Skimming The Surface

Cerebus #135 (June 1990)
Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard

DAVE SIM:
(from Following Cerebus #2, December 2004)

...The difference between literature and entertainment is ambition, the interest in examining ideas and the human condition, in addition to making people go boo-hoo-hoo, ha-ha, and wheee! So that became the primary reason for doing the annotations: it was a reaction to the conclusion that I came to just prior to Going Home: I don't think any of the readers understand how much I'm putting into this besides boo-hoo, ha-ha and whee!

I mean as an example, I was really pleased with the Mrs. Thatcher sequence in Jaka's Story turned out, because I thought I presented the two viewpoints pretty effectively: law and order (Mrs Thatcher) verses "do what ever you want and to hell with the consequences" (Jaka). But after the book had been on the market for eight years or so, it was pretty obvious that everyone reading it was just skimming the surface. Boo, Mrs Thatcher, you're mean. Yay, Jaka, you're pretty and fun! You go, girl. It seemed to call for annotations at the very least...