MAIN | SALES INQUIRIES & CONTACT INFO Aardvark-Vanaheim / Dave Sim commissions Dave Sim is one of the more controversial artist-creators in the world of comic books - or so I have been told - and a groundbreaker in the history of independent comic book publishing. Sim's Cerebus graphic novel series ran a mammoth 300 issues, 6000 pages, and required over twenty years to complete. I first shot Dave in 2003, for a video documenting his last day of Cerebus, with close-ups of Sim inking the last page of the Aardvark's life and laying his pen down on the life of an epic. Since completing Cerebus, Sim has embarked on a number of wildly varying personal projects and publications, and has commissioned me to shoot reference photos for his new photo-realist style (read his essay here), as well as promotional images. Here's a sampling of what he's got me doing... This was a commission Dave received to illustrate an autobiographical panel for the cover of The Comic Eye, a comics compendium published and edited by Mark Innes of Blind Bat Press, 2007. Sim commissioned me to shoot the reference shot. He generally has an idea what he wants directed, and we light and set up the photograph as required. OTOH, this commission, involving a lunch date in Toronto with Sim, Harvey Pekar and Chester Brown, was directionless, the instructions being simply to record the lunch and get it on film. At least a half-dozen requests of, "Please pay no attention to me, Mr. Pekar," were required before Harvey understood what was happening. Sim used the frames to illustrate an American Splendor cover (unused), as well as the wraparound cover of Dave Sim's Collected Letters 2, published by Aardvark-Vanaheim last year (see below), and possibly something else (maybe). Pekar photo is unpublished. Sim's front cover portends an increasing interest in drawing pretty girls... Promotional shot for Glamourpuss, Sim's satiric series about the fashion industry. Dave wanted something casual and in colour, with storyboard. A different promotional portrait for Judenhass, Sim's graphic short about the Holocaust, released May, 2008. Sim's direction here requested severe single-light black & white. All images copyright of the creators. All rights reserved. MAIN | SALES INQUIRIES & CONTACT INFO