Friday 5 August 2016

The Many Origins Of Jaka (Part 1)


CEREBUS ARCHIVE NUMBER 5:
A portfolio of 10 Signed & Numbered Prints from "Jaka's Story"
Raising Funds For The Restoration & Preservation Of The World's Longest Graphic Novel

8 comments:

Jeff Seiler said...

Well, how's *that* for tell-all autobiography? Wow!

Unknown said...

Well, as I've said to you on other occasions, you might as well be honest because it's all going to come to light some day anyway and whatever YOU didn't talk about everyone ELSE will talk about.

This one was a test, for sure, because it was up to me if I was just going to pretend that I didn't find out about Norman Thaddeus Vane. It certainly made discussing the whole thing a lot more complicated. So I just went "shot by shot", covering the subject.

It's actually a great RELIEF because Jaka, for a number of CEREBUS fans, is this HUGE deal and they can sense that there are multiple levels to Jaka. So when they ask, "Was Jaka based on a real person?" they already know that there's no short ACCURATE answer to that. By the time we're through "The Many Origins of Jaka" over the next four weeks it'll be "Wow. I didn't know the HALF of it".

I'm particularly looking forward to the "Origins of Missy" clips from LOLA next week because they really hit me hard when Sandeep downloaded the movie for me. "Oh, I can't watch this. This is SO SLEAZY!" Yeah it is. But not ALL of it is. And the Missy clips are way at the end. "I'm glad I stuck it out. The Jaka fans are going to LOVE this." I think. I hope.

al roney said...


I thought "Jaka's" best work was in Straw Dogs, which also contained a fair amount of underage girl, uh, trouble too.

I also thought I was an old man when went out with a 15-year-old when I was 18.

I felt even older when she died at 47.

Jeff Seiler said...

Well, since we're showing all of our hole cards, so to speak, I twice dated 19-year-olds when I was 30. One was a college student of mine. And, yes, Dave, transparency is always better sooner, rather than later. A grown-up lesson I first learned from you a long time ago.

Damian T. Lloyd, Esq. said...

Interesting how it's "transparency" when Dave tells tales out of school, but "gossip" when other people do it.

My girlfriend of almost two decades is 13 years younger than I am. "Some people say I'm robbing the cradle, but I prefer to say she's robbing the grave." She wrote "An Open Letter to Dave Sim" in The Comics Journal no. 263, so obviously she's dismissible as one of the "TCJ uber alles" anti-Simean conspiracy legions.

-- Damian

Unknown said...

Damian - The technical term is a "Jennifer" -- I think the age difference for an official "Jennifer" is 15 years so you should be okay.

I also should have qualified that relationship longevity and fidelity -- I think we all agree -- supersede all other considerations. Norman Mailer met Norris Church when he was 50 and she was 25 and they stayed married until he died in his 80s (bad news on the "fidelity" thing though). I THOUGHT I would be with Judith for life but that was back when I thought I was capable of being a good boyfriend and a good husband. If you can't make it past four years (my record with Deni and with Susan) then you aren't either. Know thyself.

Todd McFarlane met Wanda K when she was underage and they created SPAWN together in high school. As far as I know they're still together.

Tony Dunlop said...

Dave said, "...you might as well be honest because it's all going to come to light some day anyway and whatever YOU didn't talk about everyone ELSE will talk about."

That was the approach of my former governor Jesse "The Body" Ventura; he openly spoke about his former drug use and his visits to Nevada whorehouses during the campaign. That way nobody could use it against him. It worked, in the sense that he was elected with 37% of the vote in a three-way race. (Full disclosure: I voted for him, and would have done so again had he not chickened out and declined to run for a second term after the government budget started showing deficits.)

Unknown said...

It was funny. Susan was at a convention without me, representing the CBLDF and she was at a dinner with Scott Hampton and a bunch of other guests (probably HEROES in North Carolina) and Scott started talking about Dave Sim and his fifteen-year-old girlfriend. And someone goes, "Uh. Scott. Susan's GOING OUT with Dave Sim..." And Scott turns red. And Susan goes, "Are you talking about Judith?" And Scott goes, "JUDITH! Yeah! That was her name!" And then mulls it over. "Dave TOLD YOU about Judith?"

Oh, yeah. Dave told her about Judith.