Random Thoughts

Cerebus Guide to Self Publishing (2010) by Dave Sim

So what’s this then? It was originally published in 1997, when self publishing was had stopped being a “movement” in comics, but I guess it made sense to collect all the essays on publishing that Sim had written (and published in Cerebus) over the years. And people must have found it useful, because Sim published a revised version in 2005, and then finally what I’ve got here, the 2010 version.

Isn’t the point of pull quotes to have, like, famous people saying how awesome your book is?

OK, we start with a note to the reader…

… and then we get a preamble, which is from my point of view, as somebody who’s not going to self publish anything, just about the most interesting thing in here. Because this is where Sim tries to rationalise away everything he said about self publishing in the early 90s.

“I very much enjoyed the wildfire which caught on and swept across the direct marked […] because of my absolutit position. Even as I castised myself for the real human suffering that resulted (How many young men and women, in good faith, had bankrupted or nearly bankrupted themselves, their families, and their friends in the name of bringing their work to marked — work which had not a snowball’s change in hell of achieving any measure of success?”

I find this amusing because it’s such a clear example of Sim willingness to portray himself as some evil Machiavellian genius… instead of just admitting that he was wrong about self-publishing comics being a valid way forward (commercially) for many people.

And then! In the parenthesis on the following page, he writes from the vantage point of 2005 (the original moustache twirling bits were written in 1997) and says that he kinda exaggerated a bit that he had to accept full blame and chew the scenery because… er… he wanted the comics world to move on.

So OK now — where does that leave us? Is he admitting he was wrong back in the early 90s? Apparently not. It’s nice to have your cake and eat it, too, I guess.

So after the note and the preamble we get to… the introduction. Yes, if you like Sim’s writing, you’re getting your money’s worth of it here — it’s 156 very chatty pages.

But on page 17 it starts! And it turns out that you have to start by drawing the comic book.

Lots of presumably solid advice, like not getting your eraser all greasy.

I haven’t real it all, but I’ve skimmed it for half an hour, and it’s very digressive. But it’s pretty entertaining reading, I have to say, even if you don’t intend to publish anything. It’s easy reading.

Sim even advises some realism.

This is the 2010 edition, and comics publishing was a lot easier back in the 90s: The main distributor, Diamond, would basically take anything, so you could print up what they ordered, wait two months, and collect the money. Which means that you could get by with very low capitalisation, and actually make a living even if you don’t sell tens of thousands of copies.

Sim doesn’t have much to say about licensing and stuff, but he does cover web cartooning and stuff.

And then we end with ads for all the various Aardvark-Vanaheim publications, and… Cerebus TV? In 2010? Sim started with er podcasting, or whatever you’d call it. I’ve never watched any of it.

Heh:

While Sim is, technically, an insane person, this guide to self-publishing in comics is actually one of the most incredible and inspiring things I’ve ever read about being a writer (the “comics” and “self-publishing” parts are irrelevant).

Right:

But like any good authentic self published ‘zine it instructs you how to read it as you go, it defines for you what it is, a rare chance to listen to the voice of a true independent voice committed to his own ethics and aesthetics and its own vision after over 30 years. There are observations about cartooning that had me bugged eyed and reading passages over and and over again. He spends almost a page and half discussing different ways to sharpen your pencil; there’s actually lot more to say on the subject than I thought.

It’s true! The page and a half on sharpening your pencil is really interesting. Of course, as somebody who’s not an artist, I have no idea whether anything Sim writes in this area makes any sense, and I get the feeling that he hasn’t discussed this stuff with other artists (for the most part), so it’s all (or mostly all) stuff he’s figured out himself. So we’re in “polymath autodidact” territory; caveat emptor.

This blog post is part of the Renegades and Aardvarks series.

Judenhass (2008) by Dave Sim

You thought the nightmare of this blog series was over after Cerebus #300! Dunn dunn dunn… you’re wrong! I’ve got the post Cerebus Aardvark-Vanaheim books to go, and then some mop up of things I forgot to do the first time around. Sorry! Gotta be complete.

Anyway.

This was Sim’s first “major” work to be published after Cerebus ended, and I’m guessing it took most people by surprise. I mean, probably not the dozens and dozens of people that had read Cerebus until its very end.

As somebody who did suffer through those issues at the time (albeit mostly skimming a lot of the time), I thought it was pretty logical: Sim’s really into Islam and Judaism and stuff, so doing a book about antisemitism seems pretty natural. I also thought it smelled of a cynical move: Sim had been bemoaning for years his inability to get covered in the Proper And Respectable Press, and was mentioning how Art Spiegelman was a darling of New York media because of his book about the Holocaust. So… natural interest or cynical opportunism on Sim’s part? Let’s read the book and perhaps we’ll find out.

