August 14, 2007 "few others in human history"

Out on the shelves today:

"Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean"
by Douglas Wolk

Wolk is a widely published freelance comics/music/pop culture writer.

After a 134 page prelude on "reading comics," Wolk reviews (and reviews) a collection of our favorite graphic novelists: Chester Brown, Steve Ditko, Will Eisner, Frank Miller, Jim Starlin, los bros Hernandez, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, and (yes, indeedy) Dave Sim.

Chapter 17 (Dave Sim: Aardvark Politick) is 15 pages long, including 2 full-page illustrations and 3 smaller ones. The commentary ranges from Dave the Writer-to-Cerebus-to-Dave the Illustrator-to-Cerebus-to-Dave/inseparable/Cerebus... you know, the usual conundrum when you are dealing with this topic. He has a few pointed remarks (nothing we have not heard before), and what I would call a nicely balanced overview for someone who might never have encountered the work before.

On the one hand:

"...I'm not in a position to assess his psychological state. But his I-dunno-maybe-everyone-ELSE-is-schizophrenic routine is significant; he's also described himself as a sort of professional schizophrenic, who lives in his invented world as much as consensus reality and tends to conflate the two. That's where his art comes from and that's where it leads."

And on the other:

"Anyone can come up with a grand twenty-seven-year plan for a mammoth work of art, but Sim, along with very few others in human history, actually went through with it. He made the commitment to his story and spent more than a quarter of a century grinding away at it, and he FINISHED it, exactly when he said he would. A serious, ambitious, completed large-scale work, no matter how deeply flawed it is, beats a perfectly envisioned but unrealized project every time. At the very least, "Cerebus" is worth reading for the same reason a grand, half-ruined cathedral of a religion not your own is worth spending time in: It's a Cathedral. Take what you can from it."