BSS 2015 Chat Thread - Many Words Typed About A Dying Corporation In A Niche Hobby

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > BSS: Bisexual Super Son > BSS 2015 Chat Thread - Many Words Typed About A Dying Corporation In A Niche Hobby

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zoux: Apr 28, 2006

Gaz-L posted:

"to headline her own comic"

Unless Dust got a 100 issue solo run I missed?

Some of Chuck Austen's best work imo.

# ? Jan 26, 2015 22:52

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# ? Jun 9, 2024 20:26

Gaz-L: Jan 28, 2009

zoux posted:

Some of Chuck Austen's best work imo.

Oh poo poo, yeah, I forgot. Really surprisingly diverse and mature work from Ed Benes on the pencils, too.

# ? Jan 26, 2015 23:14

Aphrodite: Jun 27, 2006

I'm sure comic shops have tons of X-Men comics from that time period with dust on the cover.

# ? Jan 27, 2015 01:35

Lurdiak: Feb 26, 2006; I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people that do.

Dust is a terrible character that's best forgotten about. She has sand powers, for gently caress's sake.

# ? Jan 27, 2015 01:38

Ghostlight: Sep 25, 2009; maybe for one second you can pause; try to step into another person's perspective, and understand that a watermelon is cursing me

Like that even begins to stick out in a team that's hosted a Russian with literal iron curtain, Japanese with nuclear powers, an african who makes rain, two Native Americans with the incredible powers of athleticism, and an Australian who teleports by surfing, et el.

# ? Jan 27, 2015 01:56

Senior Woodchuck: Aug 29, 2006; When you're lost out there and you're all alone, a light is waiting to carry you home

I like to imagine that Dust and Nightcrawler had this intra-faith discussion group going on at Utopia (maybe at JGS too now, don't know which side she picked), but I don't know if there's stories for her.

# ? Jan 27, 2015 15:31

WickedHate: Aug 1, 2013; by Lowtax

Senior Woodchuck posted:

I like to imagine that Dust and Nightcrawler had this intra-faith discussion group going on at Utopia (maybe at JGS too now, don't know which side she picked), but I don't know if there's stories for her.

That'd be interesting, now that he's back from the dead.

"I just got back from Heaven, fraulein! You were right all along! Islam is the true religion!!"

"That's so grea-"

"Haha just kidding, I got in, so it must be Catholism."

# ? Jan 27, 2015 15:36

Stupid_Sexy_Flander: Mar 14, 2007; Is a man not entitled to the haw of his maw?; Grimey Drawer

Just found out that Johnny Storm has a normal arm again. Last time I remember reading anything with him he had some hosed up insectoid arm from when he was stuck in the negative zone. When did that get fixed up?

I liked that arm dammit :smith:

# ? Jan 27, 2015 16:57

Aphrodite: Jun 27, 2006

He just had some insect stuff wrapped around his arm to hold the Control Rod.

He stops doing that almost immediately.

# ? Jan 27, 2015 16:59

Stupid_Sexy_Flander: Mar 14, 2007; Is a man not entitled to the haw of his maw?; Grimey Drawer

Oh. drat I thought it was a replacement arm. I remember him hanging out with Peter in his apartment and being all spikey armed.

# ? Jan 27, 2015 17:01

The Dagda: Nov 22, 2005

Ghostlight posted:

Like that even begins to stick out in a team that's hosted a Russian with literal iron curtain, Japanese with nuclear powers, an african who makes rain, two Native Americans with the incredible powers of athleticism, and an Australian who teleports by surfing, et el.

Yes, and these are all bad character traits that deserve to be forgotten, like Dust.

# ? Jan 27, 2015 17:24

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

Armor's power is derived from her most honorable ancestors.

# ? Jan 27, 2015 17:25

Dacap: Jul 8, 2008; I've been involved in a number of cults, both as a leader and a follower.

You have more fun as a follower. But you make more money as a leader.

