Dave Sim

Dave Sim (born May 17, 1956 in Hamilton, Ontario) is a Canadian comic book writer and artist, best known as the creator of the 6,000 page graphic novel Cerebus the Aardvark.

Although born in Hamilton, Ontario Sim has lived in Kitchener since he was two. Sim was interested in comics from an early age, and published a fanzine called Comic Art News and Reviews, interviewing pros such as Barry Windsor-Smith and Neal Adams.

After doing various other comics including a newspaper strip called the Beavers which was published in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record and writing or drawing various other stories published in fanzines such as Phantacea, Sim began publishing Cerebus as a black-and-white comic book series in December of 1977. Cerebus was published through his company Aardvark-Vanaheim, which was run by his wife, Deni Loubert, whom Sim met in 1976, married in 1978 and divorced after five years.

In 1979 Sim, hit upon the idea of making Cerebus into a 300 issue series, something that had never been done before with the same artist and writer. It would tell the story of a character's life, with him dying in the final issue, which appeared in March 2004.

Sim lived it up in the 1980s when Cerebus was a large success and did much travelling to promote the series, which was selling at least 30,000 copies an issue at its height. In 1984 Gerhard became his collaborator, and handled the background drawings in the series. Aardvark-Vanaheim also published other comics besides Cerebus, such as William Messener-Loebs' Journey and Bob Burden's Flaming Carrot, although eventually Sim focused the company's energy solely on publishing Cerebus.

During the 1980s and early 1990s, Sim used his notoriety to serve as a major proponent of creator's rights and self-publishing within the comics industry. In addition to speaking on these topics at comic book conventions, Sim published The Cerebus Guide to Self-Publishing and often promoted other creators' work in the back pages of Cerebus.

Sim completed the series on schedule. His life has changed radically since he began Cerebus. In the course of working on the series, Sim developed views hostile to feminism, to modern materialism, and to leftist politics. The most prominent of his writings against feminism is his 'Tangent' essay; originally published in Cerebus #265 [1] (http://www.theabsolute.net/misogyny/tangents.html).As he refined these views, he made progressive changes to his lifestyle -- eliminating television and radio from his home, and limiting his consumption of alcohol and tobacco. He now has limited contact with women, and considers the Jewish, Christian and Muslim scriptures to be the Word of God, upon which he bases his current lifestyle. This includes fasting, praying and alms-giving.

Sim's forcefully stated views on male-female relations, politics, and modern culture have caused considerable controversy within the comic book industry.

Quotes

"In one of those Poor Us studies for which the Emotional Female Void is notorious, it was pointed out that after a divorce, the average male standard of living rises... the average female standard of living drops... I think the...explanation is that the excision of a five-to-six- foot leech from the surface of a human body is going to have more of its own blood in its own veins. Unless the leech finds another body, it is going to go hungry."

"No corporation will ever pay a creator enough to sue them successfully."

External links

• Art of Dave Sim (http://www.artofdavesim.com/)
• Cerebus Fangirl Site (http://www.cerebusfangirl.com/)
• A meeting with Dave Sim's cousin, an Anglican minister (http://www.man-man.org/blog/index.php?p=333)
• Reviews:
  • "Thus Endeth the Aardvark", a review of the final Cerebus story (http://www.neilfein.com/2004/07/thus-endeth-aardvark.html)
  • Review of Cerebus 300 (http://www.aslan.demon.co.uk/cerebus-300-preamble.htm)