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Sure, Dave’s views may be a big part of the problem, but I think the biggest reason Cerebus doesn’t get as talked about among the “great comics runs” is because its out of print, and can only be found in beat-up phone book copies on Amazon.

American Flagg gets overlooked for much of the same reason. Hopefully Sim can strike a deal with IDW or some other publisher to get Church and State into the really handsome collection it deserves. It’s a towering achievement.

Dave actually drew and lettered Cerebus throughout TMNT 8 (he was not involved in the cover). It’s actually pretty cool to see these characters drawn by their creators interacting seamlessly in the same panels.

As for Cerebus being out of print, only the first two volumes were for a time (not any longer). Diamond should have them all available for order, with the first two being recently remastered (from original art, where possible) and looking better than they ever have.

Kyle: AMERICAN FLAGG *is* in print, and has been since… ’08, I think?

Jason: No, there was at least one point where either six or eight of the CEREBUS phonebooks were entirely unavailable from the marketplace. Checking Diamond right now CHURCH & STATE 1, READS and RICK’S STORY are all OOS.

-B

“How long does it take to get out of the cesspool political situation we live in..?”

How long will it take to repeal women’s suffrage, Mr Sim? How about never, ever, not in a million years (thank God), which is fine with me.

I don’t buy Dave Sim comics for the same reason I don’t watch Mel Gibson movies or vote (in the Hugos) for Theodore Beale-sponsored novels. Plurality in art and society are fine things, but I draw the line at funding (to borrow a phrase from Alan Moore) “bad craziness”.

“It’s also, from about the halfway point on, a bit of a trudge through all kinds of religious and philosophical diatribes.”

That’s a nice way to put it. “Unreadable” is the word I’d use.

But then, Claremont’s X-Men also became unreadable after 10 years, so Sim isn’t the only talented creator to falter. He also isn’t the only one to subscribe to bizarre right-wing philosophies. (Hello, Steve Ditko and Frank Miller.)

Sim is not a right wing extremist. He has his own belief system which isn’t easily categorized. I reject a lot of his thinking, but he came up with it on his own. He’s a true original.

“A true original” he may be, Heidi (as in, probably a good thing there aren’t too many of those running around), but as I understand it, he fully represents the Canadian version of a Rupert Murdoch media devotee. I’ve read comments from Canadians that a lot of the BS he slings about the current state of world affairs are preoccupations lifted straight from Murdoch’s international lie factory. Not to say those are the only things he believes or thinks about (the religious tenets he preaches are a whole other ball of wax), but I don’t think it’s wrong to call him right wing while he’s calling everyone with a remotely liberal bent “Marxists”.

Dave really is one of the most brilliant comic creators ever. Cerebus brought so much to comics and it still has so much hasn’t been utilized in other books. It’s an amazing achievement. THAT SAID, he’s a bit crazy. He was really, really influential to me, right around the time he went off the deep end. I remember Dave’s descent into wherever he is now, and thinking how I can see flaws of feminism, but there’s no way to be a part of society and follow that philosophy (I was about 15-16, so I was pretty impressionable, yet he still lost me). I remember how he called his ‘friends’ out, like Jeff Smith and said Jeff was ruled by his wife. Colleen Doran got similar treatment in the same issue. Dave gets cred for being an original, but man, he’s just an asshole who doesn’t know how the world works anymore. Tragic that his talent can’t be put to better use.

“A true original”? Sim’s corpus is grand but it’s not unique: Herge worked on Tintin for 50 years, as did Schultz on Peanuts, while Osamu Akimoto’s ‘Kochikame’ has been running since 1976 and Takao Saito’s ‘Golgo 13′ longer still. None of them ever called for the repeal of the 19th Amendment, either — Herge actually grew *less* conservative as he aged.

I tell you, Gerhard had absolutely the right idea, cutting ties and walking away from the crazy.

Oliver come on…my “true original” is in reference to Sim’s style and subject matter not just his longevity.

Creative genius is often married to mental struggle — from quirkiness to insanity. It’s how things are.