OK, Sim doesn’t think the word “anti-Semitism” is technically correct or something.

Oh, there was a web site dedicated to the book? It’s long gone now, but the wayback machine seems to have it. And it has a free PDF you can download of the entire book?

And… there seemed to be a TV component aimed at using this book in the classroom. I wonder if that ever happened, but I’m guessing not.

Wow.

Well, anyway, Sim went all in on this project, but:

That’s as far as the review round-up went, so it doesn’t look like it got much press coverage — these are all from comics blogs, I think.

Sim ties the book into comics significance by listing the many, many Jewish comic book creators in the US comics business… which… er… just seems odd. I mean, is he saying “you should take the Holocaust seriously because your favourite super-hero characters were created by Jewish people”? It’s a bit odd?

OK, if it seems like I’m procrastinating here, because I am — it’s a pretty unnerving book to read.

Because Sim basically has taken a number of pictures taken at German concentration camps and drawn them. The images are heartbreaking, of course, and some are not fit for posting on a family oriented blog like this (ahem), so I’m not.

Sim’s artwork (unaided by Gerhard for the first time in decades) is super sharp. And I think he’s been looking at Kriegstein?

On top of the gruesome imagery, Sim floats various racist quotations from throughout history.

It’s just a hard book to read.

And I can’t imagine that any school would want to subject their students to this.

And Sim nicely demonstrates that anti-Semitism is still with us.

So — is this book a cynical ploy? Nah, I don’t think so. It feels pretty heart-felt, and Sim would hate reading that, because it’d infer that he has feelings. I mean, imply.

But of course, since this is Dave Sim, he can’t leave well enough alone, but natters on for several pages at the end.

It is a powerful book, but it’s not one that I think anybody would want to read.

The Comics Journal #290, page 25:

Two new projects from Sim
Feb. 25: Dave Sim, who concluded his long-running epic
Cereous four years ago, has two new projects in front ofcom-
ics fans this year. One is the fashion satire Glamourpuss; the
other is Judenhass, a project that Sim plans to release in May
as a 56-page comic book during the 60th anniversary of the
founding of Israel. Judenhass is described in a released state-
ment as “a personal reflection on The Holocaust,” that, due
to its subject matter, the artists Will not be actively promot-
ing. Several comics figures, including Joe Kubert and Neil
Caiman, have given the project high praise as an affecting
work. An excerpt can be viewed online at judenhass.com.

Not everybody is willing to give Sim the benefit of the doubt:

Though effective in some spots–it’s hard not to react to the horrific images of the dead at Auschwitz when placed next to some of the quotes of hatred Dave Sim has dug up–there is a big question mark over the whole of this project. There is a self-importance to the affair, like Sim feels he’s being gutsy by reminding us of something we all already agree on, that the Holocaust/Shoah was a rank, evil happening and one we should never forget; yet, how am I supposed to feel about being reminded to be more sensitive by a man whose own sensitivity toward a whole segment of the human population has tainted his previous work? Is this just a case of an embattled, alleged bigot trying to find armor he feels it’s safe to hide behind and prove he’s really a nice, caring gentleman after all?

[…]

Really, Judenhass comes across as a half-assed attempt at a serious minded piece of literature, using specious logic and an audience’s predisposition toward the topic to do most of the heavy lifting.

Not all people follow comics drama:

This is an extremely significant work and goes so far to dispel so many lies and misconceptions about the treatment of Jews that I hope it does become required reading, as Sim hopes, and as I was required to read Elie Wiesel’s Night in High School.

Well…

Even when depicting page after page of Holocaust victims stacked like cordwood, Sim’s sober, understated draftsmanship remains amongst the best in the comics field. Though Judenhass has trouble creating a border between public fact and Sim’s personal belief of how this history unfolded, the text makes you respect the breadth and depth of research he must have done.

Damian T. Lloyd, ykg (apparently) says:

Cerebus is largely forgotten; Dave is known, if he is known at all, as an irrelevant, crazy old crank; nobody paid any attention to Judenhass even when it was current. We shouldn’t find ourselves guilty of feeling that any of these is more important than is objectively the case.

Judenhass deserves to be forgotten. It’s poor-quality work that trivializes a serious subject. Keeping it available online for free is the ideal place for it. The few people in the world who are interested can obtain it without cost. It’s an ideal example of how the Web can archive ephemera.

But he had some positive pull quotes:

“This wise, appalled, deeply humane response to an endless shock and sorrow could come only from the profoundly thoughtful Dave Sim.”

– Peter Straub

“Judenhass is endlessly disturbing, often unpleasant and incessantly horrifying in its stark coldness. The quotes should never be forgotten or made light of. It is why all people of good will say, ‘Never again.'”

– Marv Wolfman

So there you go.

This blog post is part of the Renegades and Aardvarks series.