Dave Sim

Dave Sim (born 17 May 1956) is a Canadian cartoonist and publisher, known for his comic book Cerebus, his artistic experimentation, his advocacy of self-publishing and creators' rights, and his controversial political and philosophical beliefs.

Sim was born 17 May 1956.

His father was a factory supervisor at Budd Automotive and worked as a labour negotiator.

Sim became interested in comic books when he was eight.

Bernie Wrightson's Badtime Stories (1971) inspired him to devote himself to drawing.

Sim also found inspiration in Mad magazine, particularly Harvey Kurtzman and Wally Wood's "Superduperman" parody, as well as underground cartoonist Jack Jackson's Conan parody.

He wrote and drew comics throughout his adolescence, and he began submitting work to fanzines.

His first published work was some articles in the comics fanzine Rocket's Blast Comicollector.

He had submitted artwork as well and, although it was rejected, Sim struck up a relationship with editor Gabe Quintanilla, who encouraged him to continue submitting material.

Now & Then Books owner Harry Kremer allowed him to produce a newsletter called Now & Then Times.

The first issue arrived in summer 1972.

Sim produced another issue in 1973, but he had begun devoting his time to John Balge's Comic Art News and Reviews, another Canadian comics fanzine.

For CANAR he interviewed subjects such as Barry Windsor-Smith.

Inspired by Charles Schulz's Peanuts and Outhouses of the North (a small book of cartoons published by the Highway Bookshop in northern Ontario), Sim spent 1975 and 1976 developing a comic strip called The Beavers.

Highway Bookshop published the strip as a book in 1976.

A second book failed to materialize when the publisher shut down.

Sim then pursued syndication, pitching The Beavers to the Kitchener-Waterloo Record.

With Day inking the strips, a year's worth was produced in three days.

Sim also wrote or drew stories published in anthologies such as Phantacea and Star*Reach.

The Beavers also saw print in Star*Reach's sister talking animals comic Quack!.

Around this time, Sim's work was published by Charlton Comics and Warren Publishing.

In 1976, Sim took the only job he ever held outside of comics: an employee at Now & Then Books.

He also wrote and drew parts of "Ali Baba" #1 for Gauntlet Comics.

The two met in 1976, married in 1979, and divorced after nearly five years of marriage.

Sim rose to prominence with Cerebus, which began in December 1977.

Sim initially conceived it as a parody of Conan the Barbarian and other sword and sorcery comics, but after two years he began to consider the series a self-contained work that would run for 300 issues and be subdivided into novels.

By the time the 6000-page work was completed in March 2004, Sim had delved into politics, and an examination of feminism and gender, while becoming progressively more sophisticated and experimental in his storytelling and artwork.

Sim worked on Cerebus Archives afterward, and he produced the comic books Glamourpuss, which examines the history of photorealistic comics, and Judenhass, about the Holocaust.

Sim co-founded the small press publisher Aardvark-Vanaheim with his wife-to-be, Deni Loubert, in 1977.

In December 1977, Sim began publishing Cerebus, an initially bi-monthly, black-and-white comic book series.

It began as a parodic cross between Conan the Barbarian and Howard the Duck.

Progressively, Sim shifted his narrative style to story arcs of a few issues' length.

Soon he moved to longer, far more complex "novels", beginning with the 25-issue storyline High Society which began in issue #26.

The sword and sorcery elements in the series, prominent up to that point, were minimized as Sim concentrated more on politics.

Cerebus was published through Sim's company, Aardvark-Vanaheim, which was run by his wife, Deni Loubert.

Most of the titles it published moved to Loubert's Renegade Press after the couple's divorce in the mid-1980s.

Sim helped create the Creator's Bill of Rights in 1988.

He has criticized the use of copyright to restrict creators, and has arranged for his body of work to fall into the public domain following his death.

Sim has already released one of his works, Judenhass, to the public domain.

The publishing company later was co-owned by Sim's creative partner, Gerhard, who dissolved their partnership and sold his stake in the company to Sim in 2007.