And Jubilee is a Chinese girl with fireworks powers

# ? Jan 27, 2015 17:50

Air Skwirl: May 13, 2007; Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed shitposting.

Hell, it's been there since the beginning. Scott Summers is the white dude who's super boring.

Am I doing this right?

# ? Jan 27, 2015 17:53

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

Dacap posted:

And Jubilee is a Chinese girl with fireworks powers

Actually she's a vampire.

# ? Jan 27, 2015 17:55

Dacap: Jul 8, 2008; I've been involved in a number of cults, both as a leader and a follower.

You have more fun as a follower. But you make more money as a leader.

Skwirl posted:

Hell, it's been there since the beginning. Scott Summers is the white dude who's super boring.

Am I doing this right?

And Wolverine is Canadian with the power of free healthcare

# ? Jan 27, 2015 18:16

Madkal: Feb 11, 2008; Fallen Rib

Dacap posted:

And Wolverine is Canadian with the power of free healthcare

And being the best there is.

drat stereotypes :canada:

# ? Jan 27, 2015 18:33

Edge & Christian: May 20, 2001; Earth-1145 is truly the best!
A world of singing, magic frogs,
high adventure, no shitposters

Jeff Wiiver posted:

Speaking of mental breakdowns, is there anywhere I could read about Dave Sim? I just started reading Cerebus and I'm really digging it (almost through the first 10 issues). That AV Club interview posted earlier in this thread makes me think he's either an rear end in a top hat or crazy (maybe both), and I think someone mentioned he had a breakdown at one point from too much LSD usage.

There have been some good interviews/essays in The Comics Journal over the decades. At some point in the 1980s there is a personal beef that develops that is incredibly weird and juvenile on the part of TCJ at times, but the interviews with Sim are still good, and Tim Krieder contributed a long thoughtful essay to TCJ 301. Unfortunately at first glance none of that stuff is online that I can see (besides behind the TCJ paywall).

I think I was the one who people were referring to who did a timeline in the previous Chat thread (my posts start here)

But just to give the briefest timeline possible in here (ages may be fudged by a year or so)

Dave Sim, age 17, drops out of high school because he's going to be a COMIC BOOK ARTISTS.
Dave Sim, age 19, meets his first serious girlfriend and they decide they're going to get married and start their own publishing company.
Dave Sim, age 23, who was apparently taking a lot of LSD at the time, has a mental breakdown and is hospitalized and diagnosed with schizophrenia. It is during this hospitalization that he envisions Cerebus as a grand graphic novel that he will work on and self-publish until he is almost 50.

Circa 1983, A-V hires an administrative assistant named Karen McKiel. Sim says that an on-again, off-again affair with the administrative assistant that Deni hired to help around the A-V offices. Once you get a bit further into Cerebus, bear in mind that Astoria is largely based on Deni and The Countess is explicitly based on Karen. Sim apparently starts sleeping with McKiel within a year of her hire, which he claims leads directly to his divorce. Loubert asks for a divorce and announces she is moving to Los Angeles, but for a year or so continues to function as publisher/editor of Cerebus.

You'd think this would be the cue for "oh ho, now he is a crazy misogynist" but no, Deni Loubert's first issue as publisher is #70 in the middle of Church & State. Starting with issue #71, McKiel replaces her in the masthead as "Administrator" as opposed to Loubert's "Publisher" which I assume is probably a legal thing more than any sort of subjugation of women, but who knows. According to Sim, she stayed on as admin after their romantic relationship ended and she only left several years later when there was some issue with personal purchases on company cards or something.

Anyway, the point is that I don't know if Sim was ever 'sane' or a 'feminist' or anything else, but everything (at least) up to Flight is written from one perspective, and he has to pretty furiously retcon things once he gets to his current "Women = Void" position, which isn't really explicitly articulated until 1994, a decade after his divorce, and after several other business and/or romantic relationships. I think you could argue that his isolation and idiosyncrasy were building up all throughout the 1990s, but it really wasn't until the late 1990s that he went all-in on cutting off friendships with creators who didn't back him 100%, which is also when he started developing his own religious beliefs and re translating the Pentateuch "correctly" to reflect two supreme beings, the benign male G-d and the evil female YHWH.

