Posted in: Comics | Tagged: cerebus, Comics, dave sim, entertainment, idw, judenhaas, strange case of alex raymond

Why Aren't More People Talking About Dave Sim?

So Dave Sim went and wrote this, for A Moment Of Cerebus,

I did want to mention that the ONLY complete sets of CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER TWO BONUS PRINT FIRST RELEASEs — all 21 — will be sent to:

1. Tim W. who has, obviously, been instrumental in "Off-White House Communications" and this experiment in "open governance" of an intellectual property, while maintaining an "arm's length" relationship with Aardvark-Vanaheim itself.  This is a news site, not Dave Sim's blog and I think we can all agree that Tim has done yeoman's service in maintaining this even with a full-time job.

2.  Troy T and Tim F, our $10,000 benefactors on the first Kickstarter in 2012 and CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER ONE, respectively.  Just our way of saying that exceptional generosity does not go unrewarded or forgotten around here.  No "But what have you done for us LATELY?" at Aardvark-Vanaheim.

3. Rich Johnston of BLEEDING COOL.  Although people don't seem to "register" the unbelievable and unwavering level of sheer courage that Rich Johnston exhibits in being the ONLY (I repeat: ONLY) comics journalist to a) mention me b) mention my work c) mentioned them both favourably, this, again, is one of those things that doesn't go unnoticed by me in the toxic political climate which continues to dominate the comics field and the direct market.

a) That's very, very kind of you and I don't feel deserving. Obviously I'm not going to object, I'm not an idiot.

b) But I'm not courageous about that at all. I have never had an objection expressed to me for anything I've written about Dave Sim. I've had threats against my life, assault against my person and plenty of lies told with the aim of belittling me and that's all part and parcel of the job. But I've never had any criticism about writing about Sim, at least none that I've been aware of. I haven't signed his pledge, I like some of his work much more than others, but I do consider Sim to be one of the few genuises that comics have created in the English speaking world. And have never had a conversation that has seen that be a point of contention.

c) Because, yes, he does seem to be ignored by the kind of people who shouldn't be ignoring him. As kind as Sim is, I am not a journalist. I'm an entertainment reporter specialising in comics. But some of you folk reading this are journalists. And you're letting your side down.

I mean, seriously, even if you hate the man and his work, it's surely worth writing about right? Such as…

Dave Sim is planning to put his graphic novella about the Holocaust, Judenhaas, into the public domain, for anyone to print or distribute if they wish…

So JUDENHASS will go into the public domain when Lou gets around to uploading a downloadable version of it to the website.  You want to print 30 of them?  You want to print 3,000,000 of them and give them away to high schools worldwide?  With my blessing!  Please! Don't even think of crossing my palm with silver!  BELIEVE ME!  Anyone making JUDENHASS available anywhere to anyone for any reason, is more than payment enough for me.  MORE than enough!  SO!  Potentially MILLIONS OF COPIES are about to circulate, nu?

Pardon?  AM I smiling?  What do you know? So I am.  Yes, and that was a philosophical shrug of my shoulders.

There you go. Story. Or at least, the start of one…

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