Dave Sim's blogandmail #304 (July 12th, 2007)

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Fifteen Impossible Things to Believe Before Breakfast That Make You a Good Feminist

1. A mother who works a full-time job and delegates to strangers the raising of her children eight hours a day, five days a week does just as good a job as a mother who hand-rears her children full time.

2. It makes great sense for the government to pay 10 to 15,000 dollars a year to fund a daycare space for a child so its mother - who pays perhaps 2,000 dollars in taxes - can be a contributing member of society.

3. A woman's doctor has more of a valid claim to participate in the decision to abort a fetus than does the father of that fetus.

4. So long as a woman makes a decision after consulting with her doctor, she is incapable of making an unethical choice.

5. A car with two steering wheels, two gas pedals and two brakes drives more efficiently than a car with one steering wheel, one gas pedal and one brake which is why marriage should always be an equal partnership.

6. It is absolutely necessary for women to be allowed to join or participate fully in any gathering place for men, just as it is absolutely necessary that there be women only environments from which men are excluded.

7. Because it involves taking jobs away from men and giving them to women, affirmative action makes for a fairer and more just society.

8. It is important to have lower physical standards for women firepersons and women policepersons so that, one day, half of all firepersons and policepersons will be women, thus more effectively protecting the safety of the public.

9. Affirmative action at colleges and universities needs to be maintained now that more women than men are being enrolled, in order to keep from giving men an unfair advantage academically.

10. Having ensured that there is no environment for men where women don't belong (see no.6) it is important to have zero tolerance of any expression or action which any woman might regard as sexist to ensure greater freedom for everyone.

11. Only in a society which maintains a level of 95% of alimony and child support being paid by men to women can men and women be considered as equals.

12. An airline stewardess who earned $20,000 a year at the time that she married a baseball player earning $6 million a year is entitled, in the event of a divorce, to $3 million for each year of the marriage and probably more.

13. A man's opinions on how to rear and/or raise a child are invalid because he is not the child's mother. However, his financial obligation is greater because no woman gets pregnant by herself.

14. Disagreeing with any of these statements makes you anti-woman and/or a misogynist.

15. Legislature Seats must be allocated to women and women must be allowed to bypass the democratic winnowing process in order to guarantee female representation and, thereby, make democracy fairer.

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UPDATE 26 JUNE 0920 HOURS EST – Okay. I'm back. Let's see what Santy Claus brung me.

A letter from Mark Innes at BLIND BAT PRESS! Mark was one of the people who came up to say hello and to drop off two proofs of THE COMIC EYE cover that I did that Bernie Mireault did the colour and logo for. He really did a hell of a job, I have to say.



I have a correspondent up ahead who says he thinks Bernie went a little overboard with the red, but that was the thing that amazed me. Marie Severin used to do that on the EC stories on a regular basis and is still doing it with the stories she's re-colouring for the reprints. That was one of the big questions: does Bernie know EC at all? Uh, yeah. Bernie knows EC all right. I'll tell the world. I'm thinking of getting him to do the cover colour on my secret project. I'm going to try water-colouring it myself but my track record is about 25% on colour. I either get it right out of the gate or I spend way too much time fixing it for it to look right. If I don't get it right, I'll just send the black and white and colour version to Bernie and say, "Here, like this, but – you know – BETTER."

He's a colouring genius Bernie is.

Anyway, Mark sends along the line-up for the interior strips: Earl Geier, Fred Hembeck, Terry Pavlet, Robert Pincombe, Tim Tobolski, Ron Kasman, Ron Hobbs, Matt Feazell, Sam Gafford, Scott McClung, Larry Blake, John Migliore, Gord Pullar, Dave Collier, Darrell Epp, Jim Siergey, George McVey, Steve LeBlanc, Bernie Mireault, Sam Ago, Paul McCusker, Noel Tuazon, Jim Ordolis, Patrick Dean Smith, Rob Walton, Oliver Costas, Russ Maheras, Joe Ollamann, Jason Whitley, Tim Corrigan, Larry Johnson, Nick Craine, James Waley, Allen Freeman, Mike Cherkas and Larry Hancock. Also Richard Comely (time permitting).

"I'm in the process of nagging a few more likely contributors and should be wrapping this volume up by the end of June with about 128 pages at least.

"I got an estimate from Lebonfon and was quite pleased with their quote, so that is where the book will be printed. The cover price will likely be $10.95 US, $12.85 in Canada. The ISBN for this book will be ISBN 0-9782197-0-8."

Quite a line-up. Check the BLIND BAT PRESS website at www.markinnes.com for updates.

Speaking of Mike Cherkas and Larry Hancock on the end there, they came up to say hello at the Paradise Toronto Comicon and it was one of the rare occasions when I was actually busy talking with someone else so I didn't get a chance to say hello to Mike at all but I saw Larry later at the après-Joe Shuster Awards party in the hotel bar…

(I don't think the Holiday Inn folks realized exactly how, um, THIRSTY cartoonists can get after applauding and listening for two hours – I finally gave up trying to get a drink at the bar, went up to my own floor, got a ginger ale from the pop machine, some ice from the ice dispenser and a glass from my room, poured my own ginger ale and then casually walked back into the bar with it while everyone else was still waving their money around at the overworked staff) (next year, I think they'll "get it").

…It would be interesting to do an article about cartoonist "day jobs". According to Larry – sorry, D. Larry Hancock's – business card he is actually a Chartered Accountant Cartoonist. Yes, "Cartoonist" and "Anything Having to Do With Math" usually don't go together but Larry's the exception to the rule.

"Small business specialist including accounting, audit, personal tax, corporate tax, estate planning, financial and investment advice

"Providing services to the entertainment industry (authors, comic-book writers and artists, retailers, film productions, commercials)

"I specialize in making your business understandable."

It says so right here on the back of his card. Well, it turned out that he and Mike are officially homeless (er -- in a cartooning sense). NBM cut back on some of their titles and that was it for any future printings of SILENT INVASION. Remember SILENT INVASION? SUBURBAN NIGHTMARES? THE NEW FRONTIER? Hey, me too. Way ahead of the 1950s Homage Learning Curve. Pioneer graphic narratives all, all complete, all looking for a new home. Larry frankly admits that all he needs is a good kick in the ass to get the next batch of stories done and that he should be out actively shopping for a new publisher. Mike's all ready to rock `n' roll. I told Larry that I know Ted Adams at IDW reads the Blog & Mail on a regular basis and he actually picked up a couple of titles just because I mentioned them here. CHIAROSCURO was one of them. The other one was DAVE HAS ALZHEIMERS (i.e. I can't remember what the other one was – somebody who was exhibiting at SPACE this year…I remember that because he came up and…and…and he TOLD me…early in the show. By gum).


Anyway, if you're a Canadian cartoonist and you need a chartered accountant who really and sincerely "feels your pain" or if you're a publisher who reads the Blog & Mail (Hey – your secret is safe with me!) and you're looking for some books with a track record or if you're a long-time SILENT INVASION/SUBURBAN NIGHTMARES and/or NEW FRONTIER fan and just want to say Thanks for the Memories, send D. Larry an e-mail at larry@dlarryhancock.ca.

Tomorrow: Jeet Heer? I thought Jeet Heer's letter was about a mile further down. Maybe I am making progress.


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If you wish to contact Dave Sim, you can mail a letter (he does NOT receive emails) to:

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P.O. Box 1674
Station C
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada N2G 4R2

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