glamourpuss

From 2008 to 2012, Dave Sim’s glamourpuss (published by Aardvark-Vanaheim across 26 issues) was a singularly ambitious and contentious comic that blended a parody of high-fashion magazines with a meticulous, educational deconstruction of classic newspaper strip art. Sim, alongside occasional collaborator Russ Heath, used the series to explore the photorealistic techniques of masters like Alex Raymond, while its cast of recurring characters—including Rip Kirby, Flash Gordon, and even Cerebus—populated a meta-textual narrative that also featured John F. Kennedy and Clark Kent. At once a technical treatise, a satirical commentary on the comics industry, and a deeply personal project, glamourpuss remains a unique artifact of Sim’s later career, notable for its obsessive craft and its role in his broader, controversial creative universe.