Dave Sim on a “Tangent”

digresssmlOriginally published May 11, 2001, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1434

According to Bob Zmuda, long-time confidant and co-conspirator of Andy Kaufman (a performance artist before anyone knew what a performance artist was), Kaufman told him how he had always aspired to be a wrestling villain. He wanted to be one of those guys who swayed arrogantly around the ring while everyone booed. Zmuda pointed out the obvious drawback to this aspiration: Kaufman, from a physical point of view, would make as credible a wrestling cad as Don Knotts. Even those who nursed the belief that wrestling wasn’t scripted wouldn’t buy the notion of scrawny Kaufman lasting more than five seconds with the monsters of the mat. To Kaufman, however, that was merely a stumbling block, an obstacle to be overcome. He wanted the publicity; he wanted to be noticed; he wanted to be booed. And as we all know, he found a way: He started wrestling women. No one could comprehend why he was doing it, and he pìššëd øff a lot of people, and it wasn’t especially funny, and it dámņëd near killed his career—probably would have if he hadn’t died (or… did he?)—but you know what? While it was all going on, he put on a hëll of a show.

Keep that in your mind for a minute…

Comic journalist Augie De Blieck, writing online for Comic Book Resources, echoed the sentiments in this column which stated that Leonard Kirk continues to go woefully unnoticed month in, month out for his pencils in Supergirl. “(I)t is insane,” wrote De Blieck. “Kirk is a great artist.” He went on to make, however, a point that I hadn’t touched on and which I think is quite valid:

“What does staying on a book for a long time get you? Nothing. Yes, it engenders the loyalty of the small fan base that sticks with that one book for the long haul. But does it get you any new fans? Not likely. What gets your attention these days? That’s simple—comics news. Change books. Do something new every three months. Be so insanely late with something that everyone starts asking about you. Get Wizard to hype you up, but they’ll only do that after you make some big news move somewhere.”

And he concluded by saying that Kirk is “out of the public eye and tucked neatly into the Supergirl corner, where he can be left alone. He draws well, does it month in and month out, and never offers up excuses. For all his hard work, he’s forgotten over on the side. It’s a dámņ shame, but that’s how it works.”

As noted, De Blieck was talking about Leonard Kirk. I just want to emphasize that so that I’m not perceived as hijacking the intent of his column, when I say that De Blieck could just as easily have been talking about Dave Sim.

We’re coming up on a quarter of a century of Cerebus, and any way you slice it—endurance record by a creator, achievement by an indy publisher, whatever—it’s a remarkable achievement. The series has had its ups and downs, lurching from brilliant to practically unreadable. But because it’s “marginal,” as it were, it can easily be left forgotten over on the side, because “that’s how it works.”

The issue that just hit, #265, the conclusion of Sim’s lengthy (and somewhat interminable) “Going Home” arc, kicks over to the brilliant side of the scale, as a frantic Cerebus finally arrives home after a mere thirty-plus issues, only to discover with mounting horror that his homecoming is not coming off at all as he imagined it would. The final sequences with Jaka, his long-time lover (if “love” is a word that Cerebus truly comprehends) are shattering.

Now…

Go stick that in a Diamond Preview. Go get retailers worked up about it. Cerebus? Yeah, we order two, three copies for regular customers. That’s what you’ll hear, I guarantee it. Which means that no one except regular Cerebus readers are going to see it, and people who should really be exposed to Sim’s work will pass it up, or more likely not even hear about it.

Except, by startling (lack of?) coincidence, the story is followed by a twenty page… I don’t know what to call it. Essay? Screed? Rant? Titled “Tangent,” it is on the subject of gender and goes on at length attacking women in general, feminism in particular, and any man who is dumb enough not to share Sim’s insight into that tragic thing called the female psyche.

And ooooh, is there shrieking from the comic reading public, and ooooh, is there shouting, and ooooh, are there accusations and finger pointing and thread after thread of discussion on computer boards, and ooooh, is the comic flying off the shelves.

The question is whether that last aspect—the sudden increase of interest in Cerebus—had anything to do with the timing of the essay, or the reasons behind writing it. Sim would probably say it’s all irrelevant (“It is irrelevant whether I hate women. It is irrelevant whether I love women… All That Is Relevant… is the intellectual foundation—or lack of same—upon which feminism rests,” he writes in part.)

All sorts of people who have had all sorts of encounters with Dave Sim are weighing in on the subject. Some swear that Dave is nuts, and has always been so. Some say that Dave is a misogynist. Some say he’s a misanthrope. Some say he’s at war with inner sexual confusion. Some say, to paraphrase Robin Williams in Good Morning, Vietnam, that he’s more desperately in need of sexual congress than any white man in history. No one’s saying he’s right. No one would dare. And with an essay of such extreme measures, it would be hard to do so. It certainly wouldn’t be stylish.

The problem is, what makes “Tangent” so hard to take is that he really does have some valid points scattered around. No one gets as angry as someone being forced to think by someone they believe they despise, especially when it’s stuff they’d rather not think about.

For instance, Dave observes the lunacy of a philosophy that dictates, “Only in a society which maintains a level of 95% of alimony and child support being paid by men to women can men and women be considered as equals.” I don’t know for sure that his percentages are accurate, but in principle, he’s right. The judicial system lopsidedly favors mothers in divorce situations, right down the line, from alimony to child support to custody. In a society where equality seems to be the ideal, parity between the sexes in divorce cases is only changing—if at all—with glacial speed.

