Sim's Secret Project 1 unveiled

In May, Dave Sim will release what he's been up until now calling Secret Project 1. This book, called Judenhass (German term for Jew hatred), is about the Holocaust. Judenhass will be 56 pages long and sell for $4.00. Sim will keep Judenhass in print as he wanted to have an affordable book about the Holocaust available that schools or anyone could buy. I'll be donating all of my sales of Judenhass to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. www.ushmm.org/.

Dave Sim selected the name Judenhass as the title for his Holocaust book because that's what the Holocaust was: the ultimate in Jewish hatred. Lou Copeland, volunteered his time and services to create www.judenhass.com, a website that people can go to for more information on Dave Sim's Judenhass. I highly recommend visiting the site as it has a preview section, a making of section (also click on www.glamourpusscomic.com and then click on making of glamourpuss for a utterly fascinating YouTube 5 minute video of how Sim does his art these days), there's also a great letter from Jean Shuster Peavy (Superman co-creater, Joe Shuster's sister) that she sent after she read the copy of Judenhass that Dave Sim had sent her. Neil Gaiman wrote Dave Sim that Judenhass made him cry. Dave Sim has only now unveiled what Secret Project 1 is so as not to trivalize the Holocaust and certainly anyone who looks at the preview pages will agree that the book will speak for itself and that Sim doesn't need to parade it around like he's doing with glamourpuss (again I'd like to say I enjoyed glamourpuss and urge everyone to look at the preview copy I have at the store).

I have a special interest in Judenhass, because as I've mentioned a couple of times here on this blog before, I think the Holocaust is a time in history that should never be forgotten. Stories from the Holocaust are amongst the most powerful examples of man's capacity for hatred, how this hatred has effected millions of lives, and how people survived (and sadly didn't survive) this hatred.

New Frontier!

No spoilers following: JLA New Frontier, based on the comic series New Frontier by writer / artist Darwyn Cooke, was released today and having just watched it, I can say with no reservations that it is GEEKTASTIC! All the bells and whistles (use of super powers and fight scenes) are present, but with JLA: New Frontier, there's also a story with substance and a lot of heart. This newest animated feature from Warner Brothers and DC will click with people unfamiliar with the comic upon which it's based and for those who have read the comic, they'll be cheering because even though there's differences from the original story, all the right notes are hit. The animation is top notch, the voices are great, and basically all around a viewer can tell that this was done with great respect for Darwyn Cooke's story. There are a lot of special features including two audio commentary tracks (one by Darwyn Cooke, which I'm especially eager to listen to) and a preview for Warner Brothers / DC's next animated feature that comes out this summer, Batman Gotham Nights, which is a collection of short Batman stories in different animated styles like the Animatrix from a few years ago (I haven't watched any of the special features yet).

New Frontier originally came out as a six issue, 64 page comic series, which has since been released as two graphic novels or as one huge, over-sized, expensive Absolute edition (and I think it's the best of all the Absolute editions that DC has done). JLA: New Frontier is rated PG-13 (nothing real overt, but it does earn its rating) and I was pleasantly surprised that within its 75 minute running time, that they were able to encompass so much of what Cooke did in the original comic.

Brunetti does Vegas!

In what is sure to put Vegas on the map as the city that brings the love to alternative comic book artists, this week everyone who walks or drives the streets of Las Vegas Boulevard and Fremont Street will see fifty huge banners featuring the art of Ivan Brunetti presenting, Thirst: Aerial Gallery. Brunetti will be giving a lecture at UNLV at the Alta Ham Fine Arts Building Room 357 Wednesday, February 27th at 5:30pm. The project dedication, officiated by Mayor Goodman, will be held Thursday, February 28th at 4pm on Las Vegas Blvd and Fremont Street. An artist reception will follow the dedication from 4:30-7:30pm at the Downtown Cocktail Room (111 Las Vegas Blvd. South). All of these events are free so if anyone reading this is able to go (and bring friends!), I'd highly recommend doing so because this is a really big deal and support of this will make people take notice that Vegas is serious about art. The theme of the Thirst art banners is how water and or the need to drink interconnects everything.

For those unfamiliar with Ivan Brunetti as a cartoonist, he's mostly known as the creator of the comic Schizo (four issues), which is one of the best examples of an artist barring their nihilistic soul that you'll ever read. The first three issues are collected in a hardcover titled Misery Loves Comedy. While Brunetti isn't as self-deprectiating or as negative as he was in his first three issues of Schizo (or Haw!, which is a collection of single panel cartoons so demented that you have to be very careful whom you share them with), his comic book work is very self aware (maybe too much so, but he's able to substain all of his long diatribes without being boring and does so by using very different art styles that are all very refined and distinctive) and often has intellectual groundings. Brunetti's early Schizo is especially depressing, but it's done in very humourously (and often very adult) that leaves the reader feeling very sad for him while laughing at full tilt at the same time.

