100 Hour Tour: The Brian Bendis' Forum (Jinxworld)

What follows are the posts from Dave Sim made to The Brian Bendis' Forum (Jinxworld) as part of his "100 Hour Internet Tour".

Dave originally started posted here, and then after a post, moved to a different thread.

11:34 AM

Okay, it's been a bit of an ordeal this morning just getting everything going.

I'm Dave Sim and I'm here to promote my new comic book, glamourpuss. I've done a mailing of Comics Industry Preview Editions to approximately 100 comic stores in Canada and 200 in the US. Stores will be getting a copy of the Preview Edition of no.1 (the complete contents) as part of their Diamond Dateline package for Feb 13.

Those interested in getting an idea of what the book is about can check out the website at www.glamourpusscomic.com. Because of all the little mishaps this morning (Jinxworld appears to be well-named) This will be the shortest session on my Internet tour -- I've got a prayer time at noon so I'll be taking a break in about twenty minutes.

So far there are "glamourpuss Dave Sim" threads at TCJ, Comicon, Sequential Tart, Comics Village, Comics Bulletin, Newsarama, Comic Book Resources if you want to see how the conversation has been going.


So here is the second thread where he popped up, starting on about page 22 (post 210).

11:47 AM

Hi. I've been trying to post a "glamourpuss Dave Sim" thread and it doesn't seem to be working, probably because I'm really not very good at this. I've only got about five minutes until I have to leave for my next prayer time. So, I figured I'd jump in here and just mention that there are 100 stores in Canada and 200 in the US that have autographed copies of the Comics Industry Preview Edition of glamourpuss No.1 and that ALL the stores will be getting a copy (unautographed) in their Diamond Dateline package for Feb. 13.

Anyway, I should be back around 12:30 or so EDST.

12:54 PM

Okay. I'm back. Sincere apologies for my tardiness but the shortcut that I usually take is so slush covered that I had to change my shoes and socks and thought, well that's rather pointless if I just go back the same way.

Anyway, Gail, I hope that you will come up and say hello at Torontocon this year. When you and Nicola Scott were up on stage at the Shuster Awards presenting the award for Best French Language Comic of the Year, I thought, "Maybe I can get Nicola to introduce us."

The previous year, Nicola was sitting with Chester Brown and me (Jill Thompson and her husband were directly in front of us and Heidi Macdonald was a few seats away) at a retailer sponsored Blue Jays game and it was great fun explaining the game to an Aussie. It looked as if the game might get tied in the bottom of the ninth and she said, "What happens if there's a tie?" And I said, "They keep playing until somebody wins. The home side gets the last at bat." "How long do they keep playing?" "Until somebody wins. I think the record is 20 innings or so."

The stricken look on her face still suffering around-the-world jet leg. Fun is fun, but she had been ready to leave three innings ago. The Jays struck out in the bottom of the ninth and she sure looked relieved.

I appreciate your fulsome praise of CEREBUS on SEQUENTIAL TART at the end there. I have to admit that I haven't read any of your work, but you would have to be far more out-of-touch with Comics News than I am to not have heard of the success of BIRDS OF PREY.

R. Smooth dropped by CBR yesterday and I reiterated my choice to limit my discussion of gender issues to SEQUENTIAL TART but since the subject heading of the thread is "Gail Simone vs. Dave Sim" maybe we could find another subject to discuss. What we all ended up discussing at CBR yesterday was cartoony vs. realistic comic-book art. With the Bruce Timm School and the Image School and (far more limited) the Raymond School "duking it out" in mainstream books, do you as a writer have a preference? And, to fine-tune the discussion even further, do you "play" to a specific art style if you know the penciller is going to be More Cartoony or Less Cartoony?

Okay, that was stressful. I had a private message telling me where my thread is. I'm always thinking anything I do is going to delete all of my typing, but here I am and here my message is, so okay. Anyway: I think I'll stick here for a while or possible the rest of the day since I'm now officially three hours late getting started. I'll come back and do the glamourpuss thread tomorrow.