I've spent more time reading the Sim's endnotes and letters and editorials and interviews than anyone really needs to (everyone should read as much of Cerebus proper as they can, it's historically relevant and influential and also Really Good Comics) so if you have any other specific questions I could try to dig stuff up.

# ? Jan 27, 2015 18:37

Jeff Wiiver: Jul 13, 2007

Edge & Christian posted:

There have been some good interviews/essays in The Comics Journal over the decades. At some point in the 1980s there is a personal beef that develops that is incredibly weird and juvenile on the part of TCJ at times, but the interviews with Sim are still good, and Tim Krieder contributed a long thoughtful essay to TCJ 301. Unfortunately at first glance none of that stuff is online that I can see (besides behind the TCJ paywall).

I think I was the one who people were referring to who did a timeline in the previous Chat thread (my posts start here)

But just to give the briefest timeline possible in here (ages may be fudged by a year or so)

Dave Sim, age 17, drops out of high school because he's going to be a COMIC BOOK ARTISTS.
Dave Sim, age 19, meets his first serious girlfriend and they decide they're going to get married and start their own publishing company.
Dave Sim, age 23, who was apparently taking a lot of LSD at the time, has a mental breakdown and is hospitalized and diagnosed with schizophrenia. It is during this hospitalization that he envisions Cerebus as a grand graphic novel that he will work on and self-publish until he is almost 50.

Circa 1983, A-V hires an administrative assistant named Karen McKiel. Sim says that an on-again, off-again affair with the administrative assistant that Deni hired to help around the A-V offices. Once you get a bit further into Cerebus, bear in mind that Astoria is largely based on Deni and The Countess is explicitly based on Karen. Sim apparently starts sleeping with McKiel within a year of her hire, which he claims leads directly to his divorce. Loubert asks for a divorce and announces she is moving to Los Angeles, but for a year or so continues to function as publisher/editor of Cerebus.

You'd think this would be the cue for "oh ho, now he is a crazy misogynist" but no, Deni Loubert's first issue as publisher is #70 in the middle of Church & State. Starting with issue #71, McKiel replaces her in the masthead as "Administrator" as opposed to Loubert's "Publisher" which I assume is probably a legal thing more than any sort of subjugation of women, but who knows. According to Sim, she stayed on as admin after their romantic relationship ended and she only left several years later when there was some issue with personal purchases on company cards or something.

Anyway, the point is that I don't know if Sim was ever 'sane' or a 'feminist' or anything else, but everything (at least) up to Flight is written from one perspective, and he has to pretty furiously retcon things once he gets to his current "Women = Void" position, which isn't really explicitly articulated until 1994, a decade after his divorce, and after several other business and/or romantic relationships. I think you could argue that his isolation and idiosyncrasy were building up all throughout the 1990s, but it really wasn't until the late 1990s that he went all-in on cutting off friendships with creators who didn't back him 100%, which is also when he started developing his own religious beliefs and re translating the Pentateuch "correctly" to reflect two supreme beings, the benign male G-d and the evil female YHWH.

I've spent more time reading the Sim's endnotes and letters and editorials and interviews than anyone really needs to (everyone should read as much of Cerebus proper as they can, it's historically relevant and influential and also Really Good Comics) so if you have any other specific questions I could try to dig stuff up.

This is awesome and incredibly helpful, thank you so much. I guess I'm mostly interested in the timeline of his life in relation to Cerebus. When does he make the decision to do 300 issues, and was that decision really influenced by his mental health? You mentioned in the other thread you linked that he once threatened to end at issue 200. Why/when did that occur? I'm going to read the TCJ excerpt you linked as soon as I get a chance.

Edit: My question about his 300-issue prophecy is answered in the TCJ story. Are there annotations I can find somewhere to accompany my read-through? I feel like a lot of his satire will go over my head if I don't have the necessary comic book knowledge going in.

