Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site rochester.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!rochester!ciaraldi From: ciaraldi@rochester.UUCP (Mike Ciaraldi) Newsgroups: net.comics Subject: Re: Recent Reviews Message-ID: <11122@rochester.UUCP> Date: Tue, 20-Aug-85 11:43:25 EDT Article-I.D.: rocheste.11122 Posted: Tue Aug 20 11:43:25 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 23-Aug-85 04:58:40 EDT References: <3154@pur-ee.UUCP> Organization: U. of Rochester, CS Dept. Lines: 48 > Has anyone on the net met Dave Sim? Is he really a > jerk or is he just pretending to be one? How can a jerk write and draw > such a beautiful, sensitive book? > > > Bill Hsu > pur-ee!hsut Well, I met Dave Sim back in 1980 (long-time net readers have heard this story before). He was a guest at the first Creation Con in Rochester, November 1980, along with Mark Gruenwald and Keith Pollard. At that point Cerebus #21 had just come out, and the print run had recently been doubled from 6000 to 12,000. So, Cerebus was still something of a cult comic (which it still is, come to think of it, it's just that the cult is a little bigger). Since no one knew who Sim was, I got to talk to him for much of an afternoon. He seemed just a fairly nice person, somewhat weird (like most of the intelligent people I meet), but very committed to his work. He also had a keen sense of humor. On the other hand, he was interviewed one afternoon on stage in front of about 25 people who happened to show up (compared to capacity crowds for Gruenwald and Pollard), and seemed in a much worse mood. He was rather surly and didn't follow up on the interviewer's questions, so he had to be drawn out. Years later, he wrote about that weekend in one of the "Swords of Cerebus" volumes (#3, I think), and basically said he had been in a bad mood all weekend, compounded by being alone in a strange city with no downtown nightlife. So, (putting on amateur psychologist cap), I think the reasons Dave Sim comes off so nasty sometimes (especially in the letter columns) are that he does have a streak of it which comes out when he is tired or overworked or bored (which probably happens quite often, considering he has to run a publishing company and write and draw 20 pages of comics every month), plus his own sense of mischief and irony which makes him want to play up his reputation. I think you can see both sides of his personality alternating in the letter columns. So, Dave, if you're reading this, we still love you even if Jaka did get married to someone else. Mike Ciaraldi seismo!rochester!ciaraldi