Is Dave Sim Mad? Appendix
'This is why I recommend a measured response: knowing your
strength as a husband and father. Each spank has to be hard enough to produce
genuine pain, but not hard enough to produce bruising or blood-letting. The
point is to make the experience unforgettable and cause an aversion to it that,
in turn, cause the wife or child in question to really reconsider embarking on
or continuing in course of action which might lead to a spanking. One good
spanking should be sufficient for a six-month or year long period of good
behavior if it is administered properly. The thing to do is to educate men in
how to spank properly so as to achieve the desired results; relative peace and
relative quiet. 'Peace and quiet' always being relative terms when you are
discussing women and children, as I'm sure you'll agree.'
Letter-column,
Cerebus 275
'Although the Catholic Church appears to the women and
women-with-penises to be holding out against their best efforts (this can, I
think, be attributed to the fact that --as was the case with colleges and
universities--feminism accepts only total capitulation. Not for too little is
Zero Tolerance a catchphrase of feminist origin: to women and
women-with-penises there is only one way, their way and their way is absolute)
the fact remain that its evisceration is far advanced. For all intents and
purposes the Catholic church is now a secular feminist social engineering
bastion, like the universities and colleges.'
Essay, 'Islam,
My Islam', Cerebus 281
(I take it that 'women with
penises' is now the preferred term for 'homosexualists'.)
(Dave -- I don't think that
there is any point in pretending any longer that the comic is about a character
called Cerebus -- has been studying the Bible, and has independently arrived at
a version of the Gnostic heresy: The Yahwist passages in Genesis (e.g. Chapter
3) and the Elohist passages (e.g. Chapter 1) refer to two entirely different
Gods. Yahweh is a subordinate demiurge; entirely distinct from the true God. In
Sim's version, Yahweh -- who he refers to as Yoohwhoo, fulfilling his criteria
of one funny joke every two issues -- is, of course, a goddess. Sim thinks that
it is Yahweh, as opposed to God, who demands animal sacrifices. The sequence
takes the form of a dialogue between Cerebus and Konigsberg, who looks like
Woody Allen.)
Cerebus: Even though all of
the men die because they've been cut off from the tree of life by Yoohwhoo and
even though they know that they're all going to die because they've been cut
off from the tree of life, they STILL worship Yoohwhoo. They STILL call upon the
name of Yoohwhoo. They STILL murder and mutilate sheep to try to please
Yoohwhoo. Except one guy. <Methuselah>The only guy who walked with God
instead of mutilating and burning defenseless animals to try to please
Yoohwhoo. It doesn't say what happens to you after you die if you've spent your
life mutilating and burning defenseless animals--cattle which are off-limits,
taboo--to try to please Yoohwhoo but Cerebus is willing to bet that you’re a
lot better off 'walking with God' so that when you die God takes you. (Thinks
for a few minutes.) How many of these off-limits cattle do you suppose your
people mutilated and burned trying to please the living thing, the big light
and the big fire in the middle of the earth?
Konigsberg: Once again I
decline to answer on the basis of feeling even more nauseous than I did a few
minutes ago. (Thinks) Millions, probably.
Cerebus: There's the sad part. Someday, Yoohwhoo is going
demand that that 'debt' be paid. And…millions you said? Millions of your people
are going to…um. (long pause) (clears throat) (another long pause.)
Main story,
Cerebus 281
Nineteen issues to go, and then I never have to read another issue of Cerebus in my whole life….