Gerhard leaves A-V, just Dave & Cerebus now...

the Beat reports that Gerhard & Dave Sim have ended the longest artistic and business partnership of modern comics:

Effective as of December 31st, 2006 Gerhard has parted ways with Aardvark-Vanaheim and long time partner Dave Sim.
Dave is still in the process of gathering the funds necessary to buy out Gerhard’s 40% share of the company, but this will not affect the publication of future Cerebus volume

Quite a sad moment. Cerebus was, and still is, one of my favourite series of all time in comics. The scale and scope of it, the detail, the pacing, the storyline, the characters - all wonderful. In fact Cerebus forms some of my earliest comic memories.

The partnership and A-V were all to do with the publication of Cerebus, Sim's mammoth 300 issue comic. Perhaps it isn't that much of a surprise to discover that Gerhard is willing to walk away now?

But what about Sim? Toward the end of Cerebus there were many who thought his behaviour was more than a little erratic. Could this final desertion (as he may see it?) be due to his behaviour towards Gerhard? And what now for Dave Sim?

What is particularly interesting is that Gerhard owns 40% of A-V, which is pretty good seeing as he only came on board 1/3 of the way through the 300 issue series and was basically a backgrounds artist (although his backgrounds and designs were always exquisite).