Michael Ogilvie, the project coordinator, was the person who contacted Ivan Brunetti and suggested he enter the competion of 35 artists that were vying to be selected and again, I want to express what a big coop this is for the city of Las Vegas, alternative comics, and Ivan. Local art critic, Jarret Keene, has a piece about Ivan Brunetti and Thirst: Aerial Gallery, in this week's CityLife (the February 21-27th issue, on page 41) available free throughout town or go to: www.lvcitylife.com and scroll down and click on the Art Splashes Of Ink link.

Will Eisner

So I'm reading the continuing adventures of Dave Sim hopping around messageboards today and he mentions that today is Will Eisner's birthday. Actually Eisner's birthday is March 6th and Dave Sim had gotten the date wrong because one year on February 22nd, he had attended a surprise birthday party for Will Eisner. Anyway, I hadn't read any Will Eisner in a while so I headed over to my book shelf.

My favorite graphic novel by Will Eisner is The Dreamer which he wrote and drew in 1986. The Dreamer is an autobiography of sorts by Eisner about the early creation of comic books in the 1930's in the U.S. (I say it's an autobiography of sorts because the names of people involved in the events written about have been changed and some of the timeline of events has been compressed). This is my favorite of Eisner's graphic novels because of my interest in the behind the scenes aspects of this medium and Will Eisner, being that he was there at the dawn of American comic books as a creator, writer, artist, and studio of artists owner, definitely knows about what went on behind the curtain.

Will Eisner is most known for creating, writing, and drawing The Spirit for over thirty years (DC has a marvelous 24 volume hardcover collection of all of The Spirit and they have a softcover best of The Spirit for those that want to sample the greatness that is The Spirit). When The Spirit originally appeared, it did so in seven or eight page weekly installments as inserts in the Sunday comic strips. The Spirit was Will Eisner's forum for exploring what could be done within this medium and his innovations has made The Spirit a timeless creation.

Starting in the 1970's Will Eisner's comic work took the form of graphic novels (his A Contract With God is considered by many as the first U.S. graphic novel). Eisner's graphic novels were largely people on the street stories, and were amongst the first to show readers that comic books didn't have to have characters in colorfull outfits to be dramastic, powerful stories. Will Eisner was still creating, writing, and drawing comics until his death at the age of 87, January, 2005.

The first Eisner book I bought was in 1975, called Will Eisner's Gleeful Guide: How To Avoid Death & Taxes...and live forever. Eisner did several Gleeful Guide volumes in the 1970's (with titles such as Occult Cookery and Communicating With Plants), that were not really sequential art productions, rather they featured many illustrations by Eisner that would accompany facts and humor about the book's topics. I bought How to Avoid Death... when I first started to buy comics regularly not because I was a big Eisner fan then (I hadn't even heard of him at that point), I picked it up because his illustrations had a great Mad magazine appeal for me (and because at the time I bought anything that looked even remotely like a comic).

Years ago at the San Diego comic-con, I got to thank Will Eisner for all the enjoyment his creations have provided me and my friend, Joel, even has video tape footage of me standing between Will Eisner and Jack Kirby. I wish I had gotten How To Avoid Death.. signed, now that I think about that.

Scott Pilgrim

Scott Pilgrim is a four volume graphic novel series (in the manga sized format that the kids love so much) created, written, and drawn by Bryan Lee O'Malley. I read the first two volumes when they first came out and started to read volume three when it orignially came out, but I kept selling out of it before I'd remember to put one aside. So yesterday (and some of this morning) I read all four and now I really know why this series is so popular.
Scott Pilgrim is the central character in the Scott Pilgrim books, but the books are full of great characters and reading Scott Pilgrim makes me wish I had the kind of care-free lifestyle that Scott has when I was that age. Scott plays in a band, is cool in a not overt way and has gals flocking all over him. Scott Pilgrim isn't filled with teenage angst, is very kinetic (both in art style and scene transitions), and funny and clever without being annoying. I did think volume two (subtitled: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) wasn't as good as the other three but there's still some great stuff within. Scott Pilgrim volume three is my favorite (I love the subtitle: The Infinite Sadness) with the introduction of Todd Ingram, the sometimes vegan (explaining what I mean by him being a sometimes vegan would spoil some of the funniest bits in this volume). Scott Pilgrim is a perfect chaser after reading "serious" autobiographical comics or grim and gritty superhero comics.