01:12 PM

Hi, Todd. I have a lot of trouble defending myself against the homophobe charge since the two gay people I know best in the field -- one retailer, one creator -- who think quite highly of me aren't, to my knowledge, out of the closet and I'm certainly not going to "out" them just for the sake of getting a stain off of my name.

Since Margaret, who goes by cerebusfangirl, is pretty open about being a lesbian, I will bring that up from time to time. The fact that I have given her pretty much carte blanche to use anything of mine on her cerebusfangirl website, that I entrusted her to scan all of the notebooks I used in the production of CEREBUS (soon to be a fully searchable DVD in a store near you!) (soon being a relative term when you're talking about "all volunteer labour"), that I consider her the Official Cerebus Archivist...

Just to give you an idea: having no one to "leave" CEREBUS to and with Gerhard's departure at the beginning of last year, I'm really having tothink about a full-time custodian if I should unexpectedly depart this vale of tears for the Choir Celestial. At the opening of the Graphic Lit exhibit at the Norman Rockwell Museum, I had my first serious discussion with Margaret on the subject (I had already posted it as an idea when I was still doing the Blog & Mail), basically: is there anything in the way of that? If I kick it, can she move from Eastern Mass. to Kitchener and would she?

Her biggest impediment was her student loans which she is paying off a bit at a time.

Hmm, I thought. Student loans. How much can it be?

"$25,000" she said.

"Gee, Maggs, I think I left it in my other suit."

The latest possibility, which I hope to discuss with her at S.P.A.C.E. is to make that part of my will, that part of my life insurance will go to pay off her student loans.

The fact that Margaret is a lesbian really doesn't enter into it. She's the best person for the job [If there are any Yahoos in the crowd, I don't think you'll find an argument], the most interested, the most dedicated and the one who has stuck with it the longest. I would assume if I was a homophobe that the fact that she was a lesbian would rule her out of contention.

Thanks for reading CEREBUS and for all the money you sunk into it. I appreciate it. I hope you'll come out to the "glamourpuss at the Victory Cafe" party April 30. If you'll send me your address, I'll send you a VIP Platinum Access copy of #1 that will get you into the pre-party.

01:15 PM

33 Innings! Nicola would have had a heart attack, I think.

01:25 PM

Actually the discussion about cartoony vs. realistic just started to get really interesting for me yesterday when R. Smooth posted some comments about using photos for reference -- but only as a jumping-off point. There's at least one really good example of that in the just-released Tom Roberts' ALEX RAYMOND HIS LIFE AND ART. Tracing fashion photos as I'm doing with glamourpuss lends itself a bit to that. With literal tracing, most of the models need to have a few pounds taken off their waistlines in order to really look like the Raymond School. I don't like to take too many pounds off, because then you get into that unrealistic body image area. Life's tough enough without creating false ideals (although men in comics usually have the kind of muscles you're only going to get from steroids).

But with the faces, I learned very quickly, there is virtually no room for improvisation. Just the opposite. The eyes and mouth and nostrils are where you have to really bear down and get as EXACT a tracing as you can. There's a difference of literally microns between "sweet" and "eww...what's up with her mouth?"

01:28 PM

The last game I went to was with John Tran and his wife Siu Ta (you can see the strips I did for Siu at www.siuta.com) and Chester Brown. John thought it was great because Siu had someone to talk to while we watched the ball game. I think Chester was pretty happy with it, too. Look up if everyone starts yelling and the rest of the time talk to Siu about your forthcoming prostitution book.

01:40 PM

Originally Posted by mike black: I know I would have. Would you say this is a function of you personally - as a need to connect with your fans in such a personal way - or is this a function of the independent creator, dealing with individual buyers instead of retailers and shipping outfits?

I think it's more just a genuine interest in people. "Ricky Bobby" was in yesterday picking up his books (including BUFFY for his wife). His actual name is Bobby but they call him that after a character in Teledaga Nights (sp?). Anyway, he bought one of the CEREBUS trades so I was going to do a sketch in it and sign it and he says something about being "just a teacher" or "just a person -- nobody important." Jeez. EVERYBODY'S important.