Jeff Wiiver fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Jan 27, 2015

# ? Jan 27, 2015 19:04

WickedHate: Aug 1, 2013; by Lowtax

The Dagda posted:

Yes, and these are all bad character traits that deserve to be forgotten, like Dust.

I wanna be clear that I was joking and am also not in favor of Dust.

zoux posted:

Armor's power is derived from her most honorable ancestors.

Armor was the worst though. As a Japanese person myself, I want to loving down a bottle of vodka every time someone writes an Asian character like that.

# ? Jan 27, 2015 20:50

lifg: Dec 4, 2000; <this tag left blank>; Muldoon

Jeff Wiiver posted:

Edit: My question about his 300-issue prophecy is answered in the TCJ story. Are there annotations I can find somewhere to accompany my read-through? I feel like a lot of his satire will go over my head if I don't have the necessary comic book knowledge going in.

You won't need annotations to read Cerebus. It's entertaining and stands on its own. There are some small author notes in the back of each volume to explain his headspace.

(Although it is nice to have a passing familiarity with the lives of Groucho Marx, Oscar Wilde, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and The Three Stooges.)

# ? Jan 27, 2015 20:58

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

WickedHate posted:

I wanna be clear that I was joking and am also not in favor of Dust.

Armor was the worst though. As a Japanese person myself, I want to loving down a bottle of vodka every time someone writes an Asian character like that.

I am a comic books writer and I have to ask, don't you mean sake?

# ? Jan 27, 2015 21:05

WickedHate: Aug 1, 2013; by Lowtax

zoux posted:

I am a comic books writer and I have to ask, don't you mean sake?

My mistake, honorabre* zoux-san.

# ? Jan 27, 2015 21:10

Ghostlight: Sep 25, 2009; maybe for one second you can pause; try to step into another person's perspective, and understand that a watermelon is cursing me

Shouldn't that say *DIFFICURTY OF PRONOUNCING "R'S" IN JAPANESE RANGUAGE?

# ? Jan 27, 2015 21:40

Madkal: Feb 11, 2008; Fallen Rib

WickedHate posted:

My mistake, honorabre* zoux-san.

From now on I will always have Mickey Rooney's voice in my head when I read a speech bubble from a Japanese character.

# ? Jan 27, 2015 22:14

Edge & Christian: May 20, 2001; Earth-1145 is truly the best!
A world of singing, magic frogs,
high adventure, no shitposters

lifg posted:

You won't need annotations to read Cerebus. It's entertaining and stands on its own. There are some small author notes in the back of each volume to explain his headspace.

(Although it is nice to have a passing familiarity with the lives of Groucho Marx, Oscar Wilde, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and The Three Stooges.)

This is correct, everything in the early volumes is probably pretty clear in terms of what he's parodying (Swamp Thing, Wolverine, Groucho Marx, Moon Knight, Secret Wars) up until the back half where there's some fairly esoteric stuff about Hemingway/Fitzgerald/the Stooges and the comics industry, but by then his endnotes are copious in the phonebooks. The only thing I can think of that isn't entirely obvious is some of the comics-industry stuff in the text pieces of Reads, but a) a lot of people skip those since they're almost entirely weird pseudonymous grievance-airing about the industry and not part of the story of Cerebus and b) you may or may not want to really fully understand his beef against Gary Groth and Steve Geppi regardless.

Edge & Christian fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Jan 27, 2015

# ? Jan 27, 2015 22:18

BENGHAZI 2: Oct 13, 2007; by Cyrano4747

Edge & Christian posted:

This is correct, everything in the early volumes is probably pretty clear in terms of what he's parodying (Swamp Thing, Wolverine, Groucho Marx, Moon Knight, Secret Wars) up until the back half where there's some fairly esoteric stuff about Hemingway/Fitzgerald/the Stooges and the comics industry, but by then his endnotes are copious in the phonebooks. The only thing I can think of that isn't entirely obvious is some of the comics-industry stuff in the text pieces of Reads, but a) a lot of people skip those since they're almost entirely weird pseudonymous grievance-airing about the industry and not part of the story of Cerebus and b) you may or may not want to really fully understand his beef against Gary Groth and Steve Geppi regardless.

