Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: cerebus, Comics, dave sim, entertainment

Dave Sim Wants A Woman

Published Sat, 29 Nov 2014 11:00:08 -0600

Okay, I admit it, that was a click bait headline. But it is absolutely accurate.

Dave Sim, creator of one of the greatest comic book works to date, Cerebus, As found himself getting involved with a film adaptation of the comic, despite his best efforts.
Oliver Simonsen has been, slowly, directing an animated movie based on the original Cerebus comics, with specific issues in mind.

the film is based on the revelation in issue 196 of how Cerebus fractured his destiny when he traded his helmet for a merchant vest to fit in. Otherwise, it follows very faithfully issues 1, 4, 5 and 13 with a little bit of some other issues.

Not that it's likely you'll be able to see it. Sim writes that from what he's seen,

Okay, the film is better than I thought it would be. For those unaware of my deal with Oliver: I'm committed to not actively impeding/actively not impeding Oliver in making his CEREBUS film. Oliver's consortium of Hollywood investors are aware that it's 99% certain that the finished film WON'T be sanctioned and that nothing can be done with it without my explicit consent…and they're STILL willing to backstop Oliver's remaining production costs.

Thogh it's now around 95% and Sim says that be may approve of some comic book convention showings, though Sim won't be going there, or anywhere, until 1400 more people sign a petition saying that he's not a misogynist.

About that.

Because Sim sees one flaw in the movie as he has seen it so far.

"Where's the girl?"

So he has volunteered to write a framing device for the film that will include a female character. Jaka? No. Astoria? No. Regency Elf? No. Cirin? No. Even Joanne? No.

"the unnamed editrix/publisher of FRIENDS OF YOOWHO (from the end of LATTER DAYS) interviewing Cerebus about the events in #1, #4, #5 and #13."

That would be this character.

Partially based, I believe, on Elayne Riggs, then a prominent member of the Friends Of Lulu female-centric activist comic book group of the time that Sim had a number of run-ins with, with the name mashed up with the Jewish name for God, YHWH, through the Cerebus reinterpretation of the Torah as featuring a female lesser God warring with the male superior God.

It was (to paraphrase Harlan Ellison) a "batshit crazy" comic in places.

The character interviewed Cerebus in his latter days from a rather point of view that parodied what Dave Sim saw as a feminist-obsessed agenda merged with the titillating obsession of tabloid media.

And now he wants someone to play her.

Let's call her "Yoowho" really carries the film (in our feminist age, nothing else would make sense), so we're going to need a Really Good Actress to play her. And — because a) I'm not a movie person and, consequently, am going to do everything completely differently from how movies are made and b) I really don't want to devote a lot of time to this — what I'm looking for is not only an actress, but actress/director/cinematographer. Basically, whoever plays Yoowhoo will be directly herself and filming herself and then sending the footage to me and Oliver. I have no time to MAKE HER INTO Yoowhoo, I only have time for her to make herself into Yoowhoo or (more likely) BE Yoowhoo. Oliver will just do whatever they call the modern version of "rotoscoping" in our digital age from that footage. We might have one voice actress and one performing, physical actress or we might have two-in-one. We'll see.

One big advantage is that the character wasn't established as being a particular age in LATTER DAYS. She could be anywhere from her early twenties to a really well-preserved 40 or 40+. Or somewhere in between.

I haven't got anything on paper yet, but the "screen test" would be pages 430 to 434 of LATTER DAYS (it's a nice spectrum of moods/attitudes she goes through) (originally in issue 288). Doesn't matter who she gets to feed her the Cerebus lines (although I can't rule out finding a different Cerebus voice actor), it would just be her on the screen. If she can do all five pages the way I picture it in my head, we will have found our Yoowhoo.

You can send actress DVDs and contact info to Box 1674 Stn. C Kitchener, Ontario Canada N2G 4R2 and I'll look at them in order every other Friday after I've been awake for 20 hours.

So… if you fancy it (and hey, Elayne, if you're feeling masochistic why not?) you know what to do…

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