Information AboutDave Sim |
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EARLY YEARS Sim was born in Hamilton, but moved to Kitchener with his family when he was two. His father was a manufacturing plant supervisor and his mother a secretary. He has an older sister named Sheila. He was interested in comics from an early age and dropped out of high school to pursue a career in the field. His only ever 'real' job has been working as an employee at Now And Then Books . He published a Fanzine called ''The Now and Then Times'' (financed by Harry Kremer , the owner of the comic book store after which the newsletter was named) and did work for such other fanzines as John Balge 's ''Comic Art News and Reviews'' and Gene Day 's ''Dark Fantasy'' and ''National Advisor''. Sim often interviewed professional comics artists such as Barry Windsor-Smith and Neal Adams . Sim also created various other comics, including a newspaper Comic Strip called ''The Beavers'' which was published in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record , and wrote or drew stories published in anthologies such as ''Phantacea''. ''CEREBUS'' In December 1977 , Sim began publishing ''Cerebus'', an initially bi-monthly, black-and-white comic book series. It began as a cross between Conan The Barbarian and Howard The Duck . Progressively, Sim shifted his narrative style from story arcs of a few issues' length to longer, far more complex "novels", beginning with the storyline known as ''High Society''. The prominent Sword And Sorcery elements in the series up to that point were minimized as Sim concentrated more on Politics and Religion . ''Cerebus'' was published through his company, Aardvark-Vanaheim which was run by his wife, Deni Loubert . The two met in 1976 , married in 1979 and divorced after four years. In that he was "diagnosed as a borderline Schizophrenic ." During his convalescence, Sim hit upon the idea of making ''Cerebus'' into a 300-issue series, something that had never been done in Western comics with the same artist and writer. It would continue the story of the life of Cerebus the Aardvark, culminating in his death in the final issue (which appeared in March 2004 ). Sim continued to chronicle the life of Cerebus with the story arc Church & State . In the 1980s , when ''Cerebus'' was a large independent-comics success, Sim 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, managed by Loubert, began publising other comics besides ''Cerebus'', such as William Messner-Loebs ' '' Journey '' and Bob Burden's '' Flaming Carrot ''. After Sim and Loubert's separation, Loubert started ''Renegade Press'', which assumed publishing duties for all non-''Cerebus'' Aardvark-Vanaheim titles. During the 1980s and early and often promoted other creators' work in the back pages of ''Cerebus''. FEMINISM AND RELIGIOUS CONVERSION Sim completed the series on schedule. In the course of it, he expressed views contrary to , Rick Veitch , Steve Bissette and Sim’s friend Chester Brown as well as including a short interview with Sim’s ex-wife wherein she described her perception of the essay as evidence of Sim being very scared. The article was accompanied by an illustration depicting Sim as a Nazi German Concentration Camp warden, standing in front of a gate with the name of his publishing company on the top with piles of emaciated bodies within. Sim refers to this as the “Dave Sim is a nazi” issue of The Comics Journal. The responses in the article ranged from anger to a belief that Sim was joking. In has taken due to the widespread acceptance and proliferation of feminism which he places at beginning in 1970 , the Comics Journal’s messageboard on their web site was filled with many opposing responses to Sim’s arguments, while the site posted the full essay under the title ''Dave Sim: Masculinity's Last Hope, or Creepily Paranoid Misogynist?'', calling the essay initially by the popular misnomer ‘Tangents’. Also, a short introduction by the Comics Journal staff distanced itself from the ideas therein, calling them among other things "nutty and loathsome". {Link without Title} Post-''Cerebus'', Sim still lives in Kitchener, providing occasional guest work, going to conventions and attending city council meetings. Following a Religious Conversion from Atheism to Monotheism which occurred upon his reading the Bible and the Qu'ran beginning in December 1996 , he lives a lifestyle of Fasting , Celibacy , Praying and Alms-giving and considers the Jewish , Christian and Muslim Scriptures to be equally valid as the Word of God . As of 's Too Much Coffee Man . SIM AND ''THE COMICS JOURNAL'' Dave Sim and Gary Groth , editor-in-chief of The Comics Journal have enjoyed a combative relationship over the years. The magazine was the first to publish a review of the first dozen or so issues of Cerebus, by Kim Thompson , in 1979 . Groth along with Thompson are co-owners of Fantagraphics Books , which publishes such high-profile creators as Daniel Clowes , Peter Bagge and Chris Ware . Early in the 1990 s, Groth took issue with Sim’s stance of self-publishing as the best option for creators, and began to disseminate the view that it was best to work for a publisher and mentioned Ivan Boesky ’s address to the University of California's commencement ceremony in May 1986 where Boesky informed his audience that “greed is all right, by the way. I want you to know that. I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself." Sim took this as Groth implying that the motivation for self-publishing is greed, whereas what he really believes is that is the best option for any creator for any number of reasons; creative autonomy, and ownership of one's creations being topmost among them. In 2000 , the Journal published a list of what it's writers had selected as the 100 greatest comics of all time, which some commentators noted appeared biased towards Fantagraphics titles and seemed to pointedly omit ''Cerebus''. Later, on a panel at the San Diego Comic Con Groth indicted Sim in a "Nuremberg-style tribunal designed to bring to light the most deserving criminals who had over the past decade and longer besmirched the good name of the comics art and industry". {Link without Title} Sim was charged with boosting the speculation boom in the comics market in 1992 , early boostering of Image Comics , making a "misogynist rant" and boostering self-publishers at their expense, this last wherein Groth accused Sim of promoting self-publishing to the point of possibly bankrupting thousands of self-publishers. Sim was interviewed by Tom Spurgeon for the magazine in 1996, the second part of which interview was published eight issues after the first, which was interpreted by Sim as a slight. Despite this adversarial relationship over the years, Groth personally telephoned Sim to congratulate him upon the completion of his share of ''Cerebus'' in December 2003 and later published an issue of the Journal featuring a critical roundtable on ''Cerebus''. AWARDS His work has won him a good deal of recognition in the comics industy. Along with being nominated for many awards, Dave has won several awards for his work on Cerebus:
Day Prize In 2001, Sim and Gerhard founded the Howard E. Day Prize recognizing excellence in self-publishing in memorial of Sim's mentor Gene Day . Sim selects a Short List of nominees from the applicant pool, then names the annual winner. QUOTES
COLLECTIONS OF SIM'S WRITING ''Cerebus Guide to Self-Publishing'' (ISSN 0712-7774) collects Sim's 'Notes from the President' column, the Pro/Con speech from 1993, and more. ''Collected Letters'' (ISBN 091935923X) collects Sim's responses to readers' letters (the original letters are not included) after the publication of Cerebus #300. EXTERNAL LINKS
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