Being anti feminist doesn’t make one anti women. I don’t believe Dave is anti women, more accurately he is opposed to the outlandish and silly beliefs of hardcore lefist feminists.

What makes Dave anti women is actually his applying his feelings toward one woman, his x wife, on a broad scale to women in general.

You go through a messy, hurtful divorce and then use the mass media at your disposal to adress the way it has made you feel and suddenly you hate women. I’m sure dave felt like he had had his lifesblood sucked out of him when the split occurred and that was what he was refrencing.

Frame his words in that context and maybe there will be some understanding. Most likely not. Most likely the continued marginallizing of Dave Sim will go on and I will be summarily thrashed for still respecting the man and his work AND having the BALLS to state it.

Dave is guilty of one thing, having conservative views in a field that is dominated by liberals and liberal thinking.

“I Will Not Debate Haters On The Internet. I Will Not Debate Haters On The Internet. I Will Not Debate Haters On The Internet. I Will Not Debate Haters On The Internet.”

There. I feel better already…

Dave Sim is over 50 years old. Unless he lives to be over 100 (doubtful, cigarette smoking twit that he was), he’s only got twenty or so years left in him. Less, if we’re lucky.

By the way: great essay, Heidi.

By the way: great essay, Heidi.

Sim, on the other hand, is saying and publishing these pernicious things toward the end of his life and seems to have cemented them in his twisted thoughts. As with Will Eisner refusing to apologize for his painfully racist character Ebony White, Sim seems bound to death to adhere to his own filthy and poisonous ideas.

The issue isn’t proving Dave Sim’s argument wrong. There are so many holes in it that it’s actually kind of too easy (my favorite being that every time a stat supports his claim he clings to it like a blanket, but every time it doesn’t he either questions the stat or goes into conjecture which he makes sound like a stat). the issue is two things, one, you want Dave Sim to know he’s wrong, and two, you want Neil Gaiman to bitch slap (Irony of slogan intended) the guy for having these feelings intstead of being his buddy. But that actually adds to the frustration, as I have a really nasty feeling that Dave Sim might be a nice guy. As opposed to guys that share my point of view that I want to kick in the nards (John Stossel of twenty twenty I’m looking in your direction).

Anyway, I can’t finish Cerebus. I’ve tried after reads but it just don’t work. Sorry Dave, call me a guy that has been corrupted by the female homosexual axis (I hear they have meetings at Ikea) but there’s a lot of talented writers out there, mast of which don’t think woman shouldn’t be allowed to vote. I’m sorry, but you’re last on the list after I’ve finished off with them.

Cheers.

Yes, that’s it exactly. Sim has always been the court jester of the mainstream comics world, a paddler in someone else’s pool. He has had precisely one effect on the comics industry (the trade-paperback collection), and no effect on the comics medium. CEREBUS will become increasingly irrelevant until it is completely forgotten. Sim himself won’t have an asterisk by his name in comics history; he will *be* no more than an asterisk in comics history.

But starting with the Normalroach “Fucking Cunts” issue, something seemed to change with the quality of Dave’s writing. It became much less story-related and much more internal (which seems very odd for the supposed “male” section of his story… one would think the male world would be more narrative and less internal).

Dave has talked about his psychological issues before, his breakdown, etc… I wonder how much of Cerebus 160-280 was some sort of bipolar thing, or perhaps low-grade schizophrenia.

That said, CEREBUS expressed a lot of different opinions over the years. But my favorite gender-related comment Dave made over the years was “Men and women deserve each other.” Just cynical enough for me.

Dave’s mother worked part-time as a secretary at the school he attended (which he quit in the 11th grade). From my recollection of what he told me, his parents had a pretty conventional relationship. Her job was second to her husband’s; she worked at the school where her children were, home when they were home. Dave did have some lingering issues about how the females in his family cowered and then rallied around his father’s heart attack. When his father was in crisis, Dave was put in charge by the ‘females’ (mother & sister) when his Dad recovered his charge was dismissed by the ‘females’ who then took over - Dave had some very serious lingering problems with this, it came up more than a few times in our relationship.

I don’t believe that it does, but in the world at large when a lot of people hear Feminism they think “Man-Hater” rather than woman supporter. I was saying that’s a bad thing, in case there was some confusion about that. I was also saying Anti-Feminism doesn’t mean misogynist even though I get the impression that Dave Sim feels that’s the sort of attitude he’s faced with time and time again.

I didn’t remember him recording recollections about his mom working outside the home but I can’t say I’m surprised to read it.

For YEARS, Dave’s been cying about how no one will look at his “hard numbers” and “documented percentages.”

But it turns out, he’d made every one of them up, every one. They were debunked in five minutes, but authoritative figures from the NCES and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Then, to defend his theories (many of which were actively against the tale of the real figures) he made up a NEW figure from thin air. I’m pretty sure this is why he never actually wanted to debate, not in any real way.

Once would have been a mistake, maybe. But it was ALL utterly fictional.

I don’t want to pollute Heidi’s column, but the ST chat lays it all out in detail.

Then you’re not too perceptive. And ’statistics’ are great. They just shouldn’t be completely and authoritatively wrong time after time after time.

Sorry.

Gail