A Valentine's Day thought

"Love between two people is beautiful, love between seven people is amazing!" I heard this on CBC Radio 3 (a Canadian radio station) today.

glamourpuss preview!

Yesterday when I got back to the store after being away for four days, I was happy to see that I got one of the 200 gold certificate copies of glamourpuss (yes, glamourpuss isn't capitalized) signed by Dave Sim himself! Even though all comic stores will get the preview copy tomorrow to show people, I'm aways happy to be the first on my block to read something.

So now, having read the entire issue, I'll ask again: Who is the audience for glamourpuss? Well the easy answer is people who like to look at gorgeous illustrations of women dressed to the nines in striking poses. The audience is also those who want to read Dave Sim discuss photo realistic comic book artists like Alex Raymond, Al Williamson, and Neal Adams. And on a lesser level, glamourpuss is for people who like a somewhat subdued satire of the fashion industry.

I'm definitely in this audience subset, but I think I'm going to be in the minority of who Dave Sim is going for as his audience at large. People who like to read and watch Sim emulate photo realistic comic book artists are I think a very niche group of people (mostly men, especially as the artists he's talking about are from yesteryear). I think all of the artists that Dave is talking about in glamourpuss #1 are great and I hope that this book will have those unfamiliar with them, seeking them out, but I'm not too sure that's a likely scenario.

I also don't think that people who like to look at fashion magazines will be too interested in glamourpuss because that's a small part of the book (other than the surface visuals) and anyone who wants to see Sim satire this industry will be mostly disappointed as he seems to be retraining his usual sharp wit seemingly to not offend too much anyone who picks up glamourpuss who actually likes what the fashion industry represents. And anyone who thinks that there will be a female audience for this book hasn't read the last two pages featuring Skank-O's (I think firstly the name of that character is very groan inducing) 5 Signs You've Found Mr. Rigfht! I actually thought those pages were the weakest part of the entire issue and while I understand what Sim is going for with these two pages, I especially don't think they'll click with a female audience. glamourpuss is not a title with a narrative, doesn't have charactrs that look like they'll be involved in any plot (Dave Sim comes out and says right away that this will not be a story driven book) or progressions, but while this doesn't bother me in the slightest and I'm very fascinated with what Sim is doing here (and I'm especially glad that glamourpuss doesn't have anything to do with the bible or religion), again I think that a lot of people that look at this and read this will be very puzzled.

I'll be ordering this and displaying glamourpuss in areas of my store that offer maximum exposure to potential customers line of sight and I hope that Sim's sales will be such that he actually finishes all 20-25 issues because I want to see where this goes. I also of course want to be proven wrong as to whom I think the audience is because Sim is a brilliant cartoonist and he's very committed to his projects (with excellent outreach thus far). And I know what his Secret Project One is (he'll be announcing that the first week in March) and I really really want to read that (and knowing what the subject matter is, I believe that this upcoming book will even give the Sim detracters pause - sorry I can't talk about it and sorry to be a comic tease). Next time those reading this are in the neighborhood of my store, please ask to look at glamourpuss.

Don't Mess With Austin

Actually one of Texas' motto is: "Don't Mess With Texas" (it's okay to mess with the other 49 states though, right?). This past weekend I was down at Austin for a DC retailer summit (called the DC RRP). I thought it was funny that the first song I heard at the Austin airport was George Straits "All My Exes Live In Texas" (I didn't have any girlfriends the one year I lived in San Antonio, so that song doesn't speak to me).

