The Return of Dave Sim

Dave Sim, in case you don't know, is the creator of Cerebus, a 300-issue comic book series that began as a parody of Conan, with a barbarian aardvark as the central character. By the end of the series, Cerebus had become something very different, something like a reinterpretation of the world's major religious texts (as perceived by the same aardvark). Along the way, the series touched (at times, brilliantly) on issues ranging from abortion, fascism, literature, religious power, political power, the banality of superhero comics, and the nature of God. Along the way, Sim also lost much of his initial fanbase with his provocative and occasionally deranged essays on feminism and women.

Though I find Sim's essays fascinating, the ideas they contain suggest that Sim has left the path of rational thinking. His work on Cerebus, however, remains a high point of the medium, and that includes everything from scripting and lettering to Sim's extraordinary talent as a cartoonist. Sim's work is among the best that comic books have to offer, and in my estimation, he ranks just above the Hernandez Brothers as a cartoonist whose work will/should stand for ages as a high point of comics writing and illustration.

Sim, who has long proclaimed that Cerebus would represent his life's work, is preparing a new series which will debut in April of this year, entitled Glamourpuss. Keeping in mind that Sim is an avowed misogynist, a new series that seems to be based largely on women in the fashion industry might give one pause for thought, e.g. Are you sure this is a good idea, Dave? On the basis of the illustrations posted on the website, however, Sim's cartooning skills are in full force and even show substantial improvement from the final issues of Cerebus.

It is for Sim's superior illustrations that I will seek out Glamourpuss. If you can divorce what a man thinks from what he produces, I encourage you to seek it out as well. For anyone interested in comics, Sim is and always will be a master of the art. (A somewhat frustratingly designed website is up featuring some of Sim's art to promote the series.)

This blog post explains, in more detail than I care to get into on my own blog, why so many of Sim's fans are torn between the beauty of his work and the ugliness of his ideas. And here is a short interview with Sim that is thankfully limited to his thoughts on the new series. I've expressed my enthusiasm for Cerebus earlier on this site.