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