Part of it is being in Kitchener. It's a real lunchbucket town where you learn pretty quickly that everyone puts his pants on one leg at a time. Any level of self-importance and you won't live here for long. When I used to go to the City Council meetings, I address the Mayor, Carl Zehr, as Your Worship, because that's the way I am. Like David [?] the Republican who joined the Clinton White House and go everybody to stand when the President came intothe Cabinet Room which has always been White House policy. Clinton hadn't made a point of it, but David (why can't I think of his last name? Broder?) did and it set a better tone that had been missing.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who calls him Your Worship. Everyone else calls him Carl. We had a nice chat once waiting in line to get our coats at Centre in the Square. He's the Mayor. He could have someone in his office call and pre-arrange someone to take his coat at the door and bring it back to him. But if he was like that he would never get elected in Kitchener.

01:54 PM

Originally Posted by Todd, The: I still regard Cerebus as a masterpiece in graphic storytelling, and I know absolutely nothing about you, nor am I attempting to condemn you as a person, it's merely your ideological perspective on my sexual orientation that I find disconcerting. Todd Kearns

Cheers, Todd. Of course when you speak of ideology, you're talking to someone with very strongly held religious faith which combines Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

THAT said, the other two monotheists in the ranks of the Yahoos (there might be a couple of others, but it would be a stretch), Billy Beach who is a Jehovah's Witness and Jeff Seiler who is a more mainstream Christian, got into a pretty heated three-way discussion by mail about my view that the concluding verses of Luke 17 are referring to homosexuality. The "two men in a bed, two women grinding together" reference, I maintained was pretty overt. And the teaching was, "One will be taken and one will be left".

My bottom line is that the Synoptic Jesus' teaching was specific -- the Church fathers, in my view, grafted on verse 36 (which doesn't exist in the earliest version of the gospels) because they saw the inference (I would say implication) and thought, we better add another verse about "two men in a field" to "take the edge off". Luke was a Greek physician. I don't think he would ACCIDENTALLY write "two men in a bed, two women grinding together".

It was a year or two later when Billy, much to his credit, found another reference to "grinding" in one of Paul's Epistles and admitted that it wasn't strictly about "wheat" or "mortar and pestal".

To me it's a matter of intellectual honesty. I believe in tolerance but I believe in limits to that tolerance. The fellow who surprised Neil Gaiman on stage in San Diego with a full kiss on the lips purely for theatrical effect, well, that's over the line to me. You want to arrange that backstage as Madonna and Britney Spears did, well, caveat emptor. But nothing was said to Neil about it. That's a completely different thing, to me. Just my opinion.

02:11 PM

Originally Posted by Gail Simone

Dave, I am utterly baffled how you, whose visage I know very well, could sit a no more than three or four seats away and I didn't recognize you.

How did this happen? How could you have sat right next to me almost and I didn't know you were there?

I don't know if you've seen her work, but that girl can DRAW.

I also confess it's been a while since I've heard Brian Azzarello referred to as "her husband."

Gail

I suspect it might have been that, given that Nicola is a woman and seeing me chatting away amiably with her your unconscious Dave Sim-the-Misoygnist mind might have gone, "Well, there's one person I know it CAN'T be."

Yes. She can draw up storm. I'd say it's a toss-up between her and Colleen Doran as to who is the top Female Realism Penciller in Comics. I only saw a page in WIZARD magazine, but you could see it wasn't a happy accident. We ended up running into each other both mornings of the Con in the breakfast room on the second floor.

I actually thought she was Colleen the first morning (Colleen was supposed to be at the show) and called her Colleen when she came up and asked if I wanted some company at breakfast. I don't know if she heard me. Wait a minute. Colleen isn't that tall. Have a shrunk. Oh wait, it's the red-headed Aussie from the ballgame last night. The one Tom Cruise ran out on.

THAT was Brian Azzarello? My hearing is terrible and if you don't get it the first time, you fake it. If they ever have a Frank Miller look-alike contest, m my money's on him. The reliever they put in against the Jays in the eighth I guess had played for the White Sox, so he was very familiar with him. "Just stand there. He'll walk everybody." It was hilarious. Everything he threw was a ball but he Jays kept swinging. "No, don't SWING, just stand there." He ended up striking out the side.

