Cerebus the Aardvark

[Demon Chicken]

Ok, the turtles movie was on earlier and it got me thinking.

Back in the old days of the turtles cartoon Cerebus guest starred and a quick glance on Wikipedia told me enough about the old guy to get interested.  Just wondering if anyone's ever read any and if it's any good?

[The Amstor Computer]

Yup, I've got the first few telephone-book collections. The first is a fairly basic collection packed with sword & sorcery spoofs, but it is quite amusing & it's interesting watching Sim's style evolve. The next two volumes are much better as Dave Sim moves away from the spoof Conan/Elric roots and starts developing his style.

By all accounts, things go south around the sixth & seventh books, as Sim's religious & political views begin their (IMO, rather unpleasant) evolution and move from subtext to text. If you want a taste for what he believes, Google "Dave Sim + Tangent" and imagine that being put front & centre every month in the comic, as well as in extended essays & ongoing discussions in the comic letter pages.

Pick up "High Society" or "Church & State" (volumes two and three, respectively) and see what you think - if you don't like them, you probably won't like any of the other dozen volumes!

[paulvonscott]

I really enjoyed the sword and sorcery spoof developing into something else by the end of the first book.  But the volumes I've read since (high society and church and state)... nah.

[therev]

Never read it but it is in a simailar vein to Bone?

[davidbishop]

Cerebus = Bone? Not so much. It's much bigger, sprawling and, frankly, all over the place. But the recommendations for High Society & Church and State are bang on. I'm also rather fond of Jaka's Story.

Best ever issue? #75, towards the end of Church & State. Absolutely nails unrequited love.

davidbishop

[therev]

I've only ever read 2 collections of Bone and they seemed very sword and sorcery spoof-ish to me. Something about Dragons, magic swords and a girl....

[Bolt-01]

I've got to the end of book 7 (Flight). The series till the end of Jaka's story is great but apparently it goes downhill shockingly.

Some lovely storytelling though.

Bolt-01

[Mike Carroll]

Ah, Cerebus! There's sixteen books in total (6,000 pages, not including the voluminous notes that accompany the later books), and I heartily recommend the first four. After that, they certainly do go into a bit of a decline.

The first book is basically "furry animal as Conan" sort of thing: very funny, with some great digs at other comics. Then comes High Society, which brings politics into the mix. Still pretty funny, though. The following two are Church and State volumes one and two: one great big long (1200 pages) story all about religion. But still funny with it. Some classic moments here and there, even with the non-funny bits.

And then... Lordy, Dave Sim must love the sound of his own typing! There are some sections where there's nothing but dozens of pages of small-type text in which Mr Sim pontificates about stuff. Sometimes these sections are connected in some small way to Cerebus, but most of the time they're just words on a page that are particularly effective at curing insomnia.

In the early books Sim introduced a few real-world characters into Cerebus' universe for comic relief, and they worked pretty well as amusing diversions, expecially Groucho Marx as Lord Julius.

I can only guess that the fan reaction to Lord Julius was so positive that Sim felt he should introduce another important real-world character: this he does in Jaka's book with Oscar, a thinly-disguised Oscar Wilde.

And that's where the rot sat in... The following book, Melmoth, is all about the real Oscar Wilde's final days. Page after page of Wilde slowly dying, interspersed with totally unconnected sections where Cerebus sits outside a tavern in a catatonic state. That's pretty much the entire book. I swear, I'm not making this up!

The saga hits rock-bottom with Going Home and Form and Void: Cerebus on a boat with F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Cerebus on a cross-country trip with Ernest Hemingway.

After hitting rock bottom, the saga then begins to dig in a downwards direction for the remaining two books, in which Cerebus gets older and unfunnier. There are still a few sparks of genius in the later books, but you have to wade through an awful lot of pretentious nonsense to find them.

A lot of the worst bits seem to stem from Sim's belief that he was creating literature. This is really noticable when he tries to pretend that everything that happens in the books has some relevance to the overall story and that he wasn't just making it up as he went along.

If you like your comics ponderous, frequently incomprehensible and incredibly preachy, then by all means fork out great wodges of cash on the whole lot. They'll look nice on the shelves.

-- Mike C

[Grant Goggans]

I reviewed Cerebus for my weekly comics hype last month and came to a similar conclusion to everyone else here - Book 1 is iffy, Books 2-4 are outstanding, and Books 5 on are not worth your time.

But outstanding's really the best word for High Society and Church & State.  Those are just amazing.

--Grant

Link: http://www.livejournal.com/users/gmslegion/772654.html" target="_blank">Me on Cerebus

[ARRISARRIS]

...i have a question, bearing inmind ive never read a Cerebus comic, how come it lasted 300 issues if most of it was padded out shite?...

...sorry to be so general but thats just the impression that ive got from here...

[skurvy]

Because there was probably lots of people like me who kept on buying in the hope it would have a good ending!

I think it's better than the general opinion here.

The first 4 books are very good (Cerebus, High Society, Church & State 1 & 2), Jaka's Story and Melmoth have no real relevance to the overall story. Flight, Women, Reads, Minds make up the Mothers & Daughters storyline and are worth a look, Flight in particular is very good. These four books pretty much finish the proper storyline which begins somewhere in the first book.

After that Guys is a good laugh, but all that follow is really not worth reading unless you are a total masochist.

[Grant Goggans]

Well, being self-published, it didn't have to meet any kind of sales quota.  Also, while Dave Sim's fans are hardly legion, they're remarkably loyal.

--Grant

[Mike Carroll]

> "how come it lasted 300 issues if most of it was padded out shite?..."

A good question... And the honest answer is that the bits between the padding are quite often absolutely brilliant! It's just that there was more and more padding as the books went on.

Sim needed a good editor: someone who wasn't a Yes-man (or woman) who would tell him when he was being self-indulgent.

Mike

[Conexus]

err, what's the likelyhood that there were any yes women involved? ;)

[The Amstor Computer]

But who would have put up with him? He certainly wouldn't have taken kindly to having any woman editing his work, given his views on the place of women, and having read his responses to reader feedback he didn't like, I can't imagine him putting up with that from an editor.