If you hang around long enough, the story Dave Sim is going to tell you is when Stan Lee called him into his office and told him, "You will never make it in this business."
Dave Sim does not tell this story ironically, although you may detect an air of irony about the conversation. I have waited almost my entire life (since I was at least 12-13 or so) to tell this story because the first time I met Dave Sim, I had absolutely no idea who he was. And apparently, no one else did, either.
He was at a con in Memphis with that chick, Zoroastra (or whatever), and he kept leaving his table to go smoke bowls. Since my friend and I were the only fanboys hanging around his table, and we were so young, I am not sure if he knew that we knew he was a stoner.
Beside him was the table where two of our local artists held reign. They did this comic called Last Generation, which was actually very good. But, like Dave Sim, we didn't have any idea who the hell they were, either. In retrospect, I guess he must have seemed like a butthole to them.
We didn't know who any of them were; we were there to play D&D and grab as many issues of Epic Magazine as any vendor had. My friend played D&D and I hounded the only vendor who had any issues of Epic Magazine. See, my great-grandfather was a yard-saler and he didn't pay dick for what he got... ever. So, I was determined I could talk this guy down, except I didn't have any money and I kept telling him to wait until my friend got out of the D&D tournament he was in (he'd made it through the first two rounds!)...
I kept making the rounds and Dave kept talking to me - he kept asking me if I was drawing while I waited for my friend to get done. I kept telling him I hadn't. He kept asking to see my "portfolio" (we had just learned that word; before that, it was called a sketchbook - I had dozens of them) and he kept drawing in them! He kept-on about how this or that, I - I forget; I was absolutely horrified he was drawing over me!
WTF!?
So dude next to him - he was fat and had one of those white-boy 'fros and no cool, leather, duster jacket-thingy - stopped me one time around and asked me, "Why don't you ask us? We're from here! We would like to review your 'portfolio.'" So I was really embarrassed - really felt like shit and stuff - and they just tore me apart...
"Hands were weak (they were). Faces were inexpressive (not their term; they meant "flat," but whatever they said was overly artistic and... just wrong). They were (Harvey Kurtzman later told me this - AND HE DREW OVER MY SHIT TOO! - I honestly wouldn't have believed or even really known this, had he not). Bodies were too skinny - bullshit. Um, too many muscles - el wrong-O. Misproportionate - not true. blah. blah. blah.
I spent the entire rest of the weekend drawing everything I saw on everything I found. I still hate them all.
Dave Sim came by once or twice and said things like, "I think your hands are fine." He smelled exactly like weed. Weed and pussy. I sat outside that damned door and drew stupid pictures the entire weekend! None of them were very good.
At the end of the weekend, Mitch Faust came outside and said, "Your hands are still weak!" Then sat with me there for about an hour after the entire con was over and redrew my hands - on top of my pictures!
I wanted to strangle him!
I was shocked, y'all! I was fucking shocked!
I just wanted to take this roly-poly, much-'froed dude outside and just... you know? Get all shocked all over his fat ass!
For weeks afterward, I went around school with a copy of his comic book in my sketchbook du joure (sp?) all like, "THIS! THIS is the guy who told me my 'hands were weak.'" I didn't date much and it was the last comic book he would ever draw.
When he said it, I was all like, "Let's see what Dave thinks." He was my new hero, as you could guess. You know. He'd drawn all over my shit too, but he was Dave, so I guess it was "cool." With his duster and the smell of weed and pussy a-wafting all off him and a-stuff.
I was 12-13.
Mitch Faust died in a car wreck about a month later.
Dave Sim left out the backdoor of the convention and never said "Hi, bye, kiss my ass" - nothing.
...
I guess there's more to this story, I just haven't told it in years; it's a weird, sad story so I don't tell it often.
OH! Remind me to tell you about the Kuberts. And Cannibal Corpse. And especially A. Kubert.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
1 comment:
In rereading this, I wanted to make it clear that Dave Sim is not a bad guy - quite the opposite. As I said in the post, he fooled with my funnybook-drawing butt all weekend long.
Sure, he was a bit pompous or whatever, but while people like Jim Lee and Frank Miller are actual celebrities today, Dave Sim was about as close to a "rock star" as the industry got back in the 1980s. He was the precursor to Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld, and all those guys. In fact, the whole "Independence Tour" or whatever it was called in the early 1990s was basically a bunch of the guys who went on to found Image... and Dave.
He headlined the tour.
He really was like a rock star in those days and he really was a nice guy, however arrogant. And his arrogance didn't come off that way toward us youngsters; I mean, here was a guy who did it, you know? If he was a little "know-it-all" about... like, what he does, that was to be expected. I have always known and accepted my role as fanboy; I truly have no problem with that.
Also, Dave Sim appeared at several of those Mid-South Cons throughout those years and made many fans in the area. When I brought him the Epics in which his stories appeared to sign, he was genuinely excited to see them.
It was years later that I got into Cerebus.
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