Dave Sim's blogandmail #437 (November 22nd, 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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STOCK INTRO INSERTION #3 - As you are reading this, Dave Sim is quickly running out of things to do on Secret Project #2 that fall into the "intellectual exercise" category and is, consequently, coming up on the point where he is going to have to decide if the project is a Go or a No Go. Fortunately, he also needs to be doing the Blog & Mail so, at least for the moment, he is able to use that as an excuse to postpone making a decision. Please stay tuned as he makes his way through the Day Prize submissions one at a time. Somewhere up ahead he has to make up his mind about Secret Project #2 – in the next week or two weeks, tops.

Christopher Dunsmore writes, pencils and inks OZARK MEAT #1. If the SOUTH PARK creators ever decided to do a slasher film comic book, it would probably read a lot like OZARK MEAT. Not quite "there" in terms of finish, but some interesting computer effects, soft focusing the backgrounds and so on. "Horror never tasted so good" it says on the cover. Some nudity and explicit extreme violence. www.quidndunz.com

RUFFIANS #6 from Brian Canini's DRUNKEN CAT comics out of San Diego. Regular SPACE patrons probably remember the Drunken Cat costume Brian had someone wearing a year or two ago. That had to be a first for indy comics. "Cancer Worn Soul" is a very interesting experiment in the character meets the creator field, this time done with drawings and photographs (by Patrick O'Dell) edited by Aaron Groch. A 14-pager with newsprint cover and interiors for $1.50. Check out Brian's work to date at www.drunkencatcomics.com

Hey, remember when I told you about Matt Dow's RACECAR? Well here it is again. Your choices for the next Mouseskull Entertainment pop culture icon include Fluffy the Jungle Bunny, Barry, "The Freak Who Has Had Too Much Damn Coffee" (Shannon Wheeler might name you in the lawsuit), Break-dancing Buddha, Stand-Up Comedian Hitler, Austin the $ix Billion Dollar Cat, Joe the Paper Boy from Hell and "Sexy-Sexy Go-Go Kitty". Vote at mouseskull@gmail.com. It's your duty as an American, as Matt reminds you.

As you can well imagine, there's usually a generous share of Truly Infernal Comics in with all the Day Prize submissions. THE HAUNT OF HORACE ("Everyone's favourite Vampire Boy!) is definitely in that category. Includes "My Big Dumb Hell", "Journey into ADHD", a Cthulu Pinup, and the debut of Horace's pet vampire unicorn. www.thehauntofhorace.com

DAYBREAK Vol. 1 by Brian Ralph of Jersey City, NJ is an interesting balance between mainstream indy and avant-garde indy. With its post-apocalypse motif it's more mainstream indy but the drawing style and production look wouldn't be out of place at Drawn & Quarterly. Interesting experiment in making the reader into one of the characters that doesn't always work 100% but Brian definitely knows what he's doing here. This is Episode One (magazine size, squarebound, 48 pages, sepia tones). It originally appeared on the New Bodega Blog newbodegablogspot.com and in the magazine THE DRAMA. If you just pretend it's an avant garde comic, it's pretty much self-contained.

Ed "2 Hugs from Joining the Trenchcoat Mafia" Piskor of Munhall Pennsylvania (www.myspaceedpiskor.com) contributes a 24-page revenge fantasy mini-comic that starts with him surfing MySpace and ends with "Understand this kids! MySpace is a spot for superficial, ignorant automatons to appeal to other drones in attempts to acquire friends, popularity and acceptance. A kiddy pool of internet culture if you will. But hey, this is only the opinion of someone smarter than you and if you don't agree be sure to post your rebuttal on your LiveJournal." Nice drawing style, though.

He follows that up with episode 1 (of 8) of THE W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G. TECHNICAL PAMPHLETa black and white digest comic. Here it's a little more clear that Ed is a huge fan of Joe Matt and Chester Brown but with a far greater compulsion for doing detailed backgrounds that comes more from the Wally Wood/Rand Holmes/Dan Clowes end of things. Avant garde but with a bonus helping of "eye candy". It's a full 32 pages (including the "Misadventures of Steve & Steve" back-up) telling the story of Boingthump (aka Kevin J. Phenicle Jr.). In terms of the balance of art and story and making it clear that he knows what he's doing with this 200 to 300 page biography of a criminal genius "Who he is and how he came to be" you can't do much better. Take a look for yourself at www.edpiskor.com





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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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