Dave also observes, “If, prior to our life on this earth, we were presented the option of being male or female, a short description of the functions of the male versus the female genitalia (with emphasis on menstruation, menstrual cramps, PMS, labour pains, yeast infections, et al) would most certainly result in so vast a number of us choosing the male ‘equipment’… that it is difficult, if not impossible, to envision any woman being born into this world at all.”

This may sound like a hideously awful mindset for anyone to hold, but the germ of truth is there. Particularly when one considers that Jewish men of Orthodox and conservative leanings having been starting their day for thousands of years with prayers that say, in essence, “Thank you, God, for not making me a woman.” So are we looking at five thousand years of Judaic misogyny? Not at all. The prayer relates to exactly what Dave points out: All the physical hardships and inconvenience of womanhood. Jewish men thank their maker each and every day for sparing them all that (and in case you’re wondering, the only prayer I ever say in the morning is, “Please, God, don’t let it be time to get up already…”)

The problem is that Dave, who repeatedly excoriates women for being “emotion-based beings,” depends on emotion rather than logic for his conclusions. One cannot logically jump from a litany of female plumbing inconveniences to the conclusion “No one wants to be a woman.” Just because men are grateful for not having to deal with it, it is impossible to determine—except on the very emotional basis which Dave disdains—that women are filled with self-loathing because of their physicality, any more than we can conclude that men hate themselves because they have to be concerned with impotence and prostate cancer.

And these emotional leaps Dave makes throughout… I keep thinking, How can he not know that what he’s saying doesn’t logically track? Is he stupid? I don’t think so. Is he nuts? I dunno. Certifiable? Couldn’t say.

But is he the wrestling villain of comics? Unquestionably. Hey, look, someone had to step in. It used to be McFarlane, but he became dull as dirt when he’s not being sued, and Quesada’s kinda trying, but he’s limited by his corporate responsibilities.

Me, I keep thinking back to the party I once wrote about in this column… the party I, in my sales days, hosted at a convention on behalf of Marvel Comics, and where Dave was in attendance. And two hours into the party, Dave was staggering around, convincingly drunk on the rum and Cokes he’d been steadily downing… except only the bartender and I knew that Dave had been tossing back straight Coca-Cola for the preceding hour. But the inebriation performance clearly fit the hard-drinking Dave Sim reputation far better than the truth.

Does Dave really believe all the stuff he wrote (up to and including that feminists hijacked the civil rights movement from under the nose of Martin Luther King)? Some will say definitely yes, others definitely no. Me, I confess I’ve no clue. But this much, I do know:

Like Andy Kaufman, Dave Sim sure knows how to put on a hëll of a show.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)

 

6 comments on “Dave Sim on a “Tangent”

  1. Yeah, the Dave Sims enigma . . . what to say? All these years later, I’m not sure if the answer to any of those questions is any clearer.

    One thing is certain though, the best thing to combat obsurity is to do something controversial. Look at Miley Cyrus. A couple of years ago she was on the brink of fading into obsurity as her kid-cuteness waned, her Disney show ended, and she revealed to be the fairly convetional, moderately talented country artist she really was. Then she started dressing ridiculously, twerking on stage with the Thicke kid, and exposing her tongue more than Gene Simmons and Venom combined. What happened? People howled and screeched over how horrible she had become and, lo and behold, she was more famous than she had ever been. Then a year or so later, as the novelty of that begins to fade, she shows up on the red carpet with her homeless date and sits on the edge of the stage making coweyes at him as he addresses the audience. Contrived? You betcha. Successful? In spades.

    Personally, I’m still not sure if Sim is truly cracked or was just running a play out of the same playbook that Miley, Andy Kauffman, Roddy Piper, have used for years to much success. One thing I do know, however, is that it got him noticed a whole hëll of a lot more than if he just kept drawing/writing his comic and playing things close to the vest.

  2. 13 years and closer examination of the divorce statistics have revealed that men get sole custody most of the time when they seek it. They just don’t seek it very often.

  3. Michael P – I’d be interested in learning from where your figures come. Everything I see says that, in contested cases, women still get custody 2 to 1 over men, except when men don’t accept that and appeal, which leads to about a 1-1 ratio.

    I have to say that I’ve met Sim twice. Once was as a random guy at a con. Once was as a warehouse manager for Diamond, when he was doing a presentation to my accounts. I have to say that the first time I met him, he came across kind of as a jerk. The second time I met him, he was a real professional, and I enjoyed his company.

    Not saying that proves anything, but it seems like your party anecdote wasn’t a one off situation.

  4. What’s Dave Sim really like?

    Ask his ex, Deni. Hard to keep up an act, day in and day out, for years. I’d say she’s got a fair idea of the real Sim (if that’s not an oxymoron).

    As for …”in case you’re wondering, the only prayer I ever say in the morning is, ‘Please, God, don’t let it be time to get up already…'” … work has me up at 04:00 weekdays and, boy, does that prayer sound familiar.

  5. “13 years and closer examination of the divorce statistics have revealed that men get sole custody most of the time when they seek it. They just don’t seek it very often.”

    That may be true but it is likely because the only time a lawyer would advise you to try it is when the mother is so obviously unfit that you have a fighting chance of winning.

    I suspect thing ARE getting better in that area.

Comments are closed.