Tuesday 25 October 2016

Barry Windsor-Smith vs Dave Sim

Barry Windsor-Smith & Dave Sim (19??)

9 comments:

Jeff Seiler said...

Barry is doing his best, menacing, "hot young comics professional" gaze directly at the camera, while Dave is checking out the hot chick in the back corner of the room.

Guess who won?

Jason Winter said...

Does anybody know what Mr Smith is doing these days? I havn't seen any new work from him in over a decade.

Jeff Seiler said...

Proofreading update: All 79 pages of correction notes and the highlighted book were shipped this afternoon, via overnight FedEx to Sean Michael Robinson. The fate of the latest Cerebus remastered volume is in his quite capable hands now.

(Well, not *now* now, but as of tomorrow.)

al roney said...

@Jason - Great question.

I can't seem to find any updated info on BWS anywhere.

Travis Pelkie said...

OK, if we're talking grudge match here...

Hair: BWS has a cool, almost slicked back look, but unfortunately that shows off a lot of forehead. Dave's dyed blonde look does him no favors, making him look like a male model or member of a Krautrock band (who may or may not be a robot), yet the side part covers a good deal of the forehead. I'm going to call that one a push.

Shirt choice: BWS has a white long sleeved number with the sleeves pushed up, yet it looks as if he may have borrowed it from his significant other, and the neck of the shirt seems too much like it will slide right off his shoulders. Also, with the almost sheer look to it, it seems BWS is going to show us how cold it is in the room, particularly if he participates in the wet t-shirt contest down the road. Dave's NYC sweater is pandering to the crowd, if he's in NYC, or else he got cold and bought a sweater from a street vendor, showing his pro-USA bias. With that sweater over a long sleeved red (?) shirt, I think Dave wins that one.

Hand motion: Dave holds a pen of some sort, ready to sign autographs or draw sketches. Excellent. However, BWS is inadvertently (or is it?) doing the "aardvark" with his fingers, showing that he is secretly a member of the Aardvark-Vanaheim family, which is also evidenced by the pages he's holding in his hand. That is, if one presumes that they are the pages of the Cerebus Dreams that he did for that one Swords volume. Point to BWS here.

Beverage choice: It appears that BWS is hogging them all here, but the one closest to Dave does have the top popped open. The rest are as yet unpopped, so this one seems like a point to Dave as well.

So by a slim margin, Dave wins this one. Was it ever in doubt, since this is a Dave fan site? ;)

Unknown said...

It was a UK Comic Art Convention, I think, but not the first one I was at which means it was sometime after 1985. We weren't set up together, Barry just strolled in and sat down next to me at my table. Which was always unnerving because I had such a strict policy of engaging with whatever Cerebus fan was in front of me at the moment. Ignore Barry or ignore the fan? And in the UK there was usually a fan in front of me.

Which is, I think, why Barry has picked up the photocopy of "Dead Friends" (#89? #91? That would place it around 1986-87) and is thumbing through it. "Crikey. If you aren't going to talk, I guess I'll just read your preview issue here."

A BWS fan took the opportunity to come up and tell Barry how much his work reminded him of...Mucha? I think it was Mucha. Am I spelling that right? One of those Art Nouveau artists you would see on poster racks in music stores and head shops. I remember, "Oh, you didn't want to say that." And sure enough, the fan got an absolute earful of how BWS's work wasn't REMOTELY like that of Mucha? Mocha?

Barry departed shortly thereafter and I didn't see him again until the Dark Horse Party at San Diego in 1993 (he was still at the negotiating stage for STORYTELLER so his being at a Dark Horse party was a definite WTF? for everyone which is I'm sure what Mike Richardson's idea was). Literally didn't recognize him. He had gotten very heavyset. I was there as Diana Schutz's whatever-it-was-I-was-for-Diana-Schutz (horizontal mamba partner?). And I remembered thinking, "Oh, this should be good." And said, "Barry, come over here, there's someone who I'm sure would like to meet you."

"Di?" (Actually, I used a nickname for her that only her father and I used and which she hated and presumably still hates so I won't put it here)

"Don't call me that. Yes?"

"Do you know Barry Windsor-Smith?"

And she goes (I swear I'm not making this up) she goes, "Barry Windsor-SMITH!! WELL, F**K ME NOW!!"

Under the circumstances, Barry was quite gracious.

Jeff Seiler said...

Wow! That is definitely some fascinating "inside baseball" shit!

Wow! Thanks, Dave.

Damian T. Lloyd, Esq. said...

It's either that, Jeff, or this "gossip" thing that Dave so often decries.

-- Damian

Jeff Seiler said...

Aw, gwan witcher bad self, Damian!