This was my third DC retailer summit (the last few times they've been having them about every three years). DC has been doing their RRP (retailer representative program) for over twenty years and it was created as a means for DC editorial (and other important DC personal like Paul Levitz and Bob Wayne) to get together with comic store retailers (representing stores of various sizes and demographic mixes) and have dialogues on how business could be better for everyone. DC actually listens and makes changes based on feedback presented as the summit wasn't just created for retailers to praise DC, rather they want honest opinions on what is working and what's not and how to correct these things (you'd never see Marvel doing this, probably largely because most stores just order Marvel titles on automatic pilot).
The meetings didn't start until Friday afternoon, but I got there on Thursday. DC had made plans for those that were arriving on Thursday to go to a barbeque. Well I thought that I had gotten in too late to go to the barbeque (not that I really wanted to go anyway, being a vegetarian), but when I got to the hotel, I found out that they were driving some more people over. So I thought I'd just go to hang out and visit with fellow retailers. My first mistake was assuming that this barbeque was at one of the local retailers house. Nope, it was at this huge hall fifty miles in the middle of nowhere and the best way I can describe it is that it was something out of a vegetarian's nightmare (especially a vegan like myself) and I'd say probably that for the most part anything that wasn't meat in Texas was probably rubbed with meat before hitting the table. Obviously I didn't eat anything there (didn't plan to) and fortunately I wasn't really hungry because we didn't get back to the hotel until 9pm. I did order a great vegetarian panini from room services that seemed animal free. But overall, since I got to the barbeque late, most of the other retailers were already in little groups so I mostly just sat around waiting to go back to the hotel. I had a nice night watching bios on Hillary and McCain.

The meetings didn't start until noon Friday, so I decided I'd explore downtown Austin a bit. Walking to sixth street (where I was told was the center for most of Austin's live music scene) only took a half hour (at my fast pace) so I also walked to the Austin capital building, which I thought was farther away. On the way back to the Hyatt, I walked down sixth street again and saw that this Vietnamese / Thai restaurant called the Mekong River was open so I ventured within and had a great pinapple tofu brunch. It turns out that DC was starting the meeting after registration with a buffet lunch (which had food that I could have eaten), but I was glad that I got to support a local establishment with vegetarian selections.
Overall I thought the DC meetings weren't terribly productive, although I'm sure that's partially due to the internet age we live in with any upcoming info shared running the risk of being all over the internet five minutes later. So while I wish that more communication between DC and retailers took place than I feel actually happened at the meetings, I do think the DC RRP summits are great ideas and think that any retailer that doesn't leave with at least a couple of ideas on how to make their operations better, certainly aren't retailers that are going to be in business for much longer. As with DC's 2005 Montreal summit, the theme seemed to be the rapid chance that is occuring in entertainment and how we best adapt to these changes will determine our places in these changing entertainment environments.

Just because I didn't get much out of the DC meetings (and dumbly didn't bring up my concerns either, which I hope to correct by continuing to have a dialogue with DC personal via email or on retailer online forums) that doesn't mean that others there didn't get what they were looking for out of this summit (DC stated that they were happy with some ideas they were presented with). For me, the greatest value of the summit this year was talking to other retailers in person (while I'm thankful for the internet, face to face interaction with people doing the same thing you're doing is invaluable), especially talking to others that are using POS (point of sale) systems. My talks with Brian Hibbs (owner of Comix Experience in San Francisco) about his recent use of the MOBY POS system and Ben Trujillo the person who created MOBY (and owner of Star Clipper in St. Louis), convinced me that the MOBY POS system was the way for me to go in terms of further streamlining the operations within my store and I look to be having this system operating for me by early April (I need to schedule training days).
At the DC summits, those attending largely don't leave the hotel unless we get taken somewhere for a function. I figured that since I was in what is called by some "the live music capital of the world", that I was going to experience some of the local scene. So Friday night after our late dinner, I walked back to sixth street, went into a bar called The Troubadour, and listened to a couple of sets by a band calling themselves Shur Flow. They had a bluesy / rock sound and between sets the lead singer told me the name of the band comes from the bassist who owns a beverage company called Sure Flow Beverages. They played mostly cover songs, but had some really good sounding originals and I don't think it's just the three beers I had talking when I say that Shur Flow has a great sound and could really go somewhere if the music industry wasn't as fragmented as it is. Between hearing some good tunes, having some brews, and talking with some of the band members and some other patrons at the bar, I'd say that if anyone reading this goes to Austin, they should look up Shur Flow and The Troubadour (on sixth street) for a great time.
A funny shirt I saw in a gift store late Friday night / Saturday morning as I was walking back to the Hyatt. Another thing I learned from a gift store there, is that Texas is larger than France (I never thought of that before, but it's true)!

Thank You, Steve Gerber

Sad news is circulating that Steve Gerber, comic book writer extraordinaire, died Sunday, February 10th of pneumonia (he was on a short list for a lung transplant). Steve Gerber is primarily known for creating and writing Howard The Duck, but he's written countless comics since the early 1970's, including Man-Thing (where Howard The Duck first appeared), Omega The Unknown, Hard Time, Destroyer Duck (a book he worked on with Jack Kirby to raise money and awareness in his battle to obtain the rights to Howard the Duck), The Defenders, and Guardians of the Galaxy. Steve Gerber was at the forefront of writing comics that were thought-provoking, satirical, had rich multi-layered characters, and he seemed to have a special understanding of madness (meaning his portrayal of characters that suffered with psychosis).

