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Well the 'Reads' passage quoted in the above link could be taken as the work of a raging misanthropist, I suppose. The rule being, arguably, that if everyone's under attack it's all right. The male character, while a victim, is still complicit in his terrible fate. God only knows what sparked it, but it's certainly vivid, as a piece of prose.
I've not read the notorious #186, but taken in isolation, I can see how it might be defensible. Except that it doesn't appear to be possible to separate Sim and his work at this point in time.
As a broader issue, it might be worth discussing how much of a good thing internet access is in general, for the underground, fringe artist these days. One shudders to think what Robert Crumb might have come out with, for example, if he'd had a blog, or his own chat room, when he was twenty years younger. Similarly, what might have happened to Philip K Dick's reputation if he'd been on-line while he was writing 'Valis'?
I'm not saying there's a direct correlation; obviously Dave Sim had other, more personal matters he was going through, but at the same time, looking at the publication dates, I wonder if at least part of the reason why 'Cerebus' went the way it did wasn't that after around #200 he was in contact with his fans, directly, via e-mail, for the first time. And that perhaps, they encouraged him.
All right, he must have had letters in the past, but it's a far less instant form of communication; back in the days when people still wrote them, you did have to think a bit, if you were after the attention of your literary idol.
Also the use of green ink, or the typos, would, to a certain extent, have been a giveaway.
To a man already disinclined to leave the house though, post a messy divorce and unsure about the new technology ... Perhaps AOL was the straw that broke the aardvark's back? |
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