Thread by @GailSimone

Weird morning on the internet, folks. :)

I wake up to some of the usual comicsgate sycophants going in to full-on ragewang mode, EVS has apparently done another tantrum video about me, who cares what that sinking ship is on about.

However, there is one little weird thing... :)

Dave Sim, creator of Cerebus and partner of EVS on Cyberfrog for about fifteen minutes, did a big interview on his website. I haven't read it all, it's pretty lengthy.

But it's got some of oddball stuff I thought I'd address before anyone actually believes it.

First, Dave accuses me of being the most antagonistic person in the industry towards him, or something similar.

I don't believe that's true, there are a ton of his former friends who loathe him with a deep resentment. I really don't think of him much at all, except in sadness.

It's not the sadness of, "I hate this guy." It's the sadness of someone who absolutely loved and studied Cerebus endlessly, and thinks it's one of THE high points of the comics medium. I think it's brilliant beyond words.

They're still some of my favorite books of all time.

There were honestly times when I was in college where I had to scrounge for loose change to buy Cerebus and it was the ONLY comic I would never miss.

"Fan," is too light a word for it. And I still put little nods to my favorite bits in my stuff, now and then.

The odd thing is, in this interview, Dave seems to feign a bit of surprise at this, as if he isn't aware. But he definitely is, I've told him all of this myself several times AND he's quoted positive things I've said about Cerebus on his blog.

Maybe it's a misunderstanding.

There is no question I fell off of Cerebus at one point, and it wasn't politics, I just didn't find the direction rewarding. A lot of Cerebus fans felt that way, and again, I don't think that's anything personal.

At some point, Dave took a bit of a turn.

I'm not going to rehash this stuff, but Dave began to routinely espouse some beliefs that were, to me, bizarre.

For one, he said that women have no ethics, no morals, and no sense of right and wrong. This wasn't his book, this was him saying it outright.

I don't want to warm over cold soup, but that stuff is going to alienate a lot of people, not all of them women.

But even my dislike of all that stuff has always been tempered with this ridiculous deep love of Sim's work.

The frustrating thing with these guys is always this: I am not a conspiracy and that's all they ever see in anything.

I'm almost disturbingly blunt in my opinions and routinely state them outright. They don't vary based on who I am talking to.

Dave knows all this, I told him.

You don't have to puzzle out a secret meaning like the lockbox in Hellraiser.

I will tell you what I think. It's no mystery.

And in Dave's case, I think he wrote and drew a towering work of brilliance that most comics can't begin to aspire to.

His philosophies after a certain point don't really interest me that much, they're not new, they're not grounded in reality. He thinks the same of women.

Now, if I really bother to think about it, which I haven't for ages, the only real emotion I have about it is that I think it's a sad situation.

But if Dave is happy and fulfilled, even THAT opinion doesn't mean very much. I wish him only that.

But then there's a very weird little bit...and again, I only read a small bit of it, Dave's interviews are quite lengthy and I have deadlines.

At some point he says Marsha Cooke told him that I have a Cerebus tattoo, and this seems to surprise him (I don't).

Now, I love Marsha, I dearly loved Darwyn. I'm sure this is some misunderstanding. And it's not like Dave makes some huge deal about it, he doesn't.

But for the record, I don't have a Cerebus tattoo. I don't have ANY tattoos. I have nothing against them, I just don't have any.

Just to make it as clear as I can...I was a huge Dave Sim and Cerebus fan. I have never been anything less than forthcoming about that. I have been disappointed by things I have learned since. I'm sure that is not a big concern or Dave's, nor should it be.

But I wish him well.

I think this is a pretty harmless little misunderstanding, but I don't want untruths to stand. Every day, the same five comicsgaters and their sock puppets try to muddy what's true with their goofyass conspiracy things. So it's worthwhile to clarify reality.

Dave, I know people fax you things.

Mister, I was a huge fan, as I've told you several times. I do disagree with your positions on many things, I've told you that, as well.

I wish you only good things, and I again thank you for the comic I loved best as a kid.

For the sake of fairness, here's the interview in question in case my skimming of the excerpt is somehow incorrect: momentofcerebus.blogspot.com/2019/01/tldw-p…