The fifth (of five, so far) installment of Dave's answers to your questions. If these prompt new ones, or if you've had some in the back of your mind for a while -- say, for the last 15 +/- years of Cerebus -- send them to me (jim [o--v--i] at [um.cc.umich.edu]) and I'll pass them along -- as you've seen, Dave responds thoughtfully and in detail. Check out the tour dates at the end of this posting too. Don't miss your chance to chat with Dave in person. *** Lawrence ([hor 2] at [quads.uchicago.edu]) -- Dave: You talked about how we have always lived in a matriarchy, and about how society/civilization/whatever is very sensitive about protecting its infants. If this overprotectiveness is an indication of matriarchy, why is pro-choice a feminist movement? Why do women so adamantly defend the right to kill unborn children? Dave -- Well, because feminists are the anti-Matriarchy. Feminists are Kevillists, not Cirinists. Feminism largely consists of RWomen can do whatever they want whenever they want.S. They can't be kept out of male sanctuaries, but they can keep males out of their Take Back the Night Marches. They get to keep the children in the event of a divorce and the men get to pay for them. The fact that they consider a baby to be part of their body and, consequently, subject to their will reaches its natural conclusion in the power of life or death over that baby. Just as an aside, Astoria is not pro- choice, Astoria is pro-abortion. RIf you have the slightest doubt about being pregnant, terminate it.S Lawrence -- [D]o you personally feel oppressed by matriarchy? Dave -- I don't feel oppressed by the Matriarchy, but then, after a few minutes contact with me, the average Mother has sized me up as Rone of THOSES. Since their only weaponry consists of a withering gaze and phrases intended to induce guilt, if you ignore both of those there isn't much they can do. I live in constant fear of the Matriarchy equation of irate mother + cop = busted comic book store, however. Pat Hall ([p--h--l] at [as.arizona.edu]) -- So we have a "Cerebus: The First Half" T-shirt celebrating the first 150 issues. After M&D is finished in #200 do you plan to have Cerebus dressed up in a hockey uniform for a "Cerebus: The First Two Periods" T-shirt? Dave -- What a wonderful idea. He could be holding two used tampons in either hockey glove. Pat -- In #156 you mention that _Misspent Youth_ is on your list of top ten comics. I'm sure it's not a hard-and-fast list, but what might some of your other favorites be? Dave -- Hate, Naughty Bits, Sandman, Groo, Eisner's new stuff, RFrom HellS, Flaming Carrot, Yahoo, Yummy Fur, Joe Matt's new book which I forget the name of. Pat -- I was intrigued by your comment in the previous interview about whether or not we can ever find out what "actually happened" during a particular event, JFK's assassination for example. I agree that in the "real world" where we must piece together events from the memories of different people, we'll probably never have all the loose ends tied up, and some great literature reflects this (and comics too, like _Moonshadow_). But don't you think that good literature can also be written where an omniscient narrator _is_ used, or do you really feel that the world is always so full of loose ends that it's a disservice to ever imagine, even in fiction, that we could ever know what "actually happened" in some situation? Dave -- I'm not much of one for hard and fast rules. I'm sure there is no end of brilliant works of fiction that tie everything into a neat bundle at the end without a loose thread showing anywhere. It's only my personal view that a large work of fiction like Cerebus should reflect the ambiguity and over-lapping and contradictory interpretations of reality that I see everywhere around me. It would be a disservice to my story from my viewpoint as an author, but I am quite aware that that view is very often seen as a disservice to my readership. Pat -- The other comment that intrigued me was the one about Hawking's _A Brief History Of Time_. I'm an astronomer myself, so I tend a little more toward the scientific bent than perhaps you do, but did I interpret it right that you see Hawking's thesis on the origin and evolution of the universe as not necessarily any more or less valid than any other belief system? Of course everyone is free to believe what they want, but the scientific method by which scientists have arrived at a picture of the history of the universe which is generally perceived (among scientists, anyway) to be reasonably accurate, if incomplete, did not seem to make any difference to you, which I find a little curious. Dave -- Hawking's theories, to me, are the list of facts without a binding story,whereas Genesis is a story that takes great liberty with the facts. Because they didn't know the facts. Church & State and Mothers & Daughters is an attempt to take what is known about the origin of the universe and make a more plausible story out of it. Science includes everything except the Hidden; and mistakes the Hidden for the Difficult to See. Witness the Hubble space telescope fiasco. That's what you get for trying to look up Mother's Skirts you Filthy Little Boys. Howard Shum ([shum h m] at [mentor.cc.purdue.edu]) -- [Do you have] any plans on collecting the Cerebus stories that appeared in Epic Illustrated into a volume? Dave -- We plan on releasing a volume of the in-between stories and possibly including some of the Swords backup stories, and the Epic stories in half-tone (we're not shelling out for colour printing), next year at the very earliest. Howard -- I know that [you are] mainly a self-taught artist and I would like to know what art books [you] used [or] any other things that [you] did to become the artist [you are] now. Dave -- The only thing you can do is draw every day. The comic books you admire the most are your textbook and a sheet of white paper is your classroom. Jim Ottaviani (jim [o--v--i] at [um.cc.umich.edu]) -- What are your feelings on the importance and effects of community? Isolation? On the one hand, it seems to me you've built/are building community by living in Kitchener for so long, as the first self-publisher with staying power able to truly help others get started, through the format and content of the letters page, and with your encouragement of other creators in the Singles Pages and Cerebus Previews. On the other hand, much of your work is solitary (apparently by choice and design), and Cerebus himself is very alone. Dave -- Isolation is critical. Isolation and complete silence for hours on end. If you can't hack that you can't do comic books for the most part. You have to relish being by yourself. Relish it. Community is an evasion of this, I think. I've heard all the reasons as to why you need to be in contact with other artists but all of the experiments I've seen with it have proven to be failures. I used to draw more and better usable work visiting Gene Day, but that wasn't because of the community thing; that was because he sat down at ten o'clock in the morning and drew until eleven o'clock at night. Half an hour for dinner, a sandwich at the drawing board for lunch and aside from that just cigarettes and coffee, cigarettes and coffee. If you stopped drawing to read a comic book, or quit because you got a page done, it made you feel like the biggest sloth to ever hit the medium. You'd start your next page or pencil an illustration or ink a panel of Gene's Marvel work just to keep from feeling guilty. Community (friends, family, lovers) kept to its place and confined to a few hours here and there can, on very infrequent occasions, and to a small degree, be viewed as not destructive of creativity. *** A reminder of upcoming tour dates: April 26 Chicago, Hyatt Regency -- Woodfield Road, Schaumburg (MoondogUs in Mt. Prospect on April 24, MoondogUs in Lincoln Park on April 25) May 3 Miami, Park Plaza Hotel -- Palmetto Expressway & NW 103rd St. May 31 Kansas City, Marriott -- Metcalf Ave. in Overland Park June 7 Minneapolis, Marriott Bloomington -- I-495 at Cedar Ave. June 21 Indianapolis, Sheraton -- 7701 East 42nd St. jimO