One of my favorite all time comic book series is Howard The Duck as written by Steve Gerber. Howard The Duck was Gerber's outlet for satirizing the absurdity of existence, a reoccuring theme in his writing. I started reading comics regularly in the late 1970's and it was Gerber's Howard The Duck that awakened my appreciation that comic books can be something other than endless slugfests (although I enjoy that kind of story from time to time also). Steve Gerber didn't create Man-Thing (a bog creature that appeared about the same time as DC's Swamp Thing), but like Alan Moore later did with Swamp Thing, when people think of that character the Gerber written Man-Things are the ones that rise to the top. Steve Gerber was one of the first "thinking outside of the box" mainstream comic book writers and reading a Steve Gerber comic was a template for how to write intelligent characters and comics without talking down to your readers.

Thank you Steve Gerber for over thirty years of amazing mind-bending comic book stories that have been very influential in shaping my world view.

Persepolis - the movie

Persepolis, Oscar nominated for best animated movie, finally opened here in Las Vegas. Marjane Satrapi, who wrote and drew Persepolis the graphic novel (actually they were originally released as two graphic novels, but now there's a one volume edition), also co-directed the movie and it was even better than I thought it would be. The animation style is done in the style of Satrapi's drawings and the effect this brings to the subject matter, makes the movie all the more powerful. The movie is in French (subtitled of course), as Satrapi lives in France and that's the language her books were first published in (and went on to win top honors at the Angouleme International Comics Festival).
Persepolis, the graphic novel and movie, is the autobiographical story of Satrapi growing up in Iran during the late 1970's and 1980's. Satrapi, in Persepolis, wonderfully, often painfully, shows how difficult just the growing up process is, but how for her that experience was compounded because of having to do so within the difficult political climate that is Iran. She also spent some of her later teenage years in France and Austria and being in foreign countries without family presented problems as well.

Satrapi's grandmother is shown as a very strong influencing figure in her life, and the scenes between Marjane and her grandmother are worth the price of admission alone. I remembered Satrapi's fascination with American pop culture from reading the books and thought the movie did a better job of describing the political turmoil going on in Iran, but when I looked at the books again after seeing the movie, saw that she covered a lot of that same ground in her books (it's just been a while since I'd read them). There's a scene in Persepolis in which Marjane makes a song by Survivor (the song that was first made popular in the first Rocky movie) her own and I won't be able to ever here that song again without thinking of her.

J.H. Williams III

Yesterday was my friend, Scott's 30th birthday and his good friends Jim (or JH as he's know in the comics industry) and his wife Wendy suprised him by driving eight hours for the occasion! So Kate and I got to spend some time with Scott on his birthday and catch up with Jim and Wendy.

JH Williams III (I'll be calling him Jim for the rest of this post), is of course one of comics finest artists, with some of his contributions being Chase, Justice Riders (a Justice League Elseworlds story), Shade (fom Starman), Batman (with Grant Morrison), an issue of Detective (with Paul Dini), covers for Crossing Midnight, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (with his artist friend Seth Fisher), Seven Soldiers Of Victory, Desolation Jones, and one of my favorite comics of all time, Promethea (with Alan Moore, of course).

Jim is especially highly regarded amongst fellow comic book artists (make that all artists that see his work), but I feel that he's not as appreciated by comics fandom as he should be. I can't reaslly put my head around that because really, just to look at Jim's art is to understand what great art is: beautiful, challenging, engaging, and emersive. Well for the hold-outs to the wonderama that is Jim's art, I'm going to say that they are going to be in for a splendid visual treat when they see his next book, which we got to see original pages of last night with narration by Jim himself. I can't say what this title is because DC hasn't made the official announcement yet or scheduled it, but seriously it's all a person could want from great sequential art and then some!

Jim, throughout his career, has always pushed his art to new levels, he doesn't take shortcuts, and he has a passion for this artform that is almost without parallel from my experience. For those of you unfamiliar with Jim's art who would like to check out more fantastic illustrations such as the three I've posted here, go to his website: www.jh3.com/ and click on his gallery over on the right.

Stan Lee tribute

Recently, a gallery in Los Angeles showcased a selection of artists doing their interpretations of characters Stan Lee co-created.










Go to:


















http://1988stantheman.blogspot.com/2008/01/artwork.html
for more fantastic, eclectic pieces!

