cerebus

*** edited version as i spelt dave sim's name as sims. and in dave's world this is a major sin. ***

for the vast majority of my working life dave sim's cerebus has been a constant.
for 300 issues he published his comic, it is a singular vision and an amazing piece of sustained work and endeavour.
for about 100 issues or so i counted out the majority of the comics that came into the uk and then went out to the uk retailers. somewhere during that period i stopped reading the comic.
i was always going to sit down and read the whole epic from start to finish when all the trade paperbacks were available.
well they are now and soon i think i will try to make the effort to read them all. it is a daunting task.

the reason i mention this now is that currently i am reading the collected letters of dave sim 2004. and it reminds me of some of the controversy that has grown up over sim's work.

there is the story about how he wanted to have a fight with jeff smith (creator of bone) over smith's wife. no sim didn't want to shag her, he just thought she had turned smith into a bit of a pussy.
but most of it all came about his anti-feminism (don't read it emma... don't do it) and his conversion to christianity (and a very hardcore (and unique) version of it).

anyway i have a major admiration for sim because he set out to do his comic his way. and he did. he went the self publishing route and never sold out (unlike so many of the voices of artistic integrity in the comic field - and yeah frank miller i mean you). however it seems that it came at a cost - the man is mad.
for me he has now crossed a line that makes me put him in the same category as david icke. i will enjoy reading his work but i will have to take it all with a huge amount of salt.

to see the tangent essay go here (but not you emma). but when you start be sure to be prepared to scratch your head, to pick your jaw off the floor and to shake your head a few times in disbelief.

and to think cerebus started life as a conan parody.