Are the phonebooks actually still in print/where can I actually get them? Do I have to order them through Diamond?

BENGHAZI 2 fucked around with this message at 08:42 on Jan 28, 2015

# ? Jan 28, 2015 08:37

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

Literally The Worst posted:

Are the phonebooks actually still in print/where can I actually get them? Do I have to order them through Diamond?

Search "Cerebus" on Amazon.

# ? Jan 28, 2015 15:52

Random Stranger: Nov 27, 2009

Endless Mike posted:

Search "Cerebus" on Amazon.

And buy used copies.

# ? Jan 28, 2015 16:34

BENGHAZI 2: Oct 13, 2007; by Cyrano4747

Random Stranger posted:

And buy used copies.

This is the part of the answer i was looking for

# ? Jan 28, 2015 16:52

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

1. Jeff Smith
2. Mignola
3. Moore
4. Kirby
6. MIller

Who is five? Alex Ross? And what's the spock reference about?

# ? Jan 28, 2015 17:10

CapnAndy: Feb 27, 2004; Some teeth long for ripping, gleaming wet from black dog gums. So you keep your eyes closed at the end. You don't want to see such a mouth up close. before the bite, before its oblivion in the goring of your soft parts, the speckled lips will curl back in a whinny of excitement. You just know it.

zoux posted:

Who is five? Alex Ross? And what's the spock reference about?

Guessing that's Mark Waid and it's a Kingdom Come jab.

# ? Jan 28, 2015 17:28

Rhyno: Mar 22, 2003; Can't post for 10 years!

Even dead, Jack Kirby continues to rule.

# ? Jan 28, 2015 17:43

Lencho: Mar 16, 2012

zoux posted:

Who is five? Alex Ross? And what's the spock reference about?

Yes, it is Alex Ross.

# ? Jan 28, 2015 19:25

McSpanky: Jan 16, 2005

I thought Ross was obvious but I still don't get the Spock thing.

# ? Jan 28, 2015 22:54

bobkatt013: Oct 8, 2006; Youâre telling me Peter Parker is ...... Spider-man!?

McSpanky posted:

I thought Ross was obvious but I still don't get the Spock thing.

I think its just a jab at cosplayers that Ross uses and how popular he is at conventions.

# ? Jan 28, 2015 22:57

Lightning Lord: Feb 21, 2013; $200 a day, plus expenses

Mimir posted:

Have there been any high-profile failures to deliver comics from Kickstarter? I've seen a lot of burnouts and flops in video games / tabletop games, but I can't think of any comics that have done that sort of thing, besides Pictures of Sad Children.

Absolutely not high profile, and not really a failure to deliver, but I always thought the time the Kickstarter for Robert Wilson IV and Ken Lowery's comic Like A Virus was copied wholesale onto indiegogo was pretty weird.

# ? Jan 29, 2015 11:15

Koalas March: May 21, 2007

Idk where to ask this but would it be OK if I did a comprehensive thread about black superheroes and represention for black history month in February?

# ? Jan 30, 2015 02:54

Dr. Hurt: Oct 23, 2010

Hell yeah. That would be a very interesting thread. When in doubt :justpost:

# ? Jan 30, 2015 03:03

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# ? Jun 9, 2024 20:26

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

Koalas March posted:

Idk where to ask this but would it be OK if I did a comprehensive thread about black superheroes and represention for black history month in February?

Tha'd be awesome. I'd love to also see how black comic book characters evolved over time because I imagine while well intentioned, a lot of black comic characters the the 60's and 70's were still portrayed in what we would recognize as stereotypical ways.

# ? Jan 30, 2015 04:45

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > BSS: Bisexual Super Son > BSS 2015 Chat Thread - Many Words Typed About A Dying Corporation In A Niche Hobby

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