Thursday, October 1, 2020

Ideology overwhelms art: Dave Sim's Cerebus




In Cerebus # 265 (April 2001) Dave Sim wrote a notorious misogynist essay.

 
I always thought the irony of Sim's dull gender rhetoric was that it came from the emotion-driven divorce from Deni Loubert. 

Sim made the mistake of putting his inner angst on paper and his ideological focus trampled his artistic expression. I stopped reading Cerebus first because Sim overloaded on text at the expense of drawn art and story (Sim is a much better comics artist than prose writer) and second because of his misogyny.

We all suffer in relationship break-ups. It doesn't mean that the other party, in this case a woman or women, is bad. It just means that it didn't work out. Be angry yes, go through the grief cycle. But don't hate and turn inward. 

Cerebus became boring because Sim couldn't let go of personal issues. I hope with age, he has let go of enough of the past to enjoy the present and see women differently. 

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