My tossing out the “witch hunt” label was more of a cautionary note. I think it’s great that you’re putting such thought and effort into exploring Cerebus, it is my favorite comic book after all.

My fear is that your work will be dismissed because of bias (something very common in “Cerebus-land” no matter which side of the fence you’re on). And it does seem that the focus has been less “exploring the origins of Cerebus” and more “exploring the origins of Dave Sim’s sexism.” At this early stage, I just don’t see much use in that. As you saw, Dave was ignorant of Red Sonja’s origins and peeled away from the parody and re-worked it.

Sure, he could have taken more care in the creation of the parody, but I doubt that was on the mind of a 21 year old who was just trying to further the Conan parody and happy to have a steady girlfriend for the first time.

A shift in attitude *is* coming, though. Have no fear;^D

-Jeff

I’d say my preconceived notions of the work are simply that it is considered Great and Important, which is still a bias perhaps, but not one that overly concerns me. My knowledge of the creator is the same knowledge that anyone in comics has about Dave Sim and his latter day antics — I’m not sure it constitutes a bias, necessarily, but it did influence my reading of this issue.

True enough Laura and I think, again, your point of view and reading of the work is very different than many peoples’. For no other reason than the fact that you are reading the work at this particular point in time as opposed to 10, 20 or even 30 years ago.
Your own perceptions and interpretations would quite certainly be different had you read this for the first time say 20 years ago.
You do also admit to having biases/pre-conceived notions of the work (which is fine) i.e your reading of the work being influenced by any and all knowledge you have of the creator, his thoughts and ideas and so does Jeff above. Simply different knowledge is all.

Enjoying your work here and looking forward to the next post.

Jeremy

the wonder of the lettercol (in a way “peripheral” to the text–and yet, for most comic fans, a crucial part of the reading experience, smuggling a kind otherness into the most auteur-driven narratives) is that it brings the debate about intention/reception out of the academy and into the pop cultural trenches, with, in this case, some pretty intense consequences!

Dave Fiore

Regardless, I am quite willing to accept the possibility that Red Sophia (at least at this point in time) is a failed attempt at parodying the stereotypes of Red Sonia, not necessarily or at least intentionally furthering them. But as Dave admits himself in the quote, the origins of the original character are kind of disturbing and dabble in some unsettling notions of rape victims. One might want to take care in parodying such a character, particularly in such hypersexual ways, lest one’s motivations be misconstrued — and it seems Dave admits as much in that final quote from Volume 3.

I love that you’re doing this project, but if you don’t want to be perceived as witch hunting, you may want to consider stopping the witch hunt you’re already on.

No, I won’t defend the “God given mandate to spank women,” (all such religious based thinking is foolishness in my book – the true “emotion based” system of thought) but I do believe that stereotypes exist for a reason, and playing them up has been comedy gold for generations.

Anyway…

I wanted to post this quote from Dave on the Sophia character in general as you try to put his perspective on women in context (don’t extrapolate on her womanhood too much – your assumptions don’t apply yet). This is rather old — from Swords Of Cerebus #3.

“This was Red Sophia’s last appearance in Cerebus to date. There are a number of reasons for this. Kim Thompson’s comment on the “unhealthy origin” of the Marvel character sums up my feelings pretty well. I was initially attracted to the book by Frank Thorne’s work, having like Frank’s stuff from the time he was doing Korak and Son Of Tomahawk for DC. I heard a great deal about the Sonja Show that he did at conventions and was intrigued by the occasional photograph or write-up one would see in fanzines or on the letters pages. When I first read one of the books, I have to admit to an almost total sense of disgust at the concept behind it. The qualities of sado-masochism, rapist as hero and woman as willing rape victim screamed at me from every panel. I didn’t for a moment figure that some fourteen year-old boy was going to go out and defeat his girl-friend in battle for the privileges implied, but it seemed like something less than the ideal structure for an entertainment form.

“Sophia was also intended as something of a tribute to Wendy Pini’s
interpretation of the character in the aforementioned Sonja Show, and
finding out that she didn’t like the character didn’t help matters.

“If she does return again, I will have to re-think the concept
completely to try and make her at least a little more sympathetic. A
gargantuan task that makes me feel I would be better served coming up
with a new character altogether” – Dave Sim (Swords Of Cerebus Volume 3: introduction to Merchant Of Unshib)

I’ve been following along with your guy’s reading and posts, and subsequent dissection in comments. Please keep it up!

And Sophia reads as ill-conceived genre parody to me, something which seems to be guiding many of the early Cerebus plot decisions….