I'll be glad to read anything you want to send me. Can you autograph them? Continuity isn't really an issue. Continuity you can pick up from context. It's more to see what bag of tricks another writer has. Thanks. I'll send you COLLECTED LETTERS 1 and 2 in exchange.

02:19 PM

Yes, sure, I'll take about my beliefs, but usually only if I have a specific point to make (like the Luke 17 reference). To me it's in the same category as feminism. If someone wants to invite me to a Christian Comics Blog or a Jewish Comics Blog or a Muslim Comics Blog, well, yeah non-stop Scripture talk.

But the idea is to promote glamourpuss and talk about comics when I'm at a comics website with no ancillary theme.

The biggest surprise is how nice everyone is. I mean even Rev Smooth, once I made it plain that I wasn't going to discuss gender issues except at ST, well we had a darned good chat with Rantz Hosely and everybody else who turned up. I thought it would be "@#$%^&" by the square mile and I'd have to wade through it to get to anything resembling a discussion.

02:25 PM

Well thank you. I'd be completely remiss if I didn't mention Kelly who is one of the regulars here at the store. He was in picking up his books and we had a bit of a chat about how Marvel's going right now: he filled me in on the current doings with the Deal with Devil storyline in Spider-man...

...but then he mentioned that he always saves what he considers the best books for last and he says that's usually a Bendis book. He does a bit of writing himself and says what he admires most is that Bendis will write himself into a corner and then get out of it so artfully that you go from wondering how he did that to just wondering about the great spot he's put himself into going forward.

Not literally crazy, I hope. Just...idiosyncratic?

02:45 PM

Originally Posted by TIP: Dave. When will Secret Project Number One be solicited? I'd like to get my pre-order in to my shop. T(ony Palermo)

Hi, TIP...it'll be in the March Previews for items shipping in May. 49 pages plus 7 pages of notes, $4. The website will be announced for general admission February 29. Just saw it yesterday and got palpitations. My Technical Director said he got goosebumps. Take a bow, Jeff Tundis. Coincidentally Neil Gaiman's blurb came in yesterday as well -- where he cops to the fact that it's the first comic he's read in years that made him cry.

Yes, he's actually letting me use that. He's also working on the LITHOGRAPH NO.1: NEIL GAIMAN for the CBLDF. It got all bent up in transit, but he's incorporating the schmooshedness into a great work of art. I trust him on that.

02:50 PM

Originally Posted by Doug: Hello Dave, Have you ever thought about taking a project to a publisher instead of self-publishing? Any story that you wanted to tell that would maybe work as an Image book, or any creators you wanted to write for, or draw for. I know you wrote an issue of Spawn, and I was wondering if you ever had the urge to do something like that again. Best of luck with Glamourpuss.

Thanks.

No, I really don't "play well with others". If there's someone who can tell me that I absolutely CAN'T do something -- which is what happens -- then my creativity freezes in advance. IMAGE would be where I would go because of their free movement policy. But, no -- I like to just make decisions and act on them. "Hi, it's Dave Sim, can I speak to Erik?" It's just not me.

Afternoon prayer time and then I've got a couple of trades to autograph for Alex. See you soon.

03:43 PM

Originally Posted by Cth : Just out of curiousity, did you get some postcards with the number 300 on them after issue 300 wrapped up?There was an online effort to try and get 300 postcards sent to you to celebrate issue 300, but without any real organization, it's hard to tell if any actually showed up.

Uh, no. None that I can remember. They'd be in the Archive if any came in.

03:59 PM

Originally Posted by Todd, The: Couldn't one argue that, at least in relation to the anglo-saxon version, the Bible and its passages are open to interpretation? However, no matter what stance is held on homosexuality as it pertains to religion, I believe in tolerance as well, and clearly, you've demonstrated (at the very least) a tolerance of homosexuality. Again, I disagree with what was presented in Tangent, but that's to be expected.

