Dave Sim

Dave Sim (born May 17, 1956 in Hamilton, Ontario) is a Canadian comic book writer and artist, best known as the creator of the 6,000 page graphic novel Cerebus the Aardvark.

Related Topics:
May 17 - 1956 - Hamilton - Ontario - Canadian - Comic book - Writer - Artist - Cerebus the Aardvark

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Although born in Hamilton, Ontario Sim has lived in Kitchener since he was two. Sim was interested in comics from an early age, and published a fanzine called "The Now and Then Times" and did work for other fanzines, such as Comic Art News and Reviews, Gene Day's "Dark Fantasy" and "National Advisor", interviewing pros such as Barry Windsor-Smith and Neal Adams.

Related Topics:
Hamilton - Ontario - Kitchener - Barry Windsor-Smith - Neal Adams

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After doing various other comics including a newspaper strip called the Beavers which was published in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record and writing or drawing various other stories published in comics such as Phantacea, Sim began publishing Cerebus as a black-and-white comic book series in December of 1977. Cerebus was published through his company Aardvark-Vanaheim, which was run by his wife, Deni Loubert, whom Sim met in 1976, married in 1978 and divorced after five years.

Related Topics:
Kitchener-Waterloo Record - Deni Loubert - 1976 - 1978

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In 1979, Sim suffered a nervous breakdown, himself stating in his Getting Reil http://www.cerebusfangirl.com/artists/louisriel1.html dialogue with Chester Brown that he was "diagnosed as a borderline schizophrenic." During his convalescence, Sim hit upon the idea of making Cerebus into a 300 issue series, something that had never been done before with the same artist and writer. It would tell the story of a character's life, with him dying in the final issue, which appeared in March 2004. Sim shifted his narrative style from story arcs of a few issues' length to longer, far more complex "novels," beginning with the storyline known as High Society. The prominent swords and sorcery elements in the series up to that point were minimized as Sim concentrated more on politics and religion.

Related Topics:
1979 - 2004 - Swords and sorcery - Politics - Religion

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Sim lived it up in the 1980s when Cerebus was a large success and did much travelling to promote the series, which was selling at least 30,000 copies an issue at its height. In 1984 Gerhard became his collaborator, and handled the background drawings in the series. Aardvark-Vanaheim also published other comics besides Cerebus, such as William Messner-Loebs' Journey and Bob Burden's Flaming Carrot, although eventually Sim focused the company's energy solely on publishing Cerebus.

Related Topics:
1980s - Gerhard - Journey - Flaming Carrot

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During the 1980s and early 1990s, Sim used his notoriety to serve as a major proponent of creator's rights and self-publishing within the comics industry. In addition to speaking on these topics at comic book conventions, Sim published The Cerebus Guide to Self-Publishing and often promoted other creators' work in the back pages of Cerebus.

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Sim completed the series on schedule. His life has changed radically since he began Cerebus. In the course of working on the series, Sim developed views hostile to feminism, to modern materialism, and to leftist politics. Sim chose to make these views public in the infamous issue #186 http://www.theabsolute.net/misogyny/sim.html#texts, which caused considerable controversy within the comic book industry and among his readership. The most prominent of his writings against feminism is his 'Tangent' essay; originally published in Cerebus #265 . As Sim refined his opinions, he made progressive changes to his lifestyle -- eliminating television and radio from his home, and limiting his consumption of alcohol and tobacco. He now has limited contact with women, and considers the Jewish, Christian and Muslim scriptures to be equally valid as the Word of God, upon which he bases his current lifestyle. This includes fasting, praying and alms-giving.

Related Topics:
Feminism - Materialism - Leftist - Jewish - Christian - Muslim - God

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Sim is currently working on the Cerebus Archive Project, wherein he plans to have an online searchable database of Cerebus related materials. He is also working with Win-Mill Productions on the comic sized magazine "Following Cerebus" http://www.followingcerebus.com/ and doing various pin up and cover work for independent comic creators.

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