Dave Sim's blogandmail #332 (August 9th, 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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I've plugged – and done a cover for – DORK TOWER, John Kovalic's original gaming comic. Since I'm not a gamer, my criteria for a good gaming comic is one that makes me laugh even though I haven't a clue what they're talking about. Pretty select company: DORK TOWER and Scott Kurtz's PVP.


Well, in addition to sending me his DORK TOWER DECADE book (how is that these decades just keep sliding by like this? I remember John sending me his first dozen or so strips and giving him advice on how to set up his punchlines) John also sent me the first collection of one of the other books that he does, DR. BLINK SUPERHERO SHRINK. It's entitled ID.EGO.SUPEREGO! and it's very funny. Not "laugh out loud" funny (not most of it anyway) but "charming funny". He's ably assisted here by Christopher Jones who does the artwork and who really has that Bruce Timm look down (how good is he at it? DC has already gotten him to do work penciling THE BATMAN STRIKES which, unfortunately has left him a lot less time for working on DR. BLINK) and by Melissa Kaercher who does the colouring and lettering (yes, it is a full colour comic book). A good example is this session with Major Amazing, who has lost the will to live:


DR.BLINK: Well, surely its life forms are near and dear to you? Their achievements: art…science…civilization?


MAJOR AMAZING: Oh, don't get me started! Across the universe it's the same! Do you know what point all civilizations end up at?


DR BLINK: Uh…peace, love and understanding?


MAJOR AMAZING: Boy Bands and telemarketers…Did you know the Cat People of Betelgeuse V have thirty-seven different words for "Reality TV"?


My favourite issue so far is the Robin, the Boy Wonder parody in issue 2, "Wonder Boy" about the fifth Wonder Boy (sidekick to Nocturne) who is now a skinny, balding middle-aged man trying to make a living selling Wonder Boy photos at a comic conventions.


DR. BLINK: The thing you need to remember is that losing our parents…or guardians…is one of the most traumatic events that can happen in a person's life. Of course that's going to have long-term effects on who you become…or WHAT you become. The loss of those closest to you will affect your conscious and subconscious…will affect the very fabric of your existence. Everything about the life that you once knew gets torn to shreds, and you have to redefine yourself in the world…you have to redefine your world. What you need to know is the choices you make are what cut to the core of your inner being: they're what make you YOU! They're what make you unique! Yes…UNIQUE!


OFF-PANEL: That's very…very PROFOUND!


DR. BLINK: Thank you.


TRACY THE SECRETARY: Or at least it would be, if it didn't actually apply to three quarters of the heroes in First City.


DR. BLINK: That's why I made it the message on my answering machine.


The ending is really good but it would be wrong of me to give it away. Anyway if you want to check it out, go to www.drblink.com (and for DORK TOWER hit http://www.dorktower.com)


Oh, and hey, before I forget, Greg Hyland's LETHARGIC LAD appears in the back of every issue of DORK TOWER. That's right, the Lad of Lethargy, Little Green Boy, Lethargic Lass and all your Lethargic favourites in FULL COLOUR. (Well not LL himself, he's in black and white with a little blue highlight on his cape sometimes). Greg's also doing a weekly LETHARGIC LAD strip online at www.lethargiclad.com. Now you have something else to do instead of the work you're supposedly getting paid to do!


What's this? Why I do believe it's a thin strata of actual mail before we get to the next batch of graft (er…comp copies for review). Let's see what sort of progress we're making here. Okay, an April 8 "Greetings from Hollywood Boulevard" postcard from Siu Ta:


Hi Dave

How are you? My last week in LA & finally getting around to sending some postcards. It has been a fantastic 3 months (how time flies!). Looking forward to going home and being with John. Hope you've completely gotten over your cold. Take care & see you in T.O. Best Wishes Siu


So, she spent three months in LA and that was roughly three months ago. This is progress of a kind. Mm. Maybe not. The next one is a card from Gian Carlo Guarda from April 4th four days before Siu's postcard thanking me for the Blog and Mail mention of his WHITE FANG adaptation February 17.


Dear Dave


Thank you very much for your Blog & Mail of February 17. It was nice to hear from you and even more so to receive a public acknowledgement of my work from a respected author! I do hope that sometime in the future we will have an opportunity to meet. Should you chance to travel to Washington, remember you are welcome to stay with us. To answer your questions: yes, I am all right (for 77 that is); no, I am no longer working with cartoons: my eyes do not afford that anymore. However I do hope to improve my vision next May with a second cornea transplant in Portland, Oregon. How much that will improve my acuity nobody knows. And you? What are you doing now that you left Aardvark?


All the best,


Gian Carlo

Sorry for the poor writing, but this is the best I can do with the help of my VIDEOEYE Magnifier-Projector


Jeez, Gian, I wish I could write that tiny and accurately with my own eyesight (he got that all onto one 3 x 5 card). Basically, I'm doing okay (for 51) and doing the same thing that you were doing: trying to revive the Alex Raymond/Hal Foster school of illustration in a field that has gone completely another direction. Small incursions at first – like the enclosed cover for COLLECTED LETTERS 2 – hopefully a larger project later on. But mostly just trying to keep up with the Blog & Mail (you can see how far behind I am) and keeping all the Cerebus trade paperbacks in print.


I don't want to spoil you, but this seems like as good a time as any to plug your WHITE FANG adaptation, begun back in the 1940s and finally finished just a couple of years ago. Interested retailers and readers can contact Gian Carlo at 5714 Potomac Ave. NW, Washington DC 20016. $20 should cover the book and postage. Order it now. At this rate I won't be plugging it again until Christmas. Had it been that Steve Geppi's Woodrow Wilson Award dinner hadn't been during Ramadan, I would've taken you up on your offer of a place to stay since DC isn't that far from Baltimore. I'd certainly like to see Washington again sometime soon. I'm always so busy just keeping up, though, this year now that this is a one-man operation (I'm buying out my former collaborator and business partner, Gerhard). Had to cancel my plans to stay with Mimi and Alan at their place in Salt Lake City this summer. Maybe things will slow down a bit come next year. Sorry it took me so long to reach your card. Very nice to hear from you, too.


A couple of post cards from our old friend David W. Johnson. Date March 20. Jeez, I'm going BACK in time now.


Tomorrow: Say does this mean I eventually get my hearing back in my left ear?



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

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

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