Glamourpuss

Glamourpuss, Dave Sim's new comic will arrive in comic stores this April. Dave Sim is of course the creator of Cerebus, a comic he self published for 26 years and ran 300 issues. Glamourpuss will certainly be one of the most talked about titles of 2008 and it looks and reads (from what I've seen so far) unlike anything else out here in comic book land. Basically Glamourpuss will be a slightly veiled satire of the fashion industry and a forum for Dave Sim to talk about photo realistic comic book artists like Stan Drake, Neal Adams, and Al Williamson. For a good little interview with Sim about Glamourpuss go to: www.ivc2.com/articles/home/11882.html.

I'm of two minds about the release of Glamourpuss. I was a long time fan of Cerebus until probably the last 100 issues. Until issue #186 of Cerebus, I always thought Cerebus and Dave Sim would be regarded as one of the greatest benchmarks in the comic book medium. Issue #186 of Cerebus contained an essay by Sim called "The Male Light and The Female Void" in which he expresses some of the most misogynistic thoughts that I have ever seen in print. Dave Sim is a highly intelligent person, but I think he lives in a too isolated, idealistic environment and just makes too many generalizations. Sim's essay angered a lot of his audience (which I believe was once one with a higher percentage of female readers than most comic books) and his female characters from then on in Cerebus took on the characteristics of how Sim viewed just about all women, whereas his female characters were once amongst the strongest portrayals in comics. Following Cerebus #186, Sim had several other essays within Cerebus in which he targets feminism as being the root of what is wrong with modern society.

A lot of his audience left Sim because of his views on women and I think a number of readers that still continued to buy Cerebus did so because they had done so for so long and they figured that they might as well stay with it until the end. People that were outraged with Sim after these essays generally just called him a loon and didn't offer counter-arguements as to why he was wrong. I don't agree with Sim's views, but at the same time I recognize that I'm not a good debater with the linear thinking necessary to refute his positions.

Dave Sim also read The Bible in preparation for the latter arcs of Cerebus (starting with Rick's Story) and upon finishing The Bible, Sim became a fundamentalist believer and I think that the last one humdered issues of Cerebus were basically his interpretations of The Bible. The last one hundered issues of Cerebus were very dense and I think that they were only of interest to those with familiarity with The Bible and believed what is contained within that book. Having sold the last one hundred issues of Cerebus at my store and talking with the people (guys) still buying it, they, like me were largely not reading the actual comic, rather they'd read parts of it and parts of Sim's essays in the back of the title to see what other topics Sim would pontificate upon. So sadly Cerebus didn't become the benchmark title that I originally thought history would bestow upon it, rather it is largely now regarded as a curious look into the mind of Dave Sim. For me, I think Cerebus #200 serves as a good ending to the epic saga of Cerebus and I wonder what the last one hundred issues of Cerebus would have been like if Sim hadn't become a scholar of The Bible.
So while I don't share Dave Sim's politics, views on women, or religious beliefs, I still consider him one of the greatest cartoonists of our time and I am looking forward to Glamourpuss. It'll be interesting to see if Sim is as overt with his views within Glamourpuss as he became with Cerebus. Sim has never been one to shy away from his positions (and they are very intelligent and present aspects that almost anyone could see why he argues as he does, if only they weren't marred by his generalizations) and I don't want him or expect him to shy away from doing so in Glamourpuss. I'm especially looking forward to Sim's musings on comic book photo realistic artists (and from what I've seen thus far, Sim's art is gorgeous).

Dave Sim has been logging on to a computer at a local comic store near where he lives in Canada (he doesn't have his own computer as he has called them typewriters with a televison screen) and joining the Comics Journal messageboards to promote and talk about Glamourpuss. Actually Sim is doing a huge amount of promotion for Glamourpuss and comic stores will be getting a preview copy February 13th (the book debuts in April) so that retailers can share it with customers and gage interest before ordering. Sim also plans to attend the Diamond Comics retailer summit in September and do a signing at my store and Cosmic Comics. Actually I just found out that he plans to do a signing at two Vegas stores from Sim talking about it in the Comics Journal messageboards (he called last Saturday while I was at ComicsFest). I'm more than happy to host a signing with Dave Sim because even though I have differences with him, I admire his dedication to his art/ craft and any creator that is as dedicated as he is to producing a quality work on a timely basis is someone I want to support (the question is will he still want to do a signing if he knew of my thoughts on his views - I'm thinking he'd probably want to do the signing even more because of that).