Well, she was your mother. One hates to get involved in a family squabble.

I suspect that calling you a "writer and publisher" would be like calling a chimp that throws his excrement against the wall an "interior decorator".

Mike

??? So you don't think the law should punish matricide? Jesus, that's fucked up, but perfectly in character for you.

Oh, Jesus. Sometimes I forget that Weemie thinks he's funny.

This thread is about to take a turn into that special kind of uncomfortable weirdness that only happens when someone honestly doesn't know how badly they're embarrassing themselves.

True, but Lawson's the one who orders books because someone tells him to and will not read any further than he's been instructed, no matter how much he claims to enjoy what he's reading. There's absolutely no chance - zero, zip, zilch, nada - of him reading "Melmoth" even if he enjoys "Jaka's Story" or anything before it. You told him not to read it and that's all he needs to know. What's he going to do, challenge your authority?

That sort of unquestioning acceptance always turns embarassing sooner or later, like Jaka reading Pud's diary, or Rick finding out the truth of the "miscarriage" (or when he believed Cerebus told Joanne he had been married to Jaka). Just look at how Shep-Shep insisted Cerebus couldn't possibly be telling the truth about F. Stop Kennedy and the barge ride immediately after meeting "Divine Radiance" and before revealing the "Word of Truth" to the Wise Fellows.

[See Peter, the series really *does* include stuff which makes up a real life. ]

He also covers up evidence of matricide for reasons I can't quite figure out. Must be part of the job description for "liberal journalist."

Coincidently, I also read a few of the Cerebus books recently, after picking them up at an SF convention for $5 each. That also seems to be the sale price in Toronto used book stores.

I was more impressed by Sims understanding and control of the media than the stories themselves. The lettering, as Lawson mentions, is outstanding. Perhaps he and Ken Bruzenak are the high watermarks for comic book hand lettering. Sim, lettering his own work, can make it suit the story in a way that even Bruzenak couldn't. Cerebus, particularly in Church and State, showed courage in having his protagonist commit rape, fling a baby from a roof, terrorize a populace and other things that make Doctor Doom and Luthor look like pussycats. The art was unique and influential, the work of someone who has mastered his craft.

With all that though, I didn't enjoy it. I wasn't entertaining. I wasn't intellectually challenged. I wasn't immersed in a fantasy (or even a reality) that drew me in. I was bored. I waited for each story to end. I didn't really care about any of the characters.

Maybe I am taking it too far here but I think Sim was the central character of Cerebus. I kept wondering how much of the story was about his wife, how much money he was pulling in, how fast Gerhard could ink, where he found Gerhard and why he chose Gerhard and not someone like Dan Adkins. And just what kind of a name is Gerhard anyway. It sounds appropriate for this board but not as the name of a real live inker. I wondered if Sim was truly crazy and at what step the Church and State stories were on his descent into becoming a fallen idol. I wondered if the stories were getting him laid. I wondered if anyone really read them. I think I cared about all that but I didn't care about the stories themselves. They were flat, vacant and completely uninteresting. There.

Did I mention that I loved Sim's use of zip a tone? It was always tasteful and he never ever went out of the lines.

I am so hyper-critical of Sim at this point that even his use of zipatone bugs me. In one scene, he left a millimeter of white along one edge of Cerebus, and then at some point switched the white edge to the other side of his body, the one nearer to Jaka. It looked like a registration error. When that issue was collected into the phone book version, in his commentary Sim said that this was supposed to indicate that he had switched the lighting on Cerebus, symbolizing that "Jaka had become his new light," or some such grand revelation. Seriously, Dave, we were supposed to get all that from your sloppy use of the exact-o-knife?

OK, so he wasn't 100%. Thanks for the response Peter, acknowledging my comments. I can see being critical of Dave Sim. It is interesting that he has virtually fallen off the radar. In a way, it is nice that his name can draw up some energy, however the energy may be directed.

Are you sure that wasn't Gerhard? He was putting the zip-a-tone on Cerebus for most of his run. Dave started doing it again towards the end. Ger says he thinks Dave did a much better job, but maybe that's just shameless flattery.