As for the events that transpired in San Diego, theatrics aside, the problem was in the fact that Mr. Gaiman was not aware of what would be happening, not due to the kiss being shared between people of the same sex.

Well, yes. My Larger Point, though, was that something was being taught by the Synoptic Jesus in Luke 17. Forensically, you could say it was just God on Earth looking into the future and seeing two men, Ted and Ralph, in one bed in Wichita in Sep 1941 and on Judgement Day one of them will be taken and the other left. Two women, Doris and Trixie, will be grinding together in June 1951 in the US Virgin Islands and one of them will be taken and the other left. But, I think that's a real forensic stretch. Common sense would suggest that the Larger Point was: homosexuality isn't going to be the criteria on Judgement Day. A good homosexual will be taken and a bad homosexual will be left. You can stretch that statistically if you want and say "What Jesus is saying is exactly half of all homosexuals will get into Heaven and half won't (with a plus or minus 3 or 4 percent nineteen times out of twenty allowance factored in".

But, yes, it's all interpretation. I have four more chapters of Luke to write commentaries on -- I've finished Matthew and Mark -- and I find the Synoptic Jesus extremely suspect, extremely ambiguous but artfully so.

My own, personal view of homosexuality is that it repels me, personally. In the sense of: that's not for me. That doesn't keep me from having my neighbour Dennis, who lives openly with Dave two doors down and is a homosexual, from doing my landscaping at the house. He does a great job at a great price. In fact I had to insist on paying him more than his asking price after his first day's work because I thought he was undevaluing what he was doing.

I don't know what God's opinion is which is really the only relevant opinion since I assume an omniscient Being holds flawless opinions. For all I know, I'm going to Hell on Judgement Day because of what I've written about feminism and homosexuals. I'll find out on Judgement Day.

04:17 PM

Hi, Gail. Sorry I don't get to this until you were back at work. The address is in all the comic books and phone books, but it's Box 1674, Stn.C, Kitchener, ON, Canada, N2G 4R2. Thanks in advance.

I don't credit the photographer or models most of the time because they usually aren't credited. I imagine that I'll find out what the rules are if the book turns out to be a hit. My own view is that if you turn a photo into a drawing, you're making something else. The same reason that I have my own "fair usage" rules of CEREBUS that are less stringent than the "real" world's: as long as you're using my work to make a work of your own, I have no problem with it. If you solemnly promise to never throw a stone, you effectively de-Glass your own House, in my experience.

And I think fashion is a completely NOW environment. I can't imagine that VOGUE has a proprietary interest in anything it did five months ago since that's not what VOGUE is selling. They'll reserve the exclusive right to reproduce the photo -- and, I assume, pay well for the privilege -- but I can't imagine they have a crack team of lawyers monitoring it and jumping on people the way DC has with Superman and all attendant trademark details. VOGUE doesn't have anything analogous that's in jeopardy. Me doing a comic book story out of one of their fashion layouts doesn't jeopardize anything they make money on, even potentially.

It certainly is the photographer's art, and the clothes designer's art that is on display, but when your criteria is that it has to look as if it would make a natural Raymond School picture, I think it moves the whole thing into another realm. That isn't the motivation of the photographer or the designer: in fact they have no awareness of it and probably view it as a bastardized lower form. If they become aware of glamourpuss I suspect that would be their response: it's beneath them to even contemplate it, let alone take action against it.

If they DO land on me with hobnail boots then I'll have to just fold. There's no way I have enough money to beat a fashion magazine in court.

Thanks again for your kind words. You're embarrassing me.

04:27 PM

Well, yes. Although I think you run into problems there where San Diego is trying to present this "fun for the whole family" facade which is different from, say, the MTV Music Awards where "anything can happen" is part of the selling feature. Si nolo oscillarum, nole tintinnarae ["If you don't swing, don't ring"] as it used to say onthe doorbell at the Playboy Mansion.

Personally, it would certainly make me hesitant to agree to be a presenter at the Eisner Awards which I consider unfortunate considering how high a regard I have for Will. I mean, it seems to me that there is a negative inference consensus that it was "no biggie" and that everyone thinks if it happens again it will be "no biggie".

