Please Hold For Dave Sim 4/2021 (And the big contest winner!)

Who won my Insult me on the Internet! Win fun prizes! contest? Well, watch the videos and see them all and I'll tell you who won at the end:

Okay, "audio guys " first:

Now the videos:

Seiler leads us off with two, count 'em TWO phone questions:

Question for Dave: Do you consider anti-work and anti-ability (again, I've seen lots of both) to be implicit in your consideration of feminism's negative impact on society? Certainly your own work/ability/success was impeded, at the very least.

Part 3, Margaret posted:

We last saw pages from Dave Sim’s 22nd notebook, which covers Cerebus #186 through 201, back in February of 2019 in Leftovaries Feast Fer Evryone Eltz. The notebook started with 80 pages of which 71 pages were scanned, the rest were missing or blank.

I noticed that other than the cover, the first page from the notebook was #37. So I took a look at the first 36 pages. All but one was just a wall of text. Page #36 had a sketch and then some text. Ahh, the tiny type of Reads. Going through those 36 pages, I noticed that swiggle that shows up in Reads, that separates bits of the story. The decorative flourish:

I wonder if he wrote all 36 pages at once, or went back over time to complete it? Looking at the notebook pages, it appears he went back after he wrote it and did some mark ups, though of them do appears to be done as he was writing. And yet, with the mark-ups, there are still differences from the finished text.

To which Dan E. asks:

He writes, "Dave Sim", crosses it out and substitutes, "Victor Davis". But earlier in the page, he had written "Victor Davis". Has Dave ever addressed the concept of "Victor Davis" substituting for his name, where everyone else (Gerhard, Alan Moore) appears "as is"?

And, it sounds like a good Please Hold question for Dave, "How much of the 36 pages was written in the first pass? How much editing was there?"

Part 4, It must be Please Hold, because here’s Michael R., Easton Pennsylvania’s answer to George Bailey:

Hi Matt!

Questions for Dave.

Hi Dave!
In Church and State volume 1, page 507, Weisshaupt reveals to Cerebus that Suenteus Po was his uncle.
1-Is this why Weisshaupt believed that he "was fated to be the redeemer"?
2-Was Suenteus Po a "true" uncle to Weisshaupt? Or was is an illusion? Or something else?
3-Who were Weisshaupt's parents?

All the best and Happy April Fool's Day!!
Michael R.

Part 5, John G. asks:

Hello. I hope this e-mail finds you well.

Question: Has Dave ever met Jim Steranko?

I recently picked up Nick Fury #3 to have as a companion to my Cerebus #2. Love them both and looking forward to the Remastred Cerebus #2. Just looking at Jim Steranko’s bio, he seems to be quite a character. I’m thinking if Dave met Steranko sometime in the ‘70s or ‘80s, then two A-type personalities like Jim and Dave would either have gotten along really well or ended up in a swordfight. Just wondering.

Thanks for the time,
- J.G.

Part 6, Michael G asks:

I will definitely take more Dave Sim comic art commentaries like these. Keep 'em comimg!

So here's a question Dave might consider answering, if it's not already in a commentary yet to be posted:
What's Tom Orzechowski's role in the look of these pages? Dave makes it seem as if Claremont placed the exposition boxes and dialogue/thought balloons. Would that normally be the letterer's job, the penciller/layout/artist's, or, as Dave... infers(? implies?) the author's? Orzechowski's letters had by this point long been as much an identifying visual element of Professor Claremont's X-comics as any Byrne/Austin or Cockrum-styled art. So much so that I assume (infer?) that he could be trusted as much to make those placement decisions as Wein to make hers. Anyway, my question at the top is fishing for Dave to comment on Orzechowski's lettering in these specific comics or in comics in general.

I'm sort of reading along with Dave in a Comixology edition of these New Mutants issues and just to underscore my point above, I'm about to read the annual and it actually doesn't have Orzechowski lettering. It makes the visual back to McLeod's art for that story even more jarring. It's like looking at X-comics from Earth-Two or something.

Part 7, Steve Peters asks:

Hey Dave:

There's been something I've been wanting to say re: "Women read minds" for a long time now. I don't know if you share the Kingsley character's ideas on the subject, but I wouldn't be surprised.

I feel like I've probably experienced that phenomenon many, many times, but there's one instance that has always resonated more than any other. Like most red-blooded males, I have a tendency to check attractive women out when they're not looking. There was one occasion, many years ago, in which I was staring intently at a really hot woman who was walking ahead of me. Out of nowhere, she suddenly whipped her head around, looked straight at me, and just GLARED at me, really angrily, too.

I eventually learned to look away when looking at a woman if one started to turn her head. As if I'd just been looking around when she turned to look at me. And on some occasions I've seen them turn and look at me out of the corner of my eye.

It reminds of interviews I've seen of women who were attacked by a stalker, and they talk about, say, walking down a dark street or an alley and suddenly having the feeling of being watched. What is that? How can they sense it? Beats me. I mean, I'm no stalker, just a bit of a creep, perhaps, but I never had any intentions beyond looking. Yet it still seems like some sort of self-preservation mechanism.
---Steve Peters

This reminded me of Tracey Walter’s line from Repo Man:

A lot o' people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch o' unconnected incidents 'n things. They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice o' coincidence that lays on top o' everything. Give you an example; show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness.

Part 7,And we bring it all home:
"So who won? WHO WON?!?"

Well, there were 31 entries from six people, and I said there were gonna be four winners. I don't wanna screw over the two other guys, so everybody wins a painting. Two guys are just getting smaller paintings than 8x8...

And the Grand Prize holy crap that's amazing, winner is: Rich L.

Thanks to all the entrants: Larry Wooten, David Birdsong, Brian West, Michael R. of Easton, PA, and Ralph S. You're all winners in my book. (Not Grand Prize Winners, but winners none the less...)