory survives. > > See, it’s ironic that just one truthful anecdote would be enough to bring the whole thing down. Poetic, even, considering his misogyny. Yeah, this is a common response I get when I read some particularly huffy piece of blowhardism that somebody who’s used to having a media megaphone to spew his opinions has come up with. I wonder how long they’d last if they had to run their opinions through a public discussion board where people who think your ideas are full of, er, baloney, can say so and then explain why at length with circles and arrows on the back to show everyone that you’re full of baloney. I think a guy like Sims wouldn’t last a week in the SDMB. He’d feel like he’d been through a meat grinder by the end of it. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-dave-simm-so-angry-about/237672/57 "2004-04-05T13:08:42Z")
No he wouldn’t. He’d be one of those types who continues to insist that we don’t see the brilliance of his arguments because we’re not smart enough to understand it or we’ve been mind-controlled by the ‘media’ (run by women this time and not jews) to be unable to think logically about the issue. That sort of smugness…you know what I mean? ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-dave-simm-so-angry-about/237672/58 "2004-04-05T15:43:06Z")
> [@Evil Death](#): > > I never saw the movie, but I read the novelisation. It’s _Circle of Iron_, and the scene as written is hilarious. That’s it! Thanks! I seem to remember the look on Carradine’s face when the guy in the oil leaned back to show him that he’d damn near succeeded in his penile, um, dissolution. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-dave-simm-so-angry-about/237672.md?page=2)