Dave Sim - Early Life

Early Life

David Victor Sim was born 17 May 1956 at St. Joseph's Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada to Ken (a native of Glasgow, Scotland) and Mary Sim, the second of two children with older sister Sheila. The family moved to Kitchener, Ontario with his family when he was two. His father was a factory supervisor at Budd Automotive, and did work as a labour negotiator. His mother an elementary school secretary.

He bacame interested in comic books when he was eight. His interest rarely waned, but he found himself the only collector at his school when he reached adolescence. Early on he was attracted to DC comics, particularly those drawn by Curt Swan, Jim Mooney and Kurt Schaffenberger. In adolescence, he came to like flashier artists such as Barry Windsor-Smith, Neal Adams and Berni Wrightson. Wrightson's Badtime Stories (1971) inspired him to devote himself to drawing. Sim also found inspiration in Mad magazine, particularly Harvey Kurtzman and Wally Wood's "Superduperman" parody, as well as underground cartoonist Jack Jackson's Conan parody.

At seventeen, rather than repeat Grade 11, Sim dropped out of high school. His excuse to his parents was there was nothing more he could learn from school that would further his career as a cartoonist. He wrote and drew comics throughout his adolescence, and began submitting work to fanzines. His first published work was some articles in Rocket's Blast Comic Collector. He had submitted artwork as well, and although it was rejected, Sim struck up a relationship with editor Gabe Quintanilla, who encouraged him to continue submitting material to fanzines. Sim convinced Now & Then Books owner Harry Kremer to alow him to produce a newsletter called Now & Then Times. The first issue arrived in the summer of 1972. He produced another issue in 1973, but had begun devoting his time to John Balge's Comic Art News and Reviews, another Canadian comics fanzine. For CANAR he did interviews with subjects such as Bary Windsor-Smith. During this time, he continued to hone his drawing craft by copying the artists he most admired in his comic book collection. He became friends with artist Gene Day in 1974, with whom he had corresponded since 1973. Sim was inspired by the older Day's perseverance, keeping at drawing comics despite the small financial reward. He came to believe that Day's volume of output would be a key to success, and adopted Day's work ethic. The two worked together on a proposed character called "The Partisan" which they hoped would run in Jim Waley's Orb Magazine. When Day landed a job inking Marvel Comics' Master of Kung Fu, Sim took over as editor of the last two issues of Orb, possibly through Day's suggestion.

Inspired by Charles Schulz' Peanuts and Outhouses of the North, a small book of cartoons published by Highway Bookshop in Northern Ontario, Sim spent 1975 and 1976 developing a comic strip called The Beavers. Highway Bookshop published the book in 1976, for which Sim received $125. A second book failed to materialize when the publisher shut down. He decided that publishers were unreliable, and that the solution would be syndication. He pitched The Beavers to the Kitchener-Waterloo Record. With Day inking the strips, a year's worth was produced in three days. He had work published by Charlton and Warren In 1976, Sim took the only job he ever held outside of the comics field as an employee at Now & Then Books, of which he has said, "It was the only place in Kitchener that I ever felt truly comfortable before or since".

Sim came to believe at this point that his lack of success was to due the interference of editors and publishers.

Sim also created various other comics, including a newspaper comic strip called The Beavers which was published in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, and wrote or drew stories published in anthologies such as Phantacea and Star*Reach. The Beavers also saw print in Star*Reach's sister funny animals comic Quack!.