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Chris Claremont and Dave Sim were friendly throughout pretty much the entirety of the 1980s. There was long-ish serious talks about doing an X-Men/Cerebus crossover for years. Here's I guess some notes and stuff drawn up at a con for it. This downplays the length of time it was considered but it kept on cropping up in the letter pages of Cerebus for at least 2-3 years in the mid 1980s. Back in the early days of Cerebus Sim had a recurring character in Cerebus named Professor Charles X. Claremont that was a clearly affectionate parody of Claremont's melodramatic dialogue, and later had the Roach character transition from Moon Roach to Wolveroach which was again, a fairly gentle parody. I believe S'ym (who looks and talks like Cerebus) shows up in between those two bits. I'm 99% sure there are Cerebus stuffed animals in the background of some scene with either Kitty or the New Mutants when they're first introduced, too. Also worth noting in terms of this interaction, the Dave Sim timeline is basically this: 1977: Starts Cerebus 1979: Briefly institutionalized and first diagnosed(?) with schizophrenia, envisions Cerebus as his 300 Issue Life's Work 1985: Separates from Deni Loubert, first wife/co-publisher 1994: First (fictional in-universe) exploration of "Men are Creative Lights, Women Are Voids" [some time in here] his [wife/girlfriend] leaves him, the book gets a lot more negative towards women/romantic love in general 2001: "Tangent", Dave Sim's big personal 'yes I believe everything I'm putting in Cerebus' essay is published So while history may shine poorly on "people who were palling around with Dave Sim" you've got to remember he spent well over a decade just being That One Indie Guy With the Good Book, not the like He-Man Women Hating Rorschach character he has been in more recent years. All of his interplay with Marvel/Claremont took place back then.
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May 8, 2017 15:31
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To chime in on all of this, Dave Sim, while (in my non medical opinion) is clearly unwell and has some troubling and/or odious views about a number of things, but in contrast to just about any other 'bad actor' creator people talk about, Sim has spent the past decade or so in a more or less monastic small town life in Ontario and (apparently) doesn't support rhetorically or monetarily any lovely politicians, organizations, etc. that might hypothetically support his views. He does a weekly video blog now and it's really just him showing off old pieces of art and kind of earnestly reviewing self-published comics that get sent to him and stuff like that, as lovely as his opinions are at least he seems to have reached the decision that the world disagrees and he might as well just keep his mouth shut. That puts him ahead of a lot of the "comparable" people being discussed. I'd also argue that (especially in the realm of comics, if not beyond) Dave Sim is a far more remarkable and important talent/artist than Nick Spencer or EVS or Ardian Syaf or Orson Scott Card or anyone else you might be thinking about boycotting. He is also an incredibly important figure in the comics industry and spent much of the 1980s and 1990s explicitly and implicitly influencing the industry, and there's a solid argument that Image, Vertigo, Bone, and who knows what else wouldn't have happened without him. Plus you can download Cerebus and High Society for free. If you end up buying the whole thing, the money will pretty much directly go to him (and Gerhard, and whoever he's employing to run his site/remaster the old art) which I suppose is a more obvious payment to a Bad Actor, but again, he's not going to funnel that money into Focus on the Family or a Trump re-election campaign or anything like that. Then again, the person who first said they didn't want to give money to Sim also mentioned Alan Moore, who is by all accounts not someone actively destroying society but is by many accounts a creep, so go with your conscience.
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May 16, 2017 23:44
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zoux posted:That's hilarious. It's not your views that are performative, it's the personal attacks on the people who are trying to have a good faith discussion.  " so color me shocked people aren't engaging with you with good faith and aplomb.