No fighting a consensus, but you can deal me out of the next hand, thanks.

04:29 PM

Great Hitchens quote. I have to remember that,

04:31 PM

I don't have any pictures of famous people reading CEREBUS. Maybe I can get someone to work something up in Photo shop.

4:35 PM

Comes with the comic book territory. If it takes you twenty-six years and three months to record your first "album" all you're really doing is magnifying the effect. I'd find it hilarious if it was happening to someone else.

04:48 PM

Okay, I can't find the post for the life of me, so I apologize for not being able to address you by name, but someone asked me to persuade him or her to pick up glamourpuss since "on principle" they were definitely inclined not to do so and knew many retailers who were the same way.

Well, addressing the second point first: I talked to over 100 Canadian retailers on the phone and I got virtually all of the phone numbers out of the Yellow Pages at the Kitchener Library. By that I mean, my phone campaign wasn't centered on and in fact didn't include most of the retailers that I know well -- John here in town, Andy out in Waterloo at Carry On Books, Peter Birkemoe at the Beguiling, Pete Dixon and Doug Simpson at Paradise Comics, Ron at the Silver Snail. I talked to over 200 US retailers on the phone after that and the only element they all had in common was that they were included on the Fantagraphics "Brick and Mortar" store list they ran in the back of their catalogue a few years back.

I can say definitively that not one of them said, "I deplore your opinions and will not be ordering your book, goodbye" which -- if that was the commonly held view in comics that it is often presented to be you would guess would happen at least, what, two or three times out of retailers that I am calling largely at random?

Now, when it comes to talking you into buying the book, I'm afraid that's just not in my nature. That's why I sent out 300 autographed copies and asked the stores to show them to their customers. That's why EVERY store is getting a COMICS INDUSTRY PREVIEW EDITION of glamourpuss No.1 in the Feb 13 Diamond Dateline.

I think it's a really good book. A REALLY good book. That's why I have the confidence to let everyone see it in its entirety two months before it comes out, during the solicitation period. If there was anything remotely offensive in there, don't you think someone in one of those stores would have said something by now? Don't you think the panel or page would have been scanned and have been the subject of a 500 post thread at the Comics Journal message boards by now? Personally, I think that's a fair suggestion to make. And that the negative inference follows naturally:

People think it's a good book and they're looking forward to it.

If you're looking for a good new book to add to your sub list, I'd respectfully suggest you might want to check on glamourpuss No.1 at your local store sometime around Valentine's Day.

04:50 PM

THE John Tesh? THE ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT a hearbeat away from Mary Hart's chair John Tesh? In a Cerebus shirt?

Stanley, stanley. Don't torture me like that.

05:08 PM

Actually the plan right now is to get the first part of the Mark Commentaries formatted to comic book page size and then incorporate various sequences from Chester Brown's Matthew adaptation that ran in YUMMY FUR and UNDERWATER as illustrations, Big Little Book style. I took the sequence of John the Baptist "Hath no one warned you to flee the wrath to come" and relettered it in the original Koin Greek which creates a really snazzy effect (for me, anyway, your results may differ).

Sgt. Claude Flowers should have the disc by now and will be formatting the pages and then I'll see what seems like a reasonable page length for each "issue" and serialize it. If I can't get enough orders to make it viable, then I'll probably just post the whole works to the Internet. The only finished commentaries are the first few chapters of Mark. The rest are still in the form of handwritten notes that I have in the safety deposit box with the CGC Signature Series Dave Sim file copy CEREBUS issues.

This might be a good time to mention that Sgt. Flowers sent me a copy of Tom Brokaw's THE GREATEST GENERATION with a whole chapter devoted to his (now deceased) grandfather-in-law, Bob Bush (starting on pg. 105). Haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I'm looking forward to it.

And while I'm at it, I want to thank Shaun O'Hern, another CEREBUS reader who was at least indirectly persuaded to sign up for military service by my "Why Canada Slept" essay for my "command cover" from the US Naval Submarine Base in King's Bay, Georgia where he's now stationed in trade for a glamourpuss Gold VIP access #1 (Dave, I'm stationed in MAYBERRY down here-- I don't HAVE a comic shop I can get to).

It's got captain's braid on it, so I only let myself wear it in the office for one afternoon (talk about pretentious!) and it now has a place of honour on the top of the office book case next to the Canadian flag Sgt. Flowers got our loyal men and women stationed at CentCom in Florida to send me.

Godspeed, OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM.

Okay, that's it for the military references. As you were. Smoke 'em if you still let yourself.

05:13 PM

At age 51, 52 in May, the odds of getting cut in Spring Training go up exponentially.

Tell Jim (Mr. Valentino, sir) thanks for the note. Can I pull the first two sentences for a glamourpuss blurb? -- he's at the top of my list of people to call but, yes, as long as he isn't pulling my leg about me being at the top of the list of guests they want for the Portland show next year and they're covering my expenses, I'd be honoured.

05:20 PM

Oh, no, this is strictly a one-off to promote glamourpuss. The last thing I need is to develop another TV addiction after throwing mine away in 2001.

I have Technical Directors on my projects now who scan the pages from photocopied mock-ups that I provide for them. The one on Secret Project One stuck strictly to scanning and cleaning things up -- although he is a cartoonist himself and did specialty borders on all the captions. Sandeep Atwal is the TD on glamourpuss. He collaborates a little more on the humour and he completely redid one page the "STYLE has a new address" page: that title was his idea. I'll watch him Photo Shop stuff over his shoulder. I'm glad it's him and not me. I'd never be able to make up my mind when it's that easy to change everything.

05:27 PM

I suppose. As I say, I think that's certainly the consensus that has shaped up. If you go to the Eisner Awards be prepared to see homosexuals kissing and be prepared to be kissed by a homosexual if they decide to do so and you're on stage with them.

I have enormous respect for Will, but that's a deal-breaker for me. No offence. I'm just saying.

05:41 PM

I needed a love interest to balance off Pud Withers on the other side of the Rick/Jaka marriage and that got thrown out of whack when I was designing Rick (who was originally modeled on Terry, Zolastraya's collaborator) and realized Cerebus would just chop up anyone who wasn't, like, astronomically NICE. That was when I decided to model Rick on Jesus (yeah -- THAT nice). I couldn't picture Jesus having a love interest and that was when Oscar Wilde dropped into place since it's pretty obvious that Oscar thought he was a latter-day Jesus. Which was pretty shallow of him, but that's Oscar, eh?

05:54 PM

There's a good case to be made for that, but the end of CEREBUS passed pretty much without anyone remarking on it. It's nice to have the complete record in the Cerebus Archive. Here's everyone I heard from in March, 2004. It's maybe ten or twenty documents at the most.

Prayer time. Back for the final appearance here around 6:30 and then I'll be over on the glamourpuss Dave Sim thread tomorrow.

Thanks, Gail!

06:47 PM

Well, I'm partly flattered. If I may be allowed to speak frankly, I think your team uses terms like bat-s--t crazy a little too readily. I don't think we're going to make much progress as a society until we realize that ALL of us hold our opinions in good faith. To consider someone crazy because you don't agree with him is an act of profound bad faith, to me. Particularly now that we're getting everything refined down so that the population seems to split 50-50 on more issues all the time. Half of us are crazy. Well, now, how likely is THAT to turn out to be the case when all is said and done?

I'm maybe a little more attuned to it because I'm not only considered crazy by the half on the other side of the house, but the average Jew, Christian and Muslim is going to think the same thing about me because I won't definitively choose just their belief to believe in.

Mind you, I'm not complaining, I'm just saying how things look from where I sit. Disagree with any opinion you want, but don't call it crazy. I spent virtually all of my time thinking so my opinions are pretty carefully arrived at.

06:51 PM

Okay, that's going to do it for today. John's been here running the store on his own and he hasn't eaten all day, so he definitely wants to be done on the dot of 7.

I'll be back tomorrow when Lookin For Heroes, 93 Ontario St. S. in Kitchener opens at 10 am until Saturday close (5:30) at the "glamourpuss Dave Sim" thread.

See you then.