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May 19, 2017 14:47
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zoux posted:Well apologies for not reading those other threads I guess. The exact same comic also continues a really dumb (and more substantially gross) thing where the other "main" Steve Rogers is the Supreme Commander of the Hydra States of America and yes he's altered by cosmic magic and yes he's a fascist dictator but you know, he's not a bad fascist dictator, he feels really bad about having to demolish entire cities and he doesn't want to sign off on death camps and yes he has literal Nazis in his cabinet of the Hydra High Council but he doesn't want them there but sometimes you've got to make compromises to do the "right" thing and I'm sure that neither Marvel nor Nick Spencer want people to think "fascism is awesome" but they're literally taking half-measures to keep "evil" Captain America from being too evil but it is sending a terrible message. It's like how throughout the initial HydraCap story they keep pulling back from having Steve Rogers be a murderer and even the character has internal dialogue about not wanting to be a murderer but all that means is that he literally hires hitmen to murder his enemies, or contrives scenarios where hey, I may have led my enemy into a trap full of demons who eat him alive but I didn't murder him, or he gets someone else to poison his enemy because Captain America doesn't kill his enemies, he just commands they get poisoned to death. Or he agonizes about whether or not he can smother his friend with a pillow but whew, they took him off of life support for injuries sustained when Captain America non-lethally pushed his friend out of an airplane, so it's not like Captain America murdered that guy, he just died in the hospital. The only person he actually kills is Red Skull, and he's fine with killing Red Skull because hes's a NAZI and a MURDEROUS MADMAN getting in the way of Steve's Kinder Gentler Fascist Rule that still involves like every single checkmark of what the actual historical Nazis wanted to do, but you know, just to protect everyone for their own good, not for Nazi reasons. The overall message is basically "yes, Captain America is a fascist in bed with Nazis whose collective endgame is a genocidal attack on freedom with the intent of setting up a Fourth Reich but... but... but... he's not a NAZI. Cap would never be a Nazi! He's not even really a full fascist. He's not that bad. You can work with Nazis and Fascists and still be a fundamentally decent guy who made some tough, potentially bad decisions" which is not "LOL Marvel loves Nazis and Captain America is a Nazi forever" but is still fundamentally lovely and gross. Edge & Christian fucked around with this message at 15:14 on May 19, 2017 |
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May 19, 2017 15:10
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Lonos Oboe posted:Thanks Edge & Christian for the lowdown on Cap. I was kinda hopeful it would be like Superior Spider-Man which was much better than I expected it to be. quote:It feels to me like you can draw a line between the early 2000's (specifically 9/11) and before more than you can any other time in comic book history. There are other factors I am sure must have contributed. Everything from the emergence of easy internet and digital printing to more independent publishers. But you read a comic made in the last 20 odd years and you can usually tell without looking at the date. I was re-reading some old Spider-Man comics and you feel the change very quickly reading them all at once. Especially when M.J Straczynski takes over. quote:To start it off, Lets take Mark Miller. Probably the writer singly most responsible for the current perception of comic books in popular culture. If you consider the comics that have massively shaped the MCU. It's works like Civil War and Ultimates both written mostly by Mark Miller. Add to that his run on Warren Ellis' Authority, Which was primarily about the idea of a Justice League style group of heros trying to solve world problems by murdering dictators and doing press interviews where they discussed politics. Not that the comic hit pop culture hard. But it was a testing ground for his politically aware heros. (I know he did not have a long run on Authority, but his stories stand out) quote:More than anyone else he really tried to connect super heros with the man on the street. Kick rear end is the most obvious example of this. But Miller has always had this layer of cynicism that many felt was out of place in the aw shucks world of comics. (The Kick rear end and Wanted comics feature a LOT more rape than the movies) quote:I suppose what I would like to know is people's general opinions on Miller. For the sake of argument I think it's worth separating what you think about his actual writing versus his politics. (Feel free to virtue signal all you want. It's an open discussion) I would also encourage opinions on people like Straczynski and Bendis. Arguably two of the other people having a huge effect on the MCU. Anyone really whose personal views helped shape the stuff we are seeing on screen now basically.
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